Open Your Eyes
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.49 You Save: $7.49 (75%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.40 (click here) Category: VHS Video See more movie releases |
|---|
Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
VHS Movie Reviews of Open Your Eyes
Movie Review: Better than Vanilla Sky Fo' Sure
Summary: 4 Stars
I loved Vanilla Sky. But, Open Your Eyes makes sure the audience gets the point that the writer of the movie is trying to convey, unlike Vanilla Sky. Watching Open Your Eyes, you too feel trapped along with Cesar.
One major difference for me between Vanilla and Eyes is that I felt sorry for Cesar and I didn't for the Tom Cruise character. Cesar was a younger, more childish, and a simpler man than the Tom Cruise character and I could therefore believe in Cesar's arrogance, snobbery, and immaturity with love and sex.
Movie Review: Mind-boggling, worldview-altering film
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm not sure if this movie has yet achieved classic status, but it certainly should. Open Your Eyes is the smartest, most powerful, and most important film I've seen in a long, long time. I was literally speechless at the end. Speechless! That doesn't happen too often.
Essentially, the story centers around Cesar (Eduardo Noriega), an impossibly handsome moneyed bachelor who has but a few passions, and the most pronounced of those is sex. After spending time with Sofia (Penelope Cruz), his jilted girlfriend, Nuria (Najwa Nimri) drives her car off the road, killing herself and horribly mutilating Cesar's face. Soon after, reality begins to break apart, and Cesar must try to understand what led up to his being committed to an asylum, accused of a murder he doesn't remember committing. Then the fun starts. If you enjoy having the rug pulled out from under you, trying to put together the puzzle without all the pieces, then chances are you'll enjoy this little gem. However, this movie isn't about psychological tricks at all--if you check out the liner notes for the DVD, Amenabar has a sort of mini-essay where he says that the movie is about alienation, and the opening scene is an indellible image: the city of Madrid, home of 5 million people, completely empty. It always comes to mind when I'm walking down a lonely road.
So, you might be wondering, do I see this or the Tom Cruise American remake? The answer is: this one. It's not hard to see why this movie didn't fare quite so well in America--many people here have become so isolationistic and close-minded that they don't want to watch a movie with subtitles. Then again, these are the same people who complain that Hollywood doesn't make good movies anymore but don't bother to watch independent films either. Not only that, but this movie doesn't give much in the way of closure--it can be taken at face value, but too many small mysteries abound to bring about a final resolution, and many audiences here would just as soon not pay money to see a movie if they don't know what happened. I'm not a film snob, by the way--I have enjoyed a few Arnold Schwarzenegger movies in my day (he makes a better politician than actor) and I don't bore other people with harangues on the genius of Kubrick, Altman, Cassavetes, etc. The remake, though, was far more in spirit to American cinema today--all the ambiguities and mysteries that enrichened the original film were stripped out to create a film with less feeling and far more closure. I'm actually surprised that the remake got that close, considering the studios today.
Now, my soapboxing over, please enjoy the film. If you don't mind subtitles--heck, even if you don't like them but keep an open mind--you'll no doubt be enthralled, as I was.
Movie Review: Luscious, disturbing, darker than the US version
Summary: 4 Stars
As a native speaker of Spanish, I thought my original preference of Abre los Ojos, or OYE, over Vanilla Sky was natural. Now, after having lived five years in the United States, I realize that, while both movies have their own special characteristics, I still prefer OYE because the main character, Cesar, is more intense and well-formed. Other acting jobs I found to be almost interchangeable, but maybe not in a bad way. Definitely see this version first, to feel the intense emotions, then VS for plot clarification, if necesary.Movie Review: A good psychological thriller
Summary: 3 Stars
The story is well constructed and well told with very fine acting. The DVD does not contain a lot of bells and whistles, but I still recommend it.
Now for the comparison between "Open Your Eyes" and "Vanilla Sky". I don't see why anyone would like OYE better than VS because up until the final chapter, they're almost exactly alike.
OYE is better in some ways and VS is better in others. The plot developments are explained slightly better in OYE than in VS, and I certainly loved the make-up job of the disfigured young man in OYE. But I prefer the animated acting in VS, and the final sequence in VS is a lot better than in OYE.
Movie Review: Opened my eyes once, don't need to see the same thing.
Summary: 4 Stars
I suspect the thing about well-realised non-US movies that makes them so difficult to remake for a Hollywood audience, is that there is a particular emotive approach employed in the storytelling that is also adopted by its particular audience, that simply isn't easily tapped into by most of us who (willingly or not) are tuned into the US-centric film culture.
I haven't seen "Vanilla Sky". I don't particularly want to. It might be just as good as "Open Your Eyes", I don't know. I suspect however, that the passion that is peculiar to non-western storytelling is missing, and without that, this story would be hard to retell without being contrived.
I was entralled by "Open your eyes" and its characters, who were portrayed by actors with whom I was personally unfamiliar at the time. This helped, in that the celebrity factor was not there to distract from the narrative.
Why did "Vanilla Sky" bomb? Probably because it was a mature story aimed at the Tom Cruise fanclub. Mature, deep-thinking audiences don't want to see Tom Cruise. And Tom Cruise fans don't want to think too hard at the cinema. All points to Tom for undertaking cerebral projects, but both he and Hollywood have got a way to go before they'll be synonymous with anything other than overly expensive "cheap" cash-ins.