Rating: 
Summary: The Zen of No Car Chase Scenes
Review: If you "get" this movie, it is five stars all the way. If you don't "get" this movie that doesn't make it worth only one star. There is much in life that I don't like or "get." Just because I don't "get" it does not necessarily detract from the merit of that given thing. This movie is a work of art for what it is. If you are expecting Caddy Shack, Meatballs or a conventional love story you will be disappointed. If you were expecting something else, you should have gone to see something else. As for the soundtrack, I found it absolutely wonderful, which like every other element of this film, people seemed to either love or hate. If you are looking for the literal or familiar, please avoid this movie. If however, you see yourself as a person willing to experience something that goes beyond comforting cliches, you will see one of the few times where the phrase, "the art of movie making" is true and not an oxymoron. And remember, "For fun times, it's Suntory times."
Rating:
Summary: One of the best of 2003
Review: Simply said, you either get it or you don't. If you don't, then certainly I can understand someone saying its not a great movie. But if you are of the mind to understand what the movie is all about, then you will find that it is one of the most charming movies to come out in a long time. It will stay with you and you will want to see it again and again. wonderful.
Thanks Mugino for bringing me to this movie!
Rating:
Summary: Top One Movies of the Year
Review: Okay, most people have a top ten list, but actually this is the *only* movie I've seen this year that's got everything: great acting, an intelligent script, beautiful camera work, an exotic setting shot with subtlety and flair. It's funny, sad, and sexy. Others have summarized the plot so I won't repeat that here. I will say that Bill Murray is perfect as the weary, wary semi-famous actor doing liquor commericials for big money in Japan. There's not a moment that feels overplayed. He just manages to be completely believable, second by second. Like all great actors, he reveals by witholding-- it's clear he desires the beautiful Charlotte (played with equal perfection by Scarlett Johansson); his tenderness toward her, the intensity of what he yearns for is as clear by what doesn't happen as by what does. Johansson perfectly plays a 20-something wife, whose photographer husband is more interested in work and glitz thanin her.She's looking for answers in self-help tapes, Buddhist temples, ikkebana (Japanese flowerr-arranging) and late-night calls to uncomprehending friends. There's a killer scene in which he lets her stand there while a Hollywood ingenue gushes over him, and again when he barely suppresses his eagerness to be out of their Tokyo hotel room and on the road. While both characters are lost in their marriages, neither spouse is flat or easily dismissed. Charlotte feels lost in the world; at sea in life and marriage. Bill Murray's character is just over-the-hill as an actor, not-quite-but-almost-famous. His wife keeps faxing him bitter notes and Fed Exing capret samples. He's jet-lagged, lonely, and alone. But this is not a sad sack movie. It's really about the ineffable relationships that can form and even forge a life without quite changing the course of it. And it beautifully captures not only Tokyo, and its blurring rushed pace, but also those encounters of youth which we half-remember and never wholly forget. Coppola's script is subtle and perfect, the pace is European-style -- which is to say, human scale. The scenes of Japan are breathtaking, making a totally foreign place seem as real as the chair in which we sit. She captures the dreaminess of youth, its tempting possibilities and terrible loneliness and beauty. I think that's what makes it seem like such a fresh and youthful film-- even though Murray is front and center throughout, it's really a movie told through the lens of youth. This is the ONLY movie I want to see more than once this year. It belongs in that precious category of movies like "Falling in Love," "Swept Away," "Indochine" that leave a lasting impression because they feel so pure and true.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor man's Wong Kar Wai
Review: I found it difficult to identify with these rich, spoiled and oh so depressed characters. Movie relied too much on cheap gags at the expense of the Japanese. I found it hard to find redeeming qualities here. At least Wong Kar Wai's movies are beautiful to look at and have great soundtracks...
Rating:
Summary: Bill Murrey is Bob Harris!
Review: "Lost in Translation," is on my top ten list. I believe it is number eight. It had great preformances, great story, great comedy, great heart, and it was just overall a great movie. In one of my earlier reviews I think I mentioned that it is not hard for me to like a movie, but sometimes it could be hard for me to love a movie. I really did truly love this movie, and during it I could connect with the characters. It also made me think. It took place in Japan and there was one scene where Scarlett Johansson is going sightseeing was a very beautiful scene because I was able to see Japan the way another person might see it. You could also appricate how other people feel about the certain sights. Bill Murrey stars as Bob Harris who is an American actor of film, in Japan for a short period of time to shoot a seris of commericals for a brand of Whiskey. Scarlet Johannson is ia graduate named Charlotte who is in Japan and in the same hotel as Bob except for a different reason. She is there for her photographer husband John, but she does not have to do any work at all. Bob and Charlotte are not happy in their marriages and lives. Bob is in the middle of a mid life crisis, and although Charlotte loves her husband, she wants to go home where she can speak American again. Charlotte also is upset that John is spending alot of time with Kelly, another American who already knows and likes John. Since both Bob and Charlotte have trouble sleeping they begin to spend alot of time together. Bob stays in town longer to appear on a tv talk show and they become friends, while also becoming a little more happier in life. I am still thinking about what kind of movie this is. A comedy or a drama. It's one of those confusing genres like "About Schmidt," or "The Royal Tenenbaums." It is a mixture of comedy and drama. But I want to talk about the very last scene. It is the last scene with Bob and Charlotte together in Japan and Bob whispers something in her ear. But you don't hear what he says. It could be anything. He could be saying goodbye, or saying where she could reach him, or even something else. But the reason why they don't tell you is because you don't need to know. At that point in the film, you don't have to know everything that Bob and Charlotte have to say to each other. They deserve privacy and that is exactly what the director gives them. I hope this review makes it to amazon because I feel that I thought alot about this movie as I wrote about it. My feeling for it are very thoughtful, and the more I think about this movie, the more I like it. ENJOY! Rated R for some sexual content. ...
Rating:
Summary: Best movie I ve seen in a long time...
Review: I just loved this movie. If you a real movie lover, you will love it too! The story itself is so simple but at the same time is so complex , at least for the people who are experiencing it. If you have been abroad for quite a long time you MUST see it, Im sure it will put you to think about your own experiences.
Rating:
Summary: Painfully bittersweet
Review: This is such a beautiful film. Sophia Coppola perfectly captures one of those precious and fleeting moments that people experience so rarely in their lives. In this case, the moment is a special connection - unlikely but made very plausible in the film - between two very different people. Played to perfection by Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson, both characters are lost in their own lives, which is symbolized in the film by the setting - a country that the film portrays through the principals' eyes as so foreign it's surreal. The film has scenes that make you laugh so hard you cry, and scenes that are so painfully bittersweet that you choke back tears. But "Lost in Translation" is as much about mood & vibe as about plot, and it meanders through its story at a gentle pace. As a result, some people find it boring. Too bad for them. This film is precious, easily one of the top 5 of 2003.
Rating:
Summary: Best movie I've seen this year
Review: In the UK Lost In Translation has only been on release a couple of weeks, and when I finally got round to seeing it last night I was blown away. The movie's about two people who find each other at a time in their lives where nothing seems to fit, where they're desperate, bored and lonely. Bob Harris (Murray) used to be a famous movie star but now he's sold out, travelling to Japan to film a set of whisky commercials. Staying at the same hotel is Charlotte (Johannsson), who is the centre of the realisation that she doesn't know her husband of two years (Ribisi) and feels unable to explain it to anyone. The two people eventually meet, finding solace in the amazing backdrop of Tokyo arcades, temples and karaoke bars. Many may accuse the film of being boring, and it's true, nothing really happens. But that's the point. The characters don't need any plot contrivances to push their relationship forward. This is a movie about the kind of meeting of someone you know you're in love with from moment one, your soul-mate, but knowing that it can never work out. In a lot of ways this sounds clichéd, but LIT is anything but. It's focus on the blossoming relationship of the couple is inspiring. I've never seen Murray in a better role, his kind of world-weary character hidden behind a comic defense is nothing short of brilliant. Johannsson is a genuine star in the making, and deserves the highest kind of praise for her performance. Holding herself confidently with a hidden vulnerability, it's a multi-faceted performance which complements Murray's one perfectly. There are also some nice supporting turns and characters hidden here as well. Ribisi (narrator of Coppola's previous movie The Virgin Suicides) is just the kind of person you meet in real life who's primarily concerned with image, with having the perfect wife and the perfect job, rather than whether this is what he really wants. There's also a hilarious character in a young actress starring in a kung-fu movie. If Bob and Charlotte are the emotional centrepiece of the movie, then she is the laughs. Pretentious, self-abosorbed but totally believable, she's a great comic actress. Crucially, Coppola proves with Lost In Translation that she's a dab hand at creating dreamy landscapes, believable relationships and subtly complicated characters. It's particularly impressive that she not only directed but also wrote the movie and shows her to be one of the most promising new directors in Hollywood (alongside Christopher Nolan). Just like The Virgin Suicides, there are a lot of silent shots of landscape, of characters staring into the distance. With Lost In Translation, much of these shots are of Johannsson visiting temples or watching flower arranging. These provide a nice counterpoint to the humour the film makes of Japan in the director of Bob's commercials and a hilarious Japanese talk show. LIT is an achievement of the best sort: gently humorous, beautiful, and genuinely touching.
Rating:
Summary: If you were ever alone in a foreign city...
Review: I enjoyed this movie a lot for many reasons, but have to say that I can understand those who might have a different opinion. I think it somewhat depends on your ability to connect with the sense of alienation in a strange city and also, how much the two main actors have managed to capture your heart. They did capture mine.
I experienced "Lost in Translation" as a movie about alienation - not only in a foreign, different city but also the feeling of alienation in your "home" or amongst those who are supposedly the closest to you. How suddenly in a different place, which makes you a lot more vulnerable, Charlotte's husband becomes a man she is not sure she knows. I also think that the movie has a very strong declaration about the total alienation of human kind at the face of technology - or so I understood it.
This is a story of two people lost in Tokyo. Tokyo is both ugly and captivating in this movie and you feel so very tired...The main characters are suffering severe Jet Lag but I assume they are also mentally tired from all the sights and sounds (there are several scenes filmed inside a sort of video game arcade which holds hundreds of noisy stations) and the need to try and figure everything out, even the most trivial things (such as having a shower).
Later in the movie I understood Tokyo to also be a symbol of human alienation everywhere. Off course Tokyo is an easy symbol as the Japanese culture is so totally different. Size, food and humor are so different -- but the movie is not about Tokyo, only the feeling that Tokyo gives you.
Two people lost in a foreign city and in their personal lives are able to reach a high level of friendship. It is very interesting to note that the director made this relationship one of friendship that is very expressly in a higher level then sex. As if not to jeopardize or make the friendship "dirty" in any sort of way. In fact, when Bob does have a sexual encounter, it is portrayed as something he regrets (according to his behavior, not words).
Bill Murray's dry, cynical sense of humor is not lost in this movie and is totally fitting the character he plays. Bob Harris is a tired person, who is not only jet lagged but also a little tired of the life he is leading. Scarlett Johansson plays a smart, cynical young college graduate ("Not everyone studied in Yale", says her husband) who is amazed from the feeling of loneliness she already holds in such an early stage in her life.
The encounter and friendship of these two people lasts only a few days and does not have any future, but manages to reach high levels of closeness, which as always seems to be the only answer to alienation.
Rating:
Summary: The best movie of 2003! Actually better than LOTR: ROTK!
Review: I am going to get alot of flack for saying that, but I have nothing but respect for Lord of the Rings, I loved the movie so much that it was my favorite movie of 2003 until I saw LIT! But don't worry, ROTK is #2 and will not move from there for any movie! This movie is so good! I loved every minute of it! There wasn't a bad part in the movie! I didn't get bored or tird at all! If Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson don't get Golden Globes or Oscars for their roles, I will be very upset because both of them deserve it, they are amazing in this movie! Check this one out as soon as it comes to DVD or if it is still playing in your town, don't miss it, it is worth every penny!
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