Lost In Translation

[Zixar]

Skip it. This is hardly more than a 100-minute long filmed writer's block. It's a shame, too. Bill Murray really gives a nuanced performance, but he's hardly given anything to perform! There are a few excellent scenes, but that's it--no mediocre scenes, no poor scenes! It's all tied together with shot after shot after redundant frickin' shot of the Tokyo skyline or closeups of one actor or another. Coppola can be forgiven this in the first act, when she's setting up the crushing boredom of the two leads, but she keeps it up for the rest of the movie as well when there was so much else to explore between the two. If you take out all the filler shots, this movie would be about half an hour long.

The ads for the DVD are hyping this as a comedy, but they are quite misleading, showing only clips from the few scenes where anyone actually MOVES. It's a kernel of a great idea, but it's only a skeleton of what it could have been.

Sorry, but it's not really even worth a rental. Wait for cable.

[Tom Strange]

really 6er?

I had heard nothing but great things about it... even that Bill Murray was brilliant... hmmm... this is the first I've heard that it sucked... but it sure is out on DVD quickly... hmmm... maybe the dollar movie instead... they have good popcorn...

...of course, I liked "What About Bob" when it came out... talked a couple of friends into seeing it... we were the only people in the theater...

I'm on the outside, looking inside, what do I see? Much confusion, disillusion, all around me.

[Zixar]

Really. I liked Bill's performance, when he actually got a chance to perform. Most of the time he's just brooding and moping silently. (Guess Nic Cage wasn't available for this part...that's all he seems to do anymore nowadays, too.)

[2life]

I wish I had read this BEFORE I went to see this movie the other night!!

I had only heard good things about it also!! Hey-- and what about all those awards it won?

How could we lose!!

SKIP IT is an understatement!!

This movie can actually DRAIN the energy from you!! Drain-- no a better word is that it can SUCK the energy right out of ya!!

[meganpenworthy]

I totally disagree. I thought it was a great movie. my boyfriend was talking to americans that live over there and the whole disconnected feeling is how those americans feel. there is so muc going on but they feel just not in sync with all of it.

I went on a sunday evening to see it and there was a line for it and the theater was almost packed. it made me want to see Japan even more. what i had seen had never made an impression bu that movie totally did it for me.

[Zixar]

Looks like Mr. Card saw the same movie I did... :)-->

quote:

---

[...] Lost in Translation came out on DVD while it was still in the theaters, enjoying its little Oscar boost.

If you ever wanted to visit Japan, this movie will cure you. It makes a week in Tokyo seem like a year in hell.

This is definitely an independent movie. It's called a comedy, and there are funny moments -- mostly when Bill Murray gets to ad lib charmingly -- but most of it moves at a glacial pace through bleak scenes of people being shallow and boring, while we see an alienated man and an alienated woman being alienated.

There are people who will laugh all through this movie at the contemptibility of human life. But I don't like those people.

This is pure undergraduate filmmaking -- as so many independent movies are -- in which a general air of superiority and ennui is meant to be taken for intelligence and deep insights. I've seen enough of these (and enough of this kind of storytelling) to know that what we're really seeing is the filmmaker's soul.

The people of Japan aren't shallow. Writer/director Sofia Coppola is. If she went to Japan and this is all she saw, then shame on her.

So Bill Murray's and Scarlett Johansson's excellent performances are almost (though not entirely) wasted on a story that pretends to be wise, but in fact is faux cool.

Still ... those performances. Scarlett Johansson is obviously playing a part that stands in for Sofia Coppola herself, only unlike Coppola, Johansson seems to be alive inside the silent inarticulateness of the character. (Honestly: At the Golden Globes, didn't it seem like Sofia Coppola's acceptance speech was delivered by a hand puppet?)

And Bill Murray -- a performer who has irritated me ever since his Saturday Night Live days -- gives the second finest performance of his checkered career.

The finest, which we saw only a few days before, was Groundhog Day -- a movie that proves if you have a good enough script, director, and leading man, you can cast a dead girl in the lead and still make a great romantic comedy.

Murray and Johansson are so good that even though the movie sneers at every other person, the experience of watching the film is still enjoyable and I'm glad I saw their performances.

The fact that Lost in Translation is nominated for an Oscar for best picture, and Coppola herself is nominated as writer (of what, actually?) and director, merely affirms that the Academy still can't tell the difference between substance and affectation.

Copyright 2004 by Orson Scott Card

---

[Hopefull]

I saw it with my parents last Oct. in Tucson.

Thank God it was a matinee, we all thought it was boooooooring *yawn* definately style over substance.

Edited February 18, 2004 by Guest

[AdiosMiCorazon]

I am soooo glad I am not the only one. I rented the movie this weekend. I had heard such great things and I could not wait to see it. I kept watching hoping it would get better, it just had to.....it did not and at the end I yelled...this movie sucks.

[Tom Strange]

I'm so confused... now I've heard two more people on the radio talking about how great it is...

I'm on the outside, looking inside, what do I see? Much confusion, disillusion, all around me.

[2life]

Tom,

I'm confused too!!

Maybe I missed something--- or am to shallow to figure out the 'deeper' meaning!!

-->

We have friends that LOVED it!!

Me-- I would have to put it up there with one of the WORST movies I ever sat through!!

[Hope R.]

OMG - it was just so damn boring I could hardly stand it. What was the point pray tell?????

I'm sorry - but why oh why is this movie getting so many awards. I love Bill Murray - but I'd rather watch "What About Bob?" about a dozen times rather than watch this one again.

It wasn't bad, really, and it wasn't good - it wasn't anything at all except for maybe mind-numbing.

The above reviewer is right - I NEVER want to go to Tokyo after this.

Oh - and Groundhog Day is one of my very favorite movies - on my top 10 list for sure.

But this one - YAWN...

Hope R. color>size>face>

... there's a star on the far horizon, rising bright in an azure sky,

for the rest of the time that you're given, why walk when you can fly?

Mary Chapin Carpentersize>color>

[Dot Matrix]

We walked out and went to another flick.

Yawn!

[OnionEater]

quote:

---

The above reviewer is right - I NEVER want to go to Tokyo after this.

---

My daughter just spent 3 years in Tokyo teaching english. She said the movie portrays the Japanese exactly the way they act. She does not want to return.

Thus Sayeth "The OnionEater

Edited March 1, 2004 by Guest

[Rocky]

Thanks for the warning friends. I'll save my movie dollars on this one.

The comments, for the most part, remind me of my impression of a critically acclaimed movie from last year, A Mighty Wind. I rented the DVD and was amazed at how dumb and boring it was, even though it has lots of usually funny people in it.

:D--> You talkin to me?

[Hope R.]

As much as I love Bill Murray in other movies, I'm glad he didn't win the Oscar last night. It wouldn't have been right. I'm surprised Sophia Coppella won for best original screenplay - as far as I'm concerned, my 16 year old could have written something better than that.

Hope R. color>size>face>

... there's a star on the far horizon, rising bright in an azure sky,

for the rest of the time that you're given, why walk when you can fly?

Mary Chapin Carpentersize>color>

[George Aar]

I finally saw this last night.

I've been meaning to see it for a looong time, and now I seriously wonder what the hype was all about.

While I could identify with so much of what the characters were going through (having once spent a month in Japan - alone - without the benefit of being able to speak the language), I had to wonder, "Why did this need to be filmed?"

I enjoyed seeing so many of the landmarks that I'm now familiar with (the Hachiman Shrine, the Tokyo Tower, the famous intersection in the Ginza), and I really liked all the small stuff, the insider humor that only those familiar with Japan would get (the musical chimes for everything, the frantic hand signals of the hotel doormen when the taxi approaches, and the numerous - seemingly identical - "choices" on the restaurant menus). I had to think, how many others even noticed any of this.

So, yeah, the small digs at Japanese culture, and the scenery made it a lot more tolerable for me than most, but I still found it to be an incredibly empty film.

Seems like a lot of those going around though, like "Something's Gotta Give", "Under the Tuscan Sun", "About Schmidt" - all of them woefully underwhelming...

[George Aar]

Oh, and BTW, I still love Japan. A fantastic country. I'll be going back again soon, I'm sure...

[outandabout]

If you don't want to know the surprise ending, DON'T read my synopsis of this thrilling plot with all it's fascinating twists.

American guy is in Japan doing commercials. Alienated and bored, he meets alienated and bored American wife of guy too busy to spend time with her. She and Bill Murray pair up and go places and do stuff. Then they say good bye.

[excathedra]

i finally rented a few movies.

boy was i disappointed with this one.

same with "something's gotta give."