It’s a known fact that movies and music mix. It’s also known that movies about music are usually pretty good. The one place where cinema and sounds should never intersect is when rock stars decide to act–think of Madonna’s many cinematic flops, Beyonce’s Dream Girls, and did anyone even see TI’s performance in ATL? Didn’t think so. It’s no surprise then that award-winning Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai’s English-language film debut My Blueberry Nights is getting such lukewarm reviews. The movie, which stars jazz sensation Norah Jones, Jude Law and Natalie Portman, is a road-tripping modern love story of sorts that also features the acting debut of Cat Power’s Chan Marshal–which might in itself be the kiss of box office death.
With an already glass half-empty filmic equation, the only way this film could possibly redeem itself is with a kick-ass soundtrack. Unfortunately the soundtrack is the musical equivalent of what you could only imagine Chan Marshall’s screen test to be like. With a mix of anti-climactic road-ready tunes by Ry Cooder (who composed the film’s score) and some oldies but goodies like Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness,” it’s hard to get a sense of the movie’s atmosphere or mood from the soundtrack alone. Of course there’s a new Norah Jones track called “The Story,” which is a drowsy little number that, besides a ghoulish David Lynch-like bassline at the beginning, is pretty much what you might expect from this singer/songwriter-turned-ingénue. Oh, and if you couldn’t already predict, there’s a couple Cat Power songs (”Living Proof” and “The Greatest”) taken from her decidedly more upbeat effort The Greatest. A good soundtrack is supposed to be iconic and memorable so if even the movie bombs at least there’ll be some good songs attached to the title. In the case of My Blueberry Nights, the musical accompaniment may be as dull as the movie. Norah, keep your day job.