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My Blueberry Nights (The Miriam Collection) | 
 enlarge | Director: Wong Kar-wai
Actors: Tim Roth, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Jude Law
Studio: Weinstein Company
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy Used: $6.32
You Save: $13.66 (68%)
New (46) Used (27) from $6.32
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 5865
Format: Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 95 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: WEID81346D
UPC: 796019813464
EAN: 0796019813464
ASIN: B0016MJ6HY
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: TORN ARTWORK. Guaranteed to play. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
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Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 01/27/2009 Run time: 95 minutes Rating: Pg13
Amazon.com
Bob Dylan's song "Lovesick" could describe every film Wong Kar-Wai has made since 1988's As Tears Go By. My Blueberry Nights, his first English-language feature, continues the Hong Kong helmer's fixation with the concept. Grammy-winning vocalist Norah Jones plays downhearted New Yorker Elizabeth. When her boyfriend takes up with another woman, she drowns her sorrows in the hand-crafted pie served up by sympathetic café proprietor Jeremy (Jude Law in a charming turn). Lizzie appreciates the support, but decides her best plan of attack is to leave town, so she hops a bus to Memphis, where she waitresses while serving as a sounding board for alcoholic police officer Arnie (David Strathairn), who pines for estranged wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz). Later, Lizzie tries her luck in Vegas, where she joins forces with professional poker player Leslie (a brassy Natalie Portman). During her journey, Lizzie sends Jeremy postcards; through her wistful words, he finds himself falling in love. With Ry Cooder's plaintive score (bolstered by tunes from Jones and special guest Chan "Cat Power" Marshall) and golden-hued camera work from Darius Khondji (replacing regular cinematographer Christopher Doyle), My Blueberry Nights reaches for the elegiac tone of Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas as much as Wong's own Chungking Express. It's an odd combination that doesn't always work--the banal dialogue isn't up to the director's usual standards--but lovesickness has rarely been rendered more vividly. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Way underrated December 4, 2008
Christopher White (Littleton, CO USA)
I really enjoyed this movie, definitely slower and more contemplative than some of the other genre pieces you might be tempted to compare it to, but then, that might be part of what makes it so much more meaningful.
Each character seems to be mostly passed over by the world living with shallow and ultimately superfluous relationships while letting work or addiction wash life by them.
As the film progresses some of the characters are abruptly thrown into situations force in meaning to their lives and slowly, inadvertently help Elizabeth, Norah Jones' character, find meaning in her own.
The film is also very good artistically, particularly light and color of the cinematography is superb. The performances all hold up well and I think it it may be one of both Jude Law and Natalie Portman's best.
Great movie and far too underrated, you really should take the time to see it if you get the chance!
 Rabbit Trail September 23, 2008
Lee Armstrong (Winterville, NC United States)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
What I like most about "My Blueberry Nights" is the great soundtrack album My Blueberry Nights. Wong Kar-Wai who won an award at Cannes for Happy Together directed his first English language film. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well. Jude Law is always interesting to watch for me. His two Oscar nominations for "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain" gave much better stories and characters than does this film. Darius Khondji, the Oscar nominee for "Evita," does stunning work with the cinematography. However, time lapse photography of ice cream melting on a blueberry pie might make me hungry, but it doesn't compensate for the lack of a story. Law's Jeremy and Norah Jones' Elizabeth seem like they are destined to become romantically linked. After nights in the pie shop, Jones takes off which takes her to several locations. Rachel Weisz who won a supporting Oscar & Golden Globe for "The Constant Gardener" plays the sleazy wife Sue Lynne to David Strathairn's boozy policeman. I actually liked Strathairn more in this film than in his Oscar nominated performance for "Good Night & Good Luck" He has such an unrequited love and such a tragic demise. Down the road, Elizabeth runs into Natalie Portman's gambler character who seems juvenile, untrustworthy and spoiled. However, Jones can't hold her own in frame with Portman and the film loses its path, as it seems to take a rabbit trail rather than illuminating the Elizabeth-Jeremy story. Chan Marshall shows up as Jeremy's ex. The big change in the movie comes as Jeremy tosses a jar of keys he'd been keeping at the diner. While this film is handsomely filmed with good-looking talented actors and has a great soundtrack, it's rather awkward as a film, going nowhere slowly. Taxi!
poorly made September 6, 2008
Janette L. Grigg
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
this was really disappointing, great cast, could have been a great romantic comedy but the lines were off, slow and terrible photography.
Could have been so much; became so little... August 8, 2008
Andrew Ellington (Mulholland Drive)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I really wanted to like this movie. I remember when the buzz surrounding this movie started flooding in during the beginning of 2007 and everyone was predicting it for all kinds of awards beings that it was Kar Wai Wong's first English language film and the casting of singer songwriter Norah Jones in the lead role was particularly interesting. I waited patiently for the buzz to turn into full-fledged madness but it seemed as if no sooner did the buzz begin then the buzz died and before I knew it the film wasn't even being released for a wide release and I had to wait until it was available on DVD before I could see it. Regardless of the fact that it managed only one nomination (at Cannes mind you) I still really wanted to see this film, and so I did, and now that Cannes nomination baffles me, because `My Blueberry Nights' is very disappointing.
`My Blueberry Nights' gets off to a sour start. In fact for the first twenty minutes or so absolutely nothing happens. We see Elizabeth, a frantic stalker-type ex-girlfriend going in and out of a bakery where she continues to ask the owner Jeremy if he has seen the man she was last in there with and they eat some pie and she watches some surveillance videos and cries and she gives him her keys to give to her ex and then she picks up and leaves town. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's not when you watch it. It's slow moving and rather vapid.
In fact the whole movie feels rather vapid.
There are a lot of critics who talk about Kar Wai Wong's infatuation with lovesickness, but I really didn't gather that here. I saw glimpses of it, sure, but overall the feeling I was left with was more empty than fulfilled. Sadly this was the first Kar Wai Wong film I have seen (but I do have `In the Mood for Love' in my Netflix queue) and I am left a little confused as to why this director is so lauded. I will allow his other films to change my mind though.
The acting is decent for the most part, excels in some areas and falls flat in others. Norah Jones is beyond doubt a phenomenal singer and musician. Her music touches my soul. Her acting is uninspired and bland. There is a part in the film when Faison's character says quite frankly to Weisz's character that he doesn't know what her ex-husband ever saw in her. As he was speaking those words I was thinking the same thing, but about Jones's character, wondering how anyone could find her remotely interesting. Her eyes are dead and she embodies no real emotion. Jude Law is charming across the board; a little obnoxious in some areas but overall strong. David Strathairn is stronger still as the alcoholic police officer Arnie. His subtle outbursts within his own skin are far too good for the movie he inhabits. Rachel Weisz is probably the most entertaining thing about this movie in the way that Thandie Newton is the most entertaining thing about `Crash'; a little uneven but uneven to perfection. Natalie Portman is entertaining yet nothing impressive. Her performance is decent, but doesn't really add anything to her character.
I also found the incessant, repetitive use of Norah Jones's music throughout the beginning portion of the film to be rather unnecessary and annoying.
By the time the film was wrapping up I was wondering what it was all about, what the whole purpose of this exercise was. Sure, Elizabeth was supposed to find herself out on the road with all these people she doesn't understand and eventually realize that Jeremy is the one she wants to be with, but that point could have been delivered a little clearer and a little more interestingly. I just found `My Blueberry Nights' to be a waste of talent and concept and apparently director, unless all of his films are like this and I'm just not intelligent enough to `get' them.
 I want my money back. August 4, 2008
shashi marie
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
I rented this from Blockbuster and should have taken heed to my instinct to put it back on the shelf when I read the sticker proclaiming it to be a Blockbuster exclusive rental.
I was lured in by the cast and the art house feel. Ten minuted into the film, however, I found myself wondering: "is this it???". I kept waiting for it to begin but it never did. Jude Law and Natalie Portman were really the only interesting characters in the movie and their bits were so minute compared to the entirely lackluster Nora Jones that I kept wondering to myself if the rest of the cast would add this film to their shame list and forget they ever participated in this disaster.
As for the arthouse feel, think in terms of the cinemagraphic tricks used in music videos and video snapshots of subways in New York where everything seems purposely sped up and blurred for effect. Now imagine an entire film of that. It's exhausting.
As to be expected with such a gifted lead, though, there was some lovely music to keep me company throughout the numbing dialogue and impersonal directing. Other than that, it's painful.
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