I couldn’t stand the movie. There have been at least two other “the Emperor is butt nekkid” threads about it as well; generally I think that Sophia Coppola’s directing is not quite as exciting as her acting.
The main problem I had with it (other than the lack of plot) is that the main characters are such unsympathetic and unlikable whiners. Murray’s character is a has-been but he’s still making millions hawking liquor- not all eyes will cry for you as you’re doing well financially and well respected wherever you go- if your career is that bad change to another one. Johansson’s character is in Tokyo and complaining about being bored- YOU’RE IN &$*@(#ING TOKYO- GO SEE THE CITY! You’re staying in a luxury hotel in the middle of an ancient and fascinating land and you have the money and the time to soak it in- go do so.
And the cop-out of the whispered whatever at the end— argh. (I know, I understand why she did it, but I just didn’t like it.)
This is exactly what I was thinking when I saw it. She’s at one of the best hotels in one of the most interesting cities in the world, and all she does is whine and complain. I dislike people like that in real life, and I certainly don’t want to watch them on the screen either.
What killed the film for me was my higher expectations going in because of the hype. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen, but it never did. By the time the movie ended, I was only left with an empty feeling.
Couldn’t stand the movie; but even more so, I couldn’t stand the people who said that I couldn’t stand the movie because I “just didn’t get it.”
No, it was just a really crappy movie that I didn’t like.
Where were all you people when I bitched about this “film” last year? I started a thread about this dreck the night after the Academy awards, because the film was so insipid I ended up watching the Oscars instead
I was amazed by the screenplay nomination. The only negative review I have ever read was by Curtis Edmonds who I think is a pretty funny guy and I enjoy his reviews. He says:
“Murray on the out-of-control elliptical trainer. This was really funny when George Jetson did it the first time; not so much now.”
“The Anna Faris character has only one role in this movie, and that is to make the Scarlett Johansson character look smart in comparison. The only way to do this is to make Faris’s character shallow – shallow enough that you could use her to breed mosquitoes. But the dirty little secret of Lost in Translation is just how shallow the Johansson character is – and, by extension, how shallow Sofia Coppola is. (Lost in Translation is a deep movie for shallow people, which explains the Oscar nominations and all that.)”
Having been in that exact situation on numerous occasions, it’s my experience that nothing could be further from the truth. That is exactly what was so disppointing about the movie. I expected to be saying to myself over and over again, “oh yeah, I’ve been in that situation.” Instead I kept saying to myself, “if only there were an ice pick nearby so I can use it on my eyes.”
Or maybe he gave her a number to call back in the states.
Or maybe he admited that his herpes is flaring up.
Or maybe he still had “Midnight at the Oasis” stuck in his head and he sang it to her in an attmept to get it out.
The ending is a write your own ending.
I also heavily dislike it when others squander what to me seems like a good opportunity. However, feelings are not always rational, and it is possible to be in a shitty, isolated mood despite being in one of the best hotels in one of the most interesting cities in the world. The vast majority of the time, if I had been in either of those two’s shoes, I would have loved being there. But I could imagine that sort of inexplicable emptiness that filled them at that moment in their lives, and I could empathize with it. It might have something to do with my one and only trip to a pacific island paradise, which for reasons I’d rather not go into was one of the worst weeks of my life. Sometimes you’re just trapped in your life baggage, and being in any foreign place, no matter how cool or exotic, may just push you deeper into your turmoil (no matter how frivolous it may seem to someone else).
In any case, this is probably as polarizing a movie as I have ever seen; most people I know either really dig it or really despise it. It’s not so much a question of “getting it” so much as whether the characters resonate. If they don’t, I can certainly imagine this film being utter shite.
I went to Las Vegas to play poker for a few days during a bit of an identity crisis that I was going through last year, and I found it very hard to really get out and enjoy myself. Sometimes, when you’re preoccupied, your brain won’t let you be where you are, if that makes any sense.
I loved the movie, which is weird, because the closest thing I could compare it to is Before Sunrise, which I hated for the same reason CrazyCatLady hated LiT–I just didn’t care about the characters enough to enjoy watching them interact for two hours. BS also takes itself far more seriously; it tries to be all deep and meaningful and IMO fails, while LiT (again, IMO) doesn’t even try.
I can see why people didn’t like it, though, and it is odd when there seems to be nearly unanimous gushing about a movie that you just hated. I feel exactly this way about Million Dollar Baby.
I get the sense that the people who didn’t like Lost In Translation are also the people who didn’t get (or laugh at) the central joke in Adaptation. Non?
You understand that her (and Bill Murray’s) sense of isolation in Tokyo and the hotel is a metaphor for what they’d going through in life, right? When Johannson is on the phone complaining to her friend about how everything is “so different here”, she’s actually complaining about being left behind by her husband’s success in his career and her own inability to find something to do with her life.
Bob: What do you do?
Charlotte: I’m…not sure yet, actually.
To each his own, but I though the film was great. Then again, I thought Vozvrashcheniye (The Return) was one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and yet it received almost zero distribution in the United States. I think gaining an appriciation for these types of films requires a different mindset, not worrying about plot and being impressed by divergence from standard character development.
Tried the in-the-moment thing. IMO, it may works for people who haven’t seen Goddard (who isn’t for everyone, obviously). Looked for a deeper meaning in the mundane (DiSica, Antiononi, et al).
Granted, not everyone’s a trained film student prick like I am.
For all the charm of Before Sunrise, this one really fell flat. In fact, I think it was closer to the rich/successful people complaining about their comfortable lives in Before Sunset. (Or was it the other way around, I can’t recall)
Wasn’t a travelogue, wasn’t about those goofy Japanese. Wasn’t about how Americans are shallow. The line that killed it was when Charlotte was on the phone [with her mom?] at the beginning and complained that she “didn’t feel anything” while at the temple.
Right there, she was as shallow as her husband and everyone else. By the end of the movie, I did get the sense that they were changing, but it was character *shift * at the end, which isn’t the same thing as character growth. Essentially, the characters changed because that’s what they do at the end and well, that’s what the filmmakers decided was needed.
I enjoyed a lot of the “feel” of the film - Tokyo certainly seems like a place that would overwhelm your typical American, but these are jet-setters who chose thier lives. There are other directors who do this a lot better (and with “natives” to boot, so the sense of alienation is that much greater. I’d recommend Wong-Kar Wai’s *Fallen Angels * and *Chunking Express * for a similar story done much better).
The other thing about this movie was that it was drowning in symbolism. IMO, that’s the hallmark of someone without an idea of what they want to say.
I think the ambiguous ending was the way to go. Well, *an * ambiguous ending This one in particular was particularly lame.
This goes along well with the line about “what sort of restaurant makes you cook your own food.”
To be sure, there were some great parts in this movie, but then again, putting in random scenes of Bill Murray harrassing people and having trouble with exercise equipment does not a compelling movie make.
With due respect, that was kind of Kaufman’s point with Adaptation. He was given a novel to adapt that had no plot or character development, and after fumbling with it for months he writes the cliched, three-act ending that “Robert McKee” advises him to insert, complete with sex, guns, car-chases, people overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end; only he made it a satire of that kind of movie and in the process, made fun of the people who make and watch those kinds of films, e.g. his “twin brother” Donald. He didn’t feel he could write a film without these elements that anyone would want to watch, and he was at least partially correct. I guess a lot of people had their sensibilities offended by the film, and perhaps they were quite right to do so, but Kaufman made at least as many digs at himself and how pathetic he was (which is why, IMHO, he inserted himself into the film.)
BTW, I’ve seen Kaufman around Pasadena a few times, and heard his Q&A at the Arclight Charlie Kaufman Retrospective. He’s a funny guy in a quiet, self-effacing way, and he was convinced that after he submitted Adaptation his career as a screenwriter was over and dead. He said he also had nightmares about Susan Orlean coming to his house and castrating (or decapitating…I forget) him. :eek:
I still wish he’d left in the Swamp Ape, though. That would have been so perfectly over the top.
Slight correction: The Orchid Theif was a non-fiction book, not a novel. There were many great scenes, LaRoche was a fascinating character, and Orleans existential musings were great, but there just wasn’t any cohesive narrative to string a plot around.
Charlie Kaufman: The only idea more overused than serial killers is multiple personality. On top of that, you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this. Donald Kaufman: Mom called it “psychologically taut”.
Effing brilliant. If they ever make a “Dirk Gently” movie, Kaufman and Jonze should be on the short-list to write and direct it.
