My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar-wai, 2007)

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Cinesimilitude · #26 Post by **Cinesimilitude** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:37 pm

godardslave wrote:
SncDthMnky wrote:Anyone want to be in 'My Blueberry Nights'?
do i get to meet Natalie Portman?

that depends on whether or not she plays a bar star.

Antoine Doinel · #27 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:18 pm

From the NY Times profile on Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) today:

[quote]Like Will Oldham, another indie-folk rocker who is currently starring in the film â€œOld Joy,â€

#28 Post by **Matt** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:59 pm

[quote]Mr. Wong, she said, told her he was in the habit of playing â€œThe Greatestâ€

hearthesilence · #29 Post by **hearthesilence** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:32 pm

[quote="Matt"][quote]Mr. Wong, she said, told her he was in the habit of playing â€œThe Greatestâ€

Antoine Doinel · #30 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 12:57 am

From JoBlo.com:

Source: Weinstein Co.

by: Omar Aviles

The Weinstein Co. has acquired the US, Australian and New Zealand distribution rights to Wong Kar Wai's upcoming romantic dramedy MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS. The film stars Norah Jones as a lonely young woman on a soul-searching journey across America trying to discover the meaning of love. Along the way, she meets a cornucopia of eccentric characters played by Natalie Portman, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and lots more. When asked about the acquisition, Harvey Weinstein mentioned "We love taking great Asian films from acclaimed directors and shelving them for a decade. It's essential to our international market strategy." Wong himself added "I look forward to a frustrating decade convincing them that the film should be released. Should be a delightful, fulfilling experience." Just a little joke there, folks. Clearly that's not what either of them said but let's hope that doesn't become a reality. The release is set for June 1st in NY and LA with expansion on June 22nd.

tavernier · #31 Post by **tavernier** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:26 pm

An article in the Nov. 19 "Arts & Leisure" section of The NY Times:

[quote]The Master of Time: Wong Kar-wai in America
By DENNIS LIM

ON a SoHo film set last August, Jude Law and Norah Jones were getting intimate. Repeatedly intimate. To be precise, they had kissed upwards of 150 times in the past three days.

The occasion for this outbreak of passion was â€œMy Blueberry Nights,â€

Antoine Doinel · #32 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:46 pm

Set pic with Natalie Portman.

#33 Post by **Matt** » Tue May 01, 2007 11:00 am

Antoine Doinel wrote:Set pic with Natalie Portman.

Natalie Portman is the new Brigitte Lin. Or the new Karen Mok, at least.

Antoine Doinel · #34 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Tue May 01, 2007 5:53 pm

This theatrical poster is a bit disappointing:

Suzukifan · #35 Post by **Suzukifan** » Wed May 02, 2007 12:17 pm

I'm a little edgy about this one. I hope Wong can retain his edge as he moves closer to Hollywood production.

I suppose you can accuse him of working the same theme for a while but I just don't get tired of it. I really hope he keeps that panache working in English with a western cast.

che-etienne · #36 Post by **che-etienne** » Thu May 03, 2007 12:32 pm

Matt wrote:
Antoine Doinel wrote:Set pic with Natalie Portman.
Natalie Portman is the new Brigitte Lin. Or the new Karen Mok, at least.

Brigitte Lin? I don't think so. She evokes Carina Lau in "Days of Being Wild" maybe... maybe. But not Brigitte Lin. At least not Lin in "Chungking Express", where she's playing far too self-contained a character to invite any sort of comparison with Portman, unless you're simply referencing the blond hair.

Also, imo, Portman is no where near as talented as either actress.

Grimfarrow · #37 Post by **Grimfarrow** » Thu May 03, 2007 1:24 pm

Antoine Doinel wrote:This theatrical poster is a bit disappointing

It wasn't approved.

Shrew · #38 Post by **Shrew** » Fri May 04, 2007 2:17 am

How much does Wong Kar-Wai do with the posters/marketing for his films? As much as I love the films, the few posters I've seen (DVD Beaver) don't do the source material much justice.

The Blueberry Nights poster doesn't look bad so much as generic. Except Jude Law's face.

Antoine Doinel · #39 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Fri May 04, 2007 8:56 am

I'm not sure how much Kar-Wai has to do with the posters, but I guess I was disappointed given that the one-sheets for In The Mood For Love and 2046 were fantastic and captured the moods of those films.

otis · #40 Post by **otis** » Tue May 15, 2007 5:18 pm

For those in the London area, Wong is giving a masterclass at the BFI Southbank (aka the NFT) next Thursday (24th May).

A rare opportunity to hear from one of cinema's greatest living filmmakers as he passes through London after a trip to Cannes to unveil My Blueberry Nights, his first English language feature. Born in 1958 in Shanghai, Wong Kar-Wai moved to Hong Kong with his parents at the age of five. His directorial debut As Tears Go By established a strong visual style and announced him as an upcoming talent in the industry. The film was invited to the Critics' Week section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1989. Since then the director has gone on to make some of modern cinema's finest films, from Happy Together to In the Mood for Love - films unified by images of urban alienation, stories of unrequited passion, all viewed through a seductively sensuous lens.

Tickets available here.

EDIT: The link to the BFI website doesn't seem to work. I'm sure anyone's who's interested in tickets can work out how to book them.

Antoine Doinel · #41 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Tue May 15, 2007 6:24 pm

New gallery of pics.

lord_clyde · #42 Post by **lord_clyde** » Tue May 15, 2007 6:39 pm

Antoine Doinel wrote:New gallery of pics.

Nice, nice.

#43 Post by **Jeff** » Tue May 15, 2007 10:30 pm

Le French teaser.

Fletch F. Fletch · #44 Post by **Fletch F. Fletch** » Wed May 16, 2007 9:26 am

Jeff wrote:Le French teaser.

Very nice. From what little is shown, the camerawork certainly looks like vintage Wong. Can't wait!

ellipsis7 · #45 Post by **ellipsis7** » Wed May 16, 2007 10:27 am

From Guardian Unlimited. First review. Damp squib I'm afraid...

My Blueberry Nights 2 stars
Directed by Wong Kar Wai

Xan Brooks

Tradition has it that the Cannes' opening night film is always met with a passionate response, either cheered to the rafters or booed to oblivion or sprayed with a turbulent cocktail of the two. My Blueberry Nights, by contrast, wrapped up with a discreet shuffle towards the exit door. On balance that seemed the most damning verdict of them all.
Over the past decade-and-a-half, the Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai has established himself as one of the most vital and distinctive talents in world cinema. But he loses his way badly on his first English-language outing, an American road movie that relegates him to the role of a passive, swooning tourist amid a blur of neon signs, smoky bars and open freeways. Admittedly My Blueberry Nights doesn't quite go so far as to feature a gum-chewing hitchhiker, or a Native American spouting soulful wisdom. But the rest of the genre tropes are all trotted out with a woozy abandon.

If My Blueberry Nights is a love letter to US pop culture, it's also a valentine to its star. The film marks the acting debut of singer Norah Jones who headlines as Elizabeth, the self-styled "girl with a broken heart". Jilted by her New York boyfriend, Elizabeth lights out for territories in search of herself (or possibly some more blueberry pie). Along the way we get to see her smile, and cry, and pull an exquisite little frown that paints heartbreaking lines across that porcelain brow. When Wong isn't training his camera on an illuminated jukebox, or an open-top sports car, you can bet he'll have it fastened like a limpet on this actor's face.

Credit where it's due, Jones copes well with the attention, in that her performance is easy and unobtrusive without ever quite communicating any great depth of feeling or life-changing epiphany. Weirdly, it's her more experienced co-stars who struggle. Natalie Portman toils against miscasting as a brassy gambler, while Jude Law is overly winsome as the good-hearted owner of a Manhattan cafe. Playing the role of a frazzled Memphis belle, Rachel Weisz manages a pitch-perfect accent and certainly looks the part. If only Wong hadn't chosen to introduce her in comical slow motion, sashaying into the bar to the strains of Try a Little Tenderness. It's the sort of humiliating entrance that no actor can hope to rebound from; the equivalent of walking in with her skirt hitched into her knickers.

But then My Blueberry Nights is full of such false notes, such lost-in-translation moments that might conceivably have worked in a Hong Kong setting but fall flat on the road to California. True to form, Wong's curtain raiser is beautiful to look at and unabashedly romantic. But it is also vapid and ephemeral, trading in a kind of karaoke Americana that bounces us from cafe to bar to truck stop for the simple reason that they are there to be bounced between. Taking off for Vegas, our heroine reflects that "what should have taken hours went on for days and what should have been a short ride became a long one". She might have been talking about the whole of My Blueberry Nights.

Arn777 · #46 Post by **Arn777** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:06 am

The review from Le Monde was much more positive I think (only scanned through it)

GringoTex · #47 Post by **GringoTex** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:07 am

ellipsis7 wrote:From Guardian Unlimited. First review. Damp squib I'm afraid

That review reminds me of some negative ones of my favorite Kar-wai film Happy Together, so I'm kind of psyched.

Don Lope de Aguirre · #48 Post by **Don Lope de Aguirre** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:22 am

A real shame about that review... Is this definitely the final version though or is there more reediting, reshooting etc to do? (Maybe the critical reaction will answer this!!)

It'll be a shame if this isn't up to his very high standards. I think that post 'In the Mood for Love' Wong -only 1 film that I have seen, I know- (like post 'All About my Mother' Almodovar) seems to have struggled. Where do you go from a film that is the pinnacle of the style you have been working towards?

Just a thought....

ellipsis7 · #49 Post by **ellipsis7** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:25 am

I saw Happy Together @ Cannes in 1997 in the main auditorium myself, and to me it came off wonderfully then, and remains so, with the central relationship set against the contrasting backgrounds of Hong Kong and Argentinean culture, the waterfall, Piazzolla's tango music etc.... BTW Happy Together was the Chinese title for Antonioni's Blow-Up, and WKW further acknowledges Antonioni's influence in the Criterion set of In the Mood For Love (L'Eclisse particularly)... So maybe Blueberry Nights is suffering a kind of Zabriskie Point critical slump, the intense knocking that comes when a foreign auteur portrays American society and culture with a fresh eye, and similarly the new film may deserve a rennaissance in reckoning on closer examination...

Don Lope de Aguirre · #50 Post by **Don Lope de Aguirre** » Wed May 16, 2007 11:29 am

BTW Happy Together was the Chinese title for Antonioni's Blow-Up, and WKW further acknowledges Antonioni's influence on the Criterion set In the Mood For Love (L'Eclisse particularly)...

You're 100% correct about the influence of L'Eclisse but Blow Up!?! Where on earth did they get that title from?