Open Your Eyes
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VHS Movie Reviews of Open Your Eyes
Movie Review: This is a very good movie
Summary: 4 Stars
I got this movie so that I will continue to improve on my Spainish. I am thrilled to find such good movie in the process. I have seen Vanillia Sky, but this is so much better, in some way much more original. The performances...what can I say, I stayed glued to the television until the end.Movie Review: Seeing Is Not Believing
Summary: 5 Stars
A director friend of mine is fond of saying that you shouldn't believe anything you see on television, anything. Indeed, the wag that said, "The camera never lies" would be lost in our era where the camera seems incapable of doing anything else. The inability to believe our most trusted source of information is at the heart of Abre Los Ojos, or, Open Your Eyes, a superb film by Alejandro Amenabar.
The plot, such as it is, is readily available elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the value of beauty, of image and perception, are the themes that drive it on every level. It stars the near perfect Penelope Cruz whose grace exudes a vulnerability reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn, she projects an almost angelic appeal. Her character, another woman, and two men form a rather odd four-pointed love triangle, which culminates in tragedy. This is a fairly pedestrian tale of love gone amiss, but as it unravels clues appear that hint at sub-texts, men moving furiously behind the scenery, maintaining illusions, dreams within dreams, perceptions with more weight that reality.
As we begin to see through the layers of deception we have the sense of knowing less, not more, and yet, each new revelation draws us further in. Multi-layered stories like this usually collapse under the weight of their own complexity, not this one. Open Your Eyes is like a sumptuous impressionist painting; gorgeous when viewed from across the room, more fascinating still when viewed from inches away, when it is almost possible to see the hand of the master, applying his signature.
This brilliant film was sent to the Hollywood puppy mill where it emerged as Vanilla Sky, directed by Cameron Crowe. Like all retreads, it had some virtue because the source it cannibalized was so good. In a deliciously ironic twist, it even allowed Penelope Cruz to reprise her role as Sofia. But Vanilla Sky invites viewers to close their eyes, not open them, in a desperate attempt to avoid seeing Tom Cruise sleepwalk through a dense, complex part requiring nuance, a word he might labor to spell much less convey. Then again, perhaps the presence of Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky is emphatic evidence of the point Abre Los Ojos makes so brilliantly. After all, for years the camera has been telling us that he's an actor.
Movie Review: Haunting thriller: the second masterpiece of Alejandro Amenabar!
Summary: 5 Stars
Where does the fantasy begin and where does it finishes? Labyrinths of the reason intersect with the game of open possibilities in this puzzled and superbly well built thriller that will burn at your eyes. To intend to describe the fabulous script would become a sacrilege, go for this one. There are fine sequences that reminds us to David Lynch. And this is by itself a remarkable point to his favor.
Amenabar proves he is the most prominent and ambitious director of his generation. Prolific, ingenious and profoundly original around his narrative perspective.
Movie Review: Better than Vanilla Sky
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie was much better than "Vanilla Sky." "Vanilla Sky" mostly copied "Open Your Eyes" but was too obvious and less convincing. (And Tom Cruise, though good in some roles, didn't fit this role well.) "Open Your Eyes" takes a little longer to draw you in, but once it has you there it takes you far beyond where "Vanilla Sky" does. Also, the Jungian Dream aspect in "Vanilla Sky" is poorly done, whereas "Open Your Eyes" represents the dream experience very well. I recommend watching both movies before you buy one. But if you're going to buy, get "Open Your Eyes."Movie Review: The Road Less Taken
Summary: 5 Stars
Alejandro Amenabar has only directed four feature films-and yet his reputation as a genuine wunderkind continues to grow. Back in the early 90's-while attending film school in Madrid-he flunked out. He went on to direct a couple terrific short films-which led to his feature film debut-TESIS (1996). He gave us OJOS in 1998 and he emerged as a full-fledged film director, writer, producer, music composer, and sometimes actor-not bad for a lad who flunked out of film school.
Tom Cruise saw OJOS at Sundance, and he bought up the rights for a remake. That project became VANILLA SKY. It is an interesting film-but it pales in comparison to this Spanish original. Amenabar was hired to write the screenplay for SKY-and he went on to direct Nicole Kidman in THE OTHERS for Cruise's production company. Amenabar has been compared to Hitchcock because of the marked creepiness of his first three films. I see influences from Kubrick, Lynch, and Argento as well. He went on to break the mold by directing last year's brilliant THE SEA INSIDE with Javier Bardem.
In ABRE LOS OJOS, it was Amenabar that first turned the film world inside out and created a new film modality-blending the genres of drama, thriller, science fiction, and romance-with a touch of soft-core porn. He took us to new places that later we rediscovered in MATRIX country-places of the mind, of lucid dreaming, of cryogenics and bathos. He used classic themes-that those thin and handsome amongst us would be devastated if their beauty was wrested them. They would prefer oblivion and life within their own cortex-plugged into a super computer.
Eduardo Noriega was brilliant as the young angst-ridden protagonist-Cesar. He portrayed just the right amount of smugness, good looks, arrogance, and conceit. He was not likeable. We could see that he deserved his karmic fate. The role did not fit so comfortably on Tom Cruise. He wanted to be liked-and it weakened the fabric of the plot. Cruise could not dig deep enough within himself to find the real creepiness, the sullen callousness, and then the genuine despair. Penelope Cruz, the "Madonna of Madrid" played Sofia in both films. She was radiant in OJOS. She was pedestrian in SKY. Nude-she was wonderful in each version, of course.
OJOS is a treasure trove of delights and surprises-pain and thrills and passion. It is a colossal achievement from a young filmmaker who seems to be both genius and a maverick. I look forward to his next effort.