Can we talk about "Self Control" some more? Then again there's this thread:
"Self Control" by Laura Branigan
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 14:16 (fifteen years ago) link
Alex in NYC, prophet!
Actually, it looks an awful lot like "Eyes Wide Shut," complete with horny strangers wearing masks. I'm not even joking.-- Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, February 28, 2005 1:11 PM
-- Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, February 28, 2005 1:11 PM
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 14:19 (fifteen years ago) link
a good performance is when you can tell the actor's committed to something that exists in the world of the film
Extra points when you stop seeing the actor as "the actor" and just buy into the veracity of the character.
― HI DERE, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:14 (fifteen years ago) link
Kubrick was clearly not trying to get naturalistic performances out of his actors. Especially that opening party scene, everything is chopped and screwed. Whether it is effectively dream-like is up to the viewer.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:18 (fifteen years ago) link
if you men only knew
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:19 (fifteen years ago) link
See it all, or see NOTHING. Anything less is THEFT.
― cecelia, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:20 (fifteen years ago) link
i love when she's just gotten stoned and can't look at tom cruise's face without cracking up
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:20 (fifteen years ago) link
Gene Hackman and Vanessa Redgrave to thread.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:21 (fifteen years ago) link
My theory has always been that the baubled lights in every scene (party lights, christmas lights) are little baubles of germs and AIDS and the clap that show the threat of nonmonogamy, so that when they turn off the Christmas lights in their home at the end, they're commiting themselves to a good clean monogamous marriage.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:22 (fifteen years ago) link
lololol try watching 'wetherby' and not see it as 'vanessa redgrave takes on thatcher'.
― banriquit, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:24 (fifteen years ago) link
whoa eazy that's crazy. i always noticed all those touches of light.
this dress is KILLER
http://img.slate.com/media/32000/32119/Kidman.jpg
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:25 (fifteen years ago) link
try watching Wetherby without falling asleep.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:25 (fifteen years ago) link
in support of eazy's theory, for a reason i could never until know figure out we were shown eyes wide shut in sex ed as a pro-abstinence film...btw kubrick died of syphilis...
― deeznuts, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Well, the theory also makes sense considering that Kubrick started thinking about this movie in the late 80s/early 90s, when the idea was in the air that cheating would kill you.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:29 (fifteen years ago) link
btw kubrick died of syphilis...
Uh?
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:29 (fifteen years ago) link
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a150/tuesdayweld/eyeswideshut1.jpg
And they really are in most of the sexy scenes in the movie.
― Eazy, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:31 (fifteen years ago) link
good shot
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:31 (fifteen years ago) link
the good doctor
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 17:32 (fifteen years ago) link
http://i31.tinypic.com/2cxeyr6.jpg This shot is the one that gets me
I like the theory about the coloured baubles. They're everywhere: "Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends?" Also, Bill goes to Ziegler's pool room near the end, where he says he's 'just knocking a few balls around' - i.e. Ziegler just messes people up for his own amusement.
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 18:17 (fifteen years ago) link
I just remembered - I've played on that pool table! It's now in a hotel in Birmingham.
― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 18:19 (fifteen years ago) link
wow!
― Surmounter, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 18:19 (fifteen years ago) link
eye-balls
― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 18:20 (fifteen years ago) link
tis the season for this movie
― surm, Tuesday, 13 October 2009 06:32 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.black-scale.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ews-2.jpg
― surm, Tuesday, 13 October 2009 06:35 (fourteen years ago) link
i totally love EWS
― omar little, Wednesday, July 2, 2008 1:34 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark
― passive aggressive tea wisdom (latebloomer), Tuesday, 13 October 2009 06:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Pancakes Hackman otm.
Rewatched this again last night after seeing this thread. Dr. Bill fails to get this infidelity thing because he's approaching the whole thing as a question of control -- either comes off as a smarmy jerk (two girls at the party, the hooker) or thinks he's got some sort of upper hand until he gets smacked down (hooker roommate drops the "she has AIDS" bomb, he thinks he can wander around the masquerade orgy but then gets penalized, gets called away at the party to clean up someone else's mess instead of flirting).
Kidman's character is great because she's not necessarily breaking this whole "men active, women passive" thing, but showing that there's just as much power in her approach. She comes off as flirty but not smarmy with the Hungarian at the party, and she's the the one who draws the lines in the whole interaction. So she's actually more involved with defining these lines, whereas Cruise's character just kind of goes along when he's offered sexual situations.
Also, how great is it that Dr. Bill has all this amazingly messed-up stuff happening all around and all he can mentally return to is the idea of this guy with his wife?
― mh, Wednesday, 14 October 2009 17:40 (fourteen years ago) link
i find that totally realistic. like, that's what i would be thinking about.
― surm, Thursday, 15 October 2009 00:29 (fourteen years ago) link
This was on TV last night, I saw 20 minutes of it. It was terrible.
― resonate with awesomeness (jel --), Monday, 11 July 2011 21:25 (twelve years ago) link
fascinating
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 00:23 (twelve years ago) link
i saw this on a tv station that heavily edits everything it shows. i also saw evil dead ii on this station. i feel like maybe i should like rent it or something.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 00:34 (twelve years ago) link
evil dead ii i mean; this looked p rubbish
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 00:35 (twelve years ago) link
best kubrick movie
― iatee, Tuesday, 12 July 2011 00:38 (twelve years ago) link
i can't watch kubrick movies; they make me seasick
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 00:39 (twelve years ago) link
Trick to Kubrick is you really have to watch them so many times you forget about the actors and plot and focus on the details in the background.
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 00:49 (twelve years ago) link
I think there could have been a great movie here with two leads that actually had chemistry. Cruise actually has some good moments, but none of them are in a scene involving Kidman.
― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 12 July 2011 01:15 (twelve years ago) link
some great moments; I enjoy it more than it deserves. Cruise is pretty great it in.
― so confused (blank), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 01:19 (twelve years ago) link
lol yeah pretty much agree with Matt, iow
― so confused (blank), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 01:21 (twelve years ago) link
been kinda obsessed with this movie lately, partly because after all this time and dozens of viewings, im not entirely sure what it's "about," and that's certainly not for the movie lacking the sense that it's about something. (if that makes sense)
more and more i think a lot of takes on the "fantasy" elements of the movie, while obviously not far off, don't really account for what seems to be a very weird subtext about power, or maybe the rituals of power or how its constituted, and that maybe what happened is that Cruise somehow peeks beneath the curtain (maybe led there by his own fantasizing) and saw something he wasn't supposed to see. something about that orgy scene, and especially his unmasking and the "sacrifice" it sets in motion, seems very primal, for lack of a better word.
anyway, it's just a weird, totally beautiful and ultimately elusive movie.
― ryan, Sunday, 11 March 2012 22:22 (twelve years ago) link
sometimes i think this is kubrick's best looking movie. the use of lighting is so striking
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Sunday, 11 March 2012 22:55 (twelve years ago) link
a very weird subtext about power, or maybe the rituals of power or how its constituted, and that maybe what happened is that Cruise somehow peeks beneath the curtain (maybe led there by his own fantasizing) and saw something he wasn't supposed to see. something about that orgy scene, and especially his unmasking and the "sacrifice" it sets in motion, seems very primal, for lack of a better word.
this is exactly what the film suggests, but if it's a puzzle, there seen to be several key pieces missing. you get this suggestion of a relationship between desire, fantasy, wealth and power, but it never congeals, remains a dream. the "primal" quality you note winds up being little more than the propulsion engine that draws us through the labyrinth, and it dissipates entirely once we emerge on the other side. fascinating, but also quite frustrating. the paranoiac in me has always wondered whether or not it's really the film kubrick was trying to make...
and, yeah, i agree that it's one of kubrick's best-looking films, if not the best.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Sunday, 11 March 2012 23:14 (twelve years ago) link
i especially like that the amazing final scene with Sydney Pollack is basically "you didn't see what you thought you saw." There's this massive draw back or dissembling that seems to be going on, and then yeah Kidman says we need to fuck and poof--wherever things seem to be leading is left off, unactualized.
― ryan, Sunday, 11 March 2012 23:21 (twelve years ago) link
Pollack's puppetmaster character almost made me think it was suggestive that Kubrick cast another director in that role...
and his fascinating final line "Life goes on, until it doesn't. But you know that, Bill." Right before Bill goes home and turns off (!) the Christmas tree lights.
― ryan, Sunday, 11 March 2012 23:45 (twelve years ago) link
good point. half the movie is lit by christmas lights.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Sunday, 11 March 2012 23:53 (twelve years ago) link
― Eazy, Wednesday, July 2, 2008 1:22 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Sunday, 11 March 2012 23:57 (twelve years ago) link
pollack's so good in this. i love his last scene where he's laying things out for cruise - where he's kinda pulling back the curtain on all the weirdness cruise experienced that night, as if to reassure him, but you're further unsettled by his urgency to get that reassurance across. and i love the blue pre-dawn light flooding into his pool room from outside
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 12 March 2012 00:04 (twelve years ago) link
im still not entirely sure why Kubrick chose to set the movie during christmas, perhaps for no other reason than to institute this colored lights scheme.
and this has obviously been pointed out many times, but i find it interesting how the movie is divided into two parts with the orgy/ceremony in the middle as a kind of hinge. before it seems like Eros holds sway, and after Thanatos (or at least every erotic possibility seems poisonous or dangerous, as when he literally leans in to kiss the corpse of the dead girl who saved him). at the very least that seems like a starting point to make sense of how it's structured.
― ryan, Monday, 12 March 2012 00:08 (twelve years ago) link
my friend describes the visual aesthetic of this film as GLARE
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 March 2012 00:11 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, that's one of the things that really eats at me in trying to figure out what the film's about. christmas = what, exactly? death & resurrection, the pretty surface of things, consumerism, home & family? none of the interpretations i try to attach to it make much sense. like it seems as though EWS is "supposed" in some sense to culminate in cruise's sacrifice, his death...but it doesn't. it's a transformational journey through a sexual underworld that provokes no transformation other than a realization that home is relatively safe and, hey, everybody has lustful thoughts every now and then.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Monday, 12 March 2012 00:49 (twelve years ago) link
i saw this movie in 1999 and didn't think much of it.
rewatched it two nights ago and I think its AMAZING!! A completely cheap erotic thriller, pretty much--aka my favorite kind of movie.
― homosexual II, Sunday, 24 June 2012 07:39 (eleven years ago) link
It's the Ben-Hur of erotic thrillers.
― old people are made of poop (Eric H.), Sunday, 24 June 2012 07:53 (eleven years ago) link