The latest offering from writer/director Cameron Crowe is an extreme example of the movies-that-make-you-work-for-it genre (I’m still waiting on someone to coin a name for it because I can’t think of one). This film tosses the audience around so much that it hardly has time to tell its own fascinating story. Just as you begin to think you may know what is going on, reality is pulled out from under you and you fall into confusion again. Being in a state of confusion can be very fun and exciting, but it can also be very frustrating and it turns a lot of viewers off. This is probably why the film got such mixed reviews, but those who didn’t mind the confusion mostly agreed that this was a truly unique and interesting film. The concept that we come to find that the film is actually based on (I won’t say what it is) could actually carry the movie by itself, but adding the compounded confusion of never knowing what is real and what is a dream makes the film even that more interesting and visually stunning. The opening scene of Tom Cruise running through an empty Times Square is one of the most memorable images in recent film history and I watched the scene over and over again when I bought the DVD. The acting is also great, with career best performances by Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Jason Lee, and a haunting performance by Cameron Diaz as Cruise’s psychotic sex partner. The soundtrack is also fantastic and very appropriate with Paul McCartney’s Oscar-nominated theme underlying the trippy, dream-like quality of the film. Another great use of music is when the Beach Boys classic “Good Vibrations” is used to punctuate the shocking revelation of the truth near the end of the film; the song blares as Tom Cruise screams at full volume “Tech support!!!” With such unforgettable imagery, great characters, mass confusion, and its ability to make us question the value of our mortality, Vanilla Sky gets my vote as one of the top five films of the year and one the best films in recent history.