I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only reason Gyorgy Ligeti was only put on this Earth and allowed to write his headache-inducing music was so that Stanley Kubrick could use that music in his films. Ligeti's music actually works in 2001, it works in The Shining (so I'm told), and it works again here. It works by giving us the feeling that something, somewhere, is deeply, deeply wrong.
Dr. Bill Harford (Cruise), for reasons that needn't concern us here, finds himself wandering the streets of New York one night around Christmas. (Speaking of which: I gather there's a Christmas tree somewhere in every scene, and you can, if you like, play the "Where's Wally" game of trying to find it.) He starts to explore the out-of-the-way parts of the city. After a while we hear that Ligeti music and we know that something somewhere is deeply, deeply wrong.
Eyes Wide Shut is neither a thriller nor a horror movie - Harford's ordeal is much more frightening for him than it is for us. (Your mileage may vary on this one.) And it's not 2001: A Sex Odyssey, either, whatever the Warner Brothers publicists may say. Whatever it is, I was in the end entranced, and I found it continuing to grow on me for hours after I walked out of the cinema.

Vladimir Nabokov caused quite a stir in America in 1955 when his novel 'Lolita' was first published. Never one to shy away from a challenge, in 1961 Stanley Kubrick undertook the immense challenge of turning the novel into a film, and getting that film released. Luckily for movie audiences he succeeded, creating a ground-breaking motion picture which is superior to the most recent 1999 film.
The movie begins at the end, with the violent confrontation between the tormented and obsessed Humbert Humbert (Mason) and his drunken, bloated tormentor Quilty (Peter Sellers). Then we flash back four years and learn how things ended up this way. You probably know the story already. Humbert, a refined Englishman, moves in with an American woman, Charlotte Haze (Winters), and promptly falls in love with her adolescent daughter, Dolores "Lolita" Haze (Lyon). Their relationship is however fraught with problems. Apart from the illegality of it, Charlotte has fallen for Humbert, and a mysterious character known as Quilty has his eyes on Lolita as well.
Generally the cast perform very well, however Sellers sleazy performance is extremely good. As always Kubrick's visuals are magnificent. Unfortunately the concessions Kubrick had to make in order to get the film made take something away from it's impact - unlike the other versions, the film is only half-serious, and Lolita is older than the 11 yr old she was in the book. This is however still an excellent film, and well worth staying for.