Vanilla Sky (SPOILERS so don't bitch if you haven't seen it and you read this anyhow)

Plus, I just plain don't like that Scientologist schmuck.

And, yes, the use of music in the flick was excellent. Even the songs that sucked (though I didn't recognize any of the songs as suck- worthy).

Exception to the Jason Lee rule: Enemy of the State. That's a fantastic movie! Almost as good as Spy Game. I love Tony Scott!

The whole thing is stupid, I hate the ending, it was a cop out. I felt like I was watching Dallas or Dynasty or something, "Our hero didn't really do all this nasty thing and he's not really crazy, he's dreaming!" Oh my ass he's dreaming. I would've really, really liked it if the last half hour did not exist. Metaphysical crap should never, ever be in any form of popular entertainment. It should be banned from everything. "You are in a lucid dream, your subconcious is just disturbed and unhappy".

Plus, now this might be very geeky nitpicking, but here's the thing. The science behind the entire film is COMPLETELY WRONG therefore the whole thing becomes bollocks. The theory behind cryogenic freezing, as crap as THAT is, involves the person still being alive when they are frozen. It slows down the body's functions to near death in hopes that it keeps a person alive in a permanent state until they can bring them back. Clearly this isn't something that actually works yet. Regardless, you need to be a living thing before they psuedo- kill you in deep freeze. Tom Cruise's character KILLS HIMSELF in his real life, as opposed to his dream life. Therefore, he cannot be cryogenically frozen and be brought back to life later. Because he is ALREADY DEAD. They will thaw him out and have nowt but a DEAD FROZEN CORPSE. This really, really, really bothered me, as geeky as it is. I mean, it like super bothered me. Note that the damned dog they keep carrying on about was alive when it got frozen. Tom Cruise = dead, i.e. not alive. Argh.

Plus, am I the only person who thinks TOm Cruise looks completely insane at all times? I mean his smile is the scariest thing going.

But what I really want to discuss is the preview for Queen of the Damned, how godawful does THAT look? Why did people cast Aaliyah in movies? And what, is TOm Cruise too good to play Lestat now that he's Mr. Big Shot Cameron Crowe Art Wanky Film Man?

Queen of the Damned though, it looks like the biggest b-movie ever. I really, really am not looking forward to seeing that. I might actually protest and insist Ramon go by himself, cos he still wants to see it even after admitting it looks like the worst movie ever made. Time Machine on the other hand looks fantastic. Guy Pearce looks like a chimp, did you ever notice that? And he looks so haggard in it, it's gotta be great. And Samantha Mumba!

On a side note, Joei watched "Unbreakable" last night and proclaimed it to be one of the worst movies ever. Apparently it's a combination of the inexplicable stupidity of "Magnolia" with the internal plot disconnect of "Vanilla Sky". The only scene that she described that sounded like it was any good was Samuel L. Jackson falling down the stairs.

You could put that in most movies and it would be the best scene in it.

Another cool thing about "Vanilla Sky": Tom Cruise shows us what he really looks like under all that makeup!

I thought the whole middle section in the club and after where he tries to get back into things was very, very disturbing.

And do you mean the car crash? Because I thought her last scene was later on, where they're fucking and, uh, he finally realizes important plot stuff.

Speaking of the car crash, though... Am I the only person who would NEVER have gotten into that car with her? Also, the final goodbye was a little silly. I mean, he finally found true love and it was himself. How Tom Cruise is that?

So Fight Club meets a Harlequin Romance novel, then.

As for the cryogenic problem Ally raised, I remember reading somewhere that brain activity continues for something like an hour after 'death'. In the movie they said something about how they had to get to your body very soon, or something.

Well, another thing that interests me about this film, and something that no one else has really commented on is the whole pop culture fixation. The idea that things like advertising and art shape our ideas of how things 'should' be, and how they are, is interesting to me. In the film, Cruise's character has film posters of french new wave films in his bedroom, and his love scene with Cruz is filmed like a french new wave love scene (all the freeze frames). There is more stuff like this everywhere. Is this art as subsitute for 'real' experience? It almost feels like the movie is a criticism of people like me, who too often shun life in favor of it's imitations.

I also think that the movie doesn't explain as much as it pretends to. Why does Cruz's voice open the movie saying "Abre Los Ojos"? It's a dream, but why her voice before he even meets her? Too many strange things in that movie...

Tho' Jason Lee probably would have been a decent Monkee.

I would like a VSII charting David's life 150 years in the future!

I liked the music, but almost felt Crowe was ticking off the hip bands one by one. Diaz was fab tho' and it was prob P.Cruz's least worst performance in English. Also it was great how many well- known actors were in support roles and didn't even get a sniff at the poster, etc.

The whole movie was however THROWN by the fact that the guy playing Tech Support is known in UK for something very different. But I mustn't spoil...

wow so I kind of can't believe I used to like this movie

It's pretty bad. The original Spanish movie is somewhat better, but not particularly good either. Though it's kinda funny that in the original the guy gets way more disfigured after the accident than Cruise does in the remake. Even though the whole point is that he is now ugly, apparently Tom Cruise can't become too ugly.

my memory of it was that it was rubbish but kind of entertaining rubbish if you accept that it's rubbish. Would I change my mind were I to see it again?

I changed my mind without seeing it again; basically every time I thought back to this movie, I hated it a little bit more.

Cameron Diaz was still pretty great in it, though.