Rating: 
Summary: The L and R thing
Review: I am Japanese. I have taught English as a foreign language. I want to explain a little about the confusion between L and R that this film makes fun of. In fact, many Japanese do not confuse l and r. What they do is pronounce it in a way that is half way between the two, which corresponds to a Japanese pronunciation. So they will say "corlesponds" or "corllector". Those with better English skills will probably not do this. When Westerners hear it they find the "wrong" part of the sound more noticeable than the right part, so they often think that people are saying it with an l for an r, or an r for an l. Many Japanese can hear this for themselves, so pointing it out in SOME characters - as this film does - not all, is perfectly acceptable to me. Even in "The Last Samurai" you can hear this sometimes. There is a poet who said it was interesting to see ourselves as others see us. I think "Lost in Tranlsation" is a beautiful and sensitive film that would make many directors proud. Some people only like films about stories. Others like more the movies about human beings. This is a film about human beings. And I like very much these films about human beings. In the Oscars Sofia Coppola mentioned the work of Wong Kar-wai, which is also romantic, and - for the ones who like car crash films - slow. I think this is very much like a Wong Kar-wai film.
Rating: 
Summary: insulting
Review: Having been to Tokyo, and working with Japanese people on a regular basis I can tell you this movie is a disgrace and an insult. I'm ashamed.
The plot ? there is none. The movie is boring like hell, and only the constant mockery can keep some people amused. Not me.
Rating:
Summary: Not about intellectuals
Review: This is a beautiful film, but for those who argue over how it shows whether you are "intellectual" or not, I say that it is not about the intellect. It is about the heart. Brilliant performances from Johannson and Murray (who considers it his best film), sensitive direction from Coppola, as well as a script that requires you to watch and understand what's going on with the characters for yourself rather than telling you everything because it thinks you won't get it otherwise. I wanted to spend more time with these people.
Rating:
Summary: Boring, Over hyped.Travelogue of Japan
Review: I think that this movie is one of the biggest rip offs, I have seen in a long time. Unfortunately, I never read the customer reviews before I rented this movie.
Thank goodness, I didn't pay $7.00 to see it at a theater.How was this ever nominated for an Emmy????(Nepotism at its highest) I would have turned the film off, only I kept waiting for something to make sense and live up to the movie reviews I had read in our local paper. I guess this movie was made on P. T. Barnum's assertion! What a bomb!!
Rating:
Summary: Lost in Translation is Just Lost
Review: To call this movie minimalist would be kind. There is about as much thought in story and character as a 30 second Coke commercial. If it wasn't for Bill Murray and his talent to improvise there would be no movie at all. The director has about as much vision as a UC film school freshman. Cut the constant establishing shots of the city and the movie would barely make sixty-minutes. She obviously doesn't have the slightest idea or interest either in fashioning an ending to her pedestrian plot. This film was obviously made the old fashion way; pure unadulterated neoptism. Rent "School of Rock" instead for a laugh a minute evening.
Rating:
Summary: Not only lost "in translation"... it lost me!
Review: This movie rates only a little higher than my "all time worst" - and that was "Up the Sandbox" with Barbra Streisand... yuck! It is also the second movie which pained me so much watching it that I could not bear to inflict the entire thing upon myself. I walked out of Up... this one I just hit the "stop" button. No way this movie could or should have been seriously considered for best picture. Same with Bill Murray for Best Actor. Much as I love the guy in other movies (Groundhog, Knew too Little) I had a hard time believing he was "serious" about this role. The more the movie went on, the more it seemed that he would really rather be "someplace else" (not trying to act the horrible script, for example). The humor was unfathomable and had a mystic, "should I laugh here?" quality to it. I despised the agony I felt watching this movie. Don't buy it, rent it, or go anywhere near it. If you do, I warned you!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Not awful, but extremely overrated
Review: I don't want to simply restate what everybody else has written, but I want to address a couple of points about this movie. The pacing---If you know ahead of time that you will be watching something very slow, then this probably won't be a big deal. Just be sure to watch it at a time when you can handle the deliberate speed. The acting---It's all pretty good. Bill Murray does pretty much the exact same role as he had in "Rushmore," only without as much charm. The romance---This is definitely not one of the greatest love stories ever. The two main characters are both so uninteresting, their love is so inexplicable that there isn't much reason to hope they get together. Watching them fall in love with each other is sort of like viewing a nature documentary on the mating rituals of slugs. It just feels so, so wrong the entire time--there aren't any sparks or fireworks or rushes of joy in the movie. People like to say that the love story is great because it is "subdued" rather than forced like a typical movie. That's all well and good, but the romance in here isn't "subdued"--it's beaten with a tack hammer, gagged, blindfolded, and then sedated with 4000 cc's of horse tranquilizers. The ending is the only good part of their story. The script---This is the biggest problem with the movie. The script is so poorly written that I cannot fathom why it won an Oscar. The humor is about as low-quality as you can get, and often wanders into what I would call racist territory. Another customer here commented that many of the jokes hinge on the fact that the Japanese mix up l's and r's. It turns out that about three-fourths of all the "jokes" in the movie are just scenes where the main characters sit around and poke fun at the Japanese. It is a sad, sad movie when the most brilliant joke in the movie is, "What? LIP them? Don't you mean RIP them?" To be fair, however, the movie does have many beautiful shots. The direction is actually very good, no matter what the speed of the movie might be. The acting, as I said, is generally pretty good. In fact, everything in the movie that ISN'T the script is generally pretty good. It's such a shame that all of this was ruined by awful jokes and lame dialogue.
Rating:
Summary: A plea for mutual respect.
Review: I saw this film knowing little about it and thought it was lovely. My friend who I saw it with thought that it was "OK", and had the same problem I've seen many reviews articulate: that the characters were much too distant. I, on the other hand, enjoyed this distance, it reminds me somewhat of that aspect of Hemingway's writing. I understand that this movie didn't "do it" for my friend, and she understood that it affected me differently. That is why I don't understand the viciousness which so many of the reviews on Amazon hold. I can understand many of the criticisms in the 1-star reviews for this movie. Some I don't, like the comments about racism and portraying the Japanese poorly; this movie isn't meant to show the Japanese in a balanced and politically-correct light, it's meant to emphasize the bizarre and disconnected feelings that these already melancholy Americans [who aren't particularly thrilled to be there in the first place] are experiencing. It's a feeling that's difficult to articulate without seeming offensive and narrow-minded in our PC-obsessed world. But, ok, even the people who saw racism in this movie are entitled to their opinions. What I do not feel they are entitled to is accusing those of us who did enjoy this film of being either "elitist intellectuals" or followers unable to form an opinion for themselves. Though it's inevitable that there will be people who only say they like this film to impress their friends, I don't see why one should get so angry because different people were touched by this film while they were not. There are even reviews by people who might be considered [by the people who use this expression in a derogatory manner] "intellectual elitists" who disliked this film, for their own reasons, and so it seems ridiculous to label all of us who enjoyed it as such. As I said before, if you hated this movie, then I'll respect your opinion as long as you respect mine. There are many films considered "wonderful" or "brilliant" that I've hated, but I won't berate those who enjoyed them. This film works for some, and for many of the same reasons fails for others. Clearly, Sophia Coppola wasn't trying to make a film that everyone would like. It is simply like any good piece of art: you may or may not like it, but it has certain indisputable [and disputable] merits that must be recognized. Honestly, I'm glad that the whole world didn't fall in love with this film. It would get pretty boring to be constantly saying, "Wow. That was great." Now we actually have something to talk about.
Rating: 
Summary: People who dislike this film
Review: Have never met someone who has immediately known exactly who you are and then had to leave them. There is not a way to express that huge, gnawing, painful feeling in words. Sofia Coppola has managed to say it in a movie.
Rating:
Summary: SAINT SOPHIA suffers for the masses
Review: By the time J&M Chain chimed in near the end amidst some wistful travelogue-ish views of Japan, I had felt that I had had a rather profound viewing experience and spiritual 'moment' that no other film would elicit for quite a long time; that is, until I saw 'Blankie' floating down the stairwell all gauzy-eyed in anticipation of 'The Master' coming back to the cottage to pick up 'Lampie', radio-thingy, magic vacuum (?) and the brave little toaster the very next day. This is a good film, no doubt, but it is also a highly superficial one which reflects not only upon the people who made it but the times in which it was made. The sheer glibness of many of the hostilities tossed at this film merely demonstrates how little analysis is required for one to decide its value. If one dislikes Scarlet Johansson's voice or Bill Murray's mannerisms or darkened nightclubs or non-sequitur musings or drony guitars then this film blanks. Give her famous surname, Sophia Coppola is one of the more emblematic purveyors of this new form of filmmaking and is thus a wider target for the 'nothing happens' crowd who may be mistaking equally superficial filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson for deep soul-searchers due to his astonishing ability to render the most obtuse and pedestrian 'narratives' palatable via gimmicky visuals (e.g. Punch Drunk Love), other people's music (e.g. Boogie Nights), or sheer brute force conviction (e.g. Magnolia).
Some people are inclined to Coppola's refined upbringing and view of the world; others embrace Anderson's white suburban manhood. It's all a matter of taste.
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