Um Beijo Roubado

The film is all about mood. If you are not in it, you will not like the movie. My recommendation is to watch it at night, in bed, with no worries on your mind or things to do. It is not something really great, but it soothes the soul like one of those old road books.

The story itself is more of a three parter, each section detailing a mindset and the situations that define it. You see the hopeless romantic, the one person who let the other inside instead of just sticking to the outside, and for whom losing the other is worst than death; then there is the rebellious daughter that loves and hates her father until it's to late to do anything either way; and of course, the story of Nora Joneses and Jude Law's characters.

Bottom line: lay comfy in your bed and listen to the slow rhythms of the music while digesting the human nature presented in the film. In the end it is worth watching.

This was a smart sweet movie. Very nicely done with some beautiful scenes! Majestic pictures really. And it had a nice story and some good characters with great performances specially by Rachel Weisz and Strathairn! It had good witty dialogs and had some funny moments. It's one of those movies that has everything to be good. Never Amazing, never something out of this world, but good! Makes you feel good after wards! But because of the editing and the great shots, this movie could have been far better than the average sweet smart movie.

The main reason why it's just good is because of the lead actress which was Norah Jones. And I'm very sorry to say she didn't convince me at all. It even became annoying at some points! And since she is narrating some bits and appearing in most of the movie.. it kinda ruined it a bit for me. It's really hard to comprehend why she was given the part. But if you can forget about her acting.. I think the movie is really good.

Movie Review: My Blueberry Nights (2008) By Ken Lee

The filmic language of this film is unmistakably WKW, and it won't be wrong for one to say it's reminiscent of his earlier works, chief of which, "Chungking Express"; but it doesn't surpass past achievements, and does not bring us to the "next level", figuratively speaking.

A sentiment that may at once appears to be a bit too harsh, necessarily, this may be. But we do come to expect more from WKW, almost a master, in this age of ours.

Weak plot aside, this film benefits from some truly wonderful (supporting) casts throughout, especially from David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz, except for the most important - the ingénue character that Norah portrays. Symptomatic of this problem is, despite limited screen time together, one can't help wanting to find out more about the Katya character, who seems to share more on screen chemistry with Jeremy (Jude Law) in that cameo, and their past relationship seems a very promising spin-off, in its own right.

And if a post-modern pastiche can be made unto this film, imagine if it's the doll eye Faye Wong (of Chungking Express' fame) with Jude Law in this film...

Ten minutes into the film, when the "Yumeiji theme" (in harmonica) used so prevalently in "In the Mood for Love" was played in the background, I was almost teary eyes. This is one for WKW's fans, even if it's not for the ages.

A Hollywood production for a film director that delivered remarkable love stories with his past works. This is just to leverage on that to make money.

Some slow motion scenes (successfully adopted in In the mood for love and 2046) are re-proposed here as a sterile attempt to impress or give character to the stream. It just does not work.

The film is empty there is nothing behind, the facts are boring and the acting is mediocre.Norah Jones is a remarkable singer but cannot play as an actress, I think it was quite a mistake to have her as main character.

This is the evidence of how money can spoil the workflow of an artist.

Wong is one of our three greatest living filmmakers.

He has transformed imagination for a planet. When real histories are written, artists like this will be appreciated for what they begin, giants compared to politicians who can only try to end things.

His last four films were transformative. Now he tries something outside his realm of mastery.

Like his main character, he has decided to travel the US in search of love. Also like his main character, he doesn't care about the story, only the afterglow. Its the mood that matters. In his previous films, he literally works without a script, creating an obvious vacuum where the story would be.

Here, he simply adopts a story that is so vacuous it leaves a similar hole. With a lesser artist, you would actually pay attention to the story and wonder about it. I suggest you simply ignore it, providing it with no more semiotic weight than the doorknobs which are so carefully photographed.

The idea here is simple: he finds a woman who by herself evokes a mood. He's done this before, and found creatures whose screen presence melts boundaries between stones allowing transparent slipperage. In this case, its Norah Jones, who does have a charm. His key image is of her drunk asleep on a diner counter with crumbs of delicious pastry on her full lips.

The way he's chosen to carry her image is through her songs, which contain a deceptive tension of confident tentativeness. This is a woman who is intensely unsettled and so is settled in herself. Jude Law plays a sort of urban domestic who prepares and waits, simply waits and draws her back.

In between the crumbs and the kiss are adventures with two women played by Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. They are placed as outer bounds on two sides so that our character's stone can slip home. One is remorsefully constrained by neediness, the other guiltily unconstrained. Both lose men, but not our heroine.

Christopher Doyle is not present on this, and its obvious that it is part of the risk Wong is taking: new country, new language, new mode for moodiness, new crew altogether. Different sorts of lingering and saturation.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.