Vanilla Sky

[oakmanc234]

redlum said: Oh and amazing use of Todd Rundgrens "Can we still be friends"!

Yep. That song in the film was suitably F***ING CREEPY. It made the sceen all the more horrific. Kinda like 'Stuck in the middle with you' during the torture sceen in 'Reservoir Dogs'.

[RegularKarate]

Maybe the soundtrack doesnt click well with the majority of people, but personally it is one of the things that MAKES the film for me. I have since bought the official soundtrack, and hunted down each song used in the film to make myself a "Volume 2" of sorts.  

Once again, it's not that the soundtrack didn't "Click" with me, I fucking love the music.  It was just so poorly used (with the possible exception of the last scene, but by that time, I was just bored)  the music just doesn't fit and someone who concerns himself so much with music like Crowe should know better.

[ProgWRX]

im going to need examples, because every piece of music i can think of fits perfectly with each scene

Solsbury hill when they are in Sofia's apartment  
Like i mentioned, radiohead's everything in its right place at the beginning,   REm's all the right friends when he is picking up Brian, MY favorite things playing at the party, Jeff Buckley "last goodbye" after he leaves sofia apartment , sweetness follows, etc

[children with angels]

On the commentry, Crowe mentions that they were listening to Kid A all the time during the shoot, and it occurred to me recently that the movie kind of reflects the arc of the album: it begins with everything apparently fine (Everything in its right place is actually used, obviously), and ends with a strangely sad affirmation of hope (Motion Picture Soundtrack's final "I will see you in the next life" is echoed with the last line "I'll see you in another life when we are both cats..."). In between, things are weird and wonderful and dark. Pretty cool...

[Sleuth]

I always felt that Motion Picture Soundtrack was the musical equivalent of VS

[nevereven]

I thought it was a film that could have been really bad, but the whole warmth of the film, the fact that i actually cared for most of the characters, (apart from kurt russell) carried it for me.

But you`re right the ending sucked.

[©brad]

im going to need examples, because every piece of music i can think of fits perfectly with each scene

Solsbury hill when they are in Sofia's apartment  
Like i mentioned, radiohead's everything in its right place at the beginning,   REm's all the right friends when he is picking up Brian, MY favorite things playing at the party, Jeff Buckley "last goodbye" after he leaves sofia apartment , sweetness follows, etc

love the solsbury hill scene. play that next time ur with a girl and tell me if she doesn't pounce on u right then. my favorite part music wise is Nancy Wilson's score- its great, especially the part near the end when tom cruise runs into sofia's apartment to find cameron beating the shit out of him- then she runs to the bathroom and penelope comes out- the piano piece right then is fucking good.

[Dendy]

I think the reason many of you think the music is poorly used is because the majority of the movie is David Aames' dream.  

When somebody is dreaming, little bits of their life pop into the dream, (images, people, places, MUSIC).  

Which also ties into the final building jump, life flashing before eyes montage.

[Gold Trumpet]

I never really liked the film myself. Complaints obviously go for the ending and all, but much more than that. I understood what it was trying to say underneath it all with what certain decisions can bring to someone's life and all, but I only really understood that within a period of a minute or less at the end of the movie where things are tidied up into some conveyed sense, but the rest of the movie feels like an ineffective strange movie that goes from situation of weirdness to drama to strange twist and relaying Cruise in a world of different characters that allows himself to take on so many aspects of what a character can do. The most insighful review by a critic, from Stanley Kauffmann, dismissed the entire plot in review and said it could be argued for being good or not, but said it was not. The main thing to him is that it seemed to be a movie aimed to show Cruise off in how he wants to be seen himself as an actor now. That the entire movie was for Cruise to play a character who goes through all these things and that was the only thing it seemed focused on. I'm agreeing because the movie dealt mainly with Cruise's character making dramatic shifts while all the supporting characters really seemed tangled in uneven ways of importance or relation to Cruise, but the gauntlet of Cruise showing every excessive way of acting continued. In the end, the mess was tidied up to fit an idea that would of course try to make it feel like a movie, but during the entire thing, it seemed like a vehicle for Cruise himself to announce his days of Top Gun were over and in case you didn't catch Magnolia, he is now playing characters of this emotional extreme.

~rougerum

[ProgWRX]

then in your eyes, the real person to blame would be Alejandro Amenabar and Mateo Gil, for writing Abre Los Ojos in such a way that the David/Cesar character goes through that journey. Does it bother you that much when Eduardo Noriega goes thru it? Or is it just bad in this case because its Tom Cruise, and not some indie actor?

Dont get me wrong, I dont want to diss your opinion, but i highly disagree that the movie intended to be just a showcase for Tom Cruise, specially considering that it wasnt even written with him in mind.

[Gold Trumpet]

First off, I've never seen the original ever so will not even attempt to comment on it. Do I think the main reason the producers even made the movie for the showcase of Cruise? No. Do I think that is the final result though of the movie? Yes. Its in my interpretation of the movie that the only concise thing gotten from the movie was the showcase of Cruise the actor in how he wants to be seen as. Everything else is jumbled.

~rougerum

[Redlum]

First off, I've never seen the original ever so will not even attempt to comment on it. Do I think the main reason the producers even made the movie for the showcase of Cruise? No. Do I think that is the final result though of the movie? Yes. Its in my interpretation of the movie that the only concise thing gotten from the movie was the showcase of Cruise the actor in how he wants to be seen as. Everything else is jumbled.

~rougerum

Do you come to these conclusions whilst watching the film. Or does that happen afterwards?

I think Cruise played a very hard character. David obviously had some deep issues that weren't neccessarily the focus of this story but are still there none the less. His relationship with his father, feeling like a failure in his eyes and the Atticus Finch idea. All pretty hard to convey when on the surface he's just a charming, two-timing rich kid.

I think the focus of this film is a bit mis-directed, thats all. What you get out of it depends on the angle you take when you watch it. For me The score of To Kill a Mocking Bird kind of nailed it. Pretty vague but it just reminds of the innoncence of childhood and how easily it can be lost. Translated to TC's character its kind of sad. Its just hard to see because on the outside he's Citizen Dildo.

[Gold Trumpet]

I got my thoughts from that one review I read which was the only one having it, and then I went back and watched the film again to see if I thought it was correct, and it was. But see, the movie is never really clear about how it wants to view itself even in making a movie that is confusing. It seems to go from one story to another, with threads of a storyline that could fit together, but really little focus in shaping it to a focus of one theme. When I watched the end and the give away, I was like, "Oh, thats what it wanted to show us." The answer to the movie was given to me in a matter of dialogue. Like I said before, the only clear focus in the movie is Tom Cruise and his showing off to how many changes his character can make. The storyline seemed so jumbled that in its mess of arranging characters from one importance to another to Cruise that by the end, it decided to end it all on "explain everything to credit the first hour and a half". The movie just doesn't seem like it is coming from a good natural spot in trying to convey a story and ideas.

~rougerum

[manvstrees]

THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN.
never have i seen something that falls so flat on its face.
every line of dialogue makes me cringe.
and never have i seen a movie where its more obvious how the director was attempting to pull you in.  
cameron crowe is a bane to the film industry.
awful.

[Wesabeck]

THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN.
never have i seen something that falls so flat on its face.
every line of dialogue makes me cringe.
and never have i seen a movie where its more obvious how the director was attempting to pull you in.  
cameron crowe is a bane to the film industry.
awful.

BULLDICKIE!!!

listen man, Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky is a damn good movie, not as good as Abres Los Ojos, nor is it a modern masterpiece but its a damn good film.  Considering all the crap that is thrown up on the screen these days, I very much appreciated all the thought that was put in to this film, plus hidden secrets inserted into this film.  Like the Exodus references in Magnolia, these secrets are very fun to look for.  
I don't know what you mean by the dialogue, I thought it was very well written and well acted.  Some people were getting so into it, that they were highly disappointed that this turned out to be more a sci-fi film and not a romantic-dramedy.  
I compare this film to A.I. in a lot of ways, a misfire that really shouldn't have been made (or remade in this case) but still a good film.  Cameron Crowe isn't a bane to the film industry either and I hope he makes many more exceptional films in the years to come.