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Intellectual House o' Pancakes Webdiary

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2004-04-05 - 9:40 p.m.

Well, I finally saw Lost in Translation, and sadly I couldn't separate the film experience itself from the gigantic expectations I'd built up from nearly a year of big praise and Oscar nods and accolades.

Had I seen this film when it first came out, I would have been likely to say, "Ah, that was a nice li'l movie." Lovely setting, understated performances, some good yuks, a lazy kind of story unfoldment with all the cozy charm of a hungover Sunday morning brunch date.

But: best original screenplay? Did it have a screenplay? (The dialogue seemed to consist mostly of banal exchanges: "So you've been in the pool?" "Yeah, it's nice, huh?" ) Best actor? Well, Bill Murray is always funny and sad, but I didn't feel his sweat here.

And there were things about the film that rubbed me the wrong way, which I may have overlooked had it not been so universally praised: the snooty superiority of Scarlett J's character, which I think is meant to be charming but comes across as mean...and her spoiled petulance which I believe was intended as wistfulness. And about 5 too many jokes about Japanese people not being able to pronounce R's and L's. Folks, their English is, I'm sure, 10x better than your Japanese.

thoughts? (4 comments so far)

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