Rating: 
Summary: Subtle, masterful piece of art
Review: This is a beautiful and masterfully crafted piece of art. Charlotte and Bob are two people who are at different places in their lives, yet they both feel a bit lost. She has recently graduated from college, is unsure of what she is meant to be, and is just realizing that the honeymoon period of her marriage is coming to an end. He is a movie star whose career has reached a plateau and whose relationship with his wife has become more focused on the practicalities of choosing carpet color and taking care of the kids. They both need a kick-start, something to motivate them. This is a place in life that everyone in the audience can identify with, and Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray play these roles with the perfect combination of sympathy, subtlety, and ironic humor. You like the characters without feeling sorry for them. The setting in which they meet, an impersonal modern hotel in the heart of Tokyo, where both are jetlagged and are not entirely thrilled to be, is a metaphor for the lonliness and isolation they both feel in their lives. And thus an unspoken kinship develops. They are neither emotionally nor physically intimate with each other, after all, they just met. Their friendship unfolds slowly and naturally, and their connection is based on the experiences rather than the intimacies they share. This makes the friendship that develops between them very believable despite their vast age difference. What results is a sweet, funny movie with a lot of heart that is not overly sentimental. It's the best movie I've seen in many years and the only one I've been inspired to write a review for. I highly, highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Tokyo Mon Amour
Review: If you've ever spent time in Tokyo, or just fallen so far down the hole of a pointless business trip that the whole world looks like a giant jetlagged dream, if your life is so flooded with cell phone calls about the dull, repetitive logistics of doing things on schedule and under budget that you can't remember the last time you've seen anything or met anyone or said or heard anything that really moved you, MAN, is this your movie... LIT is about falling in and out of time, disaffection and deep connection, and opening your bleary eyes to accidentally find something genuine and worthwhile. If any of this rings a bell in your life, this flick gives you lots to love: the metaphorical power of Tokyo--an incessantly artificial and yet strangely beautiful city--has never been put to better use, and the off hours and insomnia are memorably captured by the lounge-lit interior shots, the slowly swirling street scenes, the sweet, spare dialogue, and the gorgeous trip-hop/dream pop/shoegazer soundtrack (God bless Sofia Coppola for exhuming the great Kevin Shields), giving Lost in Translation a pleasing ethereal quality that no other film matched in 2003. So get this DVD, and if your sigificant other thinks When Harry Met Sally is more romantic, SERIOUSLY consider getting back into the dating pool...
Rating:
Summary: Uneventful love story
Review: I don't get this movie. I guess it's supposed to be two people kind of sort of falling in love, but never really kissing or making a booty call. I don't think it's realistic. But maybe the people who like it have experienced relationships like that. Either way, I was bored. The visuals of Japan are great and as realistic as can be. It shows how strange modern day Japanse culture feels to the American. Overall, I found it barely watchable. I'd rather sit through XXX or Too fast, too furious. Never seen either one, but I'm sure at least something happens in them. This movie wanted to be subtle like "Tennenbaums" or "Rushmore." All your artsy friends in the graphic design class will probably highly reccomend this movie, but I reccomend that you think twice.
Rating:
Summary: Amongst the best of all time
Review: I went into seeing this movie pre-hype (advanced screening) with the knowledge that I enjoyed The Virgin Suicides, as well as Bill Murray in his dramatic turn in Rushmore, and that I was a bit luke warm in regards to the premise, as presented in the trailers (especially the concept of the age-gap relationship, amongst other things).
In the end, what I saw was a focused, fully-realized work of art that brought forth a beautiful series of human emotional truths that transcended the basics of its story through its balances between joy and pain, comedy and tragedy, emotion and narrative. This film is an exquisite and unique amalgam of light, color, temporal rhythm, music, and emotion, all of which adds up to being one of my personal favorite cinematic experiences of the year, or recent years.
Rating: 
Summary: What a sad and overrated movie
Review: Bill Murray may be the greatest comic actor since W. C. Fields, but you wouldn't know it from this movie. He gives another of his shuffling understated performances that may be flawless but it is also lifeless. The fault is not entirely his. Sophia Coppola's script lacks two essentials life and character. Murray is stuck wandering about smirking, mumbling asides and casting bleary-eyed glances at the creaky and forlorn plot mechanisms that surround him in place of other characters. Much of this movie looks like a film-school final project by a promising young student who has seen too many Godard movies. Ms. Coppola seems to want to be the director of A Band Apart, or Breathless much more than she aspires to direct this, her own movie. And the story she has given herself is nothing more than a hip update of the dusty old faux literature one used to find in "respectable" women's magazines. This story was dated when it first appeared 75 years ago but now simply because the would-be lover's never take off their clothes it seems brazenly new and courageously mature. What were the critics thinking when they wrote those rave reviews of this exhausted "would-be" movie? As you watch this film, especially on DVD or video, you may find yourself ticking off the allusions to earlier films. There's the piano player from California Split; there's the madcap run through the streets and shops from A Band Apart or Hard Day's Night; there's the lonely girl perched cooly on the edge of a window in her udnerwear from Victoria's Secret catalog vol. XII #17, or was that from the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog of Spring 2002? This kind of movie making is lazy and sloppy. And, what about the title? What, after all, actually gets lost in translation? The weak joke early on with the Japanese director implies that something gets lost in translation. But we never see in Murray or Scarlett Johanson's characters what is being translated and what it is translated into. So how can we know what is lost? The main metaphor just doesn't work!!! Pointless though the film is, one cannot help but be glad to have a chance to see Mr. Murray in a starring role and to see him get good reviews. One can only hope that his next performance will be worthy of such praise. It would be sad to see him, like Mr. Fields, waste his great talent in mediocre works so sadly beneath him.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous - subtle, moving; one of the great films of 2003
Review: I saw Translation for the first time and liked it, but didn't really know what they saw in the movie that was so beyond-belief spectacular. But alas, I believe that every movie deserves a second chance, so recently I sat down and experienced director Sophia Coppola's Lost In Translation again. Lost in Translation tells the story of Bob Harris (Bill Murray in a role tailor-made, if not even Heaven-sent for him), an American movie star that comes to Tokyo to film a whiskey commerical for which he will be paid 2 million bucks. Staying in the same Tokyo hotel is Charlotte (Scarlett Johanssen, radiant and mature at only 18), a newlywed tagging along with her rock photographer husband, John (a typically awkward Giovanni Ribisi). Along the way, Charlotte and Bob run into each other and begin a 'brief encounter' that profoundly affects them both. When the movie hits you right, it's a pure pleasure from its unassuming start (a beautifully lit shot up Johanssen's underwear-clothed behind) to its ambiguous but meaningful ending. It begins as a comedy of culture clash, Harris sarcastic and confused at the Japanese when entering his hotel, and even more befuddled in a hilarious scene where he shoots the whiskey commercial. Coppola delivers Bob into her movie with the impression that it'll be all about him, but Charlotte enters the story, and we're never quite the same. Scarlett Johanssen plays Charlotte with just the right amount of emotion that her initially morose and soul-searching character doesn't seem silly. At one point, she tearfully admits over the phone, "I don't know who I married." Bob, on the other hand, seems to have it made, but Murray lets a current of loneliness run across that memorable face. He gets comical faxes from his wife about bookshelves and carpet samples, but he gives off the impression that he's come to the point where he doesn't even care anymore. Bob is certainly alone for a time in Tokyo, but Murray alludes that things at home aren't too hot either. For the first third of the movie, director Coppola displays her first brave choice in filmmaking by keeping Bob and Charlotte apart. Upon my first viewing of Translation, I wasn't convinced of Coppola's choice to keep the movie so predominantly low-key, but I've realized that there's a reason for it. The movie sustains this amazing vibe that doesn't stunt its progress, but propels it with a driving fluidity. A few times, though, Bob and Charlotte do see each other without officially meeting. One time in particular occurs in a crowded elevator - the two glance at each other, faintly smile, and possibility is born. The first section of the film doesn't just serve to show its two characters completely apart - it makes you think of how many life-changing connections you've missed in the past by just being passive and solitary. The two meet and begin voyages out into the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, and the film takes on a perspective that differs from its earlier view. Before, we saw Bob Harris and Charlotte, respectively, at their most private and vulnerable. While out on the town, the film seems to sit back and just let them have fun. Thank God, for Bill Murray's rousing rendition of Elvis Costello's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" is a blast. During this time, it seems that Bob and Charlotte have forgotten their insomnia and loneliness, but it's not gone forever. Even during their night on the town, we see moments where they sit silently, pensive and confused. The movie is a comedy in some sense, but it escalates into a pervading tragic feel. At one point, Charlotte says to Bob: "Let's never come back here again, because it will never be as much fun." They had fun, but only in the sense of putting off more loneliness. It takes a while, but the motivations of each character become fully-realized in a marvelous scene where Bob and Charlottelay fully-clothed in bed together. Here, they handle the 'big' questions in life, and not "Where did you go to college?" or "What did you want to be when you were little?" but "What is my purpose?" and "Does marraige get easier?" I was amazed at the honesty of the character's responses. Bob relates to Charlotte the experience of having children and the ongoing struggles of marraige, but a tinge of fear and apprehension runs through his speech. Charlotte hasn't really figured things out for herself yet - she says she's tried just about everything but hasn't found that niche. Coppola's screenplay makes the statement that both are in the same exact emotional limbo. Charlotte is confused and worried, but Bob is regretful and washed-up. In a way, these two are some form of deeply odd soul-mates. That is the heart and soul of Coppola's amazing work. Translation has great comedic flair with Murray's wonderful work, but it's also perhaps one of the saddest and most moving films I've seen in a long time. It's some form of a romance, too, but it's not about when they'll kiss or when they'll hit the sheets. It also has that Affair to Remember vibe too, where the journey of two souls that find comfort will eventually have to come to an end. Its end, though, defies classification, as does the rest of the film. Coppola simply lets her two amazing leads do the work. When the film does arrive at its final, ambiguous moment, it all just seems perfect. The catchy Japan-pop soundtrack that runs brilliantly throughout the film begins to play, and I find myself with a huge regret: that I won't be able to savor the subtle chemistry of Bob and Charlotte, and that a flat-out masterpiece in American film is at its end.
Rating: 
Summary: Most over-rated movie of the year
Review: This film is a perfect example of how so-called "experts" and industry buzz can brainwash the movie going audience into thinking some methodically dull film is some brilliant piece of art. It tries so hard to stay away from mainstream Hollywood that that seems to be its only purpose.
One thing I will admit though is that the acting was very good. I wouldn't say it was Bill Murray's "best" performance, just very different. However, I wouldn't be too upset to see Scarlett Johansson at least nominated (if not win) Best Actress come Oscar time.
Admittedly, this all comes from someone who's favorite movies of the year were "Return of the King" and "Kill Bill vol. 1", however I do like to escape mainstream Hollywood at times and since this film garnered such critical praise I felt it was a must see. Couldn't have been more wrong and couldn't have wasted my time more. I enjoyed quite a few "smaller" movies this year but sadly Lost In Translation was not one of them. You're time would be better spent watching films such as "American Splendor", "In America", or "Pieces of April".
Rating: 
Summary: Existentialism in Film
Review: This movie lives up to Sofia Coppola's previous work of "The Virgin Suicides." Coppola proves through this movie that a lot can be accomplished without a lot of action. Realizations, friendships, and lives unlived that are desperately trying to find a way to release themselves are the main motifs and themes of this movie. I understand that many viewers don't have a strong respect or appreciation of a movie without a generic love story or gobs of action and unnecessary violence just for the sake of being violent, but this movie is literature in the form of film. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson are perfect compliments of each other. One character is a middle-aged man with no real ambition but half a life lived and gone already. The other character is young, new to marriage, and uncertain of where life goes, how life goes, and what will happen in the end. I would recommend this movie to those who enjoyed movies such as The Royal Tenenbaums, The Virgin Suicides, Igby Goes Down, and Rushmore. Existential, different, and thought-compelling are the three words I will leave you with to describe this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Lost
Review: Not even Bill Murray could save this one. Since watching LIT I've been trying to find a redeeming quality. I have two. First, the acting. Both Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson were good, especially when you consider what they were given to work with. Second, the movie eventually ended, and that may be its strongest point. Lost In Translation is the sort of movie that makes you work to watch it. Every scene is so underwhelmingly insignificant it leaves you thinking, 'That scene was pointless...but maybe that was supposed to be the point...so then why I am watching it?' And by then it's halfway through the next scene and well...you get the point. Three out of five scenes could have been removed from LIT and you'd have the same film. Bob (Bill Murray) is a once famous American actor who is still popular in Japan. He's there doing ads for a whiskey company, and he meets Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson) who's staying in the same hotel with her husband (Giovanni Ribisi), a busy and vacant photographer with whom she has so little chemistry you're left wondering how they ever managed to meet, let alone get married. After about 45 minutes of the cinematic equivalent of Volkswagen commercials, Bob and Charlotte sense their mutual misery and become buddies. At first it's low key, but when Charlotte's husband packs up to leave town for a few days, whoa-ho! Buckle your seat-belts because...well, no. Still nothing really happens. Bob and Charlotte take little day trips all over Japan and I think it's safe to assume that something's happening, but we can't be sure because Coppola never shows us. In her attempt to reach the apex of dramatic understatement we are repeatedly shown what appears to be a) the beginning of a scene, b) the middle of a scene, or c) the end of a scene. As a result we never really know where the relationship is. The characters are thus weakened and so is the power of the relationship- but wait; I thought this was supposed to be a character/relationship driven movie? Uh-oh. Then, in what is the penultimate dramatic scene of the film, Bob and Charlotte are lying in a bed late at night and he reveals the staggering, revolutionary news that life and marriage can be hard, and then he touches her foot. Here's bottom line: Coppola tried to tell us a story by method of understatement - by showing us exclusively the details of the story - but she showed us all the wrong details. For example, take the scene I mentioned above. How does Coppola end it? Fade out. There they are, on a bed late at night, just having had an intense discussion, Bob made some physical contact...black screen. HOW did that actual, 'real life' scene end? *That's* what defines character and relationships. Did they sleep together or just next to each other? Did Bob carry her up to her room? Did they wake up and have an awkward moment? It's *those* details that Coppola left out and instead chose to show Bob and Charlotte showing up at a bar they didn't realize was a strip bar - and then leaving. Bob slowly teeing up a golf ball, and then hitting it. Charlotte stubbing her toe. Bob having a bizarre encounter with a Japanese masseuse. In other words, absolute nothingness wrapped up in a costume of Coppola's artistic license. This is why we have to work so hard to understand this relationship - because we're always trying to figure out what's happened since the last scene. I'm sure lovers of this film would criticize me for not being 'patient with it,' or 'needing to have everything spelled out.' Untrue. Carefully add up all the excruciating details and busywork in LIT and it still amounts to very little. So what then is our reward? A peek into the twisted morality of Sophia Coppola. Everything in LIT points to Bob and Charlotte's relationship being a beautiful, misunderstood thing. But let's really look at it. A young couple, married only a year or two - the woman is struggling with her identity as her husband's career takes off. (This is called 'life.' Welcome.) And an actor, always traveling, having problems with his wife of 25 years. (Maybe because he's always away while she's alone trying to raise a family.) So the actor and the confused young woman meet and internally assume that if only they were together in a different world, all their problems would blow away with the wind. Apparently in Coppola's mind this is a natural, sweet, beautiful occurrence. There is nothing sweet and beautiful about this film - even if it had been done well, which it wasn't, it was still a story about emotional infidelity in two marriages. And then there's Japan. Look, I've never been there nor have I ever been particularly interested in the nation, but I was insulted for the Japanese after seeing LIT. Coppola chose to exclusively show the outlandish 'weird-game-show' side of Japan. Lesson learned courtesy of Coppola? The Japanese are short, strange people who talk funny, and a week in hell would be better than a day in that bizarre God-forsaken country. Just about every cliched piece of Japanese 'humor' was crammed into LIT, and not once was it funny watching Bill Murray trying to understand Japanese, especially not after seeing it 8 times in 90 minutes. Yes, I understand that she's trying to use it as symbolism for two people trapped in a strange land who only understand each other...yawn. Very 'Screenwriting 101'-ish. This is a poorly told story that ineffectively tries to convey a very poor message. And I went to this movie *wanting* to like it. Just go rent Stripes and The Godfather; you'll be much more satisfied seeing LIT's star (Murray) at his best and seeing LIT's reason for existing (Francis Ford Coppola) than seeing LIT itself.
Rating:
Summary: Yo Sophia
Review: The Plot: Lost in a foreign world & indeed their own lives, two hapless individuals' paths cross in a downtown Tokyo hotel. The two Americans: one an ageing actor, the other a young wife find a common ground, filling a void that their respective relationships share. Standout Scene: It's an old joke, but Murray's bemusement is spot on, as sitting on the set of his latest Whiskey commercial, a torrent of foreign words pours from the Japanese director's mouth only for a less-than-able translator to pass on his wishes in a single word! Any Good? Once again, Sophia proves that by recent comparison she is a better director than Daddy Coppola. While it gets stuck in its own story mid-way, the result is worth the attention. A genuinely funny romance is rare on screen these days as Lost in Translation proves that true love CAN exist in friendship alone: CLASSIC!
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