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godardslave wrote:

SncDthMnky wrote:Anyone want to be in 'My Blueberry Nights'?

do i get to meet Natalie Portman?

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.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Set pic with Natalie Portman.

Matt wrote:

Antoine Doinel wrote:Set pic with Natalie Portman.

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

Antoine Doinel wrote:This theatrical poster is a bit disappointing

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.

Antoine Doinel wrote:New gallery of pics.

Jeff wrote:Le French teaser.

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.

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

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)...