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EWS is a MASTERPIECE for the ages...

On very first viewing I knew it was something different, sinister and fascinating, but it wasn't quite what I expected. THE SHINING is my all-time favorite movie, loved Kubrick, and was on pins and needles waiting to see it. I remember our opening night audience was restless, baffled and at some points actively hostile, which took A LOT out of the experience.

But it took me two viewings to fully adjust to the pacing. Now it's one of the things I love best about it; That pool table conversation with Pollack and Cruise, which seemed kind of deadly in a packed house of leg-shakers bummed they weren't getting BASIC INSTINCT 2, now seems so surreal and otherworldly, a nice mirror of the Grady/Torrance bathroom scene in The Shining.

Cruise (and his hair) have almost never been better, Kidman has DEFINITELY never been better... Like all Kubricks, just something you can watch a hundred times and come away with a new take each time out.

Plus how awesome was it there was a studio movie with big stars that featured a MASKED ORGY with chicks with PERFECT BODIES all leggy and WEARING MASKS and HEELS, aka the HOTTEST SHIT EVER, Kubrick was the fucking MAN, all old and reclusive and coming up with these GOOD IDEAS to get 65 supermodels in a mansion wearing VENETIAN MASKS, while dudes walked around in GONZO MASKS holding ceremonial disrobings.

If nothing else, I need to be a millionaire so I can have parties like that, except I wouldn't invite any other dudes except maybe like Ben Affleck but he'd have to do his six chicks WAY on the other side of the room from me and my 61.

On a technical note, I've always been bummed that they didn't properly replicate the groggy, grainy, waking-from-sleep visual style from theaters, scrubbing into a typically deep blacks/sharp silvers WB transfer circa the Batman era.

It's a good example of a movie that was killed by its own marketing, which sold it as some kind of Eszterhas-esque sex thriller. Although writing that makes me wonder why my 79-year-old (at the time) grandmother saw it in the first place. But she did, and was then keen on labelling it "worst movie of the millennium!" from that point on.

Hi Dave, is this the scene-by-scene breakdown you were talking about:

http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2000_thb/20000823_wed.html

My wife and I sat down to watch Eyes Wide Shut. At the risk of a blog lynching I'll just say that we thought we wasted a couple hours of our lives. It was slow and boring. And from a guy who loves Remains of the Day and The Piano, I can handle slow, but boring is another thing altogether.

Everyone was attempting to do that acting thing that they do where they attempt to show their emotions are just simmering under the surface, but instead of that, you just get a strained appearance leaving the viewer wishing somebody would just prove that they have a human fucking emotion for christsake. Its the same feeling I got from The English Patient and The Horse Whisperer. (Maybe I should just stay away from Kristin Scott Thomas.) It just falls into the category of movies for me where everyone talks about how they feel instead of showing you. Its a fucking movie, not a psychiatrist couch. SHOW ME!

Its perfectly fine to hate on Bay and Bruckheimer and McG and Dennis Dugan, but these guys are harmless and don't require too many brain cells. Eyes Wide Shut, The English Patient, The Horse Whisperer were some of the worst movie experiences I've had.

There I said it.

Oh yeah, as for the orgy...BOOOOOORRRRRRRRRIIIIING.

Lex, that was fuckin' hilarious.

I saw EWS and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT on the same day. What a time.

This was a very excellent movie, that's true. Kidman is in fine form, Cruise is surprisingly adept at handling the material, and the look and sustained mood is just chilling.

...but, then again, it wouldn't be a Kubrick film is everybody loved it. Good to see that a lot of people have turned around on it and now think it is an excellent piece of cinema.

interesting read.

"Criticism seems to be undergoing a revolution/devolution, making the job about being the voice of "the regular person".

the internet killed the movie critic star.

I never cared for Eyes Wide Shut. And bulldog, i thought the English Patient was shit.

Most people want to enjoy a movie. We'll call them 'movie fans' A smaller percentage enjoy the immersion of a movie that requires more than just seeing and hearing. We'll call them 'film fans'. Some really enjoy observing and listening. But most prefer to sit back and be entertained. They may want to be challeneged but only on the most basic of levels.

Movie Fans = 99%
Film Fans = 1%

If you want to be a film critic in the online world of diminishing returns, you have to be a movie fan. A critic of the people. Someone who can forgive movies like Transformers 2 because it makes a lot of money. A critic who gives the Star Wars prequels favorable reviews even though in terms of raw cinema, they are complete and utter shit.

There are critics who try to be both. There are the Aint it Cools and the 2 dozen clones that tout the virtues of NEW CGI SPECTACLE and spend a few thousand words a year pimping a small film that deserves an audience. But the readers don't care. Maybe a few do, but not enough to register a blip on the radar.

For most online film sites, running stories on independent films is like a lawyer doing pro-bono work. It's an obligation. And the movie fans don't really care. Never stop doing it, but realize the majority of people are going to go "meh". Some may see the light and move from a movie fan to a film fan. Many more will not.

Serious film criticism online has become niche.

This doesn't work as well for me anymore since I work nights, but I used to consider EWS a "3 a.m. movie".

That is, a movie to watch in the middle of the night, sort of sleepy, and really submerge into the Christmas light dreamscape and that insistent piano.

I haven't actually seen it in years, but I bought the Blu-ray in anticipation of the moment when I both have a night off and am not maddeningly awake and alert at that hour of the night.

And I'll say again that in no way do I believe Kubrick was done editing EWS. He tweaked all of his films all the way up until their release.

I agree with LexG that the way EWS moves is its best attribute. It's just so wonderfully weird. And the billiards scene is my favorite example of that. Pollack is so sinister, so serious, he's hilarious. You don't know if the guy's the member of a sex cult, a murderer or a space alien. All you know is that he's not happy. And Cruise is scared shitless. It recalls the best Hayden/Sellers moments in Dr Strangelove.

Like Fargo, it's got all this comic energy that isn't allowed a point of release. You keep waiting for the moment that brings it all together. The big punchline. And it doesn't happen. I can totally understand why people were frustrated and confused.

But for viewers in on the joke, those versed in Kubrick's oddball aesthetic, Eyes Wide Shut is a real trip.

And I'll say it again, the phoniest pot-smoking scene in recent movie history is Nicole Kidman in EWS.

I have the opposite experience with EWS, in that I worshipped it on the first five viewings in the cinema and have liked it less each time I've seen it after that. I think I wanted so much to experience a Kubrick masterpiece upon release rather than in film clubs or on video, that I forgave what I now view as the pointlessness of it all. ALl those stock establishing shots of NY, as if we have to be constantly reminded that that's where the story takes place, the fact that Tom Cruise goes to all the locations from the very entertaining first half a second time without learning anything new, the fact that Pollack shows up and explains the plot and lays bare how thin the story is, and yes, the incredibly phony pot-smoking scene. The lighting is sometimes amazing, sometimes atrocious, very uneven. It does not, for me, feel like a dream, or anything hypnotic or trippy, just random and filled with symbolism. There are amazing portions of the movie, but there are also things i find infuriatingly childish for someone of Kubrick's caliber. On the other hand, Full Metal Jacket gets better each year, and has much more successfull use of symbolism and memory-logic than EWS IMO.

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