Rating: 
Summary: Hypnotising
Review: "Lost in Translation" was different to my expectations. I had previously seen the film's trailer and expected a movie of greater action. I expected the two stars, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, to actually make a break from their partners and lives and flee Tokyo. The reality of the film was much different.By and large, "Lost in Translation" is a study in human behaviour. It provides the film goer with an inside view of the interaction between a middle aged man and a twenty something girl. Their worlds and backgrounds are very different but they come together in Tokyo where they both share a common puzzlement with Japanese culture as well as similar degrees of dislocation with their respective spouses. Although the film moves slowly and has no real plot, it remains compelling. Will the couple become sexually entangled? If so, how will they deal with their partners? Will the couple arrange to see more of each in the future? None of these questions is answered with clarity. The film seems to roll forward in slow motion with the audience acting like voyeurs to private lives. The film becomes quite engaging as the viewer is almost hypnotised by the manoeuvrings of the couple. See this film as a means of providing insights to human behaviour in a world far more real than the usual offerings of Hollywood.
Rating: 
Summary: Bill Murray's best since MEATBALLS
Review: This movie is charming and soulful and wonderful on many, many levels ... but one of the nicest surprises is seeing Bill Murray show the sort of warmth he possessed in MEATBALLS. As a stranded actor adrift on the planet Tokyo, Bill shows his road miles and it is endearing. Scarlett Johansson is near sublime as another stranded American and the two create the kind of low key magic that is near impossible to find in a mainstream movie these days. Usually we get the sort of forced sparks that a Meg Ryan movie pummels us with. Here, director Coppola, sets up a camera and photographs the proceedings without leading us in any particular direction. The result is a wholly satisfying (kind of breathtaking) little movie. Murray and Johansson are perfect together and the ending, when they at last part ways, is just as dynamic as anything that TITANIC or YOU'VE GOT MAIL delivered. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't sleep...
Review: Just what went on un this film? Supposedly there is supposed to be some kind of spark between the two main characters, but where was it? No dialogue to explain why we should care. A disappointment to say the least.
Rating:
Summary: A Thinking Person's Vision of a Foreign Culture
Review: ...well at least foreign to me anyway, being from the USA and having never visited Japan. I really enjoyed this movie, for many reasons. First and foremost, was the way it showed many aspects of life in Japan, the acting, and cinematography were also top notch. I call it a thinking person's movie because you won't enjoy it if you came in expecting the usual witty dialogue from Murray or cliché visions of Japan through the eyes of a visitor. Other people have canned the movie because, there is little dialogue, and blame this on Sofia, and what they believed to be bad writing abilities. I think it's the exact opposite, so much of this movie is told through visual narrative, that dialogue would have made it far worse. One of the best aspects of the movie for me was sitting back and absorbing the interesting view into Japanese; society, culture, customs, and the scenery itself. Murray gives a great performance, his best since Groundhog day. Scarlett Johansson also gives a strong performance, especially considering that she was 17 years old at the time of filming. It is easy to see why she is one of the rising young stars of 2003. Getting back to the title of my review, I would recommend this movie if you have an open mind and are willing to watch a movie that lies just outside the mainstream. If you're looking for the usual big budget Hollywood blockbuster, then this movie probably isn't for you.
Rating:
Summary: Boredom
Review: I've heard talk that this is a kind of autobiographyc movie. Sofia Coppola's marriage to Spike Jonze was not going very well, and this movie was something like a mind-release for the young director. If she tried to pass on to the audience a feeling of impotent boredom, then she did a very good job. The story revolves around a week or so in the lives of two people: a somewhat decadent movie star named Bob Harris, played by an aged and dry Bill Murray, and a young girl whose marriage isn't going so well, played by the incredibly convincent Scarlett Johansson. They meet in Tokyo, where Murray is shooting a whisky commercial, and Scarlett is passing most of her time in the hotel room while her photographer husband (Giovanni Ribisi) goes out to do his job. The movie is well enacted and has some sincerely hilarious scenes. Bill Murray is great as the midlife crisis striken man. The scene where he's shotting the commercial is fantastic. The best thing about "Lost in translation" is that it is simple, and real. The relationship between the two characters, while odd, is realistic, and I think most of the people watching the movie could relate to what they were watching on screen. The only thing I didn't like is that "Lost in translation" is, at times, too slow, and tiresome as well. As I've said before, I think Sofia Coppola wanted to transmit the boredom she felt to the scenes, and this she made properly. Otherwise, a very good and interesting movie, with top performances by the two main actors. Grade 8.2/10
Rating:
Summary: I sympathized with the characters without empathizing
Review: Lost in Translation has been praised by countless critics as the singular indie gem of 2003. Personally, I found House of Sand and Fog and Monster to be far more compelling viewing, yet I cannot criticize reviewers who lavished this film with four-star reviews and glowing rhetoric. This is an original piece of work, with a decided air of wisdom, that simply didn't connect with me deeply at any point. Director Sofia Coppola provides several long silences for what one can only assume is viewer introspection. Judging from the film's enthusiastic following, Lost translated art into life quite well. For me, I sympathized with the characters more than I empathized with them. I was unable to find an "in" to become emotionally engaged in the plot. The characters were recognizable, but difficult for me to identify with. For that reason, I felt detached--like a viewer of rather than party to the experience--for the length of the film. Instead of wise, the film felt wispy. It was entertaining while it ran, but once the credits rolled, it immediately began its rapid fade into the nether-regions of my memory. But, despite these screenplay issues, the acting and direction absolutely stand out as among the best work in recent memory. If the material had been stronger, this potent combination probably would have churned out a film truly deserving of Best Picture consideration. Bill Murray gives his best screen performance ever as Bob Harris, a B-list American movie star who is shipped off to Japan for a big money liquor endorsement. Away from his family and home country, Harris feels the pangs of isolation and depression. The sporadic calls to his wife reveal a woman who is distant, and a relationship that has long since fizzled. Harris can't sleep a wink, and spends a great deal of time in the hotel bar, where he meets young newlywed Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). Charlotte, a recent college graduate with a degree in philosophy, is married to a photographer with seemingly no interest in her; he prefers to hang out with the ditzy airheads he shoots. Both with equal desperation to escape their surroundings, Bob and Charlotte strike an unexpected and deep friendship. We believe they are soul mates, yet the circumstances are damning. Can they drop everything that's become so achingly familiar and try to start their lives over again, perhaps more along the lines of what they had hoped they'd always be? As good as Murray is, and he is absolutely terrific, Johansson taps into a wonderful intangible that makes her presence on the screen thoroughly intoxicating. She shares palpable chemistry with the much-older Murray, making the bond between them feel all the more genuine. Director Coppola takes full advantage of this, with inventive visuals and direction that is so sure-handed it comes as a shock Lost is her sophomore feature effort. There are literally a dozen different lingering shots that could easily work as effective poster images. For all those reasons, it is frustrating the film itself isn't stronger as an end product. Even the beginning, with several big laughs, just leads to a bit of a letdown when comedic momentum runs out in the third act. But, despite numerous imperfections, any Oscar buzz on the film is much appreciated. Nothing would please me more than to see Lost in Translation's "David" vanquish the Lord of the Rings "Goliath" that has turned cinema toward epic moviemaking and away from the intimate human stories that move mountains so much more effectively than an army of the dead. Final Grade: B+
Rating:
Summary: Nothing lost...
Review: Viewers expecting a riotous, quick fire comedy as seemingly depicted in the trailers may be sorely disappointed as, save for a few scenes, it couldn't be more the opposite. Murray gives one of the performances of his career as a waning Hollywood Star having crossed the Pacific to make another hollow few million dollars before his star goes out altogether. Meanwhile Johanssen delivers a breakthrough performance as the fellow lost soul intrigued, bemused yet emotionally adrift amongst Tokyo's sea of people. The pair slowly spiral into each other's company and begin a platonic relationship as they come to terms with their own lives and direction through exploring the other's predicament. This is smouldering, slow-burn cinema full of subtlety and thoroughly unclassifiable. Love story? Comedy? To begin to pigeon-hole it is to diminish Copolla's understated masterpiece. The dialogue when it flows is careful and measured, yet the long silences often speak volumes with the chemistry between the pair against the vibrant background of the city. Emotive, endearing and thoroughly absorbing it's unlike any film you've seen.
Rating:
Summary: a nice helping of pre-chewed pabulum for middle-america...
Review: I don't get you people. Just because the movie is composed of arduously long shots with little dialogue- that don't make it compelling cinema. Just because the characters are 'alienated' don't make them interesting. Just because there's a happenin' soundtrack don't make it worthwhile. And just because Ms. Johansson looks nice in panties and can stub her toe believably- that don't make her talented. And just because the boom-mike falls into frame after frame, that don't make it arty, or relevant... And while I'm at it, Just because someone studied philosophy (which is a joke anyway) or dabbles in flower-arranging or is stuck in a dead-end marriage- that don't make her deep. ...There is no discernable script, or plot, or substance to this abortion. It's not that I hated it- there's nothing to hate. It's just a spoilt rich girl's painfully contrived delusions about herself and her place in the world.
Rating: 
Summary: pretentious, empty tin can tries to be a movie, fails.
Review: This film didn't fool me. Lil' Sofia doesn't fool me. having failed at practically every occupation her father could manipulate/buy/sneak her into (I'm sure I'm forgetting a few but they include fashion design, photography, writing, acting- her only memorable role being the one where she's Al Pacino's idiot daughter in the final, National lampoon's installment of the Godfather Series. A hilariously awful performance in a hilariously awful movie.), she has decided to become a director- one of many artistic and interesting careers wherein everything is taken care of for you by others with the training and talent that you don't possess. But at least I'm not bitter, eh? Here's the deal- I heard a nice review of the film in question on NPR. Sounded interesting. I walked in wanting to like it, even though I could not abide 'The Virgin Suicides,' Sofia's debut as a 'director' and another film about 'lost' (translation: spoiled) Americans and their penchant for treacly, overwraught ennui. (Sorry, but I have no sympathy for a bunch of blonde ditzes living it up in late-70's American cultural wasteland... Maybe if they'd been lucky they could have come of age in Cambodia or Indonesia in the same era... that would have cured their oh-so-exquisite malaise right quick... Oh the tragedy of innnocence lost... No, the tragedy is what happened in all the countries that Kissinger and Co. were over-throwing... but I digress...) Upon this film's release Sofia was honored all over various trendier-than-thou mags for her writing... Uh, Script? What Script? Scarlett's dialogue, well- her whole role seemed to consist almost entirely of staring out windows and gazing at various phenomena with an expression of morose bewilderment and/or understated wonder. Ain't so much she could've done with that sliver of bone, but I like her and think she's done well in the past with small roles that have little wordplay ('Ghost World' and 'The Man Who wasn't there,' for example). Maybe, we're supposed to think that Scarlett is, like, playing a character based on, you know, Sofia Coppola... Maybe in Sofia's World she's introspective and intense... and yet she can only compose a parody of such a woman when she tries to write from that perspective... Hmmm... There's no real explanation of the relationship between Scarlett and her husband, aside from they met in college and he's become a fame-obsessed idiot. He's a photographer. And they're, like, estranged. you know, like the Guns N Roses song. Oh, and Ms. Johansson's character is supposedly a philosophy major... *Ahem* Speaking from experience (as I was one, graduated a few years back) philosophy types TALK. We talk more than most people can stand. (and We don't purchase pseudo-intellectual, self-help CDs- we laugh at them. I almost chucked my popcorn at the screen at that point). Words words words, they're all we have to go on, to quote Guildenstern... We talk incessantly, and often without reason. Take this review as a case in point. Only someone who is completely ignorant of post-collegiate philosophy types could have so utterly failed at writing a believable character. Insouciant and self-indulgent- yes. Overly-concerned with an appearance of unassailable high-mindedness, yes. Insufferably verbose, yes. Opinionated and sarcastic- oh you betcha. Bewildered by the way that life is like, so odd and transient, you know. And foreign lands are like, so, you know, foreign... not at all really. But then maybe Sofia picked up one of those 'Philosophy through Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' or '... through the Simpsons,' books. Giovani Rabisci plays the hubby. I thought he was a not-so-concealed dig at Coppola's real husband, Spike Jonze, who is the only one in that whole clan with talent, it seems. Well, maybe now that Sofia has proven herself to all the easily-swindled, art-house fools who delineate taste and culture in this country- she can dump him. The chick from Scary Movie is hilarious and all-too-believable as an idiotic actress with whom poor Sofia's- I mean Scarlett's husband has become smitten. Between her character and Bill Murray's hang-dog over-the-top actor, this movie is almost ok. I'd go so far to say the movie's sole strength lies in Bill Murray, who has an uncanny ability to make poor films good and good films even better (i.e. Rushmore). As always, he gives an understated performance that you don't expect to be so damn compelling. But it is. Murray manages to breathe life and pathos into a movie that shambles across the screen like Bud the Zombie from Romero's Day of the Dead. In fact, that would make a nice and like, wow, poignant subtitle to this tripe. And the ending was absolutely crass. Though I won't spoil it for you, should you be dying to rent this with a date. 2 stars for the thorough satirizing of the Japanese and for Bill Murray's deft and wry performance. Oh, did I mention that indie-icon Kevin Shields did the soundtrack? Hipsters start your engines!
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."
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