Is Eyes Wide Shut Just Artsy Porn?

(The shortened opening)

NC: Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to. Well, with the month of Halloween right around the corner, I found it only fitting to talk about something truly scary. (Smiles creepily) That's right. The fear...of the subconscious. (An audience boos, causing NC to sigh and give in) With orgies.

(The audience applauds loudly, as NC puts his hands down in annoyance. Clips from the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut are shown)

NC (vo): In the summer of 1999, legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's final film premiered just after he died, Eyes Wide Shut. Incredibly hyped with its steaming marketing, audience reaction seemed to be...mainly this.

(A clip from The Simpsons is shown, showing Krusty the Clown stunned at something)

Krusty: What the hell was that?

NC (vo): While a hit with critics, Eyes Wide Shut mostly alienated audiences who mostly saw it as nothing but slow, artsy porn. And hell, even the porn part of the time seemed to be edited out.

(One scene is shown, with an arrow pointing at something with the caption, "CGI Cockblockers")

NC (vo): So you couldn't even get that going for you. Years later, after all the hype has died down, can it be true? Is Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece just glorify TNA...as opposed to his other glorified TNA that at least had a point?

(A shot from A Clockwork Orange is shown, with some bits of the shot covered with a red bar)

NC: Well, I may be an old-fashioned critic who reads too deeply into...disturbed, perverted minds, but I, too, have an interpretation.

NC (vo): To figure out what the movie's about, let's look at the basic story. Will and Alice, played by Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, seem like a normal, well-off couple. But one night, things go south when under, obviously, some very bad pot, Alice admits that she would've given up everything just for a night of lust with a sailor she saw years ago. She also has a dream that night that she was having sex with that sailor, and that she was doing it mainly to hurt her husband. She's never talked like this before, given any hints in the past, but this seems to obviously piss off Will. Obsessed over this, he goes on a journey to try and either one-up her by sleeping with someone else, or at the very least, achieving a similar mental lust with another woman. He sneaks into a sexual den of holy fuckery, where powerful people wear masks and sleep with whoever they want. But when he's discovered, his life is threatened, but saved by a young woman, who sacrifices herself, because he saved her life earlier that week. As he tries to look for answers, his simple world begins to crumble as he's followed, threatened, and apparently, endangered or corrupted many of the people around him. He's finally given an "ow" when one of the people at the Mask Ball of Holy Fuck-Ness says that everything was just a ploy to scare him into not revealing the truth about their sexcapades. Suspicious, but still possible, Will decides to accept the excuse, and eventually comes clean to his wife about everything. They decide to put behind the ugly experience and forget it ever happened, trying to live the happy life they know they want for themselves and each other, after doing one very important thing, of course.

Alice: Fuck.

(The movie's credits immediately roll)

NC (vo): Huh? What the hell did I just watch? When I first saw this movie, I didn't know what to think of it. I loved the style and the imagery, but I had no idea what it was trying to get across. Everything started to come together, though, when I asked myself one simple question: Do Alice and Will love each other?