My Blueberry Nights

[pete]

they still don't know how to cut a wong karwai trailer.

[MacGuffin]

[Gamblour.]

That's great! Beautiful neon.

[MacGuffin]

INSIDE WORD | "Blueberry" Booked for U.S. Release Next Month

New cut coming soon... The Weinstein Company has announced the release of Wong Kar Wai's "My Blueberry Nights," coming to U.S. theaters on next month. The company confirmed that a new version of the film will be released on April 4th. In a statement, TWC said, "This is a new cut of the film, different than the version shown at Cannes." "My Blueberry Nights" opened the Cannes fest last year where indieWIRE reported on the film.

[Ghostboy]

I'm glad I saw the original one, then. Even though it's not that great....

[Just Withnail]

Even though it's not that great....

Or even good at all.

[Pozer]

I'm glad I saw the original one, then. Even though it's not that great....

did you write a review?  i had your website bookmarked before but lost it.  roaddogproductions.com is what i incorrectly remembered.  was wondering if you had a more expanded twbb review as well.

[MacGuffin]

indieWIRE Presents: Wong Kar Wai at Apple Store SoHo in April

indieWIRE's ongoing series of filmmaker talks at the Apple Store - SoHo continues next month with special guest Wong Kar Wai.

WHEN: Tuesday, April 1st, 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

WHERE: Apple Store - SoHo, 103 Prince Street, NYC

COST: Free, No RSVP required. Seats are first come, first serve. Seating is limited.

Filmmaker Wong Kar Wai ("In The Mood For Love," "Chungking Express," "Happy Together") will participate in a discussion and show scenes from his latest film, "My Blueberry Nights," which tells the story of Elizabeth (Norah Jones) and her journey across America where she leaves behind a life of memories, a dream and her soulful new friend - a cafe owner (Jude Law) - all while in search of something to mend her broken heart. Film journalist Dennis Lim will moderate the discussion.

"My Blueberry Nights" is being released by The Weinstein Company on April 4th, 2008.

[MacGuffin]

[MacGuffin]

iW PROFILE | "My Blueberry Nights" Director Wong Kar Wai

"I don't think of this as a road movie," filmmaker Wong Kar Wai told New Yorkers last night, during a conversation about his new movie, "My Blueberry Nights," which was partially filmed in Lower Manhattan. "The original idea was to have the film just be about Norah and her relationship with the owners of this restaurant," Wong Kar Wai revealed. "But it was too expensive to shoot just in New York and the characters began to expand across the country."

The film follows a year in the life of Elizabeth, played by Norah Jones, as she suffers from a bad breakup and travels from New York across the country seeking closure and understanding. Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman and Jude Law round out the cast of characters she encounters along her journey. On his first time working with American actors Wong spoke highly: "I was surprised because I thought there would be a big difference. But I see a lot of Tony (Leung) in Jude Law and a lot of Gong Li in Rachel We isz."

A large crowd crammed into the Apple Store Soho theater last night to catch a glimpse of enigmatic filmmaker, during the special conversation presented by indieWIRE. "Blueberry Nights," his first English language film, will open on Friday. Wong, who has risen to international acclaim with films such as "Chungking Express" and "In the Mood for Love," was in full form, donning his famous black sunglasses and happily answering the questions from moderator Dennis Lim and the audience. Jude Law and Norah Jones in a scene from "My Blueberry Nights". Image provided by The Weinstein Company

"My Blueberry Nights" opened last year's Cannes Film Festival to mixed to negative reviews, but the cut to be released Friday is reportedly quite different than the one shown at the festival, the running time cut down by over twenty minutes. But, the audience at the Apple Store seemed generally excited about the clips that were shown, prompting hope that the theatrical release version could be far superior to the Cannes screening.

When asked how his method of working changed when he came to America he replied: "I needed a lot of help with the script, I really had to work to understand Norah's journey and also work hard to understand America." Although he shot "Happy Together," a film which earned him the best director prize at Cannes, in Argentina, he doesn't feel that film was about Argentines or the main character's relationship to that country.

"A big difference between making films in America verses Hong Kong is the amount of paperwork and unions involved," admitted the director. "I had to keep being reminded that everyone had to have a scheduled lunch break. In Hong Kong we don't have issues like that. But I believe when you work in another country you have to respect its rules."

Aside from shooting in another country, the other big change with "My Blueberry Nights" is the absence of Wong Kar Wai's long term cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Doyle helped define his style working with him steadily from his first hit "Days of Being Wild" up to "2046." Veteran cinematographer Darius Khondji ("The City of Lost Children," "Se7en") took the reins. And Wong Kar Wai spoke highly of Khondji, but admitted feeling the loss of a long-term comrade: "It's quite different than working with Chris, because our communication was without words. Darius has a huge respect for Chris Doyle's work and he kept asking me how Chris would shoot a certain scene. I always replied that it doesn't matter the way Chris would shoot, because I wanted it to come from him. But both men are very sensitive to film and both are very involved."

When an audience member asked why so many of his films are set around restaurants and food shops the director laughed. "As a writer I spent most of my time in coffee shops, so I can tell you the best coffee shops in Hong Kong. I like them because they're very intimate places. Bars I like too because it's a place where people go to meet strangers. Bars give you a good sense of community."

But when asked to elaborate on the themes of his films Wong remained quiet, admitting that he follows the Matisse quote that "artists should cut out their tongues" for fear of not letting their work be self-explanatory. But he did summarize the following concerning "Blueberry Nights": "I've noticed that American cuisine is full of sweets. I don't like deserts myself, but I feel like the theme of the film is finding the bitterness under the sweet. But it's also about that moment in our lives when we have to let go, when something just isn't working and it's time to go."

In other insights on his work, Wong told the audience that he has found the master print of "Ashes of Time," his early-nineties, post-modern, Wuxia epic. He announced that instead of doing a re-release of the film, he is going to incorporate some of the unseen footage for a complete recut.

[cron]

the ultimate date movie. it's sweet and very , VERY well acted. especially the weisz, the strathairn, and the portman , of who i don't think much. it's alright, it's very simple and dumb but the little things make up for the chessiness, which wasn't a big deal for me.
what is it about chan marshall's face? it glows like a fountain.

ps,david strathairn looks a lot like my grandfather, may he rest in peace.

[MacGuffin]

Wong Kar Wai's 'Blueberry Nights'
With his Americanized story, he joins a long list of foreign directors who have offered a glimpse at what the U.S. looks like through their eyes.
By Mark Olsen, Special to The Times

WITH his ever-present sunglasses and cultivated mystique, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai has become one of the most distinct brand names on the international cinema circuit. His latest, "My Blueberry Nights," which opened Friday in Los Angeles, has all the tell-tale signs of previous films such as "In the Mood for Love" or "2046" -- interconnecting story lines, an eclectic soundtrack, attractive performers and a dreamy, impressionistic style that adds up to a delirious meditation on romantic love and longing.

Though he previously shot outside Asia when he made "Happy Together" in Argentina, "My Blueberry Nights" marks the first time Wong has worked in English and filmed in the United States.

"The real challenge about working on 'My Blueberry Nights' was thinking in American," Wong said from Hong Kong via e-mail. "Just like when I shot in Argentina, I realized that the local mind set was something you could approach, gaze into, but never really possess yourself. My constant reassurance was the thought that film is universal."

Though the film is full of its own idiosyncrasies, "My Blueberry Nights" places Wong in a long line of foreign auteurs who have come to America to make a film that also winds up being in no small part about America. Though Hollywood has always been a magnet for émigrés -- from Wilder to Woo -- this is distinctly different; these are filmmakers coming to America not for the temptation of "going Hollywood" but rather to explore the idea of America as seen through the camera lens, a reflection and refraction of Hollywood storytelling. . These films, if one can generalize, tend to be odd.

Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni followed "Blow-Up," his look at swinging Sixties London, with a portrait of turn-of-the-Seventies American hippies in "Zabriskie Point." The French filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard each briefly flirted with directing "Bonnie and Clyde." Godard later abandoned a project shot in the U.S. in collaboration with documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock known as "One American Movie."

Frenchmen Jacques Demy and Jacques Deray each took their own look around Los Angeles in "Model Shop" (1969) and "The Outside Man" (1972), respectively. The German Wim Wenders had one of his greatest successes with 1984's "Paris, Texas," and later set up shop in the U.S., while Serbian director Emir Kusturica made the quizzical 1993 film "Arizona Dream" here and has yet to return.

"My Blueberry Nights" follows a character played by singer Norah Jones as she travels across the country, and each section of the film was shot where its story takes place. The film begins in New York, where a heartbroken Elizabeth finds solace in late-night conversations with an equally lovelorn diner owner (Jude Law), who waits and waits for the woman who left him (Chan Marshall). Searching for a fresh start, Elizabeth hits the road, taking waitress jobs along the way. In Memphis, she encounters a dangerous booze-soaked couple (Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn), and in Nevada she comes across a sprightly gambler (Natalie Portman) who may not be up for life on the hustle. As Elizabeth boomerangs her way back to New York she stumbles upon the classically Wong-ian idea that physical proximity sometimes has no connection to emotional kinship.

Lost in America

LIKE many of the world-class filmmakers drawn here, Wong seems particularly attracted to the specific imagery of the American West. As well, the decidedly mixed reception "My Blueberry Nights" received on its premiere as the opening night film of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival is in line with the reception afforded many previous world-cinema directors who have stepped onto American soil. In his original Life magazine review of the much-panned "Zabriskie Point," for example, Richard Schickel took note of how, like many others before him, Antonioni (who spoke hardly any English) seemed to have lost himself in America, falling "under the spell of the American vastness, the enormous emptiness of our spaces." "There's that great line from Wenders, 'The Americans have colonized our subconscious,' which is from 'Kings of the Road,' " noted critic Dave Kehr on what keeps drawing outsiders to make films in the U.S. "Certainly you don't have to have ever come to the United States to have a very definite and vivid idea of what America is like, though it may be wildly inaccurate. All these people have grown up with an America as presented in our movies and pop music."

Traces of an American influence have surfaced in Wong's previous films, perhaps most notably in the repeated use of the song "California Dreamin' " in "Chungking Express" (1994). While grappling with how to apply his sensibility to an American setting, Wong said that his reference was more the road movie structure of "Easy Rider" than the moody ruminations of "Zabriskie Point."

Headier ideas often take a back seat, though, as "film production thankfully has enough practical concerns to keep me from worrying about theoretical ones. However, no matter where we live, we all grow up with fragments of American culture. The joy of this movie was to revisit these fragments and to pay homage to them."

Not all foreigners who make a movie in America are looking to assume a mailing address in the Hollywood Hills. Even among those who might be thought of as the "one-offs," they often come for reasons all their own.

Veteran French director Bertrand Tavernier, whose films include "Sunday in the Country" " 'Round Midnight" and "L.627," is finishing "In the Electric Mist," a literary adaptation shot in Louisiana starring Tommy Lee Jones. "As for me, I was not attracted by America but by [author] James Lee Burke," Tavernier said via e-mail. "I wanted to adapt a very good novel from a very good writer. My next films will be French, in French, about France."

In the end it is perhaps no great surprise that "My Blueberry Nights," for all its star-wattage and trappings of Americana, reads first and foremost as a film by Wong Kar Wai. It might easily be subtitled "An American Scrapbook," a cinematic mixtape of memories and romantic notions. Wong's co-writer, crime novelist Lawrence Block, called the collaboration "a strange process, because the whole film was very much [Wong's] conception, but the idea of what the story was kept continuing to evolve." Block was continually surprised by the extent to which Wong was "very savvy and conversant" about American culture.

"The USA is actually the best showcase of her culture," said Wong. "Each city has its own history and reference. The preference of one location to another is a choice about what your influences are: art, music, cinema, literature, from William Eggleston to Tennessee Williams; or from Coca-Cola to iPod. Eventually I had to decide what were the essentials, and the locations that finally ended up in the film probably give you a hint of them."

[w/o horse]

  Man.  Last night I was going to take the lady to see this, like dinner and then My Blueberry Nights, and I came home with my Date Night idea and she was excited.  I thought.  But then it turned into this argument about how all my Date Nights are selfish and I only take her places I want to go and bring her to movies I want to see and I should have taken her to Run Fatboy Run because that's the movie she's been waiting to see.  She ended up crying and I ended up sleeping on the couch.

  So now My Blueberry Nights is wrapped in relationship wounds and there's no way I'm going to get to see it in the theater.

[diggler]

  Man.  Last night I was going to take the lady to see this, like dinner and then My Blueberry Nights, and I came home with my Date Night idea and she was excited.  I thought.  But then it turned into this argument about how all my Date Nights are selfish and I only take her places I want to go and bring her to movies I want to see and I should have taken her to Run Fatboy Run because that's the movie she's been waiting to see.  She ended up crying and I ended up sleeping on the couch.

  So now My Blueberry Nights is wrapped in relationship wounds and there's no way I'm going to get to see it in the theater.

i go through this argument constantly with my girlfriend, only the last time it happened she wanted to see meet the spartans. consider yourself lucky.

[john]

Y'all need new girlfriends.