Rating: 
Summary: Being far from Home
Review: I have been reading the reviews with great amusement. I agree that you either like the movie or don't with little range in between. Holding either opinion does not define you as superior to the other side. As for the comments on Tokyo and Japanese, I think this movie could have taken place in New York or LA or London. It is about being far from home, and not being connected with where you are. I have traveled many times on a direct flight from the Orient to New York or Washington DC. There is always a disconnection beyond jet lag. At home I wear a shirt and pants to work. In New York its a suit. The daily concerns of New York are just not like those at home. Tokyo is just different then the US. Not better or worst, just different.
Rating:
Summary: Do you know Japan?
Review: I'd like to thank those gaijin who choose to point out that we should be so offended by racism in "Lost in Translation" but I really think there is so much real racism in this world you would be better off complaining about. How many of you who say this is racist have ever even seen a Japanese film? Expecially a comedy. Many of this things this film laughs at are things we laugh at ourselves. Have you seen Oshima's satires of Japanese behaviour? Have you seen how much Juzo Itami laughs at aspects of our behaviour in "The Funeral", Tampopo", "Taxing Woman"? I am sure you haven't seen Takashi Mike's "Ichi the Killer" if you think this director is over-critical of Japanese. You probably shouldn't ever see a Japanese comedy. Have you seen "Battlefield Royale" which makes fun of Japanese militarism in a very cruel way - a much more powerful criticism than anything Coppola gives? I don't think so. And anyway, all this is a smoke screen. The truth is the film is too subtle for some people. They are angry that a film like this is even made. And they just use racism as an excuse. The film makes fun of the American photographer too, who is just SO impressed by famous women. It makes fun of the famous woman who looks like Cameron Diaz. It makes fun of a foreign lounge singer in Japan. It makes fun of a man who sleeps with one woman even when he has real feelings for another and is married to even another. Some people see this and are very righteous about it, and others claim not to see it because they only care about racism on Japanese. Not every Japanese loves karaoke. Some of us think it is funny and bad. Are we racist for thinking so? "Lost in Translation" is a film about Western meeting Eastern. There will always be misunderstandings. Pretending there are no cultural differences and such misunderstandings never happen would be the real racism. In the end this is a gentle love film. Complaining about it being racist is like complaining Finding Nemo is cruel to fish.
Rating:
Summary: Lost in Translation = a painting that I love
Review: I watch Lost in Translation as though it is a painting that I love. It is beautiful, imperfect, evocative, making the mundane scintillating.
Although I read other reviewers' remarks about racist themes with interest, I disagree with them. The contrast of American and Japanese cultures pointed out to me how out of place the Americans were-- mostly to their disadvantage. I don't consider poking fun at Japanese television and English mispronounciations as racist. A sense of humor helps, though.
Even though friends told me it was slow, I delight in the dialogue. Bill Murray is, as always, charming, attractive, funny. I think he and Ms. Johannson seemed natural together-- two strangers who are a quarter-century apart in age. What kind of chemistry is appropriate for that sort of pairing?
In Charlotte's youth, she seeks beauty in Tokyo and finds it--- in a shrine, with women arranging flowers, and at a traditional wedding ceremony. I, in the luxury of my darkened living room, drank in every exquisite moment.
And I will do so many more times, staring at my painting in motion.
AGAIN: DON'T BUY THE FULL SCREEN. Tokyo should not be seen in a square, and the quality of the movie is diminished mightily, unless it's viewed in wide screen.
Rating: 
Summary: DON'T BUY FULL SCREEN
Review: This movie is beautiful, but the full-screen version is an abomination. Buy the letterbox version and see Tokyo.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD work put in to a BAD movie
Review: I've never written a review on Amazon before and I probably never will again. The reason I'm writing this is because I occasionally shop on here and during my current session I've been bombarded by this movie. It is all over the site. I'm hoping my one star rating will put an end to that since Amazon personalizes pages for you. Despite the reasoning behind it, I will be very honest about what I think--and I think this movie truly deserves 1 star. Many people think this movie is very artistic and creative, and I can't take anything away from that. The movie was very well directed and the actors did a great job. The characters are as REAL as you can get in a movie. The directing is fantastic and the girl (Sophia Coppolla) has definitely got some talent, but this movie obviously got as huge as it did because of who her father is (Francis Ford.) For me to say she would have never made it on her own would be wrong, but she wouldn't have done it with this movie. The movie was pointless and terrible. It really had absolutely no purpose, and the ending was probably the dumbest I have ever seen. Despite the fantastic acting and directing this movie was absolute torture to watch. They definitely portrayed a middle aged man having a mid-life crisis VERY well, but they didn't go anywhere with it. I was sitting there, constantly waiting for this movie to 'get better' and then it ended. A huge let down. The first and foremost reason to make a movie is to entertain the audience. It's funny how many writers and directors forget that despite the fact that we live in such a consumer oriented world. If it weren't for us, their bills wouldn't get paid! Entertain me first, then make a point--if you have one. I don't need to hear someone else's view of the world when I've got problems of my own. Especially when I don't see any conflict, climax or resolution during the story telling process. I understand that a lot of people liked this movie, but I honestly believe half of them are lying in order to impress their peers or conform to their warped state of mind. Believe it or not, there are a lot of followers in this world, and it annoys me to see so many people lie in regards to what they thought about a movie that really wasn't that good. If anyone else had made this movie and there was no marketing budget behind it, the movie would have been killed and buried like it deserves to be. As I said in the title: this was nothing more than a lot of good work put in to a bad movie.
Rating:
Summary: racist rich girl fantasy
Review: Narcissistic, racist and empty. Japanese people, for the crime of not being American, are sneered at by Murray and Johnanssen for an hour and a half. All those friends of yours who hated it? They were right.
Rating:
Summary: In her oscar acceptance speech...
Review: Sophia Coppola mentioned Antonioni, Godard and a few other master filmmaker's works as inspirations during her screenwriting. Now, most of the people "reviewing" this film here on Amazon don't even know who those people are. This ain't 50 FIRST DATES folks (Steve Golin and Anonymous Content, you should hide your heads), this is Art with a capital "A." You either see beauty in Modigliani or you don't. As with the successful films of Antonioni, Godard, Fellini and Bergman among many others, LOST is a sophisticated film for a sophisticated palate. It is also a film for those who know what love is. It is warm and wise and human. Like all truly great films, this is a haunting work that has stayed with me.
Rating:
Summary: A Miserable Failure
Review: I saw this movie in the theater the week before the Oscars and was very offended. I thought I was the only one that didn't like the way the Japanese people were represented. It was very stereotypical, not funny, and lacked imagination. Borderline racist might be putting it nicely. It was horrible. After seeing "The Last Samurai" where the Japanese people/culture were treated with such respect and dignity, "Lost in Translation" was a complete disaster. But Hollywood loves good racism. She never should have been nominated for this movie. The screenplay was awful. She just made fun of Japanese people throughout the entire movie. How is that Oscar worthy??? The academy should be embarrassed that they nominated "The Triplets of Belleville" and "Lost in Translation." It's a tie between which one was actually more egregious. I've never written a bad review for anything on Amazon.com, but I was genuinely offended by this movie. I didn't like how the Japanese were portrayed.
Rating:
Summary: quite a let-down
Review: After all the praise I've heard for this movie, I was very disappointed. The plot consists of two very bored people hanging out in Tokyo and mostly watching TV and not sleeping, which is not very entertaining. Bill Murray and Scarlet Johanssen have no chemistry, which makes their bond entirely unbelievable. The most amusing part of this movie is its half-hearted charicature of the meeting of American and Japanese cultures, but that wasn't enough to make me sit through the whole thing.
Rating:
Summary: Very Lost In Translation
Review: What is wrong with this movie is that it desperately wants to be profound, but it feels like Sofia Coppola wrote herself into the corner and didn't know how to solve it. In the end, it seems, she was unable to solve it even for herself, so she leaves the ending an enigma, and not even an engaging one. There was no climax to this movie, and there was next to no plot. Certainly a movie could still be a great picture without either of these things, but to do so it must convey SOMETHING to make you feel better for having watched it, and Lost In Translation failed at that. The little plot this film did have was disjointed, which, while adding to the overall feeling of confusion, left me feeling a disconnect with the characters and their circumstances, It jumped around without any regard for scene continuity. This did not create the feeling of being "lost" so much as it created a feeling of a lack of direction and attention to detail: The "friends" Charlotte knew in Japan she never spoke to or appeared to know, and she of course abandoned them without thought, the two characters connection that jumps to familiarity with hardly a conversation, Charlotte asking Bill Murray's character he can come out with her that evening without telling him her name, room number, what time, or where they should meet, and then the sudden appearance of Bob in her hotel room making himself at home. Because of scene discontinuity and flat dialogue, the characters feel one-dimensional and do not inspire me to feel any connection with them, even though I have felt the emotions they seemed to be struggling with many times. There are a lot of moments in the film that almost allow this connection, but they are too few and far between to get any real sense of the people involved, and we see the main characters much in the same way that they seem to see Tokyo: far removed and unrelating. Part of the characters' one-dimensionality seems to come from Sofia Coppola's heavy-handed version of "subtlety." An example is the obvious comparison between the way Charlotte's husband reacts when the pretty blonde approaches him, and the way Bob Harris reacts in almost the identical setup. If the movie's plan is to be a subtle portrait, which I can only assume is the purpose, then I would prefer it not to hand feed me such details, but let me discover them for myself. This kind of writing seems to have come directly out of some beginning screenwriter's handbook, not from the hand of a genius. Overall, the movie manages to express the feeling that you get when you're stranded in a foreign place, but it failed to take that feeling anywhere. Yes, there is some wonder, some oddity and confusion, some loneliness and introversion, an assessment of your life especially compared to what's going on around you, and an amplification of your own thoughts because you're isolated. But what of that? What is the insight, the revelation? What makes this movie important or worth wasting 2 hours for? We've all felt that, we all know it. Going there with a couple of uncharismatic characters was not worth my time or my ten bucks. It's like taking a 35mm picture of a strange couple in front of a sunset. In the first place I don't know the couple so I don't really care to have their picture, and in the second place, the 35mm picture couldn't capture what the sunset was really like, especially if I've seen it first hand. You need to give me something more, and Sofia Coppola didn't in this film.
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