"Eyes Wide Shut" Has Its Tenth Anniversary This July

Tom Cruise as Bill Harford in Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes
Wide Shut", which has its tenth anniversary of release on July 16.
(Photo: Warner Brothers)

A lot of the public detested it, convinced that they were duped by the two-minute sexy trailer that debuted earlier that year (March 1999, to be precise). They said that "Eyes Wide Shut" was boring, too long, slow-paced and pretentious. American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick directed what would be his last film over a two-plus-year period and in March ten years ago died of a heart attack in his sleep. "Eyes Wide Shut" opened in North America on July 16, 1999 to mixed but mostly positive reviews. The film starred then-actual spouses Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as a married couple whose real or imagined flirtations with infidelity lead Mr. Cruise's character on a nighttime odyssey.

The film has its 10 year anniversary of theatrical release in July. Colorful, foreboding, disturbing and hauting, "Eyes" is a riveting, penetrating powerhouse.