Directed by: Kar Wai Wong

Written by: Kar Wai Wong, Lawrence Block

Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn, Cat Power

Distributed by Optimum Releasing

DVD is released in the U.K. on June 23rd 2008.

Available at Play.com for £10.99

Review by Matt Holmes

Film

DVD

Opening and virtually closing with a Norah Jones moody blues record, this episodic film of sensual moments, the evocatively titled My Blueberry Nights feels like a long drawn out and artful music video, especially when it’s central lead is said singer/songwriter observing and learning about life through a brief glimpse into the lives of others.

At 3 and a half minutes long, this could have been a very satisfying side compliment to one of her singles as she vacantly plods through a thin MTV narrative that plays second fiddle to the arresting and decorative visuals - you know like how a music video is designed for?

However, At nearly two hours in length (itself cut a 15 minute portion from a bloated screening at Cannes) it’s a long drawn out affair which like Blueberry Pie’s - are delicious to look at but you really need some Ice Cream, some real flavour to go with it to keep your mouthwatering for more otherwise it ends up being very dry.

Some Ice Cream please waiter, or a heavy portion of whisky! This is one dry serving.

The film comes from Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai - his first shot in the English language and is highly reminiscent of his great In the Mood for Love in it’s melancholic nature and bookended story but not in it’s quirky dialogue and highly contrived flat narrative.

Jones plays Elizabeth, a heartbroken young gal who breaks up with her boyfriend after finding out he has been cheating on her with a hot blonde, found guilty by a jury of one - the friendly and chatty cafe owner Jude Law (with a dodgy Manchester accent to bout!) who served the adulterous pair a pork chop the previous night.

Now, I’m going to go off in a tangent here but hands up how many of you travellers out there have ever met an English man running a cafe in America? I’m assuming it’s very few of you but time and time again in these movies they just seem to pop-up out of nowhere, Englishman making their living in the Big Apple with low-paid establishments. Possibly even stranger, is just how nice this guy is and how accommodating he is to a total stranger but ah of course, we find out he has had his few troubles with love in the past.

You see he has this jar and once people have confided their deepest love troubles with him, they trust him enough to look after the keys to their place until the time comes when that door needs to be re-opened. Sometimes it’s days, weeks but more often than not it’s never again. Certainly for Elizabeth, we feel it will probably be never.

She then embarks on a road trip that takes her Memphis - the city of blues. Maybe not the most obvious choice for a heartbroken young singleton. She takes on two crappy jobs, one in a bar and one as a waitress in a cafe where it seems twice daily she runs into David Strathairn whose excellent performance as a guy drowning in whisky because he just can’t let go of his separated wife Rachel Weisz is one of the few moments of real depth and drama in the movie.

Another narrative see’s Elizabeth team up with Natalie Portman, who after a terrible couple of years in Star Wars is really starting to grow as an actress. I enjoyed her in The Other Boleyn Girl and she’s equally as good here as a confident and cocky gambler, who doesn’t mind tipping waitress’ for an obnoxious asshole who like Mr. Pink doesn’t believe in tipping because “he’ll pay be back, he just doesn’t know it yet” as the shuffle begins for a new round of cards.

Their buddy narrative feels rushed, under-developed and actually could have made a decent Thelma & Louise movie in it’s own right if that had been the focal point of the screenplay.

But no Wong is feeling rushed. He needs to get Norah Jones back to Jude Law for one more scene of live affirmation where the couple with no chemistry will begin to actually see a future for themselves.

So what I’m trying to say then is that it’s really nice to look at, has terrific atmosphere and mood from a very talented director but the acting from the pair that really matter (Law & Jones) doesn’t work and the story is really under-developed. There’s some joy to be had if you like pretty pictures but I can’t recommend this film on any other level really, it’s a slight bit of fluff on the otherwise brilliant career of Kar Wai Wong.

EXTRAS

Not much to see here. A press conference from Cannes which is un-edited and really boring actually with most of the stuff covered once again on a rather more interesting and juicier “Making of” doc.

OVERALL

Hopefully just a brief experiment from Kar Wai Wong to work in the English language and to practice working with different kind of actors and I guess it’s a nice little side compliment to In the Mood for Love but My Blueberry Nights is not a good movie for anyone looking for a good life affirming story. Pretty it is but dry and tasteless.

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Thanks to Times of Malta, we have our first look at Alejandro Amenabar’s next movie Agora, an Egyptian epic based around the fourth century AD.

The film stars Rachel Weisz as an astrologer-philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria who fights to save the collected wisdom of the ancient world. Max Minghella plays her slave, who must juggle his desire for freedom by joining Christianity or giving himself up to his mistress.

It’s Amenabar’s second English-language movie after The Others. His films in his homeland include Open Your Eyes (the original version of Vanilla Sky) and The Sea Inside.

His intention with the movie is to make the setting as epic as possible - to make this feel real allowing the characters to not stand-out against the backdrop of what looks like a Hollywood set. It’s very much a throwback to the kind of long-assed Egyptian movies of the 50’s and 60’s and is about as far away from  Stargate and The Mummy as you could imagine.

Filming began in October and should be wrapped sometime in June. It’s the biggest and longest production ever seen on the small island of Agora and all being well it should hit sometime between September 2009 and November 2009.

source - coming soon 

The awesome Rachel Weisz who wisely didn’t want to touch The Mummy 3 with a barge pole is returning to Ancient Egypt after all, for the epic movie Agora says Variety.

The film is from Spanish maestro Alejandro Amenabar, the brilliant helmer of Open Your Eyes (the original mind-bending thriller which got a Hollywood remake as Vanilla Sky), The Sea Within and The Others, possibly the best period horror film for decades.

Set in Roman Egypt in the fourth century A.D. Weisz plays astrologer-philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria, who fights to save the collected wisdom of the ancient world. Her slave Davus (Minghella) is torn between his love for his mistress and the possibility of gaining his freedom by joining the rising tide of Christianity.

Minghella refers to Max Minghella, the 22 year old English actor who appeared in Syriana and has a large role in the upcoming British drama Hippie Hippie Shake. The dude was 13 when Weisz burst onto the scene in The Mummy. Nine years later he goes to Egypt and will likely get a love scene with the ultra hot Weisz, the god damn lucky son of a bitch!

I really like the work of Amenabar, a guy who remarkably seems to be growing with each film he works on. Weisz is one of the best around. This has suddenly become a movie I just can’t wait to see.

I hope it’s epic… as epic as frikkin’ Cleoptra. We haven’t really had that period set epic Egyptian movie so for long, though with Amenabar it will almost certainly be a much more grounded dramatic character piece.

Principal photography will begin in Monday in Malta for a Madrid based production company.

This will probably be the first publicity for the average movie fan who will now be very much aware that Rachel Weisz is not returning for the flick. I wonder how much of an effect it will have on the financial success of the feature.

It certainly will effect the movie quality wise, I think we all know that..

The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor opens Aug, 1st (U.S.) and Aug, 7th (U.K.) from director Rob Cohen and will star Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, Anthony Wong, Luke Ford and Isabella Leong.

source - coming soon

Written and Directed by Adam Brooks

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz, Kevin Kline

Distributed by Focus Features

Film was released in the U.K. on February 8th 2008.
This review was written by Matt Holmes

Maybe it’s the Valentines day mood, or the fact that it tried something different with the romantic comedy formula but I kinda liked Definitely, Maybe when I didn’t really expect too.

Set in New York and changing the usual structure of a formulaic romantic comedy, Definitely, Maybe is told mostly in flashback by loving father Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) as he gets cajoled by his daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) after her first and premature sex education lesson at school, into telling her the story of the three big romances of his life, changing all the names of the women involved so that Maya would have to keep guessing over which one is her actual mother. The intent of course is to keep the privacy of those involved but also to keep Maya interested in the story and it’s a neat framing device for us an audience.

Thankfully the three women aren’t overly stereotyped. There’s his childhood sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), the flirtatious young April (Isla Fisher) who he met at work and the feisty and ambitious journalist Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz). All seem to have the attitude of Maya, and all have a certain chemistry with Will that they could be the one and it’s a credit to the film that it doesn’t make it overly obvious which one is the mother in question.

The film chronicles how each of the women fit into the various points of his life and smartly the screenplay from writer/director Adam Brooks (Wimbledon, Bridget Jones 2) isn’t just concerned with the relationships themselves but also Will as a character, and how it effected his job as he went from being a bright and intelligent worker for the 1992 Clinton Presidential campaign, to an advertising execute who maybe isn’t fully pleased with how his career turned out. And don’t worry that can hardly be classified as a spoiler because of the flashback framing device the film is structured by.

This political backdrop also plays well for a nice historical sub-plot as we get to relive the moments of Clinton’s time in charge of the Whitehouse and it keeps the setting of Reynold’s romantic tale interesting. The narrative is frequently interupted by Maya as she listens to the tale in her PJ’s in bed as she learns the true nature that love is not always an easy track and there might be many low’s in life before you are to find the one you are meant to be with.

Reynolds’ work is fine and although his character might be a little too soft-spoken and lacking in personality, I thought he did a pretty decent and believable job. The performance of Rachel Weisz in the movie reminded me a lot of the performance Kate Winslet gave in The Holiday, and she pretty much embarrasses Banks and Fisher by her acting talent. She can be likeable one moment but so a horrible bitch in the next, she has range and she ain’t afraid to use it.

Weisz’s scenes were for me, always the most enjoyable and exciting. You truly didn’t know how she was going to play her part and it it’s always exciting to see her perform on screen. I loved the chemistry she brought with her lover in the film, the writer Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). There’s no other word to describe the character Kline plays here, it’s unique and full of commanding presence. They might be my favourite odd couple on film I’ve seen in years.

Isla Fisher, I’m not particularly convinced is anything other than a pretty face and Elizabeth Banks’ character was a little underwritten for me. I liked Breslin’s work though and she obviously is way ahead of most girls her age and you kinda get the opinion that she knows it too, but her performance here isn’t too big and distracting.

Definitely, Maybe is a smart comedy and much like another rom-com I liked last month Dan in Real Life, it hits the right tone between sweet, sadness and melancholy with the humor distinctively aimed for the 20 plus crowd. And I don’t mean that in a Judd Apatow way, I mean it in a sweet and grown up way.

Directed by: Kar Wai Wong

Written by: Kar Wai Wong, Lawrence Block

Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn, Cat Power

Distributed by MGM (theatrical), The Weinstein Company (all media)

Film is released in the U.K. on Feb 22nd, 2008.

Review by Michael Edwards

Wong Kar Wai’s latest release is his first English-language feature film, and his linguistic switch certainly doesn’t appear comfortable. The story begins in New York and follows a simple template: Elizabeth (Norah Jones) breaks up with her boyfriend and begins to confide in charming Manchunian cafe owner Jeremy (Jude Law). They bond over blueberry pie before Lizzie sets out travelling across America in search of herself. Standard road-movie/emotional journey set up.

As she crosses the States, working various menial jobs and saving her money to buy a car, Lizzie (or Betty, or Beth) encounters a series of people who each have something to teach her. But most importantly they all provide an aesthetically pleasing canvas for Wong Kar Wai to deploy his classic visual hallmarks. Largely occupying Hopper-esque settings of transience to emphasize the thematic overtones of loneliness, isolation, and thus self-contemplation, we are treated to frequent bouts of manipulated frame rates, saturated colours and aggressively wistful non-diegetic sound. Unfortunately these pretty embellishments are of far less effect than in his previous films such as CHUNGKING EXPRESS where the heady rush of a chase scene is heightened and the confusion physcally felt through similar devices, or IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE where longing and desire cause time to slow as the string music tugs our gaze toward and caresses the object of desire. MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS does not build up sufficient character identification or emotional tension for these well-honed and visually stunning shots to truly work their magic.

This is rarely the fault of the cast who, with the exception of Jude Law whose casting as a Manchunian working-man could not be more off the mark, largely pandered to the director’s sumptuous visual style. Natalie Portman and Rachel Weisz in particular looked great in their supporting roles, and even had a couple of moments in which I was drawn into the dilemmas of their characters - centred of course around love and loss. It’s just that the scripting was far too facile, and gave the viewer little or no credit in terms of unearthing the philosophical questions addressed by Elizabeth’s journey. The painfully blunt narrative tool of her constant postcards to Jeremy back in New York drag us tortuously through her experiences, and only had one real positive impact when they sparked a scene in which Jeremy, desperately trying to get in contact with Elizabeth via telephone, mistakenly pours his heart out to another waitress in Tennessee by the same name. And if this contrived narrative tool wasn’t enough, we were frequently treated to incredibly bland and unnecessary philosophical nuggets: “sometimes we rely on other people to define ourselves, like a mirror”. As if we couldn’t work that one out from the whole structure of the film, or from Jeremy’s attachment to Elizabeth, or the underlying theme in every single subplot encountered along Elizabeth’s journey!!

What haunts me most of all about this film is that I couldn’t shake from my mind something I once heard Wong Kar Wai say (in a talk at the BFI last year). He said that he thought Western audiences found it much harder to follow complex plot lines and large numbers of characters. As a statement this is pretty shocking but if this, rather than his inexperience working in English, is the root cause of the facile plot devices and blandly announced nuggets of philosophy that sporadically crop up at opportune moments throughout the story then my respect for this director really will dip. But as we are unlikely to find out the real reasons, suffice to say that fans of Wong Kar Wai will appreciate his lavish imagery, sensual close-ups and the way he liberally paints his cinematic canvas with lithe and ponderous musical scores and vivid colours. But his appreciation for aesthetic gloss is in this instance sadly not matched by his usual aptitude for insinuating hidden depths, and arthouse audiences will find little of genuine interest in the bland and frequently clunky plot.

www.myblueberrynightsmovie.co.uk