I’m not a big romantic comedy fan, but Lost in Translation gets a five star rating from me. I could relate to the frustration of talking to people that can only talk back in a foreign language.
The dialogue was excellent, and when the main characters weren’t speaking, the camera was speaking for them. Very good, I will see this one again.
Well, at the risk of sounding snarky: I think that’s more likely due to the fact that the thread talks about two movies which have almost nothing in common other than the type of filmhouse they tend to be shown in. And to be honest the tone of your OP is more than a little snobby: there’s nothing inherently good about indie movies or inherently bad about mainstream ones. Sure, there’s a ton of crap coming out, but that’s always the case. There’s some great stuff coming out, too.
Sure, the two movies from the OP have appeal for adults. I would say that Finding Nemo does, too – it’s about the relationship between fathers and sons, and about learning to live without anxiety. And both of the movies from the OP are very good, but neither was perfect, and neither was particularly groundbreaking. My point is that there’s not much use in dividing movies into “mainstream” and “independent;” I’d rather judge them on their real merits.
Anyway, American Splendor I liked a good bit at the time, but have already forgotten almost everything about it. They get high marks for their technique of interpreting the comic to film, but in the end it’s just a very abridged adaptation of the comic.
Lost in Translation I liked a lot better; I thought it was outstanding. It spends a good amount of time navel-gazing, and in the end you realize it’s just a fairly straightforward love story and not nearly as profound as it seems while you’re watching it. Plus, as has already been pointed out on here, most of the secondary characters were pretty one-dimensional, and a lot of the humor was based on tired old obvious stereotypes. (Japanese people say L instead of R! Hollywood movie types are really superficial and shallow!)
But none of that really matters, because the focus of the movie is so well done. The dialogue is what impressed me the most – no speeches, no exposition, no sudden epiphanies that prompt characters to pour out everything they’re feeling. This is the way that real people really talk in the real world.
And Murray and Johansen’s performances were just dead-on perfect. I really hope Murray gets recognition for this one because it’s his best performance ever (and I thought he was stellar in Rushmore). He lets his personality through, of course – for him not to do that would be just a waste – but never drops out of character. And he shows a level of subtlety and control I never would’ve thought him capable of. And again as already mentioned, Johansen had the tougher job in many respects, but handled it perfectly. The scene where she’s trying to explain herself on the phone to a friend but can’t stop crying, is moving just because it’s so underplayed.
The movie also does a great job of showing just how weird and foreign Tokyo and Kyoto seem to outsiders. Kyoto is peaceful and tranquil but still extremely alien to Americans. Tokyo has so many things in common with every other big city on the planet, and borrows liberally from American and European culture, but remains distinctly Japanese. The movie hits the cliches – karaoke bars, bullet trains, Mt. Fuji, etc. – but captures the feeling of the places perfectly. At least, the feeling for visitors – I have no idea what residents would think of the movie.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think that might have been hole #17 of the Amagi Kogen Golf Club. (Crappy photo, sorry.) And yes, room is scarce around here, but never too scarce to cram in a golf course - a real one.
I don’t believe the movie is out here (ironically) but I think, reading this thread, that I might plop down the 1800 yen to see it. I’m always a bit weary of “ooh Japan’s such a weird place” type of movies, but I’ll take my chance.
Just saw Lost in Translation tonight, based on the recommendation of my screenwriting teacher, who called it the best film of the year. (And he also hate, hated, hated The Virgin Suicides, friedo)
That was a damn good movie. Bill Murray was amazing. In the scene where he’s shooting the whiskey commercial, the way he slips from his character’s misery into his “character” for the advertisement is so subtle, and yet so obvious. I can’t wait for the DVD: I want to watch that over and over. I’m not sure that he actually changes anything in his expression to do it. Really astounding. Now I know who’ll I’ll be bitching about being passed over for an award, come Oscar-time.
As for the “L for R” thing, there’s no way this movie could have left that out and still been true to the characters and the situation. The movie is about the isolation fo these two characters, and that isolation is made most manifest in the fact that, even when you find one of the few people who speak English, you still can’t understand them. It would be unreasonable to expect people in that situation to not comment on it.
Incidentally, one of the trailers was for a movie who’s lead was a dwarf. Unfortunetly, I walked in half-way through it, and while trying to find a seat and watch the screen at the same time, I managed to fall down the stairs (stupid stadium seating) and miss the movie’s name. Can someone fill me in? And maybe point me to where I can find that trailer on-line?
I think the “L for R” joke could have been left entirely out of the movie and the impact of being unable to understand anyone would still be present. Funnier and sadder to me was the first scene with Bob filming the Suntory ad, where the director would rattle off what seemed like paragraphs of Japanese and the interpreter leaned over to Bob and just said, “More . . . intensity.”
Yes, that is the trailer that played when i saw American Splendor (unless there are TWO midget movies with Station in the title coming soon)
Also were trailers for some French animated film which looked neat. The animation style was different from most american stuff. (it did slightly remind me of Aristacats/101 dalmations type of people modeling, but taken 1000% more french style.)
When i saw Princess Blade (cool Japanese action flick) there was a trailer for some movie with kids preparing a Columbine type attack on their school. I expect to hear more about this movie soon when it starts getting condemmed by parent’s groups.
As an aside, i didn’t find the OP snobbish. There are snotty movie threads in this forum, but Cervaise is not the guy who starts them.
Looks like that’s the one. Thanks, Wendell.
The French animation film may be Belleville Rendez-Vous:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0286244/
I heard it talked up while I was visiting the U.K. as being the best animation of this year.
The movie about a Columbine-type attack on a school may be Elephant:
Elephant is a different movie, but also had kids walking into the school with guns in the preview i saw. The one i’m talking about has 2 kids talking to the camera declaring war on their school and showing all the preparations they do to kill everyone in the school, while saying stuff like “You’re gonna look through this trying to find a reason why we did this, and there isn’t one.” It ends with the credits and sounds of guns firing and laughing in the background of someone screaming on 911.
I saw a thing on Aintitcoolnews.com on it a few months ago when it shocked a film festival, but i cant think of the name.
the animated one looks right. i usually just wait for the weekly free paper to see what’s playing in the independant theaters, since news from many small films i want to see never materializes.
I saw Lost in Translation and I think it was the best movie of the year.
By itself, I think this was a beautiful film. The acting was terrific, and the characters seemed real.
I lived for two years in Tokyo. This film brought back a lot of memories (and I do mean “a lot”). Several times this movie spoke directly to me… it made me remember, feel, and think.
I will buy this movie the second it comes out on DVD.
I recommend this film and hope everyone will go see it.
Haven’t caught American Splendor yet, but did see Lost in Translation and found a lot to like in it. As others have noted, the two leads are so real it hurts, and the cinematography is, I have no other phrase for it, fucking amazing. The film loses a few points in my book for backgrounding the love story with some rather obvious stereotypes foreign and domestic, but I’ll still agree it’s one of the best of the year. It would be criminal if Murray, Johanssen and director Coppola don’t wind up with a couple of Oscar noms among them.
BTW, if this movie has piqued anyone’s interest in cinema set in modern Japan, and with a similar minimalist style, may I direct to to some of the films of Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano, particularly Sonatine and Kids Return?
Oh come one be fair Underworld is the N’Sync of movies. I’ll never understand the matrix hate on this board
Maybe the ‘L’ and ‘R’ gags were overdone a bit. I could see nixing the ‘Premium Fantasy Woman’ (lip my stocking!) - though there has to be some effort on the part of Suntory to accomodate their guest Bob-san.
Anna Faris, as the likely-inspired-by-Cameron-Diaz ditz - makes some clean fun at the expense of Americans.
The NYT had an article a few weeks ago about the translation in the Suntory shoot. The old gray lady wants to charge you for it - yet I found the same article at the Kansas City Star (regi reqd).
Mea-culpa’s in advance, but here it is in small (with bylines)
{snip}
Finally got to see Lost in Translation. And I seem to be wildly out of step with the majority here.
I agree with many of the positives people have said about it. The cinematography, the direction (note the many scenes shot through glass in the first part of the film when the feeling of alienation is heaviest), the slow gradual building of a relationship instead of meeting cute and falling into one another’s arms quipping madly all along. Several individual scenes were fine. (Many others already mentioned were crass mistakes. All the l/r scenes should have been cut, and somebody should have noticed that the script as a whole was far less expert than the visual production.)
I think what kept me from enjoying the film was Charlotte. I’m usually loud in my disdain for movies and tv shows that use 30-year-olds to play teenagers. The awkwardness and unformed potential that are the hallmarks of real life teens are destroyed when people who have fully developed personalities play them. Not to mention that it sets an even more impossible standard for real teens to live up to than the physical beauty and thinness of stars.
In this case we have the odd instance of someone playing older than her age. Perhaps it could have worked, but the movie failed utterly to give Charlotte any personality.
We’re told explicitly that Charlotte is a graduate of Yale in philosophy and has been married for two years to a recognized international photographer who hobnobs with movie stars and rock bands all over the world.
The character than Scarlett Johnson plays is a high schooler who is still on her honeymoon.
There is no possible way to reconcile the two personas. (Actually she reminded me of the girl who played a 16-year-old rape victim on the last CSI.)
Bill Murray’s performance kept being undercut both by her scripted words and her lack of reaction. He had nothing to play off of, nothing to use to come back and top himself. He had to keep throwing his moments out into empty space.
There are many ways to make movies, and many reasons for liking one. I can understand liking a movie for its non-verbal aspects and I understand that those can and should be very powerful. But a movie without a solid script informing interesting characters will always be lacking for me.
Makes me like American Splendor even more by comparison.
Lear’s_fool. I don’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t really see much hatred for Matrix Reloaded here on the SDMB. Most people loved it. You seem to be responding to the fact that there is someone, anyone out there who doesn’t share your feelings for it.
I personally hated it because it was a monumentally awful insult to the human intelligence. I can’t understand what there is that’s hard to understand about that. 
And I’m really in the minority on this one. I just sat through Lost In Translation and it was exactly like having every hair on my body plucked out, one by one. It took several hours, and it never got any better. I thought I’d died and this was my eternal punishment for a mis-spent life. Pure, pretentious drivel.
Here’s a link to the article (originally in the New York Times) written by Motoko Rich where he translates the Japanese in the Suntory whiskey ad in Lost In Translation
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/2003/09/26/living/6861014.htm
Registration may be required. It’s also in Googol’s cache.
Holy crap! I just saw “Lost In Translation”, and I have not laughed this hard since I can’t remember. Honestly, I had tears running down my face at Murray’s portrayal of someone lost in a foreign culture. For anyone who has experienced this sort of thing, it was all too familiar.
I am always impressed with a film that defies the cliches. This one did it very well. Two train wrecks coming together in a situation where an even more monumental train wreck can occur is the fodder for many films, but this one handles it perfectly.
Murray’s combination of ad-lib and acting is the best it’s ever been and he at least deserves an Oscar nomination after being overlooked for “Groundhog Day”, which was a very underrated film.
I would really like to go into this further, but any discussion past this would have too many spoilers and you all really need to see this film.