Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick's last film, 1999)

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I could have SWORN that I saw "Eyes Wide Shut" at the theater when it first came out back in 1999. 

Because: Back then, I used to see movies at the theater every week, because I like that sort of psycho-sexual theme, because it was Kubrick and his last film before he died. And because I had a memory of having seen it, and of being bored by Cruise and Kidman trying way too hard to act sexually decadent!

So when the film came on TCM recently, I was doing something else, but then tuned in about an hour into it. And I did not remember a friggin' thing about any of what I then was seeing! This time, I came in right when the Cruise character first went home with the hooker, then his wife calls, then he leaves the hooker out of guilt but still doesn't want to go home, so he goes to see his old friend play in a jazz club, then cadges the password to an exclusive decadent sex gathering and gets in way over his head...

I was watching in awe at what might be going to happen next!

And... If I HAD seen this movie in the theater, then why in the world would I not remember what actually happened?! It has nothing to do with "famous-couple" Cruise and Kidman trying unsuccessfully to be sexual together on film. Rather, it's a lot more psychologically interesting: Cruise and Kidman are married and bored with each other. (She actually pees in front of him; he doesn't notice her dress, etc.) During a generic high-end society party that they both attend, she dances suggestively with a stranger, and he is seduced by a couple of attractive women who want to lead him into a liaison...

Once home: When the Wife confesses to the Husband that she has often fantasized about other men (that night, and earlier) fucking her, Husband Cruise goes off on a true bender, all across New York!

How did I ever think I had seen this before?? My god, I would have remembered! 

(While viewing the 2nd half, I remembered to DVR the whole thing, and so got to see the beginning later on and then watch the whole thing in its entirety. WOW. And, yes, then went on Amazon and bought the collected stories of the Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler----his 1926 "Traumnovelle" based in Vienna was the impetus for this film.)