In describing today's best directors, three terms are generally used (and overused): Maverick, Genius and Auteur. A "maverick" is now used to describe virtually anyone who makes a movie without using Hollywood money. An "auteur" is used to describe anyone who writes as well as directs. And "genius" is used to describe anyone who makes a halfway decent film. I'm taking these words back. In reality, a "maverick" should be a button-pusher. It's a filmmaker who is so radical and daring that even high-minded, forward-thinking critics sneer at their work, people like Vincent Gallo or Catherine Breillat. These people are so dangerous that they have trouble making and distributing films. Harmony Korine, director of Mister Lonely (5 screens) is very much a maverick. Korine has pushed many buttons and many envelopes over the years and though I love his work, he's someone I wouldn't want to invite to my house. (He scares me.)

Werner Herzog, director of Encounters at the End of the World (1 screen), is also a maverick (and, incidentally, a buddy of Korine's). His physically dangerous films have probably had insurance companies slamming the door in his face, and his co-workers have included people who might not be fit for polite society. (At the very least, most of them would turn heads.) Some of his actors have reportedly threatened to kill him. It cracks me up that, because Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man was such a hit, Herzog was allowed to make his new film for the Discovery Channel. I'd really love to have been in on that board meeting. Did they really know who they were dealing with? At the same time, Herzog is also an auteur: all of his films have the same roaming curiosity, fearlessly exploring man's tenuous connection to nature, from Aguirre navigating the Amazon looking for El Dorado, to Timothy Treadwell seeking to befriend the bears.

(ed. note: This post was accidentally published at 1AM, instead of 1PM, so we're re-publishing it at the correct time.)

I've been thinking about the largely negative response to Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights (6 screens), a film I quite liked. As of today it's at 43% on Rotten Tomatoes, though it opens wider this weekend (including here in the Bay Area) and more reviews are surely coming in. Most critics I've spoken with around here likewise didn't think much of it. What are the reasons for all this disappointment? The main reason has to do with its weight. It's a lightweight movie, a trifle, flimsy, vapid, thin, etc. Wong is considered one of the world's greatest filmmakers, a maker of "weighty" works of art, and so this "lighter" film is beneath him. It's a letdown, a step backward.

Well, I say that's nonsense. Many great filmmakers dallied in lightweight, lesser trifles during their careers, and it didn't make them any less great. Martin Scorsese has made lots of them. After Hours (1985) and The Color of Money (1986) may not pack the punch of Raging Bull, but they are quite enjoyable, and pure Scorsese. (His current Shine a Light, 277 screens, feels like a trifle.) Fritz Lang came to the United States from a position of great power and unlimited resources in Germany and found himself assigned cheap crime pictures. Yet few critics today would complain about the "lightness" of The Big Heat or Scarlet Street. Max Ophuls also made crime films in Hollywood (Caught and The Reckless Moment), and his reputation remains intact. Some consider John Ford the greatest American director of all time, and even though his goofball Donovan's Reef (1963) isn't counted among his classics, I love it just as much. It has moments of great beauty that reflect its maker's personality. My Blueberry Nights may not stand up to In the Mood for Love, but it's unquestionably a Wong Kar-wai film.

"I don't know how to begin, because the story's been told before," croons Nora Jones on the soundtrack during the opening of My Blueberry Nights, and it seems a similar problem afflicts Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai, who makes his English language debut with this gorgeous if slight saga about aimless Elizabeth's (Jones) search for herself via a cross-country journey. It's not so much that Wong doesn't know how to commence this specific tale but, instead, that he doesn't know how to start anew, as his latest proves a minor stateside revisitation (or, perhaps more accurately, a rehash) of his favorite thematic and aesthetic preoccupations.

Despite being shot by Darius Khondji and not the director's longtime collaborator Christopher Doyle, the film offers up a handy compendium of his favorite visual signatures - the smeary slow-motion, the hyper-vibrant, sharp-and-soft color palette, framing and tracking shots that dreamily highlight the distance between individuals - while his narrative continues a career-long obsession with the intricacies of romance and the imperative role of memory (regarding both love and loss). It's as light, fluffy and attractive as the blueberry pies that Manhattan café owner Jeremy (Jude Law) serves Elizabeth late at night, but ultimately, also, far less satisfying.

Poor Wong Kar-Wai! Has the Chinese auteur been reduced to selling t-shirts to make a living? Not exactly. Movie City News pointed to an item at Material Interest, a news blog at Style.com, which indicates that the director has apparently authorized various merchandise to publicize next week's opening of his latest work, My Blueberry Nights. The goods, available exclusively at the New York and Los Angeles locations of boutique retailer Opening Ceremony, includes t-shirts, which sell for $95, posters, which go for $50, and postcards, selling for the bargain basement price of just $25.

Wong has been widely celebrated for following his own muse, which has often alienated him from the Hong Kong film industry where he got his start as a scriptwriter more than 25 years ago. Sad to say, the English-language My Blueberry Nights alienated him from half the critical world when it premiered to widespread disappointment at Cannes last year. (Our own James Rocchi was more positive, noting its shortcomings but concluding that "most of us will be swept away by Wong's visions and his depiction of love, loss and life.") Wong has since tinkered with the film, and a new version opens next Friday, April 4.

We've mentioned indieWIRE's filmmaker talks sponsored by Apple before. There's been Julie Delpy, shots of Redacted, Wes Anderson and crew, Richard Kelly and some Tales, Rewinding with Michel Gondry, and some David Gordon Green. They really know how to get people you'd want to see up close, and hear what they have to say about their films. And they sinisterly make me wish I was in New York City every few months.

Now indieWIRE continues the trend with their latest conquest; Wong Kar Wai, who will finally make his English-language debut on mainstream screens this April 4, and will be popping by the Apple Store in SoHo on April 1. The director will show scenes from My Blueberry Nights, and Dennis Lim will moderate a discussion about the film as well.

If you make it out to any of these (and are, of course, lucky enough to be in the vicinity), this would probably be the one to see. How many times does the guy do talks stateside -- one you can see for free?! The talk will be held from 7:00-8:00 p.m., at 103 Prince Street, NYC, and it's first-come, first-serve free seating. If any of you Cinematical readers make it out to the talk, let us know how it went!

Yeah, back in January, there was a new poster and a limited release date of February 13 for My Blueberry Nights. Obviously, this release was set to give coupley lovers a chance to delight in blueberries whilst expressing their love for one another. I guess it was just too soon, because that day came and went without Wong Kar Wai's English-language debut.

Now, indieWIRE reports that the film once again has a release date -- this time, April 4 -- but that's not all. There's also a new version of the film, and The Weinstein Company is quoted as saying: "This is a new cut of the film, different than the version shown at Cannes." This is, no doubt, in response to the half and half response it got at the festival -- right now, the film as a 56% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and even the positive reviews find faults with the feature.

Whatever they end up releasing, I just want to see the damned thing already. So, hopefully, this date will be the one that will stick, and hopefully this cut improves the film for all of us. In the meantime, check out James' Cannes review.

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.

As a lovelorn cop in Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express, he ate expired cans of pineapple; as a mute urban guerrilla in Wong's Fallen Angels, he broke into other people's businesses and forced passers-by to be his customers. Those were the first two films in which I saw Takeshi Kaneshiro; his brooding, romantic looks have served him well in a career that has ranged all over Asia -- aided, no doubt, by his broad appeal and multi-lingual talents. Born in Taiwan, he speaks Japanese, Taiwanese, Mandarin, Cantonese and English.

His highest profile titles in the West have probably been the Japanese science fiction action picture The Returner and Zhang Yimou's costumed martial arts epic House of Flying Daggers. He's one of the stars of the just released action epic The Warlords (which has done boffo box office) and will also be featured in John Woo's upcoming Red Cliff. Kaneshiro will also be starring in The Fiend With Twenty Faces (AKA K-20: Kaijin niju menso den), according to a recent story by Mark Schilling at Variety Asia Online.

Kaneshiro will play a master criminal plying his trade in a fictional Japanese city in 1949. The lovely Takako Matsu -- who is coming off a lead performance in the big fall hit Hero -- has been set to portray a victim of "The Fiend" and veteran Toro Nakamura will co-star as a detective. Shimako Sato will direct. Filming is scheduled to begin in January and Toho plans to release it in December 2008. I'm hard pressed at the moment to think of a role in which Kaneshiro has played someone that could be called a "fiend," so I'll be very interested to see what comes of a film that's been described as a mystery crime drama.

We've got to wait until February to see what Wong Kar Wai made of his first English-language film, My Blueberry Nights -- it finally goes into limited release the day before Valentine's Day -- February 13, 2008. In the meantime, he's made a short film that has found its way online. In July, it was announced that the filmmaker would make an exclusive short for Philips' new televisions -- the Ambilight series. Riffing on the idea that this new generation of TV's does wonders with light and color, Wong Kar Wai was brought on to make a film that taps into "the concept of seduction by light."

Of course, looking for a saturated, color-infused film, he was the man to pick. Philips' CEO, Rudy Provoost, said: "Innovation isn't just about increased functionality anymore. It's about creating experiences, seducing the senses and bringing emotion into the world of technology. That's why the movie for our campaign [...] had to be crafted by a master of seduction in cinema."

The short, There's Only One Sun, is now online, over at Philips' Aurea website. It's a strange, slow-paced colorful tale of a female secret agent who dresses like a model and has to hunt down someone called "Light," using a "Lightcatcher." Even if you're not into strange, surreal narratives, or obvious product placement, it's worth the few minutes to check out the visuals that the filmmaker put together for this short -- it's a pretty darned saucy little film.

[via Thompson on Hollywood]

Programming a film series or festival inevitably requires a degree of compromise, depending as it does on the oft-indecipherable whims of distributors, producers and sales agents. In recognition of the challenges and frustrations involved, I prefer to give programmers the benefit of the doubt. Yet I can't help but wonder what the Film Society of Lincoln Center had in mind with "10 Years and Running: Recent Hong Kong Cinema," a retrospective series that begins tonight in New York City.

Ostensibly, the program is intended "to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" with a "series of cinematic highlights." That sounds good, but the program lacks any balance. If the aim was to provide the very best of Hong Kong cinema since 1997, then why include Initial D and Confession of Pain, two moderately enjoyable yet ultimately inconsequential films by the directing team of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak (their much better collaboration Infernal Affairs is also screening). If the goal was to provide historical perspective on the decade, why ignore completely the wave of proto-Hollywood thrillers (Downtown Torpedoes, 2000 A.D.) that flooded theaters in the late 1990's, or the plethora of romantic comedies that followed in the wake of Needing You in 2000, or recent attempts -- by directors other than Johnny To -- to reawaken the action film (Flash Point, Invisible Target)? If the goal was to highlight popular hits, where are the films of Stephen Chow (The King of Comedy, Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle)?

Instead, the showcase is limited to the tried and true: Lau and Mak (three films), Wong Kar Wai (two films) and Johnny To (three and 1/3, counting his contribution to Triangle) fill eight of the 13 slots. That's not to denigrate the quality of the selections nor to discourage anyone from attending, but it looks like a lost opportunity to showcase less-heralded gems of recent Hong Kong cinema. All that being said, if I lived in New York I'd park myself in the theater for the entire series, which runs through October 25; I've seen most of them, but not on the big screen.