cult film freak: sydney pollock

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggKbgavRlx8RIsE4_bzFwb1l0stWYK0261BW1EUz6g5W4_CxtQnQ7h5ko6p1bgTvyWSpkEke1EGkz3L3HxnB_Qbmu-dpkIuZWv8SBswpCSdaTfXaDbmDFHf-3F7j-PXN5AwrMR2axWt0fwAXgH7BvvJ0MBPGLSlV9o0ur9vlFU2iBp3xSzirvRR4Vp2w=s1043" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="1043" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggKbgavRlx8RIsE4_bzFwb1l0stWYK0261BW1EUz6g5W4_CxtQnQ7h5ko6p1bgTvyWSpkEke1EGkz3L3HxnB_Qbmu-dpkIuZWv8SBswpCSdaTfXaDbmDFHf-3F7j-PXN5AwrMR2axWt0fwAXgH7BvvJ0MBPGLSlV9o0ur9vlFU2iBp3xSzirvRR4Vp2w=s16000"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Tom Cruise in Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT Year: 1999 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Some films seem created to be despised and misunderstood... <i>Misunderspised</i>
 is not a word but fits the subliminally insane, intensely mellow and 
tortuously strange EYES WIDE SHUT that, too slow for a thriller and too tame for sheer outright sexual exploitation, is the final feature of legendary 
filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and stars Tom Cruise as a seemingly perfect 
Manhattan doctor with a seemingly contented wife in Nicole Kidman...<br>
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>
Beginning with a plush (yet secretly lush) party thrown by Cruise's millionaire "house calls" patient Sydney Pollock, who later partakes in a terrific finale monologue, both
 men playing a game of fancy red-velvet pool while discussing an earlier upscale, mansion-set, masquerade orgy
that Cruise's Dr. William Harford character should <i>not</i> have attended...</p><span></span>

christmas, epic, marie richardson, melodrama, neo noir, nicole kidman, nineties, stanley kubrick, sydney pollock, todd field, tom cruise

STANLEY KUBRICK'S PARANOIAC FILM NOIR OF 'EYES WIDE SHUT'

Tom Cruise in Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT Year: 1999 Rating: ***1/2 Some films seem created to be despised and misunderstood... Mis...

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpd9tbQEjYzHOBE_Vd-6c9w3Cb904-azk8FjqpsXjN1XGNhDp6J2ebgW-UcxIe2I14hELl7ina6x5TOFFNntqlz1YVdRXsP1aJe6ENEASOpVcbfWifjLcJTBhEB7_y3vsDIS9jQ1taNFiaoXXkNDLz6Raj5MxWLrmc7oGx-2Ie7AKlMiAAS83Z_Sx5A/s1128/Screen%20Shot%202022-08-22%20at%2012.07.08%20AM.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1128" data-original-width="1016" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpd9tbQEjYzHOBE_Vd-6c9w3Cb904-azk8FjqpsXjN1XGNhDp6J2ebgW-UcxIe2I14hELl7ina6x5TOFFNntqlz1YVdRXsP1aJe6ENEASOpVcbfWifjLcJTBhEB7_y3vsDIS9jQ1taNFiaoXXkNDLz6Raj5MxWLrmc7oGx-2Ie7AKlMiAAS83Z_Sx5A/w360-h400/Screen%20Shot%202022-08-22%20at%2012.07.08%20AM.jpeg" width="360" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: Eyes Wide SHUT Year: 1999 Rates: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table>Some films seem created to be despised and misunderstood. <i>Misunderspised</i> is not a word but fits the subliminally insane, intensely mellow and tortuously strange EYES WIDE SHUT, the last vehicle of legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick: starring Tom Cruise as a seemingly perfect Manhattan doctor with a gorgeous wife in Nicole Kidman...<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7cFZ74YZ99DaCdGJGTz5wOzoodCshQJAGShdOhmV_g1X6L4xKck_CRWHG5f92Rc6-myOfx8o3rUhw-8mhrA9CX8AL7ZmpKqTpRk9M1uKbklVKeNfRAElpdyqc6E8tIOQYSWegk5hmm_-ou_lX_tZxmJRQKgT80vtyfLBeIqculVQogrETS_pSX8doA/s320/2.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="195" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv7cFZ74YZ99DaCdGJGTz5wOzoodCshQJAGShdOhmV_g1X6L4xKck_CRWHG5f92Rc6-myOfx8o3rUhw-8mhrA9CX8AL7ZmpKqTpRk9M1uKbklVKeNfRAElpdyqc6E8tIOQYSWegk5hmm_-ou_lX_tZxmJRQKgT80vtyfLBeIqculVQogrETS_pSX8doA/w244-h400/2.jpeg" width="244" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Sydney Pollock </u></td></tr></tbody></table>Thus, throughout the night, as Tom Cruise wanders the streets, scored by what sounds like ominous carnival ferris wheel music, where Kubrick, in his working home of England, turned a giant studio into a replica of Manhattan (also including some actual footage), looking dreamlike and surreal as well as gritty and palpable as the best, breeziest moments occur between Cruise and his former med school buddy, Nick Nightingale, played by another director/actor...<br />
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And perhaps this would fit more in the trivia section, but Todd Field also dropped out of med school after taking too many meds and listening to Mozart more than studying in the underrated GROSS ANATOMY, starring another Kubrick veteran, FULL METAL JACKET "Pvt. Joker" Matthew Modine.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRKoIXb-7rgzsZ9Z85PZBYp6Fa8sYOH-qfoN2CAbOnQeoajZgZ42oUHzaUoY-YINFXYPO_X3IrtGAp0yuHQ0E5QbKu2ul5j17EC61MAVH-N-4P1wLL7z_5iJLfGJBgJpSxK1T-JMvS9rVV2zc3bcdluafx9r_2ykrqgoL8GNoiqfFe4XH1lecJ79dyfw/s320/4.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRKoIXb-7rgzsZ9Z85PZBYp6Fa8sYOH-qfoN2CAbOnQeoajZgZ42oUHzaUoY-YINFXYPO_X3IrtGAp0yuHQ0E5QbKu2ul5j17EC61MAVH-N-4P1wLL7z_5iJLfGJBgJpSxK1T-JMvS9rVV2zc3bcdluafx9r_2ykrqgoL8GNoiqfFe4XH1lecJ79dyfw/s16000/4.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Todd Field in Kubrick mode</u></td></tr></tbody></table>Back on track... When Cruises' successful doctor and the opening party's piano-playing Nightingale connect, before their second more important meeting at a jazz club later on, there's an awkward silence followed by a burst of laughter that displays the fabulous ultra-realistic spontaneity of a Kubrick film: he doesn't make his actors go through over one-hundred takes for nothing. A Selector along with being a Director, within the long editing process, he'd want as many options as possible to choose from...<br />
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Other scenes, though, fail to inhabit such keen, wry realism, perhaps on purpose, or maybe because some characters just aren't that intriguing compared to others, and there are plenty to choose from...<br />
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But liken to Kubrick's best work, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, the main character basically survives throughout a yo-yo kind of experience as the eventual upswing has the same inhabitants cursed, from a fatal disease to death itself, providing a basic lesson of all Film Noir: don't stick your neck out too far where your head doesn't belong...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4f_nbqY33lAdc_6DsdrDZr-ZsoxNFibfWMdiTJF9krJvve_N-8LF22QgfFpA20uF_Na-X0imgQAPS1sGj_gOr4cIu2XqD8WNaPQaIprGSB8i8mqb-tQiP4GLbMPOpHoBEdnNm4H6vn6I/s1600/2354023-4db11.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4f_nbqY33lAdc_6DsdrDZr-ZsoxNFibfWMdiTJF9krJvve_N-8LF22QgfFpA20uF_Na-X0imgQAPS1sGj_gOr4cIu2XqD8WNaPQaIprGSB8i8mqb-tQiP4GLbMPOpHoBEdnNm4H6vn6I/s400/2354023-4db11.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Box Set DVD Cover</u></td></tr>
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Covering every aspect of the Sexual Experience without seeing much of anything, beyond various shots of nudity as realistic, everyday occurrences (of course, the orgy aside), what the haunted doctor imagines about his wife and her mysterious lover in EYES WIDE SHUT, and his failed attempts at sexual revenge is to fornication what CHINATOWN is to that particular city...<br />
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So it's no surprise, with such a long run time and a subliminal feeling that Kubrick just might have been purposefully torturing both his fans who waited over a decade after FULL METAL JACKET for another movie, or the myriad of mainstream-movie Cruise/Kidman followers... in-between, trying to develop A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, which would be posthumously finished by colleague Steven Spielberg, whose JURASSIC PARK gave Kubrick the vision that A.I. could actually work using likewise computer-animation... these EYES are either despised or beloved, or somewhere lost within a convoluted, unexplained purgatory...<br />
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It really all depends on how you look at it, what mood you're in while watching, and how much, after attempting, perhaps, several viewings, the realization that everything means nothing but the final blunt words uttered by Kidman: basically telling us that what supposedly makes the world go 'round is really no big deal at all, despite the fact we spent a very long time completely immersed around its dark, seedy, provocative outskirts.<br />
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<u><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvMmwsPn8uVgtj8oFevnKZ5qHlSBgRnHzQzA58H4lBGtV8M8dfol9ejNBFLG4UjYtCgYr5YX4A3t5ppJAMLE-asPdMDgvZ3IF76Xp1DSoLFdbKTXnRZnh4mxvixiufW2kVcOslkVO0-Un0iuJSd-ohHJRGaXU0Djl6o40Kxbd1cqSGks3znSZdByUCw/s1678/Screen%20Shot%202022-08-22%20at%2012.20.28%20AM.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="830" data-original-width="1678" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPvMmwsPn8uVgtj8oFevnKZ5qHlSBgRnHzQzA58H4lBGtV8M8dfol9ejNBFLG4UjYtCgYr5YX4A3t5ppJAMLE-asPdMDgvZ3IF76Xp1DSoLFdbKTXnRZnh4mxvixiufW2kVcOslkVO0-Un0iuJSd-ohHJRGaXU0Djl6o40Kxbd1cqSGks3znSZdByUCw/w400-h198/Screen%20Shot%202022-08-22%20at%2012.20.28%20AM.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doctor and the ladies in this weird dream world flick</td></tr></tbody></table></u><u>RATING</u>: ***1/2<br />
<u>TRIVIA:</u> Heard yet not seen thanks to a mask, Leon Vitali, who was the young protagonist in another Kubrick epic, BARRY LYNDON... that, like EYES WIDE SHUT, has a love-hate relationship with both critics and audiences alike, and was Kubrick's assistant thereafter... plays the role of the "leader" at the chanting party where Cruise is found out, and asked, very grimly, to exit the premises. And just to note, upon leaving the theater after seeing this movie for the first time, it was utterly, thoroughly despised but slowly grew on this particular Kubrick Freak... although there is sporadic use of the fast-forward button either to avoid, or to get to, particular scenes.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Tom Cruise with Domino played by "Ladybugs" teen starlet Vinessa Shaw another anti-conquests of the long night</u></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>EX-BEAUTY QUEEN IN HOTEL DRUGS OVERDOSE... Is Drugs a Verb or was this an intentional, subliminal error?</u></td></tr>
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