MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

I saw My Blueberry Nights last night at the Angelika Film Center in New York City. The movie is magnificent. It is struggling, delicate, intelligent and tender. Another masterpiece from Wong Kar Wai.

The original Angelika Film Center & Café opened in New York City's Soho district in 1989. It was the only place to see independent films in New York at that time. I have seen some of my favorite movies there. The Angelika in New York City is the flagship cinema, and in 1997 Angelika opened a theater in Houston, Texas. In 2001, an Angelika opened in the very popular Mockingbird Station in Dallas, Texas and most recently in 2004, an Angelika opened in Plano, Texas.

The Angelika New York has been a hub for independent cinema since it opened, and many filmmakers across the country hold it in high regard as one of the premier places to debut their films. The theater has six screens. The lobby area houses a fully operational cafe that neighborhood locals use as a restaurant.

MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS is Wai's his first English language film, starring singer Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz. The story follows Elizabeth (Jones), a young woman who travels across America to escape a recent heartbreak and encounters a series of odd jobs and off-beat characters along the way.

Comments

[G. Costanza]

I did love this movie because I love Norah Jones. I think she is just beginning to grow as an actor, and while she appears to be totally natural in the film, and exudes her own enlightened, sensitive aura, she lacks that extra little exaggeration that raises a performance out of mundanity. Maybe next film. Natalie Portman made up for Jones' lack of verve, however. I also thought that special effects played an arbitrarily major role in this film. The effects themselves looked nice, and created a dreamlike atmosphere, I didn't understand why they were necessary to the story. They were even distracting at times, as though they were making up for the skeletal story. Having said this, which is probably already too much, I dug the film at our little SoCal Regal indi film theatre across the street from where I work, and would like to see it again someday. Preferably under the influence of a halucinagenic substance.