I would put it with “Barry Lyndon” rather than “Clockwork Orange”. I can’t see this becoming a classis much less a classic.
I liked the movie, although I recommended it to my brother in law and his wife and they made a big HUGE deal out of it to my FIL and MIL.
“Did you know Rob and Jenn watch movies like THIS!” holding up a copy of the movie.
After that little incedent I wrote them an email telling them to never ask me for another recommendation. They have asked me three times since, and I have recommended porno movies. 
I liked it. My take on it was that it was essentially one big joke: Tom Cruise can’t get laid. Tom Cruise can’t get laid. Tom Cruise, whom we know is incredibly sexy and desirable because People magazine said so, can’t get laid. Maybe it’s just my weird sense of humor, but the sheer conceit of making a multi-million dollar, two hour plus movie out of that one joke is just fantastic. Heck, it’s making me laugh right now.
Can you imagine the blue-balls his character must of had by morning?
Piece of crap (IMHO).
Exactly what I said above.
I was just re-reading the OP, and wanted to add:
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I don’t have cable. But my understanding is that they don’t replay things on HBO a million times because of demand, necessarily.
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And if there is - big if - some huge demand for televised Eyes Wide Shut, maybe it’s for the, you know, dirty laundry factor. With the whole Kidman-Cruise divorce thing going on, you know?
Pretty cool movie if you can get into it.
Interesting themes and hidden meanings are abundant.
Very Kubrick-esque. The wife and I liked it. But we both thought it would be caviar for the general. I know that might sound elitist, but we’re both a bit twisted.
So-so movie. Excellent soundtrack.
Piece of crap…however, I must admit this is based on watching it intermittently for about 45 minutes while I was trying to read. S.o. puts the tv on no matter what --he’s on the 'puter and watching tv intermittently also. Reading, I glance up every now and then…oh, okay, Tom Cruise, but what the hell movie is this? It’s so bad, I finally decide it must be an early B movie of his before he made a name for himself. A few minutes later, look up and notice it’s HBO…hmmmm, HBO normally doesn’t run old movies. Finally, I check the cable guide…oh, so this is Eyes Wide Shut, huh? I say loudly to s.o. No wonder it flopped.(Of course the scene with the weird ritual and bunch of naked women captured s.o.'s attention; after that, he went back to the 'puter.)
I would call it … engrossing, I suppose. It was like watching someone else’s dream – not necessarily pleasant and certainly not logical but fascinating nonetheless. I would like to see it again. (That’s also my general reaction to A.I., by the way.)
I’m a big Kubrick fan and I’ve seen everything from Spartacus on (his pre-Spartacus stuff is hard to find) and Dr. Strangelove is my favorite film. I found Barry Lyndon* easier to get into than Eyes Wide Shut. OTOH, I did like it better than The Shining (I’ve just never been able to get into Stephen King at all, other than The Stand).
*If you’ve never seen Barry Lyndon, don’t rent it unless you have a lot of spare time: it runs over three hours.
I personally liked Barry Lyndon especially for Kubrick’s brilliant use of natural in-door lighting.
EWS I saw once and liked overall. Not sure it justified the years it took to make it, though.
I don’t mean to be persnickety ( oh, hell, sure I do…), but you’re completely wrong. Anthony Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange and it was a solid success as a book. Some of the main elements are also autobiographical. Many people who went to see the film were predisposed to find it an important work, as they had with the book before it. Hailed as a frightening book with yet another keen language that was partially made up by Burgess, partially cobbled together from other languages, it was a landmark book.
Read the book, then see the film back to back. Kubrick was incredibly loyal to the book. It was rated X, ( Hmm. I think it was rated X…) but it was most surely NOT hated when it came out in 1971. It developed almost immediate cult status, and has been considered a high water mark of social commentary ever since.
Eyes Wide Shut doesn’t have the chops. IMHO, it will forever remain a minor film in his ouvre. ( God, I love using words like that. I sure hope I used it correctly 
). I just finished a book called Eyes Wide Open written by the screenwriter of the film. The book was so atrociously boring, I can’t imagine how that poor man lived through the ordeal of working with Kubrick. Major genius. Major kook.
Elizabeth Ziegler’s Steadicam work is mesmerizing in the film. During the overdose scene in the bathroom, one can clearly see Kubrick reflected in the chrome vertical of that free-standing shelf unit that is in the middle of the bathroom floor. It’s probably only visible projected. I’ve only seen the film once, in the theatre.
Overall, it’s shot in the kind of rigidly precise way that almost all of his films were shot. My emotional reaction, as much as I very badly wished to love it, was that the ONLY interesting shit in the ENTIRE film happened in the costume shop. For my money, THAT was the movie right in there. I wanted to know more about everyone in there. The rest of it? Feh. Even the heart-tugging whore with H.I.V seemed hackneyed to me.
I wished to be enthralled, and I was disappointed. I’d MUCH rather have gone to a screening of the Stanley Kubrick film, A.I.. Now, THAT woulda been somepin’ else to see !
Cartooniverse
It was a rental that I don’t regret the time spent watching. I had the hard-to-pin-down feeling after watching, though, that it just didn’t seem…finished, not complete, not a cohesive whole. And that’s a feeling that I’ve not had about any other Kubrick film.
While I don’t think it’ll ever be viewed like Clockwork Orange is, I also don’t quite understand the sheer vitriol some of my friends have had about it. A couple spent an entire evening just about just ranting about it.
Yes, you did. If only you had spelled it as correctly (oeuvre), it would have been perfec:D.
It was duller than dirt.
Never heard of the word “oeuvre.”
What Sealemon said. Especially that piano TING. (Very good, Sealemon! I loved the Green Eggs and Ham take-off.)
This is on HBO all the time? Not in my universe, apparently. I never see it listed, nor on the “On Demand” list.
Somehow I missed it when it came out, and never got around to renting it, and now the video rental places are gone. I doubt that thiss wil show up on Redbox.
I finally did get a chance to see it when I bought a used DVD copy. I liked it, although I agree that it’s not great Kubrick material. It’s still more artfully told than 90% of the films I see.
I tried to show it to Pepper Mill, but we only got about 20 minutes in.
Bonus Trivia – the lead Cloaked Figure at the orgy was played by Leon Vitali, who jad played Lord Bullington in Barry Lyndon (the guy who shot Barry in the leg at the end). He also played Victor Frankenstein in the highly faithful but largely neglected independent film Vistor Frankenstein/Terror of Frankenstein.
Cal: Perhaps you don’t quite understand how HBO operates: they run a movie heavily for several weeks and drop it–not 13 years–the length of time this thread was started.
But I can’t really comment on the movie either–I watched about 10 minutes then stopped because it was so boring.
I was responding to a post by CalMeacham from a few minutes ago–but it vanished???
(He was surprised it was on HBO all the time, but he hadn’t seen it)???