I am crossing finger for wong kar wai's my blueberry nights, woohoo, it is coming!!!!!!

this is an excerpt from NYT:

Wong Kar-wai, the Hong Kong director who was president of the jury at the 2006 festival, opened this year’s event with “My Blueberry Nights,” a romantic confection that begins with a lingering shot of vanilla ice cream melting into the gooey filling of a blueberry pie. The film, Mr. Wong’s first English-language feature, takes place in a postcard America of diners and red neon signs, a land of heartbreak and second chances where folks play poker and drink whiskey and subsist on cheeseburgers, pork chops and, in at least one case, quite a bit of that pie.

The pie eater is Norah Jones, the singer and songwriter, who makes her screen debut as Elizabeth, a New Yorker on the rebound from a long relationship with an unfaithful, unseen and unnamed boyfriend. She takes refuge in a homey restaurant managed by Jeremy (Jude Law), where there is always a lot of blueberry pie left over at closing time.

After they strike up a late-night, pastry-fueled friendship, sealed with a lovely, drowsy screen kiss, Elizabeth takes off on a journey that leads her from Memphis to Nevada, through a series of waitress jobs, slightly altered identities (she’s Lizzie in one place, Beth in another) and encounters with other lonely souls. These include an alcoholic policeman (David Strathairn), his estranged wife (Rachel Weisz) and a gambler (Natalie Portman) who seems to talk a better game than she plays.

Over the years Mr. Wong has acquired a passionate following — one that occasionally manifests cultlike tendencies — for his sensual visual style and oblique narratives of erotic longing. “My Blueberry Nights” may strike his devotees, and skeptics as well, as both a notable departure and a variation on his characteristic themes. He is still interested in the mysterious nature of desire and the effects of time and distance upon it. But the setting, the language and the conventions of English-language screen acting give this movie, for better or worse, a decided air of novelty.

Mr. Wong’s other recent films, like “In the Mood For Love” and “2046” (both shown at previous festivals here) unfold mainly in the narrow hallways and cramped rooms of hotels and apartment buildings in crowded Asian cities, where the men dress in dark suits and the women wear flower-printed cheongsams.

Those movies are dense with color and shadow. In “My Blueberry Nights,” shot in CinemaScope by Darius Khondji, the colors are still rich and smoky, but the wider format gives the compositions a looser, more open feeling. And the characters, contemporary Americans (and one British expatriate), are correspondingly relaxed, even in their moments of distress. Whereas their Asian counterparts in other Wong Kar-wai movies — Gong Li, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung — show emotion through masks of mystery and reserve, Ms. Jones and her co-stars invite and promise easy empathy.

Whether they entirely earn it is another question, one likely to be batted around as “My Blueberry Nights” continues on its journey to screens around the world. (It will be released in the United States by the Weinstein Company.) One of the more annoying tics of the kibitzers at Cannes (including this correspondent) is the habit of rendering authoritative, often hyperbolic snap judgments before the final credits are done. Thus, while the soundtrack music from “My Blueberry Nights,” which includes American institutions like Otis Redding, Ruth Brown and Ry Cooder, was still echoing in the Palais des Festivals, you could hear dyspeptic grumbling about Mr. Wong’s American venture, along with a certain amount of defensive praise.

There will be plenty of time to sort it out. My initial impression is of a sweet, insubstantial movie that might have been more exciting — more meaningful — to make than it is to see. At the press conference after the morning screening, though, not everyone involved in making the film had seen it yet. Ms. Jones said she had watched the trailer, part of which Mr. Law had also glimpsed before being summoned to meet the assembled journalists. Mr. Wong, not known for rushing his films to completion, noted that post-production work had finished only a few days before.

As is customary the questions were respectful, and as is also customary the response of the audience at the gala red carpet screening on Wednesday night was loud and appreciative. Decked out in tuxedos and evening gowns, members of that audience were in the mood for delectation rather than debate. And the mood lingered as some of them waited (along with less decoratively attired camp followers) on a narrow sidewalk near the Palais des Festivals, where they shoved their way onto buses marked “Party.”

I really feel sad for the fact that curse of the golden flower failed to make the OSCAR best foreign motion picture candidate. it is such a great movie......it is a pity that chinese movie lost a chance to be under the world spotlight again (first time is crouching tiger and hidden dragon). after this classy movie, we really should pay respect to Gong li and Chow Yun fat. they both left us numurous memorable movies, such as the killer, a better tomorrow, once a thief, god of gamblers, to live, memoirs of a geisha ( my foreign friends should check them all out lah). now, Gong and Chow are somewhat old. but I will support them forever!!!!!!

 

send my best regards to all the pple commited to promoting chinese film indutry.  I love u all!!!!!

 

my Austrilian friend Carl and his gf might visit me next month. probably we can meet up in shanghai lah:) the rest of friends I made in Stockholm, u guys are sooooo welcome to come to Beijing lah:)

 

carry on with my GRE preparation, suffering :(

 

 

 

 

 

I just finished my project on human settlements and housing. really got tired of it. it had tortured me for 2 days. finnaly got it done. took a breath lah....

 

then I saw the 3rd teaser of curse of the golden flower. it is really funny, especially the subtitle and the background music.

 

unspeakable secrets were hidden within the forbidden city,

one king,

one queen,

his power,

her rebellion.......

 

actually I love the later piece of music, kinda reminds me of some pretty old video games.....

 

my favorite actor, chow Yun-fat, my favorite actress: li gong, one of my favorite director zhang yimou. really have high expectations for it....pls dont let me down this time........

 

the banquet already shit me, really got mad at feng xiaogang (once was my favorite director in mainland, his To be there or be square is one of my favorites). for yimou's new work, now sort of mixed emotion, expect but fear.....

 

anyway, hope the movie will become yimou and chow Yun-fat's another classy work.