My Blueberry Nights

The new Wong Kar Wai movie has received mediocre reviews in the press, but I thought it was amazing. This is WKW's first movie made in America with Hollywood actors, and he picked good ones: Jude Law and Natalie Portman were incredible together in Closer, and both do a great job here. Norah Jones is fantastic, and I love how her hair actually has a screen presence. Rachel Weisz is brilliant, as always, and David Strathairn, who was an unknown to me, impressed me. The most memorable thing about the movie is the grain, although the fact that "Try a little tenderness" is deconstructed during the first half of the second love story is up there too. Yeah, I don't know what the critics were complaining about: this is not an obvious masterpiece like "In the mood for love", but it's really really excellent.