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Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $17.98
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Stanley's dead....
Review: IMHO,

Stanley didn't just direct movies, he directed an art of making movies. For what movies might be worth for so much cheap entertainment, watching Stanley's movies we got the most for our money; and for the ideas of others he took advantage of as a matter of course. Stanley didn't make "A CLOCKWORK ORANGE" ... I met Anthony Burgess. Anthony resented that he received only about $300.00 for the rights to make a movie of his book - if that was the case as he claimed.

Would you drink liquor? Back it up with water. Flushes out the liver. Would you seriously view and review so many books and plays? Hold to your sense of humor! Flushes out the mind. Remember Stanley's work with "La double seance." Begin your critique within "La methologie blanche."

Respect Stanley's work understanding that he never made a meretricious widget for Wall Street.

The world of review will always appreciate Stanley's movies. It will say some things to be counted crucial to his inner life as well. What made Stanley important to the world? What made the world important to Stanley? Both will be recounted by those who remember him well.

I liked Stanley's movies for reason beyond his reason .. That's what makes him a little special.

Whatever we may dislike about Stanley's movies will be lesser than the impressions experienced for his efforts and ability in our day "to make something out of nothing."

Eyes Wide Shut is a metaphor for our age as much as any....

Lay back and enjoy it,

Marty

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Only Kubrick fans will truly enjoy this film
Review: First of all, this is an amazing film for Kubrick to leave us with. As I watched this brilliant transfer on DVD, I was reminded of what a true and unique talent Stanley Kubrick was. I missed this film in the theater, and for that I am truly sorry. I've read the reviews on this page that say the ballroom scene is boring and that it does not contribute to the plot, etc. Wrong. Obviously, whoever wrote that review did not pay particular attention to the girl whom Tom Cruise's character attends to and her role later in the film. Kubrick has indeed left us all with a powerful film of intrigue and depth which will require multiple viewings to be truly appreciated.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good film better in R2 DVD?
Review: I'm posting mainly to say that the R2 version available in April will not have the crazy CGI characters that were inserted in the orgy scene to allow an R rated US theatrical release.

This film can seem ponderous and a little dis-jointed as other reviewers have hinted. But takes some figuring, which makes viewing multiple times a great experience.......like the bulk of his movies I think!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THIS MOVIE MAKES YOUR EYES WIDE OPEN!
Review: A fitting end to one of the most controversial and influential directors of our time. Eyes Wide Shut, couldn't have been more rewarding. Its dual nature of reality vs. the subconscious dreamscape , men vs. women, all add up to a very striking and contemporary film. The score was phenomenal, the color was exceptionally rich, and the screen shots.... well..... absoltely brilliant! Having seen this in the theater, i believe the transfer to the video realm could have been handled better! Also the cloaked digital scenes should have been thrown out and I believe that if the widescreen would have come into effect, the initiation scren would have been a 100 times better........ however, kubrick died and i hope this was his final vision and not some fool-minded decision made by a geek at Warner Bros, who decided that america is not ready for adult situations and graphic art! That would be a tragedy unto itself! This film like all his others, is very cerebral and attacking so consider your self forwarned! Let us toast to the last film of Kubrick's many trimuphs!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great end to a great director's career.
Review: You know, Stanley Kubrick never ceased to impress the hell out of me. I've seen all his movies except for Barry Lyndon and Fear and Desire, and I've never been offended or bored by any of his films. Eyes Wide Shut is absolutely no exception. It was brilliant in every capacity. Acting, direction, cinematography, script, production design. Everything was beautiful about this movie, except maybe the music which got kind of old after the second time of hearing "ping... ping... ping..." Kubrick's trademark perfectionist style sure does shine in this, one of the few summer movies that actually didn't sell out. If you're a Kubrick fan or a major film buff, you're sure to be entertained by this masterful sexual odyssey. "Armageddon" fans, steer clear of this "boring movie" and just watch a "Scream" flick.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Most misunderstood movie of 1999
Review: At least five people told me it was long and boring. I couldn't convince my wife to go, so I went alone. - I wasn't bored for a minute. I was haunted for days. I saw it again with her and later the same evening, we talked about the "games" couples play for at least three hours. We realized many people can't understand what the whole movie is about. I understand a lot more how to treat a woman after seeing this movie. At first I thought Nicole Kidman's character was awful, but realized thanks to my wife, that Tom Cruise's character behaves the way so many men do, nowadays; "the wrong way". He was a "flirt" and everything that follows in the movie is his own fault. I feel closer to my wife now. This is not an action movie for kids. It was the most enriching experience I have ever had, seeing a movie. If you're an adult and are really in love with another person, instead of, "in love with yourself", this will be a rollercoaster ride with more action than the movie "Armaggeddon", and you will understand the benefits of this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: Stanley Kubrick's last film isn't meant to be viewed as an erotic film, it's a film about dreams on a Freudian level. If you look closely, you'll notice that there isn't a single frame of film without the colors red or blue; Freud wrote about the two colors and their relationship between reality and dreams.

This film is poetic in every sense...Wellesian, Kafkaesque, and Freudian. A masterpiece.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Hard to keep eyes open on this film
Review: I am a great fan of Kubrick's. In fact, there are few films of his that I don't think of as inspired genius. But this film was a great bore! I had heard that this film was overrated but decided to see it after Scorsese rated it as one his top ten of the decade. But I must be missing something, I see no value in this picture whatsoever (either acting, plot, cinematography or music). There was no there there, just so many short vignettes of sexual desire that only reflect the sadness and selfishness of the characters. I think that the emperor has no clothes on this occasion and can't agree that it is great because it was the last film of a great director.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exquisite visual journey into one man's sexual subconscious
Review: Twenty years from now "Eyes Wide Shut" will be just as alive, brilliant, unsettling and confounding as it was when it first released in 1999.

Because the mark of a great film is one from which newly-found appreciation and interpretation can be gleaned in subsequent viewings, "Eyes Wide Shut" is a great film that works on numerous complex psychological levels. Narrative structure is invisible. Music, dialogue and visual spectacle predominate and are symbolic of deeper meaning. The viewer enters the world of Stanley Kubrick, a world where reality as known to the filmgoing audience is non-existent -- non-existent even within the audience's own common understanding of suspension of disbelief in movies.

The Kubrick world is distant, cold, mechanical and disturbing. Kubrick's Manhattan (filmed in the UK) has a pace opposite to the New York most know or hear of -- Kubrick's Big Apple is very slow -- and disorienting to the audience, disorienting to the point of creating in the viewer the same feeling of alienation, unease and discomfort that Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) feels in his nocturnal adventures.

When Harford is unable to control his circumstances or grasp meaning in several bizarre events he witnesses, his psychological fiber is challenged. And so is the audience's. "Eyes Wide Shut" is a beautiful vision for adults. Sometimes it has the macabre feel of David Lynch's "Blue Velvet". Other times, the delusions and mysteries of David Fincher's "The Game" -- particularly that repetitive singular piano note.

But at all times the look, feel and haunting atmosphere of this film is Kubrick, Kubrick, Kubrick. One of the interesting aspects of "Eyes Wide Shut" is that its big-name actors (Cruise, and to a lesser extent Nicole Kidman) look so much unlike themselves from other films. From Cruise and Kidman's vacant expressions alone we seem to understand that in "Eyes Wide Shut" we are in an altogether different human universe.

Watching this film again and again on DVD where the elements that made it so powerfully great in the theater (the superb color, music and lighting -- are enhanced tenfold) is a great treat and a refreshing analytical exercise. "Eyes Wide Shut" is a colorful visual puzzle that provokes viewer thought and solution the more it is watched. In the strangest sense, it's the cinematic equivalent of the ol' Rubic's Cube. "Eyes Wide Shut" is Kubrick's Cube -- a spellbinding mystery with many questions, answers and dozens of ways to get to the end of its rainbow -- and you will be confused, disappointed, frustrated, enlightened, satisfied or thrilled with the conclusion (or solution) that you reach.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Kubrick's Take On Marriage
Review: As crazy and over-the-top as it is, "Eyes Wide Shut" is a surprisingly truthful depiction of marriage. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play a husband and wife who have been married for almost a decade. They have a child together, whom they both cherish. Their life seems blissful--they're both attractive, wealthy, and they obviously still enjoy eachother's company.

In the span of a couple of days, their marriage undergoes some extraordinary, radical changes, beginning with Kidman's seemingly sudden decision to be brutally honest with her husband. After her revelations, Cruise becomes caught up in a wild set of circumstances that lead him to realize that he has been going through life with blinders on.

There has been much discussion about the graphic depiction of sex in this movie, and while it's definitely explicit, it's also clearly meant for viewing by adults only. Cruise has nightmarish fantasies of his wife in the arms of other men, while at the same time he's confronted with temptation after temptation. Some of the scenarios don't seem particularly tempting in and of themselves, but coupled with Cruise's mental state, they are believable.

In some ways the movie is shockingly ordinary--the feelings Cruise and Kidman convey are felt, even fleetingly, by all of us at some point during our marriages. Of course this is all displayed vividly, Kubrick style. Cruise doesn't just find himself amid any "regular" orgy, but rather in a bizarre, secret ritual. But overall, the movie seeks to point out how complex a relationship a marriage really is, and to warn about the dangers we face when we take our spouses for granted.


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