Empire has the exclusive first look at the new poster for Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights. While the first poster release chose to put Rachel Weisz front and center, the latest one-sheet lets you know right from the get-go that this film is an ensemble in every sense of the word. The story centers on a young woman (played by Norah Jones in her acting debut) who wastes away hours in a local cafe run by a romantically philosophical type named Jeremy (played by Jude Law). The story then follows our broken hearted gal as she rambles about the country, coming into contact with an alcoholic cop and his wife (David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz) and a gambling con-artist as played by Natalie Portman.

My Blueberry Nights marks Wong Kar Wai's first attempt at an English language film, and will also be one of the few films he has shot without the services of his usual cinematographer, Christopher Doyle. Instead, the famed director hired Darius Khondji, who has worked with Woody Allen (Anything Else) and David Fincher (Panic Room). The film premiered in Cannes back in May, and while reviews were mixed (mainly directed at Jones' acting abilities), the overall impression was that the film marked some new territory for the director -- you can read James' review here. Wong Kar Wai is a master at conveying love and longing for another person. So, even though there have been some changes in his usual methods, you know you are still in some pretty capable hands. Plus, if you consider the cast and the skill of people involved in the production, it would be a shock if it didn't all somehow work. My Blueberry Nights is set to open for a limited release on February 13th, 2008.

The guy behind the loved and quirky Benny and Joon, but also the one behind the much, much less-loved The Avengers, Jeremiah S. Chechik, is getting a stab at another feature to add to his docket, which already includes The Pornographer's Poem and possibly The Light-house. Shoreline has grabbed the rights to the novel Pomona Queen, by Kem Nunn. The premise -- "a vacuum-cleaner salesman becomes entangled in a homicidal biker's quest to avenge his brother's murder." Sounds totally plausible, right? So the aging hipster and salesman, Earl, is considered the best in town, but he wants to claim an inheritance and re-gain some family land. The guy ends up at the house of a crazy, trashy guy who is guarding the corpse of his brother until he founds out who killed him. Earl becomes entangled in the mess, which is connected to a band called Pomona Queen, and has strange ties to his own family history.

Variety doesn't mention who will be adapting the novel, but considering the fact that the author has also written for television (including Deadwood), I wouldn't be surprised if he adapts it himself. A cinematographer is also in place -- Christopher Doyle -- who has a much better track record than the director. Doyle's previous work includes The Quiet American, Hero, 2046 and Lady in the Water. The guy also directed a segment of Paris, je t'aime. It's enough to make me curious. Chechik has done well with wild stories before, and it should be pretty stylish with Doyle attached. And really, it wouldn't be hard for Pomona to be an improvement; The Avengers has an embarrassing 3.3/10 rating on IMDb, from 15,357 votes.

Depending on who you talk to, Martin Scorsese's The Departed is either a remake of or just based on Infernal Affairs, a massive hit in its native Hong Kong  -- and elsewhere in Asia -- and a sneakily well-crafted thriller (I spent the first 85 minutes wondering what all the fuss was about and the next 15 being totally blown away) to boot. Whatever its actual relationship to Infernal Affairs -- the producers did buy the series rights, and used them in some way in crafting The Departed -- Scorsese's film stars Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio and, at long last, has been given a release date: According to Box Office Mojo, the movie will hit American screens on October 6.

So, that's the simple, good news. Now we get to the fun part: Christopher Doyle, one of the world's best-known, best respect cinematographers (he shot such visually stunning works as Chungking Express, First Love: Litter on the Breeze, and Happy Together) was the "visual consultant" on Infernal Affairs and, in a recent interview, pulled no punches (for what it's worth, Doyle has never pulled a punch in his life) when asked about The Departed. Among other things, Doyle announced that "it makes [him] very sad to see Marty and so many others genre-fying and gentrifying himself into mediocrity," and then spent some time lamenting the director's apparent need "to suck box office, or studio, or whoever's dick he feels he needs to suck." Did I mention not pulling punches?

According to StudioCanal, the production company that is shopping distribution rights for Wong Kar-Wai's English language debut My Blueberry Nights at Cannes, the movie is heading into pre-production right after its director gets done with that whole Chairing the Cannes Jury thing. Seeing as how we're talking about WKW here, the fact that two updates, two months apart are talking about the same start date is something of a minor miracle (that said, of course, if we don't see the movie until 2010, no one will really be surprised). In addition to the previously-announced cast consisting of Norah Jones, Rachel Weisz and Jude Law, Variety reported this morning that Natalie Portman is also on board. The film will center on Jones, who travels across the US to "find the true meaning of love, encountering offbeat characters along the way."

You'd think that Wong must be salivating over this project just as much as his fans are -- imagine what he'll be able to do with the lights of Las Vegas, or the wide open spaces of the American West (to help you conjure up the latter, check out the mind-blowing Ashes of Time). As long as he brings Christopher Doyle along to shoot the thing, the movie has the potential to be just incredible.

It was announced in January that the great and powerful The Da Vinci Code will have its world premiere at Cannes (assuming it's not banned by a British judge, or something), opening the festival on May 17. Ron Howard's film, however, is showing out of competition, and it wasn't until yesterday that the name of a competing film was first revealed: Paris, je t'aime will open the Un Certain Regard sidebar when it screens on the night of May 18. The film is a series of 20 shorts by different directors, each one focusing on one of Paris's arrondissements, or districts. Among the directors who took part in the project are Alfonso Cuarón, Joel and Ethan Coen, Alexander Payne, Christopher Doyle, Tom Tykwer, Olivier Assayas, and Wes Craven; stars include Maggie Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Rufus Sewell, Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, and Juliette Binoche.

The films in the Un Certain Regard sidebar are not part of the festival's Official Selection; they are judged by a separate jury (Payne was last year's chair), and a prize is award to the best film in the series the night before the major awards are handed out.