Did you like/not like "Eyes Wide Shut"?

I'm watching it for the second time and I think that from a directorial point of view it is brilliant. Unfortunately I don't think that it stands out from Kubrick's other work as being particularly exceptional. The story is a bit thin in places and the characters aren't very well developed. "Eyes Wide Shut" is overly scrutinized, being Kubrick's swan song, which sets the film up for expectations that are impossible realize. I think it would be a lot more popular as his "second to last" film. Over all I like it because of it's examination of human sexual inhibitions and for Kubrick's ever present exploration into the darkness of the human psyche. Out of Kubrick's oeuvre, I believe "Eyes Wide Shut" stands together with "Full Metal Jacket", good but not great, definitely not up there with "A Clockwork Orange", "The Shining", "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Dr. Strangelove"

....such as the christmas lights in 'eyes.'
it's probably worth watching for that alone.
but as a story, it left me confounded....

hypnotic flick...

Yes, I think it is great... but expect the majority of people to say it's crap.

I really disliked it

compared to other films I would rate it very good. Though I believe the editing could have been done a lot better though I understand why they barely touched it. If he had lived I would probably be rating it excellent.

But then, I'm a huge Kubrick head

I like the final project pretty well, but would have preferred another male lead instead of Tom Cruise. Maybe Jonathan Rhys-Myers. I don't know. Somebody.

Agree on all points, Goathead.

Perhaps that is a sign.

At least I saw some naked chicks before I succumbed.

I know Kubrick died before it was completed.

they were gonna collaborate on it or something

Kubrik fans thought his influence "tainted" the movie.

strange relationship between K & S

I mean, Kubrick is abstraction & Spielberg is (generally) commercialism. But apparently they were close :shrug:

Seriously. What a terrible way for a wonderful filmmaker to go out.

Awwwwwwww... too bad.:D

He overdid almost everything, and his films suffer for it. 2001 is brilliant but pedantic and boring. Eyes Wide Shut had a number of good moments, but falls apart under the sheer weight of 'staggering genius' trying to inform the movie. You have to sit through a lot of crap to get to the good stuff. He could never just tell the story; he had to infuse it with allegory and irony and pacing and technical perfection repeated endlessly like a Bach cantata, beating us over the head with it to make sure we got it. Basically his brain got away from him. The punchline that ends the movie wraps up the longest-running joke I've ever seen.

Eraserhead, I movie I can hardly bear to watch, has much more to offer than most Kubrick fare. I don't mean to diss him. I think he was great. But as a director, he was into this filmic masturbation that ruined his best efforts, and Eyes is a perfect example.

Head of nail, meet hammer.


MDN

I wonder how it would have been with an actor.

I'm a Kubrick fan, but I will withhold judgement until I have the oppportunity to see the entire film.

as somebody said above, it's hypnotic. Visually, it's just mesmerizing.

nothing like his great films

The lights throughout were beautiful. But that's the only positive thing I can say about it. Terrible character development, terrible story, terrible script...terrible movie.

I love anything by Kubrick. I think the problem that people have with it is that it is a dreamlike story and is taken too literally. You should check these sites for interpretations of the film:

Not bad:
http://www.cinephiles.net/Eyes_Wide_Shut/Cinephiles-Gate.html

VERY esoteric:
http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue8/eyeswideshut.html
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0107.html

These are the probably the best two I've read; the one by Tim Kreider on the lipmagazine link is quite good:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1793_299/ai_55881919
http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/revicontent_102.htm

Also read the revised book Kubrick: Inside A Film Artist's Maze chapter on EWS by Thomas Allen Nelson...

http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue8/eyeswideshut.html

When you examine the film you see that neither main character actually gets laid. Then at the end, the film pokes fun at itself with Nicole Kidman's final words.

http://www.cinephiles.net/Eyes_Wide_Shut/Cinephiles-Gate.html

sound, such as voices plus external and internal music

as in the beginning when you think the intro music is part of the soundtrack then, he turns the stereo off.