Lost In Translation (Full Screen Edition)

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Summary: For those who think they're smarter than everyone else
Review: I've noticed reading these reviews that people who love this movie tend to knock those that don't because they think we wanted "explosions", "jokes about passing gas" or other raunchy comedy scenes. Please don't be fooled. This is not an "art" movie. It's not that Lost in Translation is boring--it's that it has no soul. Coppola does nothing to make the audience care about the charachters, or care about the plot. Those of you criticizing people who didn't like it need to get off your high horses.

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Summary: Through Shaded & Troubled Western Eyes
Review: After watching Lost In Translation, I wanted to do two things: crawl into bed or go clubbing. I decided to hit the town. Both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson have the same choices: resign yourself to the negatives in your life or grab the bull by the horns. Contrasting dilemmas: Moving toward the end - midlife crisis vs. starting off on the bad foot - bad marriage. However, the strength of Lost in Translation (LIT) is that it works in stripping away their respective problemsf details, runs them through a blender, and voila: you have two people who realize that their problems are quite similar. The only major difference being one of timing: one hasnft made the changes yet and procrastinates while the other still has the potential to change yet fears the outcome. The backdrop of Tokyo serves as the negativity amplifier in that it forces their dilemmas to surface faster than normal and with intensity.

Most already know the story where a has-been actor is sent to Tokyo alone to film some TV ads (real actors who have done so: Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Bruce Willis, Penelope Cruz, etc) while the other is accompanying her husband on a business trip. They meet up and being the lost souls that they are, make a connection. Both Murray and Johansson play their respective character with aplomb, especially Murray who while stoic at times, relies on subtle gestures to give life to his character. For one who is used to seeing him only in comedies, it was refreshing and perhaps indicates that he has more potential than we ever thought. Johansson on the other hand, seems to be on valium and though she still displays oodles of potential, her role in Ghost World to me was her breakout film. Then again, her character does spend most of her time in bed.

Lotfs have been said about how LIT portrays Japan in a less than favorable light. Coming from a foreigner who has been living in Japan for close to a decade, I have to straddle the fence and say yes and no. It does provide every stereotype of the Japanese and some are true while others are grossly exaggerated. The difficult part is trying to understand directorfs Coppolafs intent. Ifm left feeling that since the two main characters are new to Japan and are in transition, the corresponding views/images on Japan in the movie should reflect the typical foreign misconceptions and stereotypes (Japanese are not good at English, Japanese women are airy and immature, Japanese men are a masculine joke, etc.) We are seeing Japan through their eyes not through ones of a Japanophile who is planning to live and work there. If that were the case, I think you would have seen a very different Japan. In that sense, the images of Japan and the Japanese are appropriate. They are for the most part, wrong, very wrong but appropriate. Just remind yourself of that when watching LIT. Youfre seeing Japan through the eyes of two glosth people Westerners who have very little interest in being there. .

It was bit too slow for more liking and I was expecting a very different film image-wise from Coppola who so effectively used tones and colors in the Virgin Suicides. Though entertaining, I do question what the hype is all about. Truth is the setting could have been any foreign country (Japan being chosen because of the contrasts) and the result probably would have been the same because itfs not the location as much as it the charactersf fragile frames of minds that is the meat of the story.

Rating:
Summary: Like watching paint dry or grass grow
Review: I was really, really looking forward to this movie. I like Bill Murray. I like films set in Asia in general, and Japan in particular. I'm a fan of directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Zhang Yimou. I thought this movie would somehow be in the same vein or in the same spirit as the films from those two directors. Boy was I wrong. Instead we get a movie about absolutely nothing...and that's no exageration nor is it an understatement. The film literally goes nowhere.

Plot? Don't look for it here. Characterization? Sorry. Wasted potential? You bet.

With a setting, in what is to most Americans, an exotic locale (Tokyo) you would think there would at least be some beautiful scenery. Instead we get all these shots of the characters in their hotel room or in the hotel bar. What a waste. The few scenes we do get of beautiful Japan such as Mt.Fuji and Kyoto are short-lived, disjointed and do nothing to move the plot forward--but then we must remember there is no plot.

The character played by Scarlett Johannsen (Charlotte) is supposed to be this young, highly educated, and seemingly precocious wife trying to "find her place in the world." She's in Japan accompanying her photographer husband played by Giovanni Ribisi. Bill Murray's character (Bob Harris) is a middle-aged American film star who is bored with his wife and his life; he's in Japan to plug Suntory whisky and collect a nice paycheck of $2 million for his trouble. Both of the main characters don't want to be in Japan and their vacant stares and apathetic countenaces in the face of all the neon blitz of Tokyo are meant to convey that.

The problem is that they both keep those vacant stares throughout the entire movie. Literally nothing happens even after they meet each other and hang out together.

The film feels like Sophia Coppola told the actors to just do whatever they wanted (which is mostly just sitting and looking bored--how can you be bored in Tokyo???) and then she would edit the footage and try to make a film out of it. We see Charlotte in her panties staring outside her hotel window. We see Bob shaving. We see Charlotte hanging fake cherry blossom ornaments in her hotel room in her underwear. We see Bob at the hotel bar drinking Suntory whisky. We see Charlotte in her panties staring outside her hotel window again. We see Bob talking to his wife on the phone. We see Bob at the hotel bar drinking Suntory whisky. Ad nauseum.

Those critics who are raving about this film call this Bill Murray's break out role. Um...excuse me, but this is the same character Bill Murray has been playing in all of his movies. The funny straight-man type. Transplant his character from Ghostbusters or Stripes and the movie would be no different.

And as for Scarlett Johannsen, if staring at everything with a blank look in your eyes is acting...sign me up. I can do that and get paid for it, too.

I don't understand where all the accolades and the hype are coming from. I could have made a better movie if I filmed my trip to Asia last year. I met more interesting people and I saw more awesome sights than you'll see in this travesty on celluloid. Please do not let this film put you off on visiting Japan. The real thing could never be this boring! Coppola just doesn't have the vision, skill, or maybe even the talent to make an interesting film.

She has much more studying and much more work to do before she can even be called a competent film-maker, much less a great one. "Lost in Translation" does not deserve to win any awards, unless it is Worst movie or Most Overhyped movie of the Year.

I think with the critical acclaim this movie has been getting and all the nominations from the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards, there is a sort of "Emperor's clothes" phenomenon. Well, I'm telling you THIS EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES! I wish the critics would open their eyes to this fact. This film is absolutely dreadful.

I am sorry for all the people that have wasted both their time and money watching this film or buying it on DVD. And that absolutely includes me.

Rating:
Summary: Not for The Easily Distracted.
Review: In a film world of blatant and gratuitous violence, tasteless and shamless comedy, and pathetic writing and acting, this movie simply would not appeal to many movie goers. It did and would and does bore many people to tears. It simply does not entertain in the classic "action-packed" sense.
Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson act. Acting is about conveying emotion without the necessity of gabbing endlessly.
This is a noisy and simplistic culture we live in, and this movie demands one's attention to get it.
It's not fast paced, it's not action packed, it's not "explosive," it's not all about physical sex, it's not about simplistic answers to difficult stages people go through in their lives.
This movie also captures the essence of Asia. Asia is a rich and powerful place of conflicting social forces that pull hard between centuries of tradition and the emerging modern/techno society.
The film's imagery is very rich. Excellent photography. The music wasn't bad either.
As a total package, it's one terrific film.

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Summary: Lost in the Moment
Review: The first time you realized that love was more than infatuation... Your first kiss... The alienation and emptiness of wasted love...
Life is full of epiphanies and moments that become mythical and hyperbolized in frequent memory replay. These moments are factors of time and they pass persistently, and we are powerless to recapture them. No movie in recent memory captures the reality of the passing moment and the alienation of a fish out of its proverbial cultural water better than Lost in Translation.
Each scene is like a living polaroid in a vacation album, each only making sense in context with the memories that accompany them. While a relationship is the focal point, both people remain individual, alienated, but connected. This is the beauty of this movie, it's ablility to realistically portray the honesty of human feelings within a dream-like setting of a very real location, Tokyo. Tokyo itself becomes a character in this movie as Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) interact with the city, observe it, are dwarfed by its size, and are mesmerized by its oddities.
Sofia Coppola has crafted a script that passes like a ribbon in the breeze, moving in and out of conversations and moments, catching them in their candid happenings. Scenes capture the lonely minutes and hours of the insomniac, the awkwardness of an abrupt introduction, the uncomfortability of a confrontation, all with the vague sense that, while this seems to be so dream-like, you are catching these moments in their raw honesty. All of these individual moments string together into a story of feeling, rather than happening, being, rather than doing.
Coppola's work as Director is flawless, and the movie was perfectly cast in all of the parts, from Bill Murray as the washed-up actor and Scarlett Johansson as the soul-searching twentysomething, to the ensemble of Japanese, American, and other faces that enter into their world. Murray resists the temptation to use his past work as a primer for the role, and instead, he takes us to depths of complexity that use his familiarity to the audience as well as his unique portrayal of an uncommon role to bring the audience into the experience of the character Bob Harris.
This movie can make you think of those unlikely memories that you rarely visit, and it takes the audience into the depths of a relationship that is so human in its complexity and so identifyable in its innocence. Plus the soundtrack perfectly captures the feelings that the director attempts to ossify in the audience's memory.
That said, this movie isn't for everyone. It blatantly bucks the traditional hollywood-type characterizations, and is therefore much more thorough, however slow, in building the characters around which the entire story revolves. This could lose the interest of some viewers more accustomed to a typical popcorn flick, as well as viewers expecting a typical Bill Murray comedy. It is actually somewhat of a disservice to the audience that this film was marketed as a comedy, since much of the humor is very subtle, and the movie overall does not seem like a vehicle for humor. Humor is just one sarcastic lens through which Bill Murray's character processes his journey through this foreign world.
This movie contains scenes, such as the scene in the karaoke booth, which I believe will remain in the conscience of American cinema for a long time. For this and all the above reasons, I highly recommend this movie for everyone who has felt like an outsider or had a whirlwind relationship that was greater for its brevity than it ever would have been at length.

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Summary: Can I please have my 2 hours back???
Review: I can sum up the entire movie in one word "disappointing." I was so excited about seeing another Bill Murray movie, and rented the DVD the day it came out. I really can't think of a slower movie that seemed to lead me nowhere. And it took what seemed like an eternity to get there. As much as I want to like this movie, I must say "STAY AWAY". Don't do it to yourself. Just read the comments from the guy who posted "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights". That's all you need to know. You can thank me now.

Rating:
Summary: Way overhyped but pleasant to watch.
Review: Previous reviewers all seemed to hate or love this film. I can sum it up by saying that those who loved it are probably impressed by a human interest / dialogue film with a wonderful premise, and those who hated it probably wanted more characterization and plot.

It is obvious that Sofia Coppola is shallow while surrounded by richesse. The female lead may be smart, but she only appears deep. The character she seems to be would never have gone to those superficial parties. Nothing she ever says shows any depth at all. The fact that she is not as over-the-top idiotic as her husband's movie star friend does not make her wise. The actress looked very pretty but did not have to do any difficult acting.

Neither did the marvelous Bill Murray. Yes, I'd probably watch him read the phone book. Yes, he captured PERFECTLY the spirit of ennui and frustration that his character called for. I don't mind him winning awards for his job, but I don't think this role was his hardest work, either, if you know what I mean.

Tokyo was also shallowly characterized, as though she were just another superficial Coppola personage.

The best part of the movie for me was the relationship between the two of them. I wish they hadn't been married, though, because it was not their marriages that determined the outcome. It seemed very familiar, and I identified with her greatly. There are a lot of reasons why 20-somethings and 50-somethings don't make for a long-term match, and the movie pointed these out. Different stages of life attract as do opposites, though, and it makes for a good story.

I recommend watching this film without expecting to be blown away by anything about it.

Rating:
Summary: OK little movie--but overhyped and over-rated!
Review: First of all, I love little offbeat, leisurely-paced, melancholy movies that come out of left field. And I expected to love this one, having had similar surreally lonely visits to Tokyo, but the movie couldn't begin to live up to the hype... and the multiple Oscar nominations. The first American woman to receive a Best Director Oscar nomination... for this? Maybe a STUDENT Oscar! I'll give her some credit for an imaginative script--or at least an imaginative idea. Has a Best Picture nominee ever been so poorly edited? When there are so many mismatched cuts in a film, I have to ultimately blame the director. You get the feeling that whole scenes were hacked out to try and pick up the langorous pace--like where did Johansson's pink wig come from in the middle of the first long party sequence? Yes, Bill Murray was good, but I got the sense that he wasn't so much directed as just doing a slightly darker and more sympathetic version of his usual schtick. He's been winning awards right and left, but that was hardly a best-of-the-best performance. Certainly Giovanni Ribisi as Scarlett Johansson's busband was poorly directed... and/or scripted. He's not that bad an actor, is he? I really wanted this to be the little gem others are claiming it is. I see this happen periodically, where an odd little movie starts building momentum as the "surprise hit of the season"--and suddenly no one's willing to admit the emporer has no clothes--especially when the emperor/director has such a fine Hollywood pedigree.

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Summary: Positively Pastoral-would make a good screensaver
Review: I really wanted to like it. I love Bill Murray's acting but this movie never gets started...and maybe that's the point...but it's still no fun to watch. It is a strangely compelling flick but in the same vein as a still life tableau. I've also never been so aware of screen changes as I was with this movie, because the scenes don't seem to flow and instead come across as an arrhythmic collage with rather random syntax. With this in mind, it might be more satisfying to put the scenes from the movie on a PC as a screensaver! In the end, however, it would probably be as maddening as the movie. Given the awards frenzy, I just can't help but think that the public has been led down the garden path by the Hollywood establishment promoting one of its own.

Rating:
Summary: ethereal
Review: I enjoyed the movie, and I was sad that it ended (we always want more when we're immersed in something we enjoy so much), but it took me a few days to realize why I liked it. It is slow moving, that's true, but that's part of the charm - it conjures up an ethereal atmosphere in both the way Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson interact with each other and how they interact with the huge bustling city that surrounds them. The movie also slips and veers away from any expectations you have about "formula" romance movies. It's a unique experience (and I mean that, it's an experience more than a story), and I wanted to rewatch the movie again just hours after I'd seen it. Another great thing about this movie is that it DOES have a nice rewatchable factor to it, so it's one of those DVDs that won't just stick on your shelf and never be seen again.