Eyes Wide Shut

[Pozer]

dude, reed... he never kept in touch with you actors.  stop lying and get the fuck over it.  call up mcdowell and vent out to him or something.  

[Pubrick]

ok now i'm angry.

first of all, christiane and ppl far closer to him than R Lee "owes his fucking career to kubrick" Ermey have said that kubrick was proud of the film. why would he tell Ermey otherwise two weeks before he died, before the film had even screened to ANYONE, and use the language he's pretending to have quoted verbatim? "those were the exact words he used". wow, really, so he talks like you now does he? none of it makes sense.. how did tom and nicole have their way with him? nicole might've had nothing better to do but tom willingly lost millions of dollars in the three years he spent with kubrick. Pozer is right that Ermey seems to be suffering from mcdowell syndrome.

it raises so many questions about Ermey's motives.. what was the point of saying that? surely it's not doing kubrick's image any favours, it only fuels negativity with the only purpose of the story being that it's ok to hate EWS cos kubrick hated it himself. it could also be viewed as an anti-tom/nicole story, of course, and in the bigger picture anti-big stars.. is he jealous? was he under pressure to recount an "exclusive" story for his waning fanbase? "SIR YES SIR FUCK EWS SIR, BY DEFAULT FMJ IS THE BEST NOW SIR." whatever, whatever. the worst part about LIES is how easy they are to make, compared to how difficult they are to disprove. whichever way you look at it, Ermey said it for utterly selfish reasons.

still angry.

[Chest Rockwell]

I don't believe for a second that Kubrick hated Eyes Wide Shut that much. Honestly, he put so much effort into controlling everything that happens and spent so much time nailing the performances and composition that there just isn't any possible way he could think it a "huge piece of shit." And even if he did, doesn't seem right that Ermey can just come out and try to further exacerbate the EWS problem. It's slowly becoming more and more accepted as the masterpiece it truly is; it doesn't need some probably-false quotes from Kubrick about how much it sucks.

[RegularKarate]

I can see Kubrick now... "I don't feel so well, I think I'm going to call up my closest and dearest friend R Lee Ermey, the man who took the opportunity I gave him and ran away like a gleeful cartoon bank robber with a bag of money, laughing and clicking his heels as he jumped for joy.  I can never tell the truth to my family and colleagues, I have to feed them bullshit, R. Lee is the only one I can be honest too.. I'm gonna tell him how I really feel about possibly the best film I've ever made.  It STINKS... Pee U!"

seriously though, only explanation: Ermey's drunk... "*hic* tell you what else... *blurp*... Tobe Hooper called me five days before HE died and told me Texash Chainshaw Maasacre SUCKED and that the REMAKE was the best he'd ever sheen!"

[modage]

well i'll tell y'all what!  stanley called ME up about two weeks before he died, and we had a long conversation about Full Metal Jacket.  He told me it was a piece of shit and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics had him for lunch.  He said R. Lee Ermy had his way with him--  exactly the words he used.  Kubrick was kind of a shy little timid guy.  He wasn't real forceful, that's why he didn't appreciate working with former drill sargeants, they would have their way with him and his movie would turn to shit!

[last days of gerry the elephant]

...and b) who gives a fucking damn about ermey anyway? his comments is just a piece of hogwash in the midst of a press junkett for a film that will be in bargain bins before you can even say 'full metal jacket'. 

That pretty much sums it up. Well done.

[Alexandro]

and in any case, it would't be strange for a genius filmmaker to suffer extreme anxiety at some point before the finishing of the film and call it a "piece of shit"...that doesn't mean is the director's final opinion...that would be another possibility, although i'll go with the l. ermeey's story is bullshit routine...

kubrick's opinion means nothing now. he's dead and the film speaks for itself, which is he way he wanted it to be.

[Gold Trumpet]

What? Kubrick hates only Eyes Wide Shut? He should be slamming Full Metal Jacket and The Shining as well!

Haha, I really don't care. Yes, I'm smiling because Eyes Wide Shut has no value in my eyes, but I'm also smiling because the sudden attempt here to de legitimize Ermey is just funny to me. Who gives a shit? No one knows if he's telling the truth. I know Ermey still stands on his Full Metal Jacket legacy but this is the first time I'm hearing of a long standing friendship between Stanley and him. So maybe Ermey isn't just trying to profiteer. Maybe Ermey was caught in a candid moment in just another interview. I don't fucking know. I also never believe anything directors say. They say anything and everything and it always relates more to the stress they are under than actual honesty.

My brain is rackled by all the times Sam Peckinpah spoke badly about good work he had done just because it was made under insane stress. Yes, sometimes he truly was censored, but many times he always facing an uphill battle and it wore on him. So something got to Stanley and he said some things. I doubt his losing control to Cruise and Kidman was as simple as said, but actors have clashed with directors to change direction of a film. The situation of Edward Norton and Tony Kaye on American History X is notorious.

Again, who knows. I'm speculating. I just hope the outrage continues. Quite fun.

[Derek237]

I have to admit, though, that one of my more famous lines didn't come from anything I heard in the military: "I bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamnned common courtesy to give him a reach-around." I forgot my lines one day and it just came out of the sky. God sent it down to me.

Joan of Arc, eat your heart out.

[Pubrick]

I just hope the outrage continues.

i hope your life doesn't. 

[Fernando]

I think this is hilarious.

Did you enjoy your gay make out scene in Saving Silverman?
There was no tongue involved, no reach-arounds. It was business. We had to do it for the movie, and we pulled it off. Jack Black's a fun guy to hang out with, and there's not a gay bone in his body, so I felt very secure.

Was it the first time you'd kissed a man? Or should that be under the "don't ask, don't tell" rubric?
No, that would be the extent of my male connection. Other than that there has been none and there will be none. The old Gunny won't be coming out of the closet anytime soon. I love tanks and things that make loud explosions.

Like that excludes you from being gay, haha.

About what Gunny said, let's believe for a sec. he did talk to SK, so taking that wild guess I'd say he's taking Kubrick out of context, so I don't believe him, and who cares if Kubrick did call it a piece of shit, at the end of the day I still love that wonderful piece of shit and that's all that matters.


And GT, we get it, you're over EWS, I only wonder if you are over the fact that you once loved it.

1.) Eyes Wide Shut
2.) Princess Mononoke
3.) Magnolia
4.) The War Zone
5.) Three Kings
6.) Boys Don't Cry
7.) The Insider
8.) The Talented Mr. Ripley
9.) American Movie
10.) Bringing Out The Dead

~rougerum

[modage]

i believe i can tell you why he doesnt like it. 

"blah blah, going against the grain, comparison to film that doesnt remotely relate here, point out 100 examples of things the film should have done if it were to do things it did do, blah blah, obscure quote here.

~rougerum"

basically because he loves criticism more than he loves film.

[grand theft sparrow]

modage is fighting GT!

[Pozer]

basically because he loves criticism more than he loves film.

best example of the guy that's ever been said.  at the very least, he doesn't use joel siegel like quotes when he gives his crap reviews.

[MacGuffin]

"blah blah, going against the grain, comparison to film that doesnt remotely relate here, point out 100 examples of things the film should have done if it were to do things it did do, blah blah, obscure quote here.

~rougerum"

Wow, I think that's the first GT review I read all the way through.