response 191 of 229:

Mar 12 01:08 UTC 2000

Perhaps.  On the other hand, there are a great many "masterpieces" that never
achieve widespread recognition except among specialists.  

response 193 of 229:

Mar 12 01:22 UTC 2000

   drift: does anyone else find it disturbing that the census
commercial showing various school rooms and the numbers of students
they were built to hold/currently hold uses the same beethoven
recording which was used in "a clockwork orange" when alex was
undergoing the ludovico treatment and being shown films?

response 195 of 229:

Mar 12 01:28 UTC 2000

        I'm a fan of many of Kubricks' films, and I really didn't think that
there was all that much to Eyes Wide Shut, either.  Perhaps someone who did
like it might explain what they liked about it, so that I might benefit from
a deeper appreciation?

response 197 of 229:

Mar 12 15:41 UTC 2000

Some things I liked about EWS:

The exploitation of various societal strata.  Dr Harford
and his wife are first presented as a couple of rich and 
wordly New Yorkers, invited to the best parties, collectors
of art, all-around BPs.  Then, as they are exposed to people
from other social and economic levels, we see a prostitute
more beautiful -- inside and out -- than either of them; 
and, in the end, we get Ziegler's comment to Harford that 
Harford was immediately identified as an outsider at the 
orgy because, "you arrived in a cab, and everyone else came 
in a limo."  

The first and least effective example of this is the oily 
Hungarian who tries to hit on Alice at Ziegler's big party.  
We're meant to think of him as an aristocratic European taking 
advantage of the silly naive American girl we'd been taking 
for an upper-class sophisticate just two minutes ago.  
Unfortunately, not only does Kubrick ruin it by making Kidman 
too drunk for her coy giggles to mean anything, but also the 
Hungarian himself is first cousin to Zoltan Carpathy, that 
figure of fun who "oozes charm from every pore as he oils his 
way around the floor" trying and failing to unmask Eliza 
Doolittle at the Embassy Ball in "My Fair Lady."  It's 
practically the same guy.  But a director like Kubrick can't
possibly have done something like this by accident, so maybe
the message is: *even* a Zoltan Carpathy can knock over a
ditz like Alice.

The last scene between the Harfords has been justly criticized, 
even by the movie's admirers, for some really dreadful writing.  
But the very last word of the movie is right on the money.  The 
way couples trying to be faithful to each other can deal with the 
kinds of temptations the Harfords have been agonizing pointlessly 
over is -- to be faithful to each other.  When Nicole Kidman says 
the word "fuck," you feel like saying, "THANK you!"  For more 
than two hours, it looked like they'd ever figure it out.  The 
fact that Kubrick presented it as if it were some great final 
illumination is symptomatic of the over-all puerility of the movie, 
however.

I like the general idea, if not its execution in EWS, of the
director making ironic little comments, visible only to the
audience.  The NY Post headline "LUCKY TO BE ALIVE" is one obvious 
(too obvious) example.  The various references to Kubrick, his
family, and his other movies scattered throughout EWS is another.  
There is an undeniably so-what quality to all of this, but it 
helped pass the time, at least for me.

response 199 of 229:

Mar 12 18:46 UTC 2000

Sweet and Lowdown
2.5 stars out of 4

Sean Penn is really great in this movie, but about every ten minutes or so the
movie is interrupted by Woody Allen and some other folks supposedly
knowledgeable about Emmet Ray to tell stories. These interruptions really
prevented you from really getting into the movie, imho.  And sometimes when
Woody was on it was almost as if he couldn't bear to make a movie in which he
didn't appear.

response 201 of 229:

Mar 12 20:57 UTC 2000

Remember, Citizen Kane was panned when it first came out-- Orson Welles
didnt even get nominated for best director, best actor, or best picture.
Like fine wine, good films age well with time-- maybe it didnt win any
academy awards, or even get nominated, but Welles' film is now widely
considered the greatest american film ever made.  People just had to
watch it a few times ya know....same thing with Kubrick

response 203 of 229:

Mar 12 23:01 UTC 2000

Back to resp:172 for just a sec...
In several real-life agencies, designators and working names are passed 
on as people quit, transfer, die, retire. So, agent 007 is always called 
James Bond, no matter who happens to be doing that job at any given time.
In at least one American agency, teams of people who work together all 
have the same working first name; you have Mike team, Bill team, Tim 
team, etc.
Honest.

response 205 of 229:

Mar 13 02:38 UTC 2000

We saw "The Tigger Movie" again at the #2/ticket Clinton theater.  It 
kept my wife and I awake, and greatly entertained the kids.  It also 
sold out the Clinton theater on Friday night (216 seats).  By 
obervation, I'd say they had good crowds for the Saturday and Sunday 
night showings as well.

response 207 of 229:

Mar 13 03:37 UTC 2000

  Because of its strong anti-substance-abuse message?

  saw "The Beach" at The Harbor, the cheapie theater in Muskegon,
  on Friday.

  it was, ummm, interesting..  Not totally unredeemable, but it Had
  Serious Problems.  I'd give it a C+   After "Trainspotting" I was
  expecting more from director Danny Boyle..

response 209 of 229:

Mar 13 11:58 UTC 2000

That we will.

We went and saw THE CIDER HOUSE RULES (B) in an 
effort to catch up on our Oscar nominees.  It's
a very nice movie.  John Irving tends to let his
plots and characters lead him where they will, 
which can make for a pleasingly random ride.  
The movie was shot, I'm told, largely in western
Massachusetts where I grew up.  Michael Cain is
excellent.

response 211 of 229:

Mar 13 18:02 UTC 2000

robert downey is a great actor, if he can get day leave from his prison
home to do films, why not? *shrug*

response 213 of 229:

Mar 13 21:55 UTC 2000

Re #210: van Gogh looks grainy too.