Ok, ok, lol…I will say that movie was bad. BUT it had its moments. I mean, some scenes were just funny to me. The whole scene with uh…“Boris the Blade” (forget his real name) and his daughter was craziness. Very mundane film though with poor pacing, generally speaking.
Still though…at the party…just watching that scene with all those beaks and halloween masks everywhere makes me chuckle.
Clockwork Orange is Kubrick’s best though imo.
Eyes Wide shut is the only movie that I was angry at the film after seeing it…because I felt so violated.
I mean I thought Vanilla Sky was bad…but damn.
It looks like any major movie Cruise does with his GF/wife ends up total bunkem.
I want to see this… Looks real good and chicks will love it!
Shit hits a wee bit too close to home. It’s good to see Hombre Stringer Bell in more work. I missed RocknRolla. Was it worth watching?
Very true. Weird how in that film Leelee Sobeski (sp?) was alternately attractive and not.
Most of the time I think she is average to low tier, but in that maybe it was just that she had a forbidden quality to her or the fact that she accepted being passed around like property…
zoolander: i’m not going to argue with you over opinions. you have a higher opinion of cruises performances than i do. simple. if you don’t agree with my assessment of his acting abilities and performances, that’s just how shit goes. you don’t have to pass incorrect judgement about my motivations. how about i used to be in theater, i was an actor and i know one or two things about acting. 1 - i’m not very good at it. and 2. niether is tom cruise.
Looks real good to who? 13 years old girls who love soap operas?
Those comments are on point: Looks shitty and it was better when it was unfaithful or fatal attraction.
A-lib-erizzle I’m not saying I think he’s the marlon brando of our time or anything special but he’s passable at least which is a lot more then I can say for a sad number of other well known actors.
Eyes Wide Shut is one of the most intelligent and uncompromising movies I’ve ever seen about a guy who (putting it mildly) gets dislodged from his carefully constructed comfort zone and gets a small taste of what might lie on the other side of the fence. It’s very much an introspective nightmare, realized more strongly and more intensely on film than any other I can think of. I definitely don’t agree with Kubrick when he said it was his best film, but I do agree with Scorcese when he said it was the best film of its year.
AngryLib, if you don’t like Tom Cruise, that’s fine. You don’t have to like him in this movie, and if you don’t, there are so many other small performances that ought to feed your jones for acting (Sydney Pollack, for example). In my opinion, Cruise doesn’t do a spectacular job, but it’s a solid workman’s job in a film that doesn’t need it to be any more than that. In the meantime, there is much more about the movie to consider.
(And if you want to pull the education card, I was only a few credits away from graduating with a degree in film direction. Suck it, you nancy actor.)
As for Jack in The Shining, I’ll give it to him that it’s a distinctive performance that I’m not sure anyone else could have given, but I say that with the proviso that it isn’t supposed to be even remotely naturalistic. Here’s the thing: Kubrick’s stuff is more about using perfect craftsmanship to express his ideas than more conventional concerns like natural acting or traditional narrative. Much of the time, the performers in his movies aren’t actors so much as chess pieces to be moved around the board.
+1 for gm’s post.
So what’s everyone’s top 5 directors?
Well Tom Cruise or not, I’m at least semi-interested in Valkyrie. I’m gonna try to get in the theater for free again to see it. Not paying though, the probability that it will fail seems a tad high on the surface.
That’s a tough question. There are too many directors whose movies I am not closely familiar enough with, haven’t seen enough of, or view as too much of a collaborative effort to chalk up to the director over anybody else. If I were to eliminate these concerns, I’d have a lot more names to choose from, but if I’m going to pare the list down at all, I need the criteria.
The only two names that leap to mind at the moment are Kubrick and Scorcese. I think the time period in which they made their reputations is the greatest that movies have ever known, largely due to their work.
Seems like the only major criticisms over Valkyrie are related to Tom Cruise’s offscreen reputation. I think you’re safe.
i agree, it is also one of the most powerful films i have ever seen…
im outi
Roberth
Clockwork owns anything in that “genre” of Kubrick films or what have you. EWS is not even comparable to it. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Or whatnot. 
tekken2-yoshimitsu.mp3
THUNDERCATS BITCHES!!!
im outi
Roberth
Jack Hill
Larry Cohen
Sylvester Stallone
Tom DeSimone
Robert Vincent O’Neill
I don’t care for Cruise at all. He’s a one note actor. It doesn’t matter what role he’s in, he always does, for example, “anger” the exact same way. It’s like AC/DC, if you like the one song they wrote 50 times, then you’re probably fine with them. I never liked that song. And I never really liked Cruise. The only movie I don’t mind him in is Magnolia, and he plays a good prick (Rain Man).
But I do like Robin Williams in non-comedy roles. I thought he was excellent in One-Hour Photo. Fisher King is another. But I kinda like everything that Gilliam does. Even his worst movies are alright by me.
As for Kubrick, I did not care for Eyes Wide Shut overall. But the lighting and cinematography were pretty brilliant, and some scenes were pretty stunning. My gripes lie elsewhere. I did not like Kidman in the movie either. I hated on her for a long time, and then I saw Birth. Which I loved, and damn was she good in it.
Favorite Kubrick Films:
Dr. Strangelove
Lolita
Spartacus
Clockwork Orange
The Shining
As long as we’re tiering Kubrick films, 2001: A Space Odyssey is easily his number one for me.
clockwork, 2001 and strangelove are all at the top of their game. there’s no way i’m going to distinguish which of those films is better than the others, it would be impossible. the reasons i love each of those movies is completely different.
like gm, there’s no way i could pick a fave director. in my exploration of cinema for the last 12 years, i haven’t experienced near the level of exposure to directors that would allow me to clearly state my favorite directors. kubrick, kurosawa, hitchcock, wilder, fincher, gilliam and scorcese are ones i greatly enjoy, though i don’t feel i have the cinematic knowledge to properly state which of all the directors i enjoy fall into the catagory of “top 5”.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/thelasthouseontheleft/hd/
trailer for the remake of last house. seems they have shifted the focus from the torture of the two girls to the revenge of the parents…either way, horror remakes are out of control…
I like Michael Bay. Yeah, I said it. He’s good at what he does. He’s comfortable with his genre, and he’s good at what he does. He doesn’t care about arthouse, just pure entertainment.