Man oh man did Jeff Wells ever hate My Blueberry Nights. His Hollywood Elsewhere post on it is a spontaneous rant that rivals early Henry Rollins for sheer pissed-offedness. He's so Runaway Train that he risks becoming as ridiculous as he accuses the movie of being: " It's time for Kar to say "okay, it didn't work" and hightail it back to China," Wells writes. Because, you know, we're sick of the guy swaggering around in the U.S. Kar-Wei Go Home! You know, I think the guy actually has been back to China since wrapping this, Jeff. I think he's got, you know, family there.
But between intervals of wanting to say, "A lot of rage there, Jeff; wanna rap about it?" I see Wells has got points as well as issues. We actually seem to have mind-melded on the spoken-dialogue versus subtitles perplex. And while saying that the dialogue here makes the talk in Don't Come Knocking sound good is taking things entirely too far, I have to admit that when Rachel Weisz's character in Nights drawls "I'm gonna git me a job," I cringed. And I cringed elsewhere as well.
Wells and I may marvel that we're talking about the same film that sent our mutual pal Anne Thompson into cineastical rapture. I guess I'm the Derek Smalls of this debate—the lukewarm water to Thompson's fire and Wells' ice.
Looking forward to your reactions to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and whether the (ambivalent) ending is faithful to the novel. And whether more than one ending was shot. Pity the U.S. release has been pushed back to November.
Posted by: stpetebeach | May 16, 2007 at 04:54 PM
"Of course, guys never admit there's another woman without being hammered and prosecuted by their betrayed significant other for hours, if not days or weeks, on end. The male genetic code prohibits it."
Sounds like Mr. Wells has some, um, issues.
Posted by: Filmbrain | May 17, 2007 at 11:08 AM