Rating: 
Summary: mistranslation
Review: good movie, that's worth seeing but with what i thought were odd problems -- ok, just odd for me.the movie centers around Bob Harris (Bill Murray), a hollywood actor now past his prime who finds himself in Japan doing a whisky commercial for easy money. arriving in Tokyo, he is jetlagged and blinks at the high tech pulse of city (reminded me a bit of Blade Runner with the electronic ads) and the very surface problem of verbal translation as his horrendously bad translator relays dialogue between him and the director of the commmerical. finding some refuge in the nightclub/lounge in his posh hotel, he catches the eye of Charlotte (Scarlett Johanson), a newlywed to a photographer on assignment in Japan. she feels displaced because her husband is never around and there is no emotional anchor that ties her to Tokyo; her plea to her friend at the start of the movie describing going to a shrine and feeling nothing quickly establishes her disassociation. Bob and Charlotte quickly develop an affinity for each other that goes beyond being Americans in Japan... but more likely that they are both adrift in their relationships -- the term soulmates comes to mind. i am reminded of moments of my own trip to Japan three years ago, many of the familiar places, the kinship felt among visitors to a foreign land and other foreign tourists... but there are things that definitely is jarring and seem implausible. how Charlotte (who doesn't work and is a 'sophisticate') can afford a posh hotel on an assignment photographer is beyond me. the day trips to Kyoto and wherever Bob teed off are unlikely -- Kyoto isn't all that easy to navigate and you lose over four hours just sitting on the shinkansen; meanwhile Mt. Fuji is barely visible from Tokyo so you do the math. neither Bob nor Charlotte spoke Japanese, which becomes an issue outside of Tokyo proper. two side trips that really didn't serve the movie in a meaningful way and seemed like orphaned scenes. i know many viewers feel this movie rings true to being a tourist -- simply put being concious of being foreign. i agree and gave this movie three stars but i felt that the overall issue of cultural displacement, the path of the movie and the dialogue were all done in a more effective way in the movie Barcelona.
Rating: 
Summary: So so
Review: I was so excited about seeing this movie.It came to only a few theatres where I live. I had to beg someone to see it with me. I was lucky enough that I went to see it before all the nominations came out.However, I was not very impressed. I felt like the movie was going to pick up and it never did. Not enough of a story for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing...
Review: A beautiful film. The cinematography is breathtaking. Coppolla perfectly provides the feel of alienation that a westerner can experience in a eastern culture. Murray gives a oscar worthy performance.
Rating:
Summary: Not Losing Translation After the Hype
Review: Perhaps the key to liking this movie is to be patient. By the end of the movie, I was convinced that Sofia Coppola deserves every accolade she gets. It is her patience in letting this story tell itself through well-paced action and stingy dialogue that lends such a deep palette of emotional color to the movie. As a writer, she shows a discipline of concision that T.S. Eliot could only get from his friend and part-time editor Ezra Pound. As a director, she allows the camera to dwell long enough on every situation to extract a high degree of clarity, and manages the actors' looks and positions to beautifully complement and emphasize their great ability to show emotional depth. I was truly impressed with her abilities as both a screenwriter and director. Coppola's exploration of viewing as a trope is a powerful element of the film. She beautifully juxtaposes her highly visible characters with their feelings of inconsequence. She accomplishes this through her slowly revealing narrative and rich cinematography. As affluent white visitors, they are easily seen in Tokyo. In Bob Harris's case, not only does his fame attract attention, but so do cinematographic elements like his wardrobe (the clips on the back of his tuxedo jacket) and the composition of his height in shots like the elevator scenes. For Charlotte, it is her beauty, marriage to a globe-trotting photographer and familiarity with New York and L.A. lifestyles that marks her. The camera's attention to her half-clothed body from the title scene to near the end establishes that these characters' visibility is an intimate one for the audience. The pervading close-ups of both characters reinforce a high degree of audience voyeurism. It is with this understanding of viewing as a powerful trope in the movie that the title becomes so meaningful. Translation is, of course, a form of viewing the unfamiliar. And whether the translation is being done by one person or through an intermediary, the existence of the untranslatable is always a moment for introspection. The incomprehensibility of a statement or emotion (or any sign) calls into question the mental and emotional faculties of the person who is attempting to translate. Bob Harris is intensely interested in accurate translation, as his scene shooting the whiskey commercial attests, but so often, as with his relationship with his wife, he tires of translation's inherent difficulties and comedically capitulates. His coping mechanism shuts off introspection. Charlotte, on the other hand, is just coming to grips with translation as a mode fraught with difficulty. She copes by trying again and again, whether by visiting monasteries in attempt to "feel" something or by trying to find a profession. Her coping mechanism invites introspection. By combining these two characters, at two very divergent points in their lives, with opposite ages and genders, sharing a common daily alienation of translation and introspection, Coppola creates a dynamic narrative that reveals itself in silences and incremental emotional clues that the characters give one another through looks and touches. It is clear what gets translated effectively: their emotional connection and affection for one another. Certainly the mode of showing affection to one another is more difficult for them to translate, and the ebb and flow of restrained sexual energy is positively mastered by Murray and Johannsen. But Coppola reveals that what is truly lost in translation are the closest relationships we all share with our loved ones. The most over-translated relationship is that with the spouse, where meaning is truly glossed over. Coppola gives us two distinct modes of spousal mistranslations. Bob's is a subtle one, where 25 years' worth of translated meaning resides in the spoken and unspoken relationship-weighing on Bob so heavily that only mundane discussions can be tolerated. These subtle mistranslations act like smooth rocks-they do not cause noticeable turbulence alone, but if considered as a whole, can divert a river of meaning between husband and wife. Charlotte's lost translation with her husband is still new, a product of projecting desires onto one's spouse, which they both do. And while their spouses are both strikingly absent, their alone time, their time of introspection, is spent translating who their spouses are and why they are with them. Interestingly, Charlotte's experience of the Tokyo world (which is concentrated in her sexual energy) is as subtle and inscrutable as the cause of the mistranslations in Bob's marriage, while Bob's experience of the Tokyo world contains glaring mistranslations that mirror Charlotte's marriage. It is therefore no surprise that they are attracted to one another. Even Bob's infidelity with the laughable lounge singer doesn't destroy a relationship based more on unconscious soulful affiliation than surface attraction. Let's hope Lost in Translation doesn't get lost in the hype. Is it groundbreaking? I think so, but not in the way one might expect. From Greek tragedy to today, we have touchstones of human emotion like hubris, anger, jealousy and humor. This movie has somehow evaded the predictable reduction of many movies to these emotional touchstones. This is not "older man meets younger woman and they escape moral turpitude by not consummating their affection." It is an emotional landscape of shared introspection that could only happen so clearly on the screen because of their isolation, visibility and, paradoxically, their opposite situations in life. Their own moral codes interact with the foreign and liberal atmosphere of Tokyo as a party town in a way that resists easy reduction into good/bad, folly/wisdom. They both learn from the other's revelation of thoughts about himself or herself. The audience is given the ability to experience the space of shared introspection and the doubts and triumphs that it entails. Thank you to Sofia Coppola for bringing us a movie that does something different and meaningful.
Rating:
Summary: SLEEPLESS NIGHTS IN PARADISE
Review: Any movie goer or video renter, who watches romance dramas or romantic comedies knows that the formula of every mainstream romance is the same: lovers meet, fall in love, usually have great sex, argue, break up, and get back together--and a Natalie Cole song more than likely "This Will Be" plays during the end credits. And we all know in reality that love isn't usually like that and meeting people and connecting with people is always a little deeper and more complex. And Sofia Coppola knows this too. Although its sometimes fun to watch random movie stars thrown together, not based on on-screen chemistry but more on reaching broader demographics, go through the trials and tribulations of love and romance. It's also enlightening and even more fun to watch films where two people trapped in their own private miseries bond in a foreign country for a week long odysessy of late night chats at bars, karaoke parties, and strip joints. That's the beauty that Coppola brings in Lost in Translation, a dreamy escape into the unique bond between hotel loners: Bob, an unhappily married, aging movie star in a mid life crisis played with sweet charm by Bill Murray and Charlotte a young wife struggling to find her place in the world played gracefully by Scarlett Johannson. Their connection is so endearing niether of them can explain it and they never dwell on the mechanics of it and Coppola never throws in a cheap Lolita-esque plot twist. The story is really shaped around two lost souls finding comfort in the other's company. Lost In Translation is a love letter to the mysterious ways people find each other in their most needful times and how attraction isn't always centered around sexual desire but perhaps a sense of longing or wonder about the possibilities of "what if" and the intimacy of the unsaid. And isn't that "unsaid" yearning the most beautiful language the heart could ever speak?
Rating:
Summary: lost on me
Review: Another case of rave review overkill. Jaded American actor meets unhappy young woman in Tokyo and. . .then? Nice performances, interesting location backgrounds, pleasant low-key story, but so what? And for an alleged "comedy", next to no laughs. Oscar material??? Now THAT'S funny!
Rating: 
Summary: OK film, condescending and infuriating DVD
Review: The film: it's got some good moments. It does, however, seem like the middle of the film has been ripped out. Somehow Murray and Johannsen go from intrigued acquaintances to soul mates, but I, for one, missed the transition. The film is visually very nice with a lot of lingering, hallucinatory views of Tokyo (and a bit of Kyoto too). The shot where Murray's character tees off on the golf course is magnificent. The karaoki sequence is a particularly insightful piece of direction (and maybe this is what Coppolla used in place of the film having a middle) -- the characters bond through singing popular songs that also have their own inscrutable meaning to them. There is so much in their choice of songs, how they sing them, how the evening came together. For that scene alone, the film is worthwhile. But the DVD? Horrible. But more than horrible: offensive. The reason? Universal has seen fit to force viewers to sit through minute after minute of advertising at the top of the DVD. Don't try your menu key, don't try your stop key, don't try your skip key, because none of them will work. There is no way to skip this garbage. If Universal wants to put out DVDs like this, then let them discount them in return for forcing their advertising on home viewers. In any event, I'm not sure what they accomplish, since most viewers will be so angry at Universal's heavy handed, condescending approach that they'll instantly put a black mark against any film whose trailer they're forced to watch. Shame on you, Universal.
Rating:
Summary: A Week in Japan.
Review: I don't get it. Sorry. A quiet movie that I found relaxing to watch as there was not a lot of background music. But, I don't get all the hype. What was this movie about, other than 2 Americans who meet up in Japan and form a friendship? What's the big deal? I kept waiting for the ball to drop or for Bill Murray to bust out and be Bill Murray. Never happened. Scarlett is very pretty and easy to watch. Only need to see it one time, if that.
Rating:
Summary: Bored to Tears
Review: I was really looking forward to this movie after all the great reviews in addition to the Academy Awards nominations.I was bored to tears.I shut it off after forty minutes.Totally overrated.The Japanese stereotypes are offensive.A waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: The connection.
Review: I think what really attract me is the feeling of lost, emptiness in heart and searching for someone who you can talk to. No sex, not even love, just friend and talk. (The song Bill Murray sing say it all: What song funny about peace, love and understanding) You glad that in the movie they found someone, like a soul mate, talk and talk, but soon you realize they have to back to the reality and face their own life, and so we are. And this gives us a strange mixing feeling ending. We all somehow lost in translation in our life. Not necessary mean in terms of speaking, but it's in our life. The transition between high school and college. Transition between graduate from school to work. From job to job. We all have face translation and probably lost. "What am i suppose to do next?" And as Bob say: "You will figure that out." Indeed pure friendship is not easy to find. Indeed for me one of the reason that sitcom "Friends" is so lovely is because ourselves. We all want friends, that someone you can talk to, play with. In reality we may have lots of friend, but not necessary the one we can talk down to our heart. It's a movie selling mood. If you never face the situation in the movie, either it is lost in translation in foreign country, lose yourself in your real life, having a mid life crisis, or don't know what to do in the future. Then you SURELY feel it boring, over rate... you name it. Bless to all who love this movie. Hope you will find your way out of your "lost in translation".
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