Stanley Kubrick, on his death bed, called R Lee Ermey and claimed that Tom Cruise made EYES WIDE SHUT into an unwatchable peice of shit.
No, really, Ermey makes the claim right here (film.guardian.co.uk), and I'm inclined to believe it.
Granted, I don't like the guy much, but it does explain why the movie sucked so bad. Seriously, beside the naked Nicole Kidman, did it really have anything going for it. It was, easily, the least Kubrick-like of all his films.
Classy thing to do on one's deathbed, blame the stars you're working for for the fact that you made a crappy-ass movie.
Without the article going into any more detail than it did, I can't say I have an opinion on the subject one way or the other, except that Eyes Wide Shut was a big, giant piece of shit movie. But at the end of the day Kubrick was the director, and if he allowed himself to get bullied by Tom Cruise, quite frankly it was his own fault that the movie went to shit.
But I can't imagine Eyes Wide Shut as being a good movie with or without Cruise and Kidman's alleged "interference".
"Hurt me if you must, but let the duckie go." --The Oracle of the Sunken Valley, The Order of the Stick
Five-Time W of the Day (5/27/02; 7/3/02; 7/30/04; 8/28/04; 12/16/05)
The Only Five-Time (and Last) N.E.W. World Heavyweight Champion
Certified RFMC Member-- Ask To See My Credentials!
Originally posted by CerebusStanley Kubrick, on his death bed, called R Lee Ermey and claimed that Tom Cruise made EYES WIDE SHUT into an unwatchable peice of shit.
No, really, Ermey makes the claim right here (film.guardian.co.uk), and I'm inclined to believe it.
Granted, I don't like the guy much, but it does explain why the movie sucked so bad. Seriously, beside the naked Nicole Kidman, did it really have anything going for it. It was, easily, the least Kubrick-like of all his films.
Thanks to this post, I will never be able to watch another Cruise movie again. Seriously. I could deal with the Scientology stuff, and the Katie Holmes stuff, and the weird jumping-on-the-couch-on-Oprah thing, but this is the FINAL straw! Damn you, Tom Cruise, for ruining a movie that I have never seen that was made some seven years ago. Damn you to HELL! I'll never watch "Days of Thunder " or "Top Gun" again.
(Is that the reaction you were looking for, Cerebus?)
"You know what you need? Some new quotes in your sig. Yeah, I said it." -- DJFrostyFreeze
Ermey also describes Kubrick as a quiet, unassuming guy. Anyone who's seen any footage of the man working on-set would laugh that claim out of contention.
To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires, and lights, in a box.-Edward R. Murrow
I don't remember thinking that this film was particularly good or bad when I saw it by myself in the theater when it first came out. HOWEVER... I was struck by the total lack of chemistry between Cruise and Kidman.
(The movie "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" comes to mind. Now there's a love/hate couple who know how to argue!)
I am no Cruise fan at all. But Kubrick had been around forever and should have known how to deal with a pain in the ass actor. Oh and Eyes Wide Shut was terrible and boring.
Marge I am just trying to get into heaven not run for Jesus.
You know, Kubrick made Eyes Wide Shut pretty much on his deathbed, and in fact died before the post-production was completed. Really, I don't know why anybody thought it was going to be very good to start with.