Eyes Wide Shut (1999) - 3 questions

Question: There are two things I don't understand about the mask party. One, why go through all the ceremonial, quasi-religious rituals with mask and cape, priest, smoke, organ, etc? Why not just show up and have an orgy? Second, how did the masked woman know that Tom Cruise didn't belong there if he was masked himself?

Answer: The quasi-religious rituals are all part of the allure and mystique of the party. There are plenty of places people in power can go to just have an orgy, the ceremony implies a respectability to the whole affair. If the masked woman attends the parties regularly, she'd recognize a different body, even though the face is covered.

Question: One of the mistakes says there's a newspaper that Tom Cruise reads that has the same sentence written over and over. Is this a reference to the Shining by the production?

Answer: No. They needed to have an article for Cruise to read and, on the assumption that it wouldn't be readable by the viewers, they simply filled up the space required by repeating the same sentence over and over again. Another commonly used tactic is to steal text from a real article, leading to situations where the text of a newspaper article can be seen to have nothing to do with the actual headline.

Question: Isn't it common knowledge that Nicole found Tom's mask and put it on his pillow? I always wondered why Tom freaked out so much when he finds it. Is he afraid that Nicole knows where the mask is used? Or that someone else placed it there? And unless I missed something, how come this was never discussed between the two? You'd think Nicole would be asking why he left this in his safe?

Answer: I think someone from the freaky orgy broke in and put the mask on the pillow to warn Cruise's character to keep his mouth shut. That's why Cruise's character is so upset-they got into his home and his safe.