Subtitles: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish,
Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, English for
the hard of hearing.
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £19.99
Extras:
Commentary by Director Cameron Crowe and Composer Nancy Wilson
featuring a conversation with Tom Cruise, 2 featurettes: Prelude To A
Dream, Hitting It Hard, An interview with Paul McCartney, music video
"Afrika Shox" by Leftfield/Afrika Bambaataa, Trailers, Photo Gallery
with Audio Introduction.
Director:
Cameron Crowe
Cast:
David Aames: Tom Cruise
Sofia Serrano: Penelope Cruz
Julie Gianni: Cameron Diaz
Brian Shelby: Jason Lee
Curtis McCabe: Kurt Russell
Edmund Ventura: Noah Taylor
Thomas Tipp: Timothy Spall
Rebecca Dearborn: Tilda Swinton
Libby: Alicia Witt
He's only gone and done it again.
If the double whammy of
Jerry Maguire
and
Almost Famous
weren't proof enough that director Cameron Crowe had
become a master of his art, Vanilla Sky doesn't just simply hit the
bullseye; it reveals an ability to break out beyond his trademark niche
of intelligently portrayed romance set to a personally-chosen
soundtrack. Prepare to open your eyes...
Vanilla Sky is a remake - of Alejandro Amenabar's Abre Los Ojos - but
don't be fooled. Aside from the source material it's based upon, and the
reprisal of her role in the original by Penelope Cruz, this bears all
the trappings of a Cameron Crowe film. And then some.
Within its multi-layered, psychologically ambiguous and eternally
mysterious story, Vanilla Sky provokes, shocks, amuses, baffles, thrills
and engages on every conceivable level. At its centre, Tom Cruise gives
the performance of a lifetime as David Aames, the have-it-all heir to a
media empire whose enviable existence is turned upside down by a chance
encounter with the beguiling Sofia (played with disarming innocence by
Cruz). Events spiral out of control quite literally overnight, fuelled
by the distraught and vengeful antics of his "fuck buddy" Julie (an
equally outstanding Cameron Diaz), leaving Aames unsure as to what is
actually real and what is in his head.
Is it all a dream? A nightmare? A conspiracy hatched by his resentful
board of directors? Or something else entirely? Crowe presents a
compelling and deliberately confusing case for all possibilities,
cutting back and forth in time and switching perspectives to slowly
unravel the truth behind Aame's rollercoaster ride of passion, tragedy,
identity and self-awareness.
The less revealed about Vanilla Sky the better, as any film whose basic
premise is to constantly throw visual and narrative curveballs at the
audience would lose much of its impact without the element of surprise.
Nevertheless, this is not merely a gimmicky venture that becomes
redundant after one viewing. Vanilla Sky is a densely structured movie,
full of superb, eminently quotable dialogue and breathtaking imagery
that - refreshingly - isn't too reliant of CGI whizz-bangs to make its
mark.
Challenging yet mainstream cinema is a rare breed, but significantly one
that has returned in the past couple of years. Cameron Crowe continues
to exceed expectation, offering fresh twists on his established use of
iconic and contemporary rock music to fashion a stylised, self-contained
but believable world. From the affecting, insightful teenage trials and
tribulations of Say Anything to this extraordinary slice of seriously
sophisticated surrealist mystery and intrigue, in four steps across 13
years. Now that's progress.
Crowe is also one of Hollywood's greatest advocates and fans of the DVD
medium, although when his films initially arrive on the format they are
rarely loaded with extras. Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous were
posthumously granted Collectors' Editions that gave scope to Crowe's
preferred home-entertainment experience, but Vanilla Sky is pretty
satisfying first time out despite being released by the notoriously
stingy Paramount studio.
The film utilises a whole host of visual and audio effects to evoke the
eloping of perceived realities, and the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, while
not exactly in the cutting-edge league of the latest Star Wars movie,
does its job impressively enough. Dialogue is always clear and the
excellent soundtrack becomes as much a part of the narrative as the
script.
Crowe intuitively understands how music can be a rewarding tool
if used sympathetically and intelligently. In every one of his movies, a
song has framed the moment, conveyed exactly the right
goosebump-inducing emotion. Think of Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes from
Say Anything, Springsteen's Secret Garden in Jerry Maguire, and the
Almost Famous' Tiny Dancer ensemble scene....and now add to that Jeff
Buckley's Last Goodbye, the significance of which only reveals itself
much later.
A featurette - Prelude To A Dream - is offered first on the menu's list
(above the movie itself) upon launching the disc, but like the other
mini documentary Hitting It Hard, these are best viewed after the film.
Not so much because of spoilers, as there are few of those, but so as
not to detract from what it is an astonishing and unpredictable
rollercoaster ride.
Prelude To A Dream offers a condensed look at Vanilla Sky's hectic
journey to the screen, mixing behind-the-scenes footage with
soundbites, production stills, and Crowe as an informative guide.
Hitting It Hard follows the Vanilla Sky's key personnel as they travel
around the globe in the good name of promotion. Shot with a variety of
film/video stock in a fly-on-the-wall style, it chronicles the
exhausting, dizzying effect of the worldwide trek on Cruise, Cruz and
Crowe.
The music of Vanilla Sky gets its own sub-menu, although on closer
inspection there isn't an awful lot of substance to the "interview with
Paul McCartney" spot, which amounts to nothing more than a cursory
snippet of the man (very) briefly outlining the inspiration behind his
uninspired title song. In a project of such far-reaching depth and
suggestion, Macca's souffle of a strum, with his now-typically throwaway
lyrics, is shown to be all the more lightweight.
There is a new,
re-edited music video for Afrika Shox, the 1999 Leftfield single
featured in the lengthy nightclub scene halfway through the film. It's a
rather odd choice, since either the exclusive R.E.M. track All The Right
Friends or Where Do I Begin by the Chemical Brothers (with Beth Orton on
vocals, and also recorded specifically for the soundtrack) would have
been more suitable.
Better, though, is the extensive Photo Gallery. Split into no fewer than
eight sections, it also has the option of an in-depth audio introduction
by Neal Preston, a friend of Cameron Crowe's for 30 years and the
photographer on both Vanilla Sky and Almost Famous. The stills
themselves, navigated via now-familiar means (simple pressing of the
back and forward buttons on the DVD remote control), are often stunning.
Some even deserve to be blown-up to full poster size, such are their
potentially iconic qualities. With somewhere in the region of 100 or so
images in total, it's almost an experience of its own.
A pair of trailers (one previously unreleased teaser) and full-length
commentary from Crowe and wife/composer Nancy Wilson (of mid-70s and
late-80s AOR legends Heart fame) that includes "a conversation with Tom
Cruise", complete the bonus material.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
