My Blueberry Nights (2007/Miriam Collection DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: D
Wong Kar
Wai is one of those respected, but overrated directors who I had some respect
for, but was not that impressed by. Chungking Express was overrated and In The Mood For Love was not much
better, though the later got a strong review from one of our writers:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/99/In+The+Mood+For+Love+(Criterion
In his
first English-language film, My
Blueberry Nights (2007) is the epitome of the pretentious, silly, lame,
amazingly well-cast artsy disaster that has killed too much of independent
filmmaking. With an unusual cast that
includes singer Norah Jones, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn (who
outacts everyone) and Natalie Portman, the film is a run-on mess trying to be
about relationship and turning into a big, disastrous joke.
Law works
at a diner in New York that becomes the locale of the relationships and yes,
they serve blueberry pie, but the pie is more interesting than the screenplay
badly written by Wai and this attempt to be readerly and writerly is just a pie
in the face. Besides wasting a good
cast, the film has the worst use of slow motion in cinema history, done to
death and of the recent choppy kind that looks like someone on drugs decided to
get carried away with a digital editor.
Add the pretentious dividing of scenes with Helvetica print in the left
corner all the time and you sit for 85 minutes stunned at how many wrong
choices were made. Add zero chemistry
and goofy results, and this is one Night
you will want to forget.
So far,
this is the artistic turkey of 2008!
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in Super 35mm by the great
Darius Khondji, but even his fine work cannot save the film and the
softer-than-expected playback here only adds insult to injury. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has a weak
soundfield, though dialogue is adequately recorded and presented. Ry Cooder’s score is not very memorable,
though he has scored films with more impact (he and the film) like Primary Colors and Streets Of Fire. Extras
(nooooooooo) include stills, a trailer, Q&A with the director piece and
making of featurette that has to be seen to be believed.
Of
course, the film can make you hungry for the title dessert, but I remembered an
ad campaign for such pies in the 1970s that featured better narrative structure
and only took a page to do it. Even more
entertaining and convincing, it was the Hostess Pie campaigns that featured DC
Comic superheroes like Batman battling The Joker!
Spend you
money on that instead.
- Nicholas Sheffo
