Rating: 
Summary: THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR!
Review: I just saw this the other day, and I have to tell you: if this is playing in your area, RUN to the theatre as soon as you've finished reading this. You DO NOT want to miss out on this film! Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson give THE BEST performances of their careers in this wonderful masterpiece directed by Sofia Copolla (The Virgin Suicides). The woman is now one of my favorite directors, and this is one of my favorite films. This film is about two lonely people in a world that's totally difficult for them to live in. They meet up at a bar, and run off for a night on the town. They develop a very special, strong friendship during the course of the week in Tokyo. The end is heartbreaking. You feel as if you know these people, and when the end comes along, well, I saw this with one of my best friends, and at the end of the film I grabbed her by the arm and gave her a big hug. I loved this film, and I will own it when it comes to DVD. THE BEST that 2003 has to offer. RUN to see it. Go now. RUN! Definitly should win all the major awards this year at the Oscars. Deserves them all. HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! SEE IT WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst movie I've ever seen
Review: I should preface this review by saying that my husband and I both have advanced degrees and see 50+ independent films a year. We drove for an hour in horrendous traffic to see this movie, and it is the only film we have ever walked out of in 25 years of adult movie viewing. It is pointless and banal to the point of idiocy. If you are a film buff, it is like the worst excesses of 60s French New Wave. Long shots of actors staring. Little or no dialogue. Brief scenes cut in that have no relationship to the (absent) plot. Long, long scenes where not a word can be understood. Characters you can't care about because they HAVE no character. Characters who are supposedly intelligent who can't think of a thing to do to amuse themselves in one of the great cities of the world. We get it; we get it--these people are ALIENated. Ugh. Don't waste your time. The positive critical response to this film can only be some bizarre plot to hoodwink middle America.
Rating: 
Summary: Good acting --Sloooow slooow story
Review: Acting was good its is just the story never really got going. There is no plot in this movie, it is just more a 'life situation' or 'point in time'. And outside a few moments, its just not that funny.
Don't see this movie unless you liked Bill Murry in 'The Razor's Edge'.
Rating: 
Summary: great potential, but doesn't make it
Review: This could have been a fabulous film. Instead, it seems the product of someone still in film school, who needs a lot of help from her teacher. It seems like a short, not a full-length film. The acting is first class, and the idea is great. Sophia Coppola needs some assistance. Certainly she got it from her father, who financed the film. I wonder if being his daughter also influenced the critics? But what she really needed from him, was help making this snippet into a film.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good movie over all
Review: Our ability to understand the Japanese language made the movie a little bit more enjoyable for us. Some parts moved a little bit too slowly, but the story line was very enjoyable. Glad to see that they both ended up with their own lives, although the possibilities for a relationship seemed to have been developing pretty well. The shots showing Tokyo with all that neon lighting was really dramatic, and a good way to show how one can get lost in the translation.
Rating:
Summary: This movie is boring.
Review: I saw many good reviews of this movie and I trusted them when I decided to watch this movie. I was wrong. This movie was very boring. The story is slow. Camera work is awful. Music sucks. The ending is cheesy. It reminded me many things about Japan but that's it. It's not really funny. It's not really a love story. It's not really anything. This movie is boring for regular folks like me.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant. The perfect character movie.
Review: I love character-based movies. Love them. In saying that, this movie blew me away. It's about 2 Americans, stuck in Japan for different reasons, who feel trapped and out of place. What begins as a trip they dread and hate transforms into something totally different as their friendship blossoms. The directing is excellent, the script writing is clean, and the scenery is remarkable. The places the characters visit are simply breathtaking; one scene coming to mind is a trip Scarlett Johansson takes to a temple where a Japanese wedding is taking place. It's just gorgeous - it will truly blow your visual socks off. What a beautiful country . . . My advice? See this. It's funny and sad and poignant, and I can see why they say Bill Murray is Oscar material. It's so real. Five stars, all the way. In my opinion, it's near perfect.
Rating:
Summary: Probably 4-5 considering the craft involved
Review: I came in with misgivings, having admired the craft but not enjoyed the Virgin Suicides. Quite and silence are used in film to add gravity to scenes (we're so used to constant soundtracks in American films), and I thought there was a lot of ill earned gravity to that movie. and honestly accounting for that, I still dislike Lost in Translation ... the entire first half consisted of one cheap shot after another to build up two characters who in the end I tolerate but generally think of arrogant tourists. Actually, I actively dislike the girl at the end. I understand that it was meant to show culture clash, the we're so lost and how do you reach out ... but with such a mean spirit that I couldn't help but think that of the shallow, low side of the characters. Nor did was it an elevation of what is basically a normal, common feeling for many of us. The culture clashes were so constructed as primarily sight gags, or reaction shots, or god forbid the japanese mispronouncing english...in Japan? It was a spirit that permeated the film, especially including the poor little rich girl actress. Sure its funny, the Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson (who did fine) are our surrogates, and they built entirely at the expense of the ill-concived characters, who are merelt more "the world is crazy and crude" props for the leads. The second half was better, more even, even if the good things about Japan that they like are a very hip, elitist selection anyway. Had the first half been more tonally even, I think I would have enjoyed it much more. But by then I wanted the well made, well acted, pretty movie to end. Everyone was very good. The script was very
constructed, every other character astonishingly poor. Like Storytelling, well sure I don't like those people. You wrote them that way. Happy Together reminds me of a lost in foreign country movie that wasn't so mean. Being lost shouldn't be a feeling that requires insults, like Coppola's shots w/o people. Simlarily, there are quiet banal moments we're just supposed to gauzily watch. I say we're suppose to feel a bit of their existential ennui. And I don't. Its the same thing as mumbling the last words, and not giving it to the audience- cheap shot. Scenes that add the appearance of depth, but completely artificially.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't They Notice the Boom Mikes?
Review: First off, I have to say that I really liked this film. The acting from Bill Murray and Miss Johansson is brilliant, and so is the mood and tone of the film. One can really relate to the subject matter. I mean haven't we all felt "lost" at one time or another like the characters in this piece?
But what really annoyed me about this film is the appearance of the overhead boom mikes in many of the scenes. The first time I noticed it, I just let it pass, but it kept happening. It appears the most in the scene with Giovanni Ribisi and Scarlett Johansson, when he says something like, "Not everyone went to Yale." Look for it. The mike is right overhead. That ruined the entire scene for me.
Overall, I wanted to give this wonderful film 5 stars, but it only gets 3 because of the mike situation. It's really a shame, because this film is so good otherwise!
Rating:
Summary: A solid film
Review: "Lost in Translation" is a film that conveys much of it's themes through silence. There are moments of awkward quietness between characters, and then there are moments of serenity expressed solely through the facial inflections of a woman's face. This is a very poetic movie in terms of presentation, but the content of it's message couldn't be more stark. Whether you're in Japan, or smack dab in the middle of metropolitan America, feelings of being alienated from a clear path are inevitable. "Lost in Translation" finds a kind of beauty in the strangeness of foreign lands, and foreign notions of what it truly means to be integrated into society. Scarlett Johanssen and Bill Murray (in career-best peformances) play two strangers who inadvertantly cross paths, only to build an unspoken rapport that is fueled by equal parts of social desperation and emotional curiosity. The humor in this movie, at first, is targeted toward the flamboyancy of Japan's culture, but easy laughs fade as both Murray and Johanssen realize the stagnancy of their lives. Conversations between the two spark with a kind of honesty that is too often danced around. The initial disparity between Johansson's college-grad ambivalence and Murray's midlife apathy gradually dissolves as the bond strengthens, and the results are mesmerizing. "Lost in Translation"'s comedy is a bit bumpy at times, and Sophia Copolla doesn't always burrow beneath the cliches of what Japanese people are like. But even with these faults, this is definitely one of the better films of 2003.
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