Rating: 
Summary: Aren't We All?
Review: I would think that this sort of film would play better on a large screen in a darkened theatre, where the viewer is actually immersed in the images---the flicker of the neon, the passage of the overhead trains---and simultaneously senses that feeling of being lost in the largeness of a cityscape inhabited by so many bodies without any point of reference. Although, the film takes advantage of the two leads' feelings of disassociation with regard to a seemingly foreign environment, the feeling evoked here by director Sofia Coppala is one all of us has sadly experienced one time or another.
Indeed, it is this feeling that drives the small plot: a 50+ actor being paid millions to endorse a Scotch to the Japanese public ponders his aloneness and the meaninglessness of his existence during a whirl of publicity shots, advertizing takes and sojourns to the hotel bar. At the same time, a 25 year old wife accompanies her photographer husband and stays at the same hotel where she contemplates being stuck in the irrevalent aftermath of someone else's existence. The two characters, both lost and unable to translate what they see around them into any meaningful frame of reference for themselves, turn towards each other, finding solace in their ability to see that they are at the same point of self-discovery within their own lives.
Moody and dreary at times, despite the lack of action, the movie does convey that sense of being lost in a world that moves pretty much at light-speed momentum. Tokyo may stand as the backdrop, but I think Coppola focuses on the world of hype and media in general-a world that conjurs up a pace of its own where human components are mere adjuncts rather than the driving force. The two main characters question the relevance of such a world and revel in their discovery that together they find, at least for a moment, some translation relevant to their lives which actually causes emotion rather than simply sensation.
I certainly do not recommend this film to anyone who is looking for a plot driven movie and who is not willing to sit out the long silences. Rather than prose, this piece is a poem--a haiku, if you will. Its message is simple, stark and bleak and the viewer must be willing to enter that sense of nothingness and accept it on its own terms. Rather this film is recommended to those who want to ponder and think upon the small worlds we create to anchor us in a world pretty much out of control.
Rating: 
Summary: Something was Lost in this Translation!
Review: I have to say that I loved this film when I first saw it in the movies, and I still do, but the DVD itself is terrible! Like other reviewers have already said, this disc has minimal features,and no booklet or even a chapter list inside the case. If that's not bad enough, one must then sit through preview after preview at the beginning of the disc before it even gets to the main menu. There is no way to skip ahead to the main menu. This in itself is very annoying and intrusive!
My next complaint is that there is no running commentary by either Ms. Coppola or Bill Murray. Wouldn't it have been great to hear Ms. Coppola's thoughts on the film and what led her to this subject matter? The case says, "A Conversation with Bill Murray and Sofia Coppola", which led me to believe that it was going to be a commentary on the film. Was I wrong! This "conversation" is nothing more than a little clip of the two discussing the film, while on location in Rome!! We don't even get to see them on location in Japan. I know that another feature is included called "Lost on Location", which proves to be nothing more than a complete waste of time. This short is just a jumble of jarring shots of the behind the scenes preparation for the film. It also makes Ms. Coppola look completely foolish and inexperienced as a director, which is really sad, because she did a brilliant job directing this film.
Overall, this is a wonderful film, but this DVD is lacking!
See this film while you can in the theaters. You'll enjoy it so much more!
Rating: 
Summary: um, yeah... I was LOST while watching this
Review: I bought into the hype and rented this DVD. I fought off narcalepsy for the entire 100 minutes of the movie. Minimal dialogue, slow scenes, and lots of looking around with a depressed look on the actors faces. I simply cannot comprehend why this movie is getting the aclaim that it has. It proved to me that people will rave about anything. It would have been more interesting watching it backwards. The only 2 positive things I can say is that it showed how life is in Japan(sort of) and the scene where Bill Murray's character talks about his kids and how it changed his life(around the 1hr 10 min mark) and that's all I found interesting about the movie. A new level in severe boredom. And can anyone explain the "Johnny Carson of Japan" talk show host in the movie? Watch the bonus material and you'll see what I mean. If I had to watch that in Japan, I wouldn't own a TV
Rating:
Summary: Worst movie of all time ????
Review: This thing could justifiably win an Oscar ... but only if they come up with a new category ... worst movie of all time. You want a capsule review .... just check the picture on the video box ... Bill Murray looking disaffected and sloppy .... imagine looking at that picture for one hour plus .... now, you don't need to fork out the dough for the movie ... you've already had the experience of seeing it. Murray plays a tired bored businessman ... in a godawful flirtation with someone young enough to be not his daughter, but his grandaughter. You want obscene... imagine Murray, looking 60 plus, getting it on with a teenager??? There are at least five long lingering shots of our heroine staring out the window of her Toyko hotel ... she's bored too...and after about three of these I had the urge to shout "Jump" .... I finally bailed... my wife sat through it .... she said she was expecting something to happen ... but... it (thankfully) didn't.
Rating:
Summary: Painful
Review: Like life, this film meanders. Subtle moments of connectedness are found in the midst of interminable stretches of meaninglessness and routine. Those moments, like this film, are honest and fleeting. Without really looking, we pass them by completely, so focused on things we're told give purpose and value to living. Like making money and being meaningfully bound to another person through marriage, and finding a purpose for life. What happens, then, when we're without the signposts and markers that give us comfort, serving as shorthand to ground us, unquestioning, in our sense of self as marked by days, minutes, hours of familiar, unthinking motions? We cease to really live, and just exist, lost. If we're as lucky as Bob and Charlotte we can be found.
It requires a different vantage point, a fresh eye that will see in us what we're too harried, too comfortable, too familiar to view. But someone who rekindles that sense of infinite potential, limitless possibility by seeing another through new eyes is a benefactor. They can renew, just by letting us see ourselves through their eyes. In "Lost in Translation," we see Bob Harris, fading former movie star, a man resigned to cameo appearances in his own life, through the eyes of Charlotte. Flawed, cynical and world weary, he's as detached from his own life as Tokyo is from its past. It takes a real connection to someone just as lost to awaken Bob from his self-imposed slumber. . .it takes really connecting with another human being for him to see his life hasn't lost possibility and hope. Murray has never been better, using his sad clown appearance to perfection and minimizing the tendency to go for a sight gag when an emotional resonance is more important. He is jaded. He is lost. Worse, he doesn't care. All of that changes, for the better, when he meets Scarlett Johansen's Charlotte. Matching and bettering his personal dissatisfaction, through her own displacement Charlotte reminds Bob that time shouldn't be wasted and life tossed away. At first, he sees her possibility. Eventually, he remembers his own. A quiet, simple study on the most basic of human needs - the need to be appreciated and to find yourself again - this movie continues to be a painful, stripped down, honest depiction of life where great things happen, somewhere in between what's planned.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, Awful DVD
Review: I loved this movie. I find it to be one of Bill Murrays best ever, and his absolute best recently. By all means see this movie, but DON'T BUY THIS DVD!!! It says specifically on the cover of the box WIDESCREEN This is a blatant lie. This movie plays in full screen mode with no option to change it. This is not a multi layered disc, not double sided, it is full screen only. On top of that, there is now way to skip past the previews on this disc. Pop the DVD in and you must watch the previews, or at least fast forward through them. This was a very poorly made DVD. It has no commentary (which is forgivable, but I like commentary) I tell a lie. It has come to my attention that my PS2 will play this movie in widescreen format. Once again, no options, it just did it. All right, so some of you out there may be able to watch this movie in glorious letterbox, but at the very least be wary. If a low end DVD player like a PS2 plays this movie widescreen and not my DVD player, then there is a problem.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant all around
Review: I am not sure why most are calling this movie a comedy. While it does have its humorous moments, the film is more a drama than anything. Murray deserved the Golden Globe he received as did Coppala. Superb film. Such emotion between the characters and the environment around them...just a great film.
Rating:
Summary: COULD NOT SELECT "0 STARS"
Review: Promoted as Bill Murray's most hilarious film, we were expecting at LEAST amusement when we shelled out $17 for two tickets. This one ties if not surpasses "Cold Creek Manor" for worst film of the year. Overpromoted, oversold, full of itself, snob-trash.
Perhaps it's not chic to put down a movie that has someone with the last name of "Coppola" in the credits, ergo the raving critics. That this turkey can even get near the "best anything" list of nominees is a crime. One of the few movies that I really wanted my money back at the end. I hear the DVD is awful too. I'll never find out. Don't waste your time. There's nothing here.
Rating:
Summary: A Disingenuous Piece of Work
Review: Here is a thought experiment: close your eyes and visualize the cast and crew of "Lost in Translation" on location in Tokyo. They're having the time of their lives, staying in a swank hotel and hanging out in trendy clubs after a hard-day's shooting. Bill Murray keeps everyone laughing and the Japanese staff do everything they can to keep thing comfortable and happy. Open your eyes and ask yourself: if this group of "gaijin" (foreigners) could come to Tokyo and thoroughly enjoy the experience, why should we, the audience, take the plight of the film's characters seriously in any way? While Bill Murray's aging star with a strained marriage is believable, Scarlett Johannsen's post-grad ennui is contrived and out of place. This is particularly apparent in the apaprent ease with which she is able to transition from self-pity to full party mode when she heads out to hit the Tokyo club scene (probably a more accurate account of the actual filming of this movie). That two sophisticated, well-educated and (in Murray's character's case) well-traveled individuals can't enjoy themselves in Tokyo is simply not believable, regardless of the personal baggage they might be carrying with them. Furthermore, the depiction of the Japanese professionals with whom they come in contact as unable to converse in English or provide the necessary translation services is simply stereotyping in the service of plot. Ask anyone who has ever traveled to Japan for business and pleasure and they will tell you that finding people who speak very good English is easy. Finally, Murray and Johannsen's characters adopt an air of detached superiority to their surroundings and to their fellow American travelers that is intended to provide comic relief and increase the audience's sympathy for them as "sensitive souls". But it comes across as prigishness - one wonders why Giovanni Rabisi's character can zip all over Japan having a terrific time while his ennui-ridden wife prefers to hide in her room reading self-help books. My apologies to those who find this film compelling and authentic, but as someone who has spent years in Asia and travels for a living, I found the film trite, contrived and condescending to the Japanese. The only saving feature is Bill Murray's reliable depth of character and self-deprecating humor. He does a yeoman's job in a film otherwise weighted down with a phony sense of gravitas.
Rating:
Summary: best of the year
Review: This is my favorite movie of 2003. For one thing, I like how it promotes Bill Murray as an actor, because he's so important to some of my favorite films like Groundhog Day and Wes Anderson's movies. However, I also think this is a great accomplishment for Sofia Coppola who seems to be establishing a directing style of her own with this movie. Like The Virgin Suicides, LiT is quiet, spacy, and subtlely beautiful. As a whole, the film is beautifully shot and acted, and captures the chaotic order of Tokyo perfectly. This is a story that is not based upon an intricate plot, action, or even dialogue. It's more of an atmospheric film which focuses on inner conflicts and the way those conflicts bring two people together. 9/10
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