Tom Cruise Movie Overload: Film Reviews
Saturday, May 21, 2011
This movie blew my mind. The raw human emotion of both Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman is worth watching. After so many years of looking forward into watching this movie, I finally get to watch it. The story is all about a doctor [Cruise]. His wife [Kidman] -- after smoking pot with him -- reveals that she had once contemplated an affair while they were on vacation. During her confession he is called with the information that one of his patients died. This event eventually sparks off an evening of sexual frustration ending with his infiltration of a masked orgy.
The writing for the film -- also done by Kubrick -- is simplistic and bold. One scene that deserves real credit is the scene in which Bill and Alice smoke pot. Beginning with high ramblings and ending in a powerful monologue delivered by Nicole Kidman. The book at which this movie is based on is called Dream Story. The film is so dreamlike it is hard to completely comprehend. For example, there is a part in which a model who is hitting on Bill at a party says. “Don’t you want to go where the rainbow ends?” and later on, Bill enters a costume shop called ‘Where the Rainbow Ends’. At the party there are lights hanging from the walls, also at the costume shop, were the same lights hanging from the ceiling.
One thing that really gave off the ‘dream’ essence was the fact that at 0ne moment, Bill exits a shop, enters a taxi, and gets off at his stop. It is implied as he traveled a distance, but in the background of the next shot, the shop that he just left is in the background.
You wouldn’t notice this if you were just watching the movie, as a matter of fact it doesn’t even play it like a ‘dream’ but instead like a story. One might put the fact the the shop was on the other end of the street off to bad directing but Stanley Kubrick doesn’t make mistakes. He means for these things to be in the final cut of the film.
This is a film with a happy ending and a clear moral conclusion, but we have to go on an unusual journey to find it. It was misunderstood in its theatrical release, but like most of Kubrick’s work from ’2001′ on it has gradually won over critics and cinephiles. For this reason, I call it a classic — a truly adult film.
I thought Tom Cruise was confused in Eyes Wide Shut, but was I wrong! 
David Aames (Tom Cruise) has it all: wealth, good looks and a gorgeous woman (Cameron Diaz) on his arm. But just when he’s found true love with warmhearted Sofia (Penélope Cruz), his face is horribly disfigured in a car accident, and he loses everything … or does he?
Vanilla Sky is directed by Cameron Crowe, and this is a remake of a Spanish film called Open Your Eyes. Once again, an American director is remaking a foreign classic, however, this is not so bad compared to others of that same movie-topic.
There are little clues to the real idea behind this whole story that you kind of have to look at, and at first you’ll be totally confused but if you can look past all the confusion and look at the clues underneath it all, you’ll find a real, brilliant message from the story and lessons of course.
The message is that the world we live in, is it just a dream, and if so how far do our dreams go, until they become nightmares. David Aames is a douche who thinks he’s got it all, but then in a quick second he loses it all, and creates this world of fiction where everything is perfect, and means something. What does reality consist of? This film searches for those answers and although they may not be telling you them right in the open to your face, it’s the idea of looking at everything and thinking is where the real beauty of this film lies.
Tom Cruise does a lot with David Aames here, and it’s not easy stuff to do in the first place. Cruise has to play this narcissistic asshole, that goes through a whole bunch of transformations as he starts to have no idea just exactly what the hell is going on. His character gains a lot of depth, and many of the more emotionally intriguing scenes are from Cruise, and his crazy performance. Penelope Cruz is very likable here as Sofia, and you can see why Cruise’s character fell in love with her after all. Cameron Diaz deserves credit as Julianna, and brings out the films best performance because her character is so disturbing, and crazy that you almost feel like she is a big nightmare. There’s also some nice little side performances from the likes of Jason Lee, Kurt Russell, Timothy Spall, and the always creepy in any filmTilda Swinton.
The movie’s pretty much about a super spy guy played by Tom Cruise…who’s accused of going rouge. While he’s running from other hit men, the government and other crazy people. He runs into Cameron Diaz at the airport…she basically becomes a witness with everything and is forced to stick by his side.
The film centers around June Havens, a fairly uninspiring Cameron Diaz, who ends up in the middle of a secret agency war against a seemingly mentally unstable Agent named Roy Miller (Tom Cruise). Roy needs to protect a highly powerful new energy source from getting in the wrong hands, while at the same time protecting June from getting killed every time she makes one erroneous decision after another. But seriously who could be as stupid as June, who continuously puts herself and Roy in danger because she just doesn’t use her brain? It seems as though the writers just stuck with the idea that the girl should be dimwitted rather than just parodying the typical spy genre’s elements to make it entertaining. Of course the film revolves around an insider traitor, though the film never really gives you any sense of ambiguity taking a great ingredient of surprise from the entire experience. Knight & Day is just a straightforward action film; no thought or brains needed as the car explosions and body count keep distracting you from the lack of inventiveness. Oh well, who wouldn’t resist Diaz and Cruise anyway?:)
This poster says it all, really, but I’ll elaborate. Usually I love Spielberg for his action, family values, cute kids and alternately weepy and triumphant scores. But in this case, I can’t figure out hat went wrong. I was bored, really bored with this movie, I literally fell asleep.
War of the Worlds stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, Dakota Fanning as Rachel Ferrier, Miranda Otto as Mary Ann and Tim Robbins as Harlan Ogilvy. The 2005 film was directed by Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg. The screenplay was written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, from the novel by H. G. Wells. The movie is a production of Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, Amblin Entertainment, and Cruise/Wagner Productions.
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