The Occasionally Monthly Movie Review
From The Cosmopolitan Yucatecan Capital
Local Title: AyHuayChut
Spanish Title: Ojos Bien Cerrados
Original Title: Eyes Wide Shut
Director: Stanley Kubrick (qepd)
Starring: Nicole Kidman de Cruise, Tom Cruise de Kidman, Sydney Pollack and a lot of capes and frightening masks
I will briefly comment on this film which was Kubricks last, his favorite according to his wife, stars both Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and blah blah blah all that stuff you already know.
In this critics humble opinion, this is basically a case of the Emperor's New Clothes, where the Great Genius and the great actors conspire to give us, the lowly film-goer, another artistically shot, 3 hour long, squirm in your seat art film with not much in the way of a really great story or anything as mundane as that. Watchable? Yes. A great film classic? Probably not.
Here in Merida, the film has caused some commotion, probably due in large part to it's sexual content and the pull of Tom Cruises face and Nicole Kidmans general overall lusciousness. People are flocking to see it, which isn't saying much in Merida, since there's not much else to do besides go to the movies. Some folks are convinced it is a great film, although no-one can actually tell you why, while others say that it stinks. Upon leaving the movie theater, which is currently playing at the Hollywood cinemas in the Gran Plaza mall, people stop in the underventilated, overheated and toxic environment of the parking garage to discuss possible meanings and messages of the film.
Since the movies at the cines Hollywood always have an intermission, why should this showing be any different? So they go ahead and destroy, half way through, any momentum created by the director (and believe me, it is taking quite the long time to generate any such momentum). It's always amazing to me that selling some popcorn and a few more Cokes can prevail over the artistic vision of a powerful Tinseltown film director or producer. Just goes to show you that they're not as powerful as they think they are in those Estados Unidos.
Since movie critics are a peso a dozen, and who wants to read yet another boring opiniated piece of drivel on a movie for God's sake anyway, I won't go into what I think of the acting, direction, the photography, the music (good) or the overly skinny female butts highlighted by dental floss thongs.
This page is part of a Merida theme so we'll stick to that and try to apply the idea to movies. There are lots of scenes in this film that provoke interesting (to me) reactions from the local audience. For example, and in no particular order:
Pot Smoking Scene where Nicole spills the beans about her naval officer affair fantasy: Laughter and light hilarity throughout; impatience with her mono-syllabic 15 minute delivery of just a few lines
Sex scene in a mansion
with caped and masked people all around:
Nervous laughter and
general hilarity when the closeups of the masks appear, some of which are
actually pretty scary.
Tom Cruise being given
the lookover by a gay desk clerk at a hotel:
Loud laughter from
the audience in true latin fashion, emphasizing their encanto with
anything where gays appear. Extra loud laughter from one or two male members
of the crowd, betraying their homosexual tendencies and their blatant attempt
to mask those with loud masculine belly laughs and elbow poking.
Tom Cruise confessing
his sins to his wife:
Loud laughter from
the males (yeah, sure, as if! - ha ha ha ha) and sympathetic chuckles mixed
with expressions of maternal ternura from the females upon seeing
Tom so obviously upset.
The general consensus is that the movie is so-so, has no real plot or message, and at the end there's no wrap up for the intellectually un-inclined, thereby making it all far too confusing. A far better option would be the General's Daughter, in the opinion of most...
NO
RATING FOR MOVIES
the
idea is to review movies based on local (as in Merida) perceptions, reactions
and comments
