I like the film. I have to admit the first time I saw it I didn’t care for it much, but upon subsequent viewings I’ve come to really enjoy it.
It’s quite visually pleasing, the whole film is done with natural lighting and you can discern primary colors in nearly every shot. The music adds an interesting flavor to the many scenes throughout - I love how Kubrick film scores (…yeah, I admit that dissonant banging piano note’s a bit annoying) but all-in-all a beautifully rich and complex pallete is presented to the viewer with the storyline.
I’m sure if you’re opening this thread you’ve seen the film so I wont delve into the storyline. As for the essance of the movie, I think it can be summed up as a psychological escapade which displays how sex can cloud our judgement and drive our lives. Actually, I think the movie’s quite original in addressing that as I can’t really think of another movie that openly addresses that issue.
It’s not one of those movies where everything’s etched out for you, it’s more of a movie that you observe, absorb and build your own interpretation of.
Anyways, I think it’s a cool movie…what do y’all think about it?
More boring than “Titanic”. At least with “Titantic”, I spent most of my time waiting for the damn iceburg sewing a pair of curtains for my kitchen, while letting the vid play. “Eyes Wide Shut” had me fast-forwarding the thing from about a quarter of the way through.
Quite a few posters named it in the most disappointing film thread, but I liked it. The first time I caught it about three-quarters of the way in, so I was kind of confused by it. Later, I saw it from the beginning (actually, I bought the DVD), and I enjoyed it. I don’t mean to make a “me too” post, but I agree with your assessment of the film.
Silo, if people trashing (and I do mean trashing) a film that you thought was good will bother you, may I advise you not to check back with this thread. People here have been very, very vocal and critical regarding this film. Anyway, just thought I’d give a heads-up to a friend! Have a good time!
For me that film was less about sex and marriage than it was about wealth. Incidentally, I can’t see how mainstream movies can be promoted as being “extremely adult” anymore when soft-core porn has become a part of the daily diet of television viewers all over the world. I think Eyes Wide Shut was about the possibilities inherent in extreme wealth and power - it was more about the people in the Gothic Mansion than it was about Tom Cruise’s marriage. Do extremely rich people exist in an Illuminati world that is never revealed through the mass media? Or are they just ordinary, everyday sports-loving bozos like everyone else? I think Stanley Kubrick was suggesting it could be either/or.
I think one of the problems with the movie was it was promoted to be a mainstream flick - which IMO it’s not at all. Then again, it was also promoted to be a sexual brew-haha, which again it was not (although there is a slight sexual undertone throughout the film).
See, I’m thinking that one of the reasons that the film got so much heat was because it was mass-marketed–to be something it really wasn’t–to a pop culture audience.
There was a film made of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses in the sixties that was considered to be so explicit that, in this country, it was only shown to segregated audiences. Males and females had to go to different theatres. The Eyes Wide Shut promoters seemed to have a kind of nostalgia for this era. The build-up to the movie suggested it was deserving of similar censorship. But times have changed so much that attempts to see it like that are surely farcical. Can people be enticed to see a movie these days for it’s sexual content when porn is so ubiquitous? Strangely enough, I suppose, mainstream movie sex can seem more erotic. Porn is hardly ever erotic.
What I can’t forgive is a movie that bores me to death. I watched Eyes Wide Shut and it bored me. Every time I thought something was going to happen it turns out it was nothing. And let’s not even get started on the music. Not since Ladyhawke have I heard music that bothered me so much.
I liked it quite a bit. I own it on DVD (sorry, Cervaise) and I’ve watched it 4 or 5 times. I am constantly finding new challenges in it. Of course, I feel that way about most of Kubrick’s work.
I liked it. Unfortunately, I only managed to see it on video. Certain scenes were cut out. I’m not exactly sure what was in those scenes, but I always feel that a movie is best seen in it’s full and intended form.
I loved it. Loved the constant Wizard of Oz references, the cinematography, the characters’ sexual ambivalence…I thought it an exceptional film. And I agree that this film, like The Thin Red Line, should never have been marketed to mainstream crowds.
I loved it. I’ve seen it twice, and I feel the film improved with the second viewing. I have never seen any other film that has kept me so consistently uncomfortable for three hours.
This one i list under my personal movie catagory Film I Should Have Walked Out Of, But Didn’t Because I Hoped It Would Get Better.
Scene that stands out: Cruise walking down the street while that single piano note PINGS! PINGS! PINGS! PINGS!..then PINGS! some more. Besides being incredibly annoying (Never have I wanted to smash a pianist’s fingers with a ballpeen hammer as much as I did then), the scene simply reeked of pretensious melodrama.
Come to think of it, so did the rest of the movie.
"Oh! I dreamed I was making whoopee with the entire roster of the Green Bay Packers on the 50-yard line and I was having a great time. It was horrible!.
