I've sworn off posting, but I had to write in response to some innacuracies. I LOVED Eyes Wide Shut, and think that its 'slowness' is merely relative. There is no rule how many events must happen within a certain length of time in a film. The film has an aura of too-bright Christmastime with something rotten inside, and it's maintained from beginning to end in each visual, plotting, and even musical respect. In the 12 years since Stanley Kubrick's LAST 'slow' masterpiece, our attention spans have shrunken to microscopic proporions, and the film biz has changed for the (EVEN) worse! It's been so long since a truly didactic (and I don't use this term pejoritavely AT ALL) film has been allowed to be made even on the indie circuit, let alone a studio film starring Cruise and Kidman, that people can scarcely believe the ice-cold dissection of a universal human conundrum that awaits them. But it's a Kubrick film and that's what he does, and it's done well in Eyes Wide Shut. Oh, I thought it was wholly inappropriate all the laughter that Marie Richardson (who in fact is NOT the prostitute who saves Tom, but the girl whose father died) was greeted with when she appeared on screen. Let's consider some Marie Richardson/Eyes Wide Shut facts, shall we? -Marie is Swedish, and a VERY fine actress. She has been featured in many latter day Bergman offerings (written by Bergman, not directed of course, as he's retired) and was presumably hand picked by Kubrick for her acclaim. Her accent may have contributed to the misunderstanding of the scene, but the informed film-goer, aware of who Richardson is, her nationality, and her stature in the acting community, will recognize the accent as entirely natural and frankly not out of step with the serious tone of the film at all. I'm sure there's many a wealthy international heiress residing in upper-crust New York. Her character is one of them. -Her character has just experienced a profound emotional loss. Her reaction on screen, though laughed at as too corny or melodramatic, is in fact the very kind of hysterical, dazed reaction a person would likely have when presented with the stark shock of the death of a loved one. -The irony of the scene is precisely the same as that of the final scene, and in fact several scenes throughout the film. Richardson's character has experienced this emotional devastation, but her animal instincts take over. She throws herself at Cruise in a panic, uncontrollably, desperately, and I thought rather sadly, while her father's freshly dead body lies in the background. The horrifying arbitrariness of this instinct is driven home when her boyfriend arrives and is revealed, in fact, to be just as fine a specimen as Cruise is. Why would she do this, behave in such a pathetic way when her father is dead and she's already comitted to a man equally accomplished and sexually desirable to Cruise's doctor? The point of this scene is the point of the film; you can ask "why", evaluate, explore, and discuss the issue all you wish, and your only answer will still be: As a human being, you're stuck in an endless balancing act between your animal drives and your evolved ones. Viva Kubrick! -2 or 3 Things I Know About Chris Post-post test courtesy of miranda july Section 5: Word Use Pupil uses three given words in one sentence. Example: Disco/Hope/Apocalypse: "When the apocalypse comes, I hope I'm at the disco." 1. Merchant/Bread/Buy 2. Wake/Up/Bitch 3. Slap/Slap/Slap 4. River/Fish/Boat +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+