My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar-wai, 2007)

[chaddoli]

According to ComingSoon.net, the Weinstein's are dumping the film on February 13.

[Dylan]

Soundtrack information:

[quote]19 October 2007 -- On February 5, 2008, Blue Note Records will release My Blueberry Nights, music from the new motion picture by director Wong Kar Wai (2046, In The Mood For Love, Happy Together). The first-ever English film by the acclaimed Hong Kong director, My Blueberry Nights is a romantic drama set as an American road movie starring Norah Jones in her acting debut, along with a stellar cast featuring Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. The Weinstein Company will release My Blueberry Nights in U.S. theaters on February 13, 2008.

The soundtrack album is an impressive collection that stands on its own apart from the film. It features a wide swath of American music both new and old that touches upon R&B, Soul, Rock, Folk and Jazz, including The Story, a new song by Norah Jones based on her experience in the film, as well as music by Cat Power, Otis Redding, Ruth Brown, Mavis Staples, Amos Lee, Cassandra Wilson, and instrumental selections from the score by Ry Cooder.

In a review of My Blueberry Nights' debut as the Opening Night Film of the 60th Cannes Film Festival in May, The Hollywood Reporter praised Jones' performance, declaring it “an auspicious acting debut...The glue here is Jones, who holds a wispy, wistful film together with a deeply felt, unselfconscious performance that strikes the right notes without ever falling into repetition or banality. She brings her singer's talent of knowing when to go for emotions and when to hold back to her acting. It's a remarkably assured work.â€

[John Cope]

Just saw this and was less than impressed. Having said that I did struggle with it and the whole certainly works better than most of the individual parts.

I'm not entirely sure what Wong was trying to do here. Certainly this is no step forward for him from the greatness of 2046 but it's also not a step back because despite superficial similarities the earlier Wong stuff was all much better than this. I suppose it will be seen as some sort of concession to the American market but it's hard to understand why he would need to concede this much. On a first pass, it feels like an attempt to expand his fan base amongst love lorn 13 year old girls. Now I realize this is an obvious, easy critique to make but it's also hard to deny. All the familiar Wong tropes are here but they are made to seem trite because they are at the service of so little and they emerge as so underdeveloped. The Norah Jones character essentially functions as an observer to several mini dramas playing out with celebrity guest stars and these scenes never did much for me because they felt so forced, so predetermined for effect by the concept alone and otherwise inorganic. Wong seems to be trying to frame his story in such a way to allow Norah's early romantic solipsism to open out to see commensurable angst in the lives of others. This is admirable and a uniquely wise spin on the typical self-absorbed romantic drama protag but the dividends are meager since so little of what she sees seems to effect her directly and these set pieces have such an obvious function as object lessons. Also, they simply aren't developed with enough depth or detail to have much impact on us either. This is where the shortened length works against the picture. The insights Norah's character gleans are pretty simplistic ones and work to disassemble the preceding scenes' impact that much more. It could be argued, I suppose, that Wong is commenting on the way solipsists make everything about themselves (see Atonement) but this fails to allow for the fact that Wong has always been more genuinely sympathetic to the vision quests of his longing heroes and his sincerity has always been one of his selling points. This film is closer then to Wenders' much abused American pictures in that we can't help but look for some outsider critique but, of course, Wong and Wenders are not von Trier and there really is little to find. Nonetheless, I prefer Wenders' US films to this one because they simply have more going on.

Aesthetically My Blueberry Nights is awesome, as expected, and worth seeing just for that but all the signature elements, aesthetically and thematically, feel rendered in shorthand, as though the mere presence of swooning dissolves and lovably familiar blurred motion shots would be enough to captivate and sustain interest. Still, the cut I saw was the trimmed version and it suggests that Wong knows exactly what he's doing in so far as the length allows this film to be what it ultimately is, a slight but evocative notebook piece.

[Len]

Wait until you hear the In the Mood for Love theme - again - but this time with harmonica!

Ouch. I thought this was a joke.

The whole film felt like a parody of WKW's earlier works. You've got the aforementioned Yumeji's theme, Jude Law imitating Takeshi Kaneshiro and tons of shots taken directly from his earlier films. Then again, I know I'm not the intended audience for this film.

Still, I reckon the whole Strathairn/Weisz plotline would've made a good short film (even if her monologue in the end was kinda awful). And the scene where Weisz walks into the bar for the first time in slow motion was almost worth the price of admission itself. That I did like.

A huge disappointment (this coming from someone who still lists Chungking Express as his favorite film of all time, if mostly for the impact it had on him when he was very, very young).

[Antoine Doinel]

Lots of pictures of Natalie Portman.

[souvenir]

Lots of pictures of Natalie Portman.

Wow, how short is Norah Jones? Natalie Portman is tiny and she towers above her.

[Cosmic Bus]

R3 DVD out Feb. 14th. Despite mostly mediocre reviews, I've ordered a copy since it'll never play theatrically near me.

[domino harvey]

Why not just wait a week for the high quality HKBoots to show up for $5 on eBay?

[MichaelB]

I've rarely watched a film with so much goodwill, but it evaporated pretty early on.

Wong is still a visual genius, and it's hardly new for him to start quoting from his earlier work, but when you have a film where pretty much every scene has something that explicitly (and intentionally) reminds you of a superior film, you do start to wonder what the point of it was. Aside from "a Wong Kar-Wai film in English", which seems to have been its primary raison d'être.

Mind you, having said that, I'll probably still buy the DVD - even Wong at his weakest has something going for him.

[Antoine Doinel]

Here's a clip.

[Barmy]

Dire. Jude Law is the worst actress in cinema history.

[domino harvey]

Ha I get it because he's really a male

[MichaelB]

It's just opened in Britain to a more or less unanimous slating, even from people who started out sympathetic.

(Guardian/Financial Times/Independent/Times)

The one big exception was Sukhdev Sandhu in the Telegraph - he's not blind to its faults, but in his case the goodwill that all the others started out with clearly took much longer to dissipate.

[Nothing]

More or less unanimous does more or less describe the UK critics most of the time. Of course, it is the lack of apprecation for Rambo that is truly upsetting in this instance.

[MichaelB]

More or less unanimous does more or less describe the UK critics most of the time.

That's not the impression I've ever had, but then again I did have to read virtually all of them every week for several years as part of my job.

In fact, my old flatmate Tom Shankland's debut feature is out this week, and the UK critical reaction is all over the place, from the Guardian's unambiguous slagging to the FT's near-rave.

[foggy eyes]

Oh dear. Despite really wanting to enjoy this, my goodwill pretty much evaporated after being confronted with the onslaught of Jude Law's insufferably smug and earnest faux-Northern "charm" backed by the opening refrain of The Greatest cranked up to eleven. The editing in the opening sequence feels needlessly fidgety and clumsy too, like Wong is struggling to capture the energy and personality of his protagonists - unfortunately it soon transpires that there appears to be staggeringly little worth observing. I'm surprised by the sheer triteness of the whole exercise: the endless romantic soundbites, frivolous episodic narrative, and extreme close-ups of gelatinous pie and sleek Jag bodywork. I suppose it looks nice in a glossy, ambient kind of way, but the style is so ill-served by substance that the formal attributes only begin to grate after a while. Even with lowered expectations, this is a very disappointing work - and the critical reaction from the UK press for once feels entirely justified.

[Nothing]

the UK critical reaction is all over the place, from the Guardian's unambiguous slagging to the FT's near-rave.

Listing the film 5th is no rave by default. A short 3-star review with no quotable phrases on offer.

You're sure to find them gathering after every press screening like a herd of buffalo. Perhaps later taking notes from their betters at a private members club.

[MichaelB]

You're sure to find them gathering after every press screening like a herd of buffalo. Perhaps later taking notes from their betters at a private members club.

I suspect puncturing your fantasy will do untold psychological harm, so I'll be tactful.

[Nothing]

Ah, my old friend the ad hominem.

[MichaelB]

Ah, my old friend the ad hominem.

If you're going to post unsupported sweeping statements and respond with wild fantasies about herds of buffalo and private members' clubs when challenged, my concern for your well-being seems entirely appropriate. You should be touched.

[Nothing]

And yet you are the one responding with ad hominem attacks when challenged. As it goes, I was trying to keep it light. Oh well.

You claim that the mainstream UK press do not confer and hold wildly diverging viewpoints. You offer 'contrasting' reviews of WAZ as proof of this. Except... As I have already noted, these are hardly contrasting reviews. The "near-rave" review from the FT relegates the film to the closing paragraphs and offers no quotes for the distributor. The other divergence this week: Sandhu deciding not to be quite as hard on the revered WKW as the others (hardly a capital crime). The fact is, on a crude 5-star scale, you will rarely find more than a 2-star divergence amongst this crowd.

The reality is these people know each other and many of them are friends (your friends?). A fact I hope you're not seeking to deny. Like most friends or acquaintances, they naturally like to talk. Next time you're outside the Palais you can observe them - not only the British but the Americans, the French and the Cahiers, each gathered in their own clique.

Not that the Brits are all bad. Malcolm and French, whilst conservative by nature, are a world away from the right-on simplicity of Sandhu or the drunken complacency of Ide.

And not that discussion necessarily leads to concensus. The French seem to hold their opinions better.

But, amongst the Brits, there is undoubtably fear. Fear of divergence, of seeming out of step with the crowd. Perhaps this is a cultural trait. If a film is liked, they'll compete to out do each other with ludicrously overhyped praise. If disliked, let's see who can come up with the most humourous or vicious jibe. The lead review is practically a given. And, whilst there might very occasionally be a film that they chose to disagree on, these really are few and far between.

One could of course go further and say this is also about power. Moving as a pack enhances their status as 'king-makers'; their ability to determine a small distributor's profit/loss and a local filmmaker's bankability. Suitable recompense for the critic-proof Hollywood fare they are forced to review day in, day out. Not to mention a good way to get a lot of free wine and fine food.

Ultimately, I'd say that the proof is in the pudding (or, alternatively, in the imdb 'external reviews' section). Most clearly if you draw comparisons to offshore opinion.

But... Hold on... These are the best people! I don't mean they're the most virtuous, or indeed the least virtuous. Or the cleverist, or the stupidest, or the richest or the best born. But the best. In a word, people about whom there is no question.

And so....... That's why the UK press agree on My Blueberry Nights! <--- on topic!!!

[Dylan]

This may seem like a dumb question, but...the Hong Kong DVD of My Blueberry Nights is "Region 3 NTSC," so does that mean it is legit R3 or does the NTSC mean it will it play on all DVD players ala R0? If it is R3, then the Zoke Culture edition is apparently R0.

[Cosmic Bus]

I can confirm once my copy arrives if it is R0 or actually R3, but the NTSC denotion isn't unusual as both PAL and NTSC discs can come from the very general "region 3."

[edit] The CN Entertainment disc is indeed region-free despite the R3 listing on the case.

[manicsounds]

So how is the actual disc? Good quality? I read that its on a DVD-5 so does it look weak?

[scalesojustice]

I checked out that disc over the weekend. Not too great, picture is alright, with WKW's jittery slow-mo it's hard to say how sharp the picture really is. it has a DTS track which is nice to have, but there is little difference between the tracks.

For me, it was worth borrowing from a friend to get a chance to see it. but i'd just assume wait for the R1 release if i was really considering purchasing it.

It plays fine in NTSC players though.