Reviews: DVD

Eyes Wide Shut

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman

I wonder if Stanley Kubrick took pleasure in demanding big name stars to perform scenes over and over again. In The Shining, he got Jack Nicholson to repeat a scene many times until he was satisfied with the performance.

In Eyes Wide Shut, it's Tom Cruise's turn to go under the director's studious microscope. By Cruise's side, is his then-wife Nicole Kidman in this moribund study of what goes on in the minds of those behind closed doors.

No one plays a yuppie in a bind quite like Cruise. But unlike previous roles, his character does not walk away unscathed from a web of jealousy, lust and temptation. Kidman is splendid a delicious mix of seduction, suspicion and disassociation.

Indolently paced, Eyes Wide Shut's cloak and dagger plot is really secondary in importance to the moods Kubrick wants to inspire along the way. For a director once accused of making emotionally cold movies, here he penetrates the heart and the head.

Ben Davey

Sudden Impact

Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke

Clint Eastwood takes the directorial reigns in this, the fourth film of the Dirty Harry franchise. The first thing you notice about his way of running things is that Eastwood, also the star, has done a little house cleaning. Whoosh! Goodbye character development or cohesive plot, hello more shootings and chase sequences. It's a clear statement about what Eastwood thinks draws an audience to the Harry Callahan movies: gunfights, graphic killings and little talk except for the requisite tough-guy one-liners.

In Sudden Impact, the catch cry is: "Go ahead, make my day". When Dirty Harry spits out this line through clinched teeth, you know that a few bad guys are going to wind up with cavities in their craniums. But Harry isn't the only one blasting holes in criminals so too is Sondra Locke, who plays Jennifer Spencer, a vigilante rape victim tracking down her tormentors.

Her character is meant to create a moral quandary, as in, even though she's a killer, she's also seeking the same kind of instant justice that Harry specializes in. However, Eastwood doesn't really address big questions about whether revenge under certain circumstances is acceptable and Spencer only succeeds as a tool to double the bodycount.

BD

Tristan and Isolde

Directed by Kevin Reynolds, starring James Franco, Sophia Myles

Hailed as a Celtic myth of forbidden passion and doomed romance, the movie has proved disappointing. Although the costumes look fine, the acting in no way compares to the great music by Richard Wagner.

Tristan (James Franco) has not turned out to be the dashing hero who can win over all girls at first glance. The pale young man seems better fit for the role of Hamlet, but then again, the Danish prince has an eloquence, which Franco hasn't displayed in any of his films. Isolde (Sophia Myles) looks like a fair lady, but her conduct suggests otherwise. The film is set in the pre-Arthurian dark ages, but one would expect greater elegance from the Irish princess.

The few fighting scenes are OK, but they fail to establish Tristan as the best fighter. What does impress the viewer, however, is the struggling of Isolde torn between her duty to the country and her true love.

Liu Jun

(China Daily 04/19/2007 page20)