Open Your Eyes

I watched for the first time this last week. I enjoyed.

What was wrong for you?

I really enjoyed Vanilla Sky. Ordinarily exposition at the end of a movie pisses me the fuck off, but this one almost needed it, since nothing made any fucking sense until then. Some restraint would have been nice, though. Donnie Darko hardly spells ANYTHING out for you, and that worked out very nicely. Not everything needs to be gift-wrapped.

What I liked about it most was the character interplay, which has always been Crowe's strong point. He has a tremendous gift for putting more than one meaning in a line of dialogue, and getting the actors to convey that.

And Jason Lee was fabulous.

You hit the nail on the head. I still enjoyed the film, and dispite the tell-it-all ending, I liked it. But, this is one movie I can really understand people not enjoying. I don't think it's for everyone.

Oh, and Fett, the movie's called "Open Your Eyes" (you should know that because Cruz says it in Vanilla Sky about 100 times). Sorry, I haven't seen it, but we need to get this back on topic.

Jesus! You mean we're missing more great mimes in American Cinema?

I greatly prefer the original. Check it out.

I'm still completely at a loss as to how anyone could find the original more ambiguous than Vanilla Sky, thus "better." Unless maybe you were watching without the subtitles on.

I saw Open Your Eyes first, and there was scarcely anything explained in Vanilla Sky that wasn't painfully obvious in Open Your Eyes. Crowe also explains on the commentary how he can see 3 other valid interpretations of the movie aside from the most obvious one explained in the elevator. Just because a character tells you something in a movie doesn't necessarily mean there's no ambiguity, especially in a story like this.

And I thought the pop culture reference stuff was brilliant. It gets more to the questions of reality and what makes a "life" in modern culture.

They're VERY similar movies, but, with just a few additions, Vanilla Sky improves upon what's essentially a very clever, well-done sci-fi mystery and makes it an exploration of love, mortality, and consumer culture.

I'd also add that the ambiguity factor is not what really drives the movie for me. I'm perfectly happy to accept what the tech support guy tells the main character in both movies, since I think that interpretation works best with the themes Amenabar and, moreso, Crowe seem to want to get across.

The real crux is that this is a guy who's living a fantasy life having known only the "sweet" and never the "sour" (to use the film's terms). Upon possibly falling in love with Cruz (if even on a superficiall level), he promptly falls back into the old routine and gets in the car with Diaz.

Afterwards, he finally gets a taste of the sour, when he's more-or-less rejected by Cruz, based on his disfigurement. However, when he creates his lucid dream program, it has traces of both sweet and sour in it, whether it's by design or unconsciously. His recognition of both the good and the bad in life only truly occurs in the dream, which happens to be malfunctioning due to his guilt. Thus he makes the choice to emerge, a more fully-realized person.

I think, although the device may be more clearly explained in VS, it's not the plot, but the theme that makes both these movies work, and Crowe's version gets it across better, IMO.

Just picked up OYE for $9 bucks at Target. Will watch someday. Will let you know...