Vanilla Sky

Its pretty great. I'd say the two versions are neck and neck. What I like about this version is the overbearing sense of loss and sadness throughout the second half, along with Cruise playing on his own looks and vanity.

That opening scored to Everything in its Right Place is great and the soundtrack throughout is classic Crowe. I don't think Cruz is as good as she is in Amenabar's version, but I wouldn't go so far as to say she's miscast. I wouldn't find it hard to fall in love with her as presented here, lets put it that way.

But my favourite performance in this, and the biggest improvement over the original, is Cameron Diaz. She needs to do more stuff like this. Here's hoping The Box is something meaty for her, cos I can't think of one worthwhile project/performance from her in the intervening years.

I essentially agree with what you have to say Erix. I've always thought that Cruz was the weak link here, her non-english doesn't work well with Crowe's script. One of the things I prefer here is the Cameron Diaz character is a lot more sympathetic compared to the original. I know people laugh at the "I even let you cum in my mouth!" line, but I thought it spoke a lot about that character. She's damaged goods, and Aames knows that, but he indulges in sex with a freaky chick cos they're always the best right?

On the whole I think it does a good few things better than the original, on the other end it also does some things worse than it. As far as remakes go though, and remakes of foreign films at that, it feels like a companion piece rather than a competitor.

I liked 'Vanilla Sky' for the most part. I remember hearing about how terrible the film was and being surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. It's a mindfuck, but it plays fair with the viewer. The whole bit about Cruise yelling out for TECH SUPPORT provided a bit of an unintentional laugh, but I thought that he gave a good performance otherwise. I agree with Ben entirely that Cameron Diaz gives the best performance in the film (even if it is relatively small).

I've never seen the original, so I cannot compare the two films.

I don't think this qualifies as what people call a "mindfuck" movie. I actually pretty much hate that term. Love this movie, though.

I love this movie. The "I swallowed your cum! That means something!" scene was pretty excruciating seeing as how I was sitting next to my Dad. Kurt Russel gives a pretty great performance too.

Saw this twice back when it was first released. Loved it. Cruise was pretty bold in being in that banged up prosthetic makeup for most of the movie. It's a mind trip that reminded me of being "a lighthearted Jacob's Ladder".

I think I have to give the nod to the original for three reasons:

Penelope Cruz, as mentioned, was better there. Crowe's dialogue for her was too chirpy and cute, and her accent made it difficult for her to say it.

The more extreme version of our hero trying to get the company's attention in the original.

It's shorter. The expanded running time of Vanilla Sky does allow for some nice character examination, but the story overstays its welcome.

All that said, I have watched Vanilla Sky three times, so I must like it. It was an admirable change of pace for Crowe, and Russell was just great.

Watched this movie as research for an upcoming podcast (SO STAY TUNED ON THAT ONE).

Kind of an interesting film to watch post-Inception, which covers a lot of the same thematic ground in an infinitely more sophisticated and interesting way. This one is really a mess. But somehow I still like it. The Crowe-ish first 45 minutes are a lot more bearable when connected to the rest of the film, even if he's clearly not as interested in the thriller aspects as he is the scenes where Cruz and Cruise fall in love. I just wish that the ending wasn't so goddamned cut and dry. A little ambiguity did Inception a world of good. It made every aspect of the film richer. In Vanilla Sky, they not only tell you it was all a dream, they specifically tell you the exact frame of film it became one. It leaves the ending as a mess of boring exposition.

Crowe seems to deal in fantasy, an optimistic world where love conquers all. That's his Modus operandi. So the one film of his I've seen that balances that dream out with a nightmare, and it made me appreciate how well he handles the optimistic parts all the more.

Kurt Russell is pretty great, as are Cruise's make-up effects.

This movie doesnt get enough love in my opinion. Its one of my all-time favorites.

Really? Why is that?

Would love to hear your thoughts on Abre los Ojos if you ever get a chance to watch it.

I'm a sentimental sap at heart, so I actually appreciated the warmer approach Crowe took to the story. But there are some really strange tonal shifts in the movie. Good Vibrations and TECH SUPPOOOORT? Just so weird in a way that stands out.

Kurt Russell is solid in this. Cruise is mostly annoying. Jason Lee is Jason Lee. Penelope Cruz is cute. Not a fan of Cameron Diaz, but I thought she did a great job here. Also, I think this is the film that got me crushing on Tilda Swinton (along with Adaptation).

Fans of the film still see this as a story full of ambiguity when it comes to the dream/LE aspect. And sure, you could say that it's there. But it definitely suffers when you put it up against Inception's ambiguity. Any ambiguity I find in Vanilla Sky feels like an afterthought.

Did you know that this sequence was changed after 9/11? At least that's how the story goes.

Ebert suggests that, because it's Cruz's voice at the beginning of the film saying "open your eyes", that the whole explanation TECH SUPOOOOOOORT gives could be untrue. Which I choose to ignore, because if that's the case than the film is even more of a mess than it was before. Because if it's all a dream, from frame one, it makes no sense and lacks any kind of meaning at all.

In addition to the ending not being ambiguous, Crowe's unable to make the thriller aspect feel at all ambiguous when it starts. There was never a point where I took anything at face value, so instead of being caught up in the story and what was happening, I was just left waiting for the reveal to happen. And of course it did happen, in the most uninteresting straight-forward way possible. Total Shyamalan-era plot twist mechanics.

I like the story though, to a point, so I plan on catching the original sometime fairly soon.

That's where the complaints of Nolan's "boring" visions of dreams in INCEPTION frustrate me. I get the complaint, but the moment you make INCEPTION more trippy, it ceases to be INCEPTION and becomes a heist movie lacking tension since nothing can be taken at face value.

Totally. Also, criticizing a movie because it didn't portray dreams the way YOU dream is like criticizing a movie because the main character doesn't smoke your brand of cigarettes.

And I'm totally with you on how Cruise is annoying here. He's trying to give a playful and interesting performance, but it doesn't fit the movie at all. There are parts of Russell's interrogation scene where it feels like he's just trying to see how wacky he can make his eyes look behind a mask.

That might not have been Cruise's eyes. Rumor has it (according to IMDB I believe) that they used Cruise's body double for parts behind the mask and were able to turn the film in days earlier and underbudget.

Love this one, but not so blinded by it that I can't see its shortcomings, though I don't find Cruise to be one of them. He's a pretty rich boy and he plays it to perfection here. Maybe I just a sucker for that Tom Cruise smile; and even deformed, he's still better looking than me. It's also the movie that made me find Sigur Ros, so I will always be indebted to it, and this remains one of my all time favorite soundtracks. Everything hits, and the Elevator Beat by Nancy Wilson is beautiful, small and powerfully haunting.

The final scene works for me because it's so direct. This is the ending Shyamalan wishes he had for The Village, a person who's sole job is to explain what just happened in a compelling manner. I know I shouldn't enjoy it half as much as I do, but it's shot, edited and acted so damn well. I love Kurt Russel busting out of the door like he'd be running, and the look on his face when he realizes he's just a character in Cruise's mind. Cruise's final 'I will see you in another life, when we are both cats.' is lovely and shmaltzy for sure, but the sincerity in which it's delivered overcomes any silly writing.

One of those movies I can watch any time, day or night. Love it.

It's cheesy, but I really appreciate how pop culture informed Cruise's fantasy life. I was really disappointed when they explicitly pointed out The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan reference, because before that it was perfect. But again, over-explaining shit tends to kill it for me. I don't like where a director doesn't have faith in the audience. There's a fine line between earnestness and spelling everything out all the time. It's a line that both Crowe and Oliver Stone have a lot of trouble with.

It's been a long time since I've listened to it, but I'm fairly certain that Crowe's commentary on the DVD confirms this.

It's an odd performance for me. I've dug Cruise for a long time despite the fact that I feel a lot of his performances 'reek of effort.' I know he's not an actor who can truly disappear into a role (just too big of a star), but when it came to his performance here, it felt even moreso. It seems like Cruise's star power would actually go great with who David Aames is, but they actually clashed for me. Whenever he was doing the 'playful playboy' act, it felt overly calculated and creepy.

But I'm not gonna lie. I used to think it was a very strong performance. I've just changed my mind on it.

And another thing that has come to bug me a bit: some of Crowe's dialog seems like he was shooting for another "You complete me." I got a sense of it in Almost Famous (a film I love but haven't revisited in a while) as well, but it felt particularly grating here. Several key lines are delivered bold and underlined.

"Every passing minute is a chance to turn it all around."

"I will see you in another life... when we are both cats." (Kinda goes along with Patrick's comment that Crowe's movies sometimes feel like they're cute puppies that know that they're cute puppies and want YOU to know that they're cute puppies by rubbing your face in the fact that they're cute puppies)

I do love the notion of your LE life being informed by pop culture. And while it was definitely over-explained, the hand-holding was appreciated by me at the time, since I wouldn't have known what exactly was being referenced.

Back to Doc's comments... this was also the film that introduced Sigor Ros to me. I love the final scene on roof of the building mostly because of that last track. Works really well with the montage as Cruise falls to his death.

I love the soundtrack a lot, and it also was how I got into Sigur Ros as well. Freur's "Doot Doot" is also a magnificent piece of music. You said it right about "Elevator Beat".

I was actually hoping that Cruise would get an Oscar nomination (he was friggin' robbed for Magnolia) and if he had, he would still have lost out to Denzel Washington, but just the nomination would have been great.

Wouldn't surprise me if it really was Cruise's body double for the scenes of masked Cruise. Why have him really behind the mask for those scenes, when they could just use someone else, and just dub his voice over him?

I don't mind the over explanation of everything at the end. When my friend and I were leaving the theater, a lady actually said that she didn't understand the movie. After all that explaining at the end.

I could see another actor feeling more than a bit slighted if that was done just because the option was available.

Understudy!? No Bette Midler!? Where's Bette Midler!?

Sometimes, but if they paid him enough, he probably could care less. Plus, if it is indeed Cruise's double, he gets paid to be his stand in anyway. It's not like they're just bringing in some random actor and telling him "Ok, you're face is not going to be shown, and people are going to think you're Tom Cruise under the mask."

Oh no. I meant for the actor performing opposite Cruise's character. So in this case, Kurt Russell could've been offended by the fact that his co-star can't even be bothered to show up for their scene together.

But then... Kurt Russell is too cool for that. But if it were anyone else...

Also, I just watched a clip of the ending on Youtube that slowed the ending montage waaaaay down. As Erix said, you do see a couple of still frames from the deleted scene of Cruise shooting the security guard. And that security guard... I'm pretty sure it's Michael Shannon. Hehehe.

It is. Michael Shannon being in it also automatically elevated it a little. As did Spielberg's cameo as himself.

When I left the theater, I definitely remember someone in a pair of older audience members muttering, "Well that's the last time I let YOU pick the movie..."

Oh wait. I completely forgot that Michael Shannon was the guard keeping an eye on Cruise during his sessions with Russell. Mindfart. I didn't put that together when thinking about the deleted scene where he shoots Shannon.

This movie and Minority Report traded director cameos like Pokemon cards!

I believe that Crowe excised the shooting scene because he didn't think he handled it very well. I'm sure I read an interview post-release where he says he wasn't happy with how he directed it. 

 

It's weird, the original gets the mystery/plot aspects right, but Crowe's characters work much better here than they do in Abre Los Ojos. In particular the character that Diaz plays in the original just comes across as completely blank. She has no other characteristic than 'Crazy bitch'. That's true to an extent in Crowe's version, but he writes her a lot more sympathetically. 

I remember when I first bought the dvd, and watched it, the first thing I did during that ending montage was pause it and go frame by frame during it. I always did wonder why that scene of Aames going ballistic with the pistol was excised out of the film.

 

Same thing happened with you Nooj? Hah, these older audiences can be strange birds. Like when I went to see MacGruber and this old couple went in and left midway through.

Anyone else feel like Knight and Day is Julianna's LE fantasy? David is a cool, confident guy who goes kills other people trying to get her and eventually run away together, never to be seen or heard from again? Ridiculous fan wankery, I know, but hey, Cruise and Diaz together once more, couldn't help it. I actually enjoy their chemistry together in both films, something about the star power works for them.