This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Few directors have used music as creatively and memorably as Stanley Kubrick.
Who can forget Alex putting the boot in while bellowing Singing In The Rain in A Clockwork Orange? Or Vera Lynn crooning We’ll Meet Again to Dr. Strangelove’s A-bomb apocalypse? The soundtrack to Kubrick’s final film, the Tom Cruise–Nicole Kidman erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut, continues to indulge the late filmmaker’s love of odd couplings: The chilling piano of Ligeti prefaces a graceful waltz from Shostakovich, which leads into the bayou sleaze of Chris Isaak’s Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing, followed by Oscar Peterson tinkling Duke Ellington’s I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good), and so on. Ultimately, none of this disc is bad — and some bits are very good — but with due respect to Tom and Nicole, I doubt anything they do to any of these tunes will compare with 2001’s spaceships elegantly waltzing to The Blue Danube.
