Rating: 
Summary: A Real Eye Opener!
Review: Upon first viewing this movie, I was very much intrigued. The second viewing was a revelation. The things I missed the first time, I caught subsequently, and had sort of a "Oh, now I get it!" type experience. ................ From the open, as Nicole is sitting on the toilet talking with Tom in the couples gorgeous town house bathroom while dressing for a "high" society soiree...you have a feeling something strange is going to happen. When they arrive, and you spend some time with each of them at the party, there is no doubt that this is a story that is far removed from the average. .............Stanley Kubrick made some very interesting films in his lengthy and well respected career. Certainly "A Clockwork Orange" is one of the wierdest ever lensed. I think "Eyes Wide Shut" certainly has a somewhat surrealistic mood too. It isn't a day-glo visually harrowing surrealism like "Clockwork..." but it IS a creepy and strangely compelling film that requires more than one viewing to fully grasp. ...............I DO think it's hard to believe that jealousy would ever lead a husband into such utter depravity. We're not talking just ANY depravity, but stuff that would make your run of the mill sociopath cringe. ................I find this film quite fascinating on a whole, and have made it a part of my personal library. I think the leads did a fine job with this odd script and plot. I especially enjoy director Sydney Pollack playing an associate of Tom in the film, he brings an earnest touch to the few roles he plays in general. (He has also recently appeared on NBC comedy "Will and Grace" as Will's dad). ............. There were lots of mixed reviews to "Eyes...", and I think that you will have to give this at least two chances to decide fairly what YOU think. For me, the film was riveting from the open, but I enjoy the occasional offbeat outing. Once again, I must re-iterate that this film definitely gets deeper and richer upon repeated viewings. If you like it a little the first time, you may love it the second time around. One thing is certain, even if you watch only once, be sure to keep YOUR eyes wide open!
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of Time
Review: I can't believe I wasted time watching this movie. I kept watching it in hopes that a plot would unfold and unfortunately one never did! A huge waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: View it on video before buying this one
Review: I'm giving this movie only one star and it pains me to do that. This movie was so awful and boring I could not stick with it. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's acting are very stiff and forced and that stupid one-tone-key piano playing throught out the movie just drove me crazy. Before the movie was released all any entertainment magazines and/or shows talked about its strong sexual conent. There wasn't a good enough story so the director through in a lot of sex. It sounds just like "Showgirls" to be. All that hype and then nothing.
Rating: 
Summary: Quality DVD
Review: The DVD (purple box) is good. Although selling the Standard Screen as "the Director's Vision" seems lame to me, ...why aren't all DVDs Widescreen by default anyway? Also, the DVD version is still "cencored" to the "American Version" of the film. Since it's the only version that I have had the opportunity to see, I cannot state what exactly is cencored, nor by what means (although there is plenty of speculation out there). If you like the film, buy this DVD, it's a good quality DVD. (Personally, I feel that Eyes is a step-up from Kubrick's most disatisfying film "Full Metal Jacket" so for that reason, I enjoy it - although it's a far cry from 2001 or Dr Strangelove!
Rating:
Summary: What a spectacle.
Review: One of my friends told me that her mother said that this was a bad movie. Walking out of this movie was an experience that her mother actually had at a movie theater, with a crowd of people watching this movie, and she didn't like it. I think watching it on tape is a much more private experience, like having secret military tribunals instead of public trials whenever the government is stepping on its illegitimate protuberances. Part of this movie is some sort of proceeding in which women remove most of what they are wearing, and then Bill is told to take off his mask. This might be more creepy than secret military tribunals, but the people in this movie didn't claim they had any right to impose the death penalty. Sometimes people just die. This movie was made by an old man, and I think it really bothered him when women would rather sleep than do whatever he wanted to do, so the dead woman just represented the way he felt about the number of hours that he has wasted while women were lying around unconscious. Now that Kubrick is dead, it makes perfect sense for governments to want to have secret military tribunals, because governments like people about as much as Kubrick liked whatever women this movie was about. There aren't really many dead women in this movie, compared to the number of people that governments have killed, so I'm giving it 5 stars for showing the kind of restraint that great movies excel at having. I just hope that no movie about secret military tribunals ever gets to be this popular.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Movie for Adults
Review: This is an interesting, intriguing movie.It is not meant for chidren, not so much for its language, nudity or exotic (and sometimes bizarre) sex scenes, rather it is an adult film that stars adults, concerns itself with adult situations and problems, and is meant for adults. As such, I recommend it for adults looking for an adult experience at the movie theater.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly Kubrick's best
Review: I'm not going to offer any interpretation of the film; it's best to buy it, watch it, and then think about it for a couple days before watching it again. Then make your own interpretation. I would advise, however, to put aside the excerpt from Maltin's review. The film is not overlong and it's not flawed. I don't really agree that it's claustrophobic, at least not in the same sense that 2001 is/was. And I'm not quite sure what he means when he says Kidman's character fantasized about a man she never met. That's probably because he was a Navy officer and she describes him on screen for about 5 and a half minutes. Finally, there is little or no evidence to suggest that the husband is venturing into the world of "sexual adventure" for the first time. Perhaps only sexual obsession, but we don't know that either. When you watch it, you have to study it. Really, really pay attention to every detail, every bit of dialogue, and especially every image. The question that demands the most analysis is how much, if any or if all, of it is a dream? Other things to think about are: is the party at the "netherworldly" country manor a subconscious replaying (?) of the party at the beginning? What was glamorous and sexually intoxicating is perceived later as extremely menacing. Why are people masked and what are they hiding? There seems to be a certain paranoia at work in the film too - the notion that people know things, generally that people have answers, and they are hiding whatever it is that they know. There is a clear possibility that there is a fundamental differentiation between reality and perception as well. What's going on and how is it being perceived? Consequence (or at least the anxiety of consequence) for actions taken also seems to underlie much of what goes on. Overall, EWS is a superb film. It deserves more analysis than being dismissed as flawed, too long, or boring. Flawed and too long were the critics' responses in the '70s and '80s, but now it's time to start looking more closely at these films. The DVD is good; the one in the Kubrick Collection has some goodies, including a couple interviews and a few trailers. It's presented in full frame 1.33:1, which is how Kubrick originally filmed it (none of the picture is lossed).
Rating:
Summary: Very misunderstood film!
Review: The film is about a man struggling with his homosexuality or impotence and the impact it has on his wife. Huh? First, Kubrick chose Cruise and Kidman and he was not unaware of the rumors. Then he pits Cruise in all the typical hetero-male fantasies: 2 beautiful women at once, lolita, hooker, someone else's wife, necrophelia and in each case there is a "reason" why Cruise cannot "perform". People complain that there is no sexual chemistry between Cruise and Kidman- but there is not supposed to be. And the strange heterosexual world of the orgy is foreign to Cruise b/c he does not have the password- but there of course is no password except to be male. Finally, he is forced to take off his "mask" at the party and reveal who he really is. He could not even pass in the environment where everyone was getting it on. He is literally made an outcast/ thrown out. The young boys on the street recognize it and call him names and he is cruised in the West Village by an older guy. Even Alan Cummings with his hyperactive Gaydar comes onto him. Cruise hides behind his "i am a doctor", or "i am faithful to my wife" but all not credible somehow. They have 1 kid and will not have more which seems perfunctary. Kidman literally goes crazy b/c she realizes her husband is not jealous of her. Why should he be? She is a beautiful and intelligent wife but he is not attracted to her. Who ditches their beautiful wife at a party with rich predators? He "trusts" her. His jealousy and dream is about the Captain and not her. Nor is he ever turned on by his naked female patients- b/c of "loyalty to his wife." Watch the movie again with this lens and you will be shocked at what you see. Kubrick tricked Cruise and Kidman into doing this movie b/c it attests to a sham marraige with the central character dealing with his own impotence or homosexuality. Their dangerous psychodrama is hidden in beautiful halls and clothes and decorum of civilized society...but it is dangerous nevertheless. He is assaulted by all the "real" men around him, the business man who goes after his wife- Kidman is turned on by him in a way that she is never turned on by Cruise, - the host of the party who does his woman in the bathroom, his band friend who has fathered 5 kids (proof of his manhood), even the Chinese business man in drag gets it up for Lolita but Cruise gets it up for no-one. Gates, long corridors, mansions are classic Kubrick/Freudian symbols for the mystery and inaccessability of the female body/crevices- and Cruise is locked out and/or lost because he lacks natures maps and keys. It is up to other people to let him in. "I am a/the doctor- let me in" "I am a friend of hers/his- let me in" "I will pay you- let me in." He is always asking to be "buzzed in"/"let in" temporarily. He is always outside the gate/door. Just like the discordant notes- that hauntingly plunks throughout the film but calls attention to itself because it does not quite fit or blend into the film- so too Cruise does not fit the life he has constructed for himself. This film will rise in importance over time- a masterpiece- that neither the critics nor the stars nor the public understood. I urge you all to see this movie again.
Rating:
Summary: A Fond Farewell
Review: Among his many abilities, Stanley Kubrick had a knack for polarizing audiences, derived partly from his even greater talent for self-promotion. The controversy surrounding EWS resulted almost completely from people being led to expect something (perhaps an expensive, big name porn film) that it clearly does not provide. To the extent his promotional strategy encouraged these expectations, Kubrick bears some responsibility for the hostile reactions the film received. I saw it in its initial theatrical release with a group of about eight people. Most were unsympathetic, to say the least, but then at least a couple of us loved every minute of it. I think the gist of the problem is that "nothing happens" in the film. That lack of action is also the film's chief virtue, however, since it means that the focus is on mood, texture and feeling. Kubrick was almost alone among mainstream American filmmakers in his interest in and occasional theft from the filmmaking avant garde. (The special effects in "2001" for example, notoriously borrowed heavily from the work of experimental filmmaker Jordan Belson.) Here he clearly owes a debt to such "structuralist" filmmakers as Michael Snow and Jean-Marie Straub, in which the length of the shot, its inexorable refusal to move along at standard cinematic pace, becomes an integral part of the film's effect and meaning. Not that EWS is an arty, avant garde film. Kubrick simply learned lessons from such filmmakers and applied them to a standard narrative. The resulting mood-as-meaning will delight those of us interested in seeing films that explore the medium's formal potential, but make most viewers itch to keep moving. To say EWS is an old-man's film is, in this context, the highest praise. Every moment testifies to the director's absolute control, his fanatical, obsessive insistence on a technical perfection that only an extremely talented artist at the end of his career could accomplish. EWS is by no means for everyone. Not only action film fans will be disappointed. People expecting an in-depth evaluation of a marriage in crisis will also probably be put off, since the subject is really secondary to the formal brilliance with which it is expressed. It is not in any sense a "deep" film, except in the one way that matters: it expresses an utterly singular vision with no respect for pre-conceptions, only an insistence that the film has to be made, the way the director believes it should. I suspect that for this reason, EWS will eventually be recognized as Kubrick's greatest film, after "2001" and possibly "The Shining." One final note: let's give Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman credit, not just for having the courage to make this film at all, but for their defense of it after Kubrick's death. In today's Hollywood, stars usually care only about whether a film will help their careers. Their determination that EWS be released in the manner Kubrick intended deserves our praise and thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: Kubrick is still the master. Graphic, but entirely human in its depictions of fear, desire, jealousy, lust, love, hate, and finally, understanding.
love it or hate it, it will stick with you for days. It's provocative and depicts the pitfalls and sometimes-grave consequences of leading a hedonistic lifestyle. Moody and atmospheric. Great performances, beautiful cinematography and a slow un-Hollywood like pace that draws you into the mystery as the film progresses.
a worthy conclusion to one of the greatest directors of the last millennium.
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