Rating: 
Summary: Ticked Off
Review: This is a comedy alright, but the jokes on us. I enjoyed the journey of these two lost souls finding company and comfort with each other as "strangers in a strange land". I would have been OK with the ending being Bill Murray's character just riding to the airport thinking about what just happened. But this whispering in the ear and excluding the audience after letting us in on every little detail up to that point--- well it just ticked me off. Oh, I can sit there and come up with my own ending, but I wanted to know how, in Sophia's vision, this story ends. Maybe she doesn't know herself! I felt like I had just been had and I don't care for that. Had I known the ending before the seeing the movie, I'd have passed on the journey. I did get a few chuckles out of it and loved the "Lip my stockings" scene. But found the premise as rude as listening to a friend tell a joke to a group of people, only to have him turn and walk away before the punchline. You just wonder, why they bothered.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful
Review: I saw this movie in Marseille in a cinema showing foreign films, and because I didn't speak a single word of French, I could just totally understand what Bob Harris was going through. Frankly, the unbelievable lips of Scarlett Johannsen are reason enough to see the movie. I saw another review saying that the movie shows signs of racism against Japanese people, indicating that they are short and that they don't speak English well. Well, they don't, and they are short, so this is not racism, but just amusing. The mood of the movie is very consistent, some people might say depressing, I would say layed back and inspired by the ability of the actors, especially Bill Murray, to show emberassment, amusement and astonishment about themselves. They are not sure how they got to this point in their lives, and they are even less sure if they like it there. My resumé: a movie that leaves you with more hope than you had before.
Rating: 
Summary: We do all we can to justify a name!
Review: If Joe Blow wrote and directed this film, it would just be another film. But because it is Sofia Coppola, we have to find anything or make up anything that is supposedly profound and intellectual in order to justify the false assumption that Lost in Translation is an extraordinary intellectual film. Blah, blah, blah...It is so meaningful and we must find it within our deepest thoughts to understand and praise Sofia Coppola. More blah blah blah. We who love this film likes to think we are smart; therefore, we have to make up anything intellectually profound so that the easily persuaded weak minded people can agree with us. And if they do not agree with our elitist opinion, they are of low intelligence. More crap!
If the reviewer chooses to, he or she can make up any kind of profound opinions about any film. It is all crap! This film is nothing more than an average "been there done that" recycle of independent films in the past. Except it is directed by a Coppola and so we must sheepishly recognize it as if it were a masterpiece. What a load of crap! The truth is coming out! That is why this film only has 3 stars--which means average.
Rating: 
Summary: Simplstic
Review: The movie is a simplistic one that in some parts is a little slow. The outcome in the end is that you feel for the characters, you feel their lonliness and this is what makes the movie good. Murray and Johansson are excellent (as always) and it's worth seeing just for Murray's comedic performance.
Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled by the Oscar nomination
Review: It's unbelievable that this movie had an Oscar nomination. It has no plot and wanders aimlessly. I kept watching because I was stunned that it could be so bad and was wondering how they would pull it together at the end. When it did mercifully end, they didn't pull it together.
Rating:
Summary: wow, I am quite sure
Review: that this TV season will be very good. Look for new episodes of law and order. Does anyone know when the Sopranos begin?
Rating:
Summary: Have never seen this film
Review: I have never seen this film so I am totally unqualified to give a review. But becuase I took the time to write this I would appreciate some folks indicating this review was helpful to them. Peace out.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: This movie was horrible. It is totally undeserving of all the attention the critics have been giving it. It wass incredibly slow pace, and lacked an interesting plot. If you're one of those intellectual elitist, this movie might give you more "bragging rights" next time you're smoking a pipe and chastising everybody else for their lack of "culture." Basic rundown of the plot: Two Americans are bored in Japan.
I guess you can really come to identify with the characters. I guarantee you'll be bored too. I usually compare movies like this to the parable of the Emperor's New Clothes. Critics watch the movie and see absolutely nothing of value in it. Somebody plants the idea in their head that they don't see anything because they're stupid (when in reality, it's just not there). So then the critics write great reviews, and all the elitists out there are too afraid to disagree. If you're capable of forming your own opinion on a subject, you probably won't like this movie so I advise you not to watch it.
Rating:
Summary: Ineptitude + Lethargy + Torpor= Oscar Gold
Review: As one might reasonably surmise, due to the excessively positive reception of this film (in terms of aesthetic cinematography and acumen of craft) I was somewhat piqued to see it for myself. After all the extortionate lengths that some critics have endeavored to pursue in adulation of this movie (in particular Bill Murray's performance and Sofia Coppola's script and direction), try and imagine the diminutive fraction of possibility that this film might actually have a reputation that precedes it. Come on, Ebert readily assessed it as a work of sheer brilliance, Siskel's foreskin foreheaded doppleganger Roepert opined likewise, and every other person who ever witnessed it regaled its power to be tantamount to the second coming. In what absurd, deranged, and forlorn alternate dimension could the facts possibly divagate from the hype? Well keep your cosmonaut shoes on, because you need jaunt no further than your local multiplex or video store to see how incredibly fallible the majority of critics truly are. Now, what is wrong with the picture?
One of the unfortunate misgivings about this movie is the fact that the trailer and all its satellite previews made it appear like some kind of standard Murray comedy. We are given brief glimpses into the more garrulous scenes in the picture, all of which if properly taken out of context and arbitrarily collocated into a filmic presentation would approximately last no more than 45 seconds (hmm, the usual running time for tv spots that advertise these films). But I can willingly forgive a fallacious trailer as long as I am supplied with some modicum of entertainment. Not since Gigli have I suffered the kind of cine-masochistic audacity that is prevalent in Lost in Translation. I can at least commend Gigli on the fact that it made ample use of its running time by appropriating a little something called dialogue (albeit a banal, deliriously unfunny discourse), whereas Lost in Translation decides to express itself in the form of epigrams. We are given a random collection of words that are so disassociated with human emotions - lines that are empty, callous, frigid, and insipid - that I have heard more convincing dramatic delivery from C-3P0 and his four inch tall life partner R-2D2. Simply put, no one in this movie knows what sentimentality is, nor would they recognize it if it lodged itself in their urine canal. But hold your trendy tongues you art house phonies, to any of you who would so naively conclude that I am not familiar with pictures that fail to utilize the standard pentameter of Hollywood banter, for that is far from the case. 2001: Space Odyssey and Eraserhead are both films that confidently employ succinctness in lieu of loquacious rambling. Yet those two films differ from Coppola's film in the one major way : they actually supplant their silence with a redeemable artistic aspect. But the script (or lack thereof) is only one of the baneful obstacles this turgid priapus cannot competently penetrate.
Let me address the area of performance from our two main actors, Bill Murray and Scarlet Johannson. Scarlet's character is supposed to be a jaded philosophy major. The staggering problem of this is the fact that she barely attempts to open her mouth and say something intelligent. I do not particularly care if Sofia Coppola was trying induce a full-blown aneurysm from those people who watch her movie and recognize the aberrant timidity of her lead heroine, nor do I care if she was trying to suggest the vernal obfuscation of the character who merely studied philosophy on a whim but now finds herself abruptly distanced from the world - such trite characterization that clumsily fuddles with assumptive subtext wretchedly turns a viscid knife in my stomach - because quite honestly, her character made me feel absolutely nothing. I no doubt theorize that I would receive warmer reciprocity from the rubber inguinal notches of a blow-up doll. But what is most offensive to me as a moviegoer is the superfluous praise of Murray's "outstanding" performance. If someone would kindly delineate to me the fundamental differences of Murray's character here and his portrayal in other movies, I would most humbly appreciate it. The fact is this: Bill Murray plays Bill Murray playing Bill Murray in this movie. He assumes the role he has assumed in every single movie he's ever been in (save for Caddyshack). The dry wit, the partial smile, the frequently bumptious lifts of the eyebrows to punctuate the irony of a situation - check, check, check, everything seems to be in order. And though I do appreciate Murray as a comedian, I do not think it befitting to flank him with vociferous hosannas and felicitations simply because his character appeared flaccid for an entire hour and forty two minutes on screen.
So we now set our sights on Coppola as a director. Given the size of her father (in terms of work and mountainous girth) it is indeed foreseeable that she will be subjected to nepotistic juxtaposition. But as most of you recall, it was the young voluptuary herself who single-handedly turned the Godfather III from lesser-sequel to garish and straight-to-video histrionic horse manure. Not apparently content with assassinating the repute of her father's career (after the bloated anti-climax of the last in the Godfather trilogy, he went on to direct the nauseously stifling Jack, a schlocky Robin Williams picture of Spielbergian pseudo-emotional magnitude), the young auteur has decided to proliferate her vile bacteria into the careers of other people. It's a shame, because if Lost in Translation had been a different film entirely, like Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, it might have been good. But as it is, it is pure garbage. Try Monster or American Splendor, two wonderful films forgotten by the burgeoning circle jerk of American critics. As for Lost in Translation, it definitely attests to the presumption I had that Roger Ebert is an imbecilic merger of words who's increasingly offal taste in movies (something that has never ceased to baffle me) is at the prompt vanguard of the declining state of film recognition. Here is a man who can volubly opine for two hours on the eminent importance of Orson Wells' great progeny Citizen Kane and the surreal mastery of Fellini's 8 1/2, yet is so obdurately stubborn that he rejects the greatness of movies like Blue Velvet and favors this disposable garbage. It may seem incredible, but remember that this agglutination of lard bestowed his prestigious and ever-cantankerous thumb of approval to such tripe as the Hulk and Blue Crush. Bahh.
There are moments here, though they may be evanescent, that begin to show signs of life - we are traduced into believing a character could delve beyond their static veneer and actually articulate a genuine emotion or two. There was one scene in the movie when I was so stupid as to presume the torture would lessen and the movie would at least end with an inspired spark, no matter how uneven the events leading up to the denouement. That scene was the karaoke scene, where Johannson's character bellows an uncertain and stodgy rendition of the Pretenders' "Brass in Pocket." Subsequent to her performance, Bill Murray belts out an Elvis Costello tune. But even as that aroused some interest it made me much more critical of the film's astronomical failure. As he sang "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding" I began to feel even more molested by my viewing experience. I have realized why. It seems that brief sequence is comparable to the film in its entirety. It flirts with presence of life, it appears to be vibrant and amassed in the blinding neon lights of Japan, yet it reveals the story and the characters as lifeless, mirthless, miserable creatures who faintly utter disjointed nonsense without the slightest palpebration of energy. The whole movie was so dreadfully absurd in its tragi-comic awfulness that it really made you think of the crooning losers who act like unproclaimed kings in karaoke bars. Lost in Translation is like that. Its amateurish, but not in the warm way of most independent movies. It is stunningly pointless, an exercise in futile relations and even more of wayward characters who have not the capability to recognize their pitiable selves. It's not that the characters allow their emotions to distract from their enactment with one another, no, it is something far more drab and lugubrious. It is a representation of two faceless characters. Two desparate people who cannot recognize the futility nor the audacity of their desparation. I am reminded of the final scene when Murray says goodbye to Scarlet's character. That one scene (coupled with the karaoke singing) provides explanation for the entire summarization of the movie. It is endless and inauthentic, a documentation of absolutely nothing! Yet it continues to prow along, moving forward despite the lack of enthusiasm or concern, not because Sofia is trying to convey some vague statement about the inefficacy of human relationships, nor because there was a point at all, merely because it is like its characters, it does not possess the proficiency to do anything else.
Why do I anoint it with 5 stars then, if I so evidently despise it? Because I get a sense of slight satisfaction with the thinking that maybe some lowly desk clerk at Tip Top Video will be perusing through the higher reviews for snobby affirmation of his devotion to this film, some dull expatiation about the esoteric quality of the movie and how others are fools not to appreciate it, only to unearth an inveighed condemnation of unquestionable disgust for a movie that barely qualifies as cannon fodder.
Rating:
Summary: And your point would be?
Review: The problem with this movie is not the acting, or the location, it's the story. It's just too shallow, which makes the statue they threw at Sophia such an outrageous gift. While a number of intriguing situations are presented, from forays into the nightlife of Tokyo to one-night stands with lounge singers, nothing is ever really examined. This plays like a first-year film school project, and a "C" effort at that. Others have also pointed out the near-racist stereotyping of the Japanese culture. I lived in Japan for almost five years and, while you can see everything Sophia shows in this movie, what is the point? Why am I watching Scarlett take Bill to a strip joint and spend two minutes there doing nothing? What does she make of her husband's intensity in his work or the company he keeps, given how rudderless she is in her life? The lounge singer episode is seen through the eyes of a child, and the director quickly dissipates any tension almost as if in denial. So, she had a good cast and an interesting location to create the bonding situation for her characters. But she fails to successfully explore the complexities and the internal conflicts of these two ridiculously blessed people who have no idea what to do with their affluent lives. Coppola cops out. Frankly, I just came away thinking she's not old enough yet to really confront the issues she is becoming aware of. She should have tried making this movie in her forties. Maybe she'll get a chance to do that. In the meantime, I gave away my copy of the DVD.
|
