Year:
2001
Studio:
Paramount Pictures
Movie:
2/5
DVD:
3/5
Vanilla Sky is
movie about a young man who hasn't experienced the sour of life. David
Aames (Tom Cruise) inherited a few successful magazine companies when
his parents died. Since then he's been living the playboy lifestyle
with a model/actress girlfriend in Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz) and his
novelist friend Brian (Jason Lee). Then at a party he meets Sofia
(Penélope Cruz) and he instantly falls in love. And then bad
things happen to David.
As Brian says, David can't truly appreciate the sweet if he hasn't
experienced the sour. David of course doesn't believe Brian until the
accident which leaves David a scarred and ugly man. How can David win
Sofia the way he is now?
Now if the movie had kept going in that direction it would have been a
relatively standard story. SPOILERS follow since it's quite different.
David wins Sofia back. Then he gets an operation that restores his good
looks. But then Julie comes back and everybody thinks she's Sofia.
David ends up murdering Julie.
And then at the end of the movie David realizes that everything from
the time he won Sofia back was a lucid dream. David committed suicide
150 years ago and had his body frozen in a machine where he can be
given dreams. There were glitches which is why Julie came back. But now
that David has experienced his dream he can decide if he wants to be
revived and join the real world (he's still disfigured) or go
back to living his dream. He choose life.
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Considering
this was an Best Picture nominee, I didn't particularly like this
movie. It's got nice visuals and the acting is good. But I thought the
story itself was too convoluted. The movie has a basic theme but it
tries to do too many twists to make that theme interesting. I was just
kind of unsatisfied at the end of the movie.
Contents
Prelude to a Dream: 6-minute audio introduction.
Vanilla Sky: main feature.
Hitting it Hard: 10 minutes of footage of the promotional tour.
Set Up: English and French audio, English subtitles.
Special Features
-- Commentary with Cameron Crowe and Nancy Wilson
-- Music: 90 seconds with Paul McCartney; "Afrika Shox" video.
-- Photo Galleries: nice photographs shot by Neal Preston.
-- Trailers: one unreleased and the international trailer
-- Credits: dvd credits
Scene Selection
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