Tuesday, 3 August 1999

READERS RANT & RAVE

Welcome to the longest ever issue of The Hot Button. Easily. This one is loaded with about 6500 words of your thoughts on The Blair Witch Project and Eyes Wide Shut. Unfortunately, only the first two pages are spoiler free. (If you feel that issues of the reality/unreality of Blair Witch are spoilers, don't read any of it.) The rest are meant for those of you who have seen the films. Page Three will start the detailed debate about The Blair Witch Project. And for those of you who want to jump to Eyes Wide Shut, click here.

But before we start, I want to apologize for a typo that hit the column yesterday. Edgar Ulmer is indeed Edgar Ulmer and not Elmer Fudd (as one reader pointed out). Lately, Ulmer, Neil/Mark Canton and the release date of Mystery Men have shown sloppiness on my part, I apologize.

This week's great distraction is my family, with whom I spent Monday crawling through passage ways at Sea World, getting soaked on the disappointing Shipwreck Rapids (the kids still insisted on going five times) and deciding that LegoLand was not worth the same amount of money as Disneyland or Universal Studios. (That is, if you are over six. Apparently, it's a land of joy for the kiddies. Still grossly overpriced, if you ask me.) The day before we spent at the beach. I have to tell you, seeing two kids amusing themselves in the ice cold Pacific and on the sand for hours, without benefit of much sun, reminded me of how easy it is to lose touch with the simplicity of joy. There is a dark side too, when cranky time arrives and all that passion turns into whining. But as someone who sees three to five films a week, a big part of the job has to be maintaining that idea of simple joy. I want to roll in the surf of film and get its sandy pieces in my shorts. It's irritating, sure. But it's a reminder of the experience. Of the smell of the fun. We all spend a little too much time bitching about the weather here on Movie Beach. And you all are a regular reminder for me that sometimes I just need to dive right in without checking the temperature with my big toe. Thanks for that.

The first letter is from Good Will: "Tonight I think was the most fascinating night of moviegoing I have ever, and probably will ever, have. The Blair Witch Project and Eyes Wide Shut. In the case of Blair Witch, I was determined not to be disappointed. For Eyes, I was certain I wouldn't be. I have to say that I'm not sure why Blair is considered as scary as it is. I think it could have been more so in a full theater with louder sound, but I was never truly scared through the movie. Only after viewing it do I begin to realize that I'll never look at camping out in a friend's backyard the same way again. Blair Witch is more psychologically haunting than I expected. My hopes for the film probably diminished any impact it had on me, but the fact that it was an extremely well made film is something that has been underdiscussed. A great premise can only go so far, the realization of the premise on the screen is the important part. And The Blair Witch Project really came through with a perfect sequencing of scenes, and an occasionally fascinating selection of dialogue (though most may be improvised, moments that obviously weren't (like the Wizard of Oz reference) were very impressive) got rid of any disappointment I had over how few jumps there were in the film.

But Eyes Wide Shut was the real star of the night. I have greatly enjoyed every Stanley Kubrick film that I've seen. Even Barry Lyndon (which apparently some don't like, I don't really know), slow as it was, just felt like it was perfect. There's just something about Eyes Wide Shut that makes me think it is Kubrick's best film. I did my best to pay attention to the symbolism at work in the film as I watched it, and I did notice, to an extent, how major a factor color was in the film. I never understood what the blue meant, but it was obvious that the red symbolized desire, sex, and sin (much like it did in Mean Streets, though that's only fresh in my mind because I saw it for the first time Sunday). The whitish hue seemed to be used most frequently in scenes that served as the introduction to something very important (the opening party, the entrance of Leelee Sobieski, the first scene with Nick Nightingale), almost begging for the viewer to pay attention. The Christmas trees were what confused me, but your interpretation of them seems spot-on. Overall, Eyes Wide Shut has a strikingly subtle sense of importance. I'm sure that most everyone notices it, but as I think about them, every performance seems to represent something very powerful. Each character feels like a facet of life, those that pull you into your darkest places and those that try to keep you out of them and so on. I'm really not sure what else I have to say about the film, I just have to see it again very soon is all I know."

"Page 2, Non-Spoiler Blair Witch Letters"