| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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Open your newspaper, find the closest theatre it's playing at, and go. Tonight, if possible. You can see it alone, with a date, with friends, with a spouse you don't love, with people you hate. It doesn't matter. You will enjoy the experience. Go. |
. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in what oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. |
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Bob and Charlotte are lying on his bed and talking. There's a reserve between them that keeps it from being sexual, and also an awareness of the age difference between them and the difference in life experiences and the fact that they're both married. But there is a tension between them, because they have connected in a way that's not apparent in their individual marriages, and they're both floating in their own lives and lonely. Charlotte is lying curled up on her side, and her foot is near Bob's hand. While they're talking, he moves his hand and touches her foot with his fingertips, and it's a small gesture, but it's huge, too. Please. See the movie. |
The ending is perfect. |
The ending is perfect. |
i skipped your synopsis, for no other reason than the fact that you hyped so well in the post prior. |
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Somehow you must see this movie. Can you get a babysitter this weekend? |
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on top of a manic personal life, nico just got back from japan and it looks like the license deal will be signed in Jan. so we have a ton of work to do. |
******** Charlotte and Bob fall together and pull away; their tentative movements connect smoothly to form the rhythm of the movie, and it's like the rocking of waves. One sleepless night, they lie awake on the same bed, chastely, fully clothed, talking. Charlotte's husband has gone off for a few days to shoot a rock band in a nearby city. They talk of things that are simultaneously ordinary and gargantuan: Marriage, children, making a living. Bob lies on his back, his body a straight line; Charlotte lies alongside, curled up and facing him, her toes just touching his leg, as if that one small connection point meant everything. It's a visual hint of the picture's quiet but devastating conclusion -- a moment between characters that's so private, we're not even allowed inside it. But we can see their faces, which tell us all we need to know. In that instant, Coppola and her actors redefine the meaning of the word "lover" -- a lover, we realize, is anyone who loves. The connection between Bob and Charlotte, as Coppola shows it to us at the end of "Lost in Translation," is a moment of intimate magnificence. I have never seen anything quite like it, in any movie. ********* |
tell me this was totally different? |
I saw it again last night. It was interesting because the first audience I saw it with was nearly silent (except for this old couple next to me who wouldn't stop talking), and last night people laughed at everything. |
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Please see it on Friday! I'm dying to talk about it with someone. |
I also have reservations about LIT. Reading reviews for it, they say the same sort of things you heard in the Virgin Suicides reviews... goddamn that movie was garbage. |
and so was lost in translation. i knew that scene was the one you were talking about when i saw it, spider. i stopped reading your post when i saw you were about to reveal something. but when i saw the scene i knew. bill murray is incredible. i wonder how much of it was manufactured situation with bill murray improving. like the photo session. i think soffia is a step ahead of her father. |
i didnt know bill murray was a part of it. thats a good sign... with virgin suicides i got a story that was too simple for my tastes, with no surprises. the characters don't act with any sort of reason and thusly remain completely undeveloped. they dont even attempt to explain why they're doing anything. quite frankly, the whole movie is so uneventful and the mystery is so uninteresting and James Woods is so stereotypically boring that I dont remember any plot points at all anymore. I forget just about everything. I remember the directing style being incredibly pretentious. the only people I know who liked it have read the book first. |
i thought the movie was beautiful. plot or no plot. |
Rowlf, this movie also has a very simple plot, but the characters are so realistic, behaving and talking like real people and not characters, that you're carried along by your interest in them. |
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i thought the virgin suicides movie version was especially good considering that i did read the book first and still enjoyed the movie. thought they did an excellent job. usually the movie ruins it when i've already read the book. |
After about the first half-hour I really just wanted it to be over. I don't understand what is so special about it at all. The only reason Sophia Coppola is a director is because of her father. I didn't like the Virgin Suicides that much either...same thing, it wasn't horrible, I just didn't have anything good to say about it either. I have to stop thinking about it now, because I am going to start liking it less and less. |
I agree with Kazu. I just don't see what everyone else liked about this movie. It seemed to me that Coppola had a good idea of what she wanted to do with the movie, but fell way short of actually doing it. After a while, it was like Kazu said, you know, we get the point. How many shots did we need of Charlotte staring blankly out her window? ehn. It made me really wish we had gone to see a good movie like American Splendor instead. I was very disappointed by this film and wouldn't recommend seeing it, really. I guess perhaps if you are in a situation that you would relate to the characters, then maybe your opinion would be different...but if you aren't lonely and drifting, there's no point in seeing this movie. That's my opinion anyway. I admit, Murray was good, but he was really limited by the script. It sort of started good, but it just drifted along until Murray's character had to leave. I just couldn't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock about these two people, because Coppola failed to give me any reason to, and that's a failure as both a director and writer. Murray was at least watchable, but you felt sort of bad for him. You could almost tell that he wanted to do more with the character, but was held back. If he wasn't in the movie, I doubt anyone would have had any interest in going to see it in the first place. At least one person near us fell asleep during the movie. I know it made me want to take a nap. If the characters were in need of sleep so bad, they should have been able to watch this movie. Plus, the movie theater smelled like a rest home. Ick. I want my two hours back. |
but both movies she's directed have been visually beautiful with excellent soundtracks. they are subtle and poetic. perhaps they are lost on you? which is not meant to be judgemental, but rather just that the movies are not applicable to your character. because they are certainly not bad movies. just not to your taste. |
You know, i just couldn't feel sympathetic to a the plight of a character who gets to spend a WEEK IN TOYKO and gets paid $2 MILLION to do so. Oh, poor Bob! Same for Charlotte. She seemed pretty well-off, had a husband who was obviously in love with her, but just seemed to lack the ability to really relate to anyone. I don't know, maybe there WAS more to this movie than what I got out of it, but I guess I missed the handout at the beginning that told you what each character was all about, because you certainly didn't get that from the body of the film. I do have one good thing to say about the movie: if Coppola was trying to impart a sense of alienation, then the setting of urban Toyko was a good choice; however, it seemed to me to be real close to crossing the line into xenophobia. What I mean is that the Japanese characters seemed to be more there to serve as caricatures of American stereotypes of Japanese people, rather than as portrayls of actual people. I have to say, I haven't been this let down by a film since the Phantom Menace. |
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i had lunch w/ glen yesterday and he liked the movie as much as he detested it. i love bill murray, so i'll probably wait til it goes to video. i haven't rented a movie since last winter, but it's coming up again. bleagh. winter. it'll be really hard to stay sober through winter. |
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i got as far as the girl staking her self. i just wasnt in the mood for that and found Spaceballs was on, on another channel. |
Man, I wish that Mel Brooks hadn't lost it. |
the guy was cheating on her. did you watch the same movie? "Japanese characters seemed to be more there to serve as caricatures of American stereotypes of Japanese people, rather than as portrayls of actual people." have you been to tokyo, sem? i don't see caricatures of american stereotypes. i see characters that reflect stereotypes (because the stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.) sem, a lot was lost on you. money and location do not equate happiness. do you have to have both before you can realize this? i don't know. the cinematography was gorgeous. it is very well soundtracked. the relationship themes in the movie are ones i understand very well. bah. i'd talk talk this over coffee but i don't feel like defending the movie here. plus, your 'no contest' love of spaceballs says a lot. sarah: the movie is visually superdooper and i am really glad i saw it on the big screen. it is apparently a crapshoot whether you like it or not. |
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I didn't get that Charlotte's husband was cheating on her -- you mean with the Cameron Diaz character? |
And I never got the impression that Charlotte's husband was cheating on her. In fact, the only emotional moment that I felt was when she woke him up and he pulled her closer, it was the only thing that felt "real" to me. All I got from John was that he worked too much and felt as though his wife didn't give two shits about what he did and who he hung around with. (Which I read is supposed to be something about the whole Coppola/Spike Jonze thing...) And that stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason is bullshit. That isn't to say that real people do not exhibit stereotypical behavior, but Coppola relied on that get the idea of alienation and strangeness across, rather than try to construct a more complicated picture of Japanese culture. That doesn't always have to be a bad thing, but in this case it just underscored the shallowness of the whole film. But don't listen to me, I guess I'm just a shallow simpleton for not understanding these relationships. |
i dunno. i'll stand by my impression of implied cheating. |
Oh, and Scarlett Johansson is fucking hot. HOT! |
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What about when he wanted to go get drinks with the actress, Charolette wanted to go, and he was, like, "Oh, you want to come?" "That doesn't always have to be a bad thing, but in this case it just underscored the shallowness of the whole film." But, I think it underscored the shallowness of the characters. Maybe it underscores your shallowness for not having seen that. OK, just kidding!! :P |
99% of all kidding is real. |
I think people are reading too much into it, or are just following what the critics are saying. I guess that's the movie though - it told you so little you had to make up a lot yourself so it made sense. I don't believe I missed a lot, and I don't believe that it was 'lost' on me either. I'm not an idiot. I love film and I pay attention to subtext. I understood where Coppola was trying to go and what she was trying to get across. I just don't think she did as good a job of it as other people seemed to think she did. I also never said money and location equal happiness, but I find it hard to be sympathetic to the characters Coppola put out there. Believe me, I am all too familiar with loneliness, and I just didn't feel the characters pain. It seemed superficial to me, but then perhaps superficial characters have superficial emotions. I haven't been to Toyko. Have I seen Japanese movies with Japanese characters? Yes. All this movie was lacking was a crowd running away from a guy in a rubber monster suit. To make an analogy, if it were Japanese characters in an American city, you would have seen black criminals in the ghetto and rich white people listening to classic rock. Do I need to go to Toyko to recognize stereotypes? No. And my recognition of the sheer outstanding goofiness of Spaceballs as a work of sublime enjoyable stupidity and a preference to watching that than FFC's daughter's forays into cinema - that's like saying because I like Ween I am incapable of appreciating Berlioz. All in all, I would say that from Kazu's and my experience, and a lot of what I've been reading on the web about it, you either love this movie or you were disappointed by it. So if you haven't seen it, wait for it to hit the second-run theaters or the video stores. I sure wish I did. |
Instead, I have turned to renting Six Feet Under Episodes... also saw Moonlight Mile, which is a good movie, a solid 7/10, about grieving people, right until the end when Jake Gyllenhaal's character starts talking too much about life and love. Total cheese. |
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I'm 99.44% kidding... |
do you need to go to tokyo to recognize the stereotypes? no. do you need to go to tokyo to realize that the japanese characters in the movie are not unreasonable, that they are not necessary caricatures, that you could meet any of them? perhaps. "I don't think that Sem implied that money and location automatically makes one happy, just that the characters were so sadly lacking in depth that it was hard to see past their privilged position." i didn't see Bob's as a privilged position. he's a washed up actor forced to take whisky ad work to maintain the lifestyle he is locked into by his family. he'd rather be stage acting. i'm not calling anyone simple or shallow. christ. you people. you drew me into this whole mess simply because i was trying to isolate your opinions from your judgements of the people who enjoyed the movie. i had visions of poor spider crying because you all are calling her a moron for loving the film. you bastards! you and your stinkin group think! it was a good movie just not to your taste! not because you are not shallow or simple! |
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eh? |
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I never said, nor did I imply that anyone was a moron for liking the film. All I said was that I found it boring. It bored me. I was posting MY opinion about the movie...then subsequent opinions about how I felt my opinions were taken. |
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I don't ever need to be told that. I don't think anyone who liked this movie is a moron and I didn't imply that either. If anything, (and I don't even recall posting this, just talking to Shannon about it) I just felt like if perhaps my life/perspective were different, I would have something to relate to, but as it happened, I didn't have that. |
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nothing else, nothing was unexpected. it was actually very much to my taste, but other than being lovely, it didn't do very much. i agree with what sem was saying about stereotypes in that none of the japanese characters i remember showed any humanity. their roles were boring- 'act like everyone thinks you will'. it's only interesting when people don't. in the end it would hardly exist without bill murray. the girl was lovely but not irreplaceable. |
However, I still think a lot of the female characters are annoying/weak. What think you? |
I woudl go into how SPaceballs is sublime but I'm all messed up on the cold medicine. well, not too messed up but just enough. |
The movie resonated with me so much because I am Charlotte, right now. I really enjoyed the naturalist dialogue instead of the stilted witty banter you'd expect, and the fact that Bob doesn't impart timeless wisdom a la "tuesdays with Morrie" but is low-keyed and, you know, a regular guy. The two act like people and not like characters. Everything happens just as it would happen in real life. They don't have an affair, as in real life two people like them wouldn't have an affair. Nothing in this movie made me think, "Pffft, like that would ever happen." That's what sets this movie apart from, like, almost every other movie I've ever seen. Eh, whatever. I'm sorry you guys didn't like it. |
I do have one question for you. How did you interpret when Charlotte caught Bob in an infidelity? It seemed to me that she was really hurt that when he chose to cheat on his wife, it wasn't with her. |
He did right when, at the end, he ignored the blonde babe to say goodbye to her. |
Actually, I think the word I want is chastity, as understood in its religious meaning. Purity of heart. |
I'm finding that, aside from Sem and Shannon (who I haven't watched a movie with in over a year), I don't want to watch movies with anyone anymore. At least, I don't want to watch thoughtful, "important" movies with anyone. Though I'd go to see a movie with you, Spider, in a heartbeat. |
stop the horror! |
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"It seemed to me that she was really hurt that when he chose to cheat on his wife, it wasn't with her." Yeah, she wanted to bag him. He wanted to bag her too, but held back. rhi: "I loved how he then kissed her forehead -- that gesture showed the pure tenderness that he felt toward her...." Did you miss that he kissed her on the lips right after that? :) |
If you're paying attention, that is... |
I was paying attention. And for the most part, I like movies that force me to be reflective. However, I still have to feel something for the characters in order to do so. |
2) Kindly do not sully the pristine purity of this movie by saying they wanted to "bag" each other, because they did not. Or if they did, just a little bit, and the strength of that feeling did not come close to the other things that were going on between them. Thank you, and good night. Kazoo, I seem to recall you saying you despised people who talk during movies, as do I. If this is true, I'm yours. |
that is all. |
And, are you paying attention now? |
So, in other movie news, I recently saw the brutally excellent and excellently brutal "Bloody Sunday." Forgetting about the subject matter for a second, I have to say I totally get off on movies that are as historically and biographically accurate as humanly possible, especially when you get things like non-actors but real (soldiers, witnesses, public figures, locations) cast. The movie was first screened by the townspeople of Derry, NI, who had lived through those events, and they said it was as close to reality as you could hope for in a film. The young man playing Gerry Donaghey is the nephew of Jackie Duddy, another young man killed that day. Jackie Duddy's sister is in the scene in the hospital. The old man you hear mourning his son in the scene by the Rossville flats is Alexander Nash, who was wounded that day and whose son William was killed. The movie is a fist in the face of British government and army, and it's a part of history in its own right, as it was co-produced by Don Mullan, whose book "Eyewitness Bloody Sunday" was the catalyst for the new legal inquiry into the events of that day. You can read all the witness statements, expert testimony, court transcripts, etc here: http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk/index.htm Everything in the film concurs with the statements given by the civilian witnesses, including the scenes showing the RUC planting nail bombs on a dead boy. I get so riled up about this topic I've half a mind to go to Notre Dame and get a degree in Irish Studies to research it further. |
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If so, then you may never reflect on what causes you to have feelings for characters. At least, when you are reflective, you will only be seeing yourself in one state, the state of having feelings. Why not be reflective all of the time? That way you see the whole picture. |
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You make a good knight in shining amour armor, sem. Keep up the good work. :) |
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Dammit, I have a meeting now. Errrrrrr. |
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I'm only got through 3 episodes so far. Its still a little early for me to say anything just yet... Though I do find Brenda annoying. Not weak, but annoying. I could see her character going a lot of different ways... The mom is awesome... Claire... jurys out. The kid can act, and you can see how her and her mother have a lot in common, but I don't know yet, her character is still really predictable... if I have any problem with the show right now, its the dad as a recurring character. I like the actor, he's got some good lines, however his use comes across as gimmicky. It feels like I'm watching Ally McBeal whenever he steps in... |
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'cause that would be an interesting change." I got to like Claire more as the season progressed, in the beginning I really thought her chaaracter was shallow and base but she grew a lot over the season. Still not sure I totally groove on here but that's ok. The mom is...a mom, I guess. I don't know. I loved the ads in the pilot, I wish they had done that more in the rest of the season. Also like how they open each show with the "body" whom the show centres around. And how they bring up current issues, like gulf war syndrome, homophobia, gang wars, etc, and express them in the episodes. Anyway. |
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I hadn't heard about Luther...when is it coming out? |
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It's a show about dead people, got to love it. And I wasn't quotin' from nowheres. |
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Based on the length of the pilot, I'm guessing they got mixed in with commercials??? HOw many more products could they have possibly done??? I"m off now to rent episodes 4-6 gotta see if they payoff on the missing foot. |
didn't you say the same thing about the chicks on the Sopranos? or was that someone else. You know why i don't hate Brenda? because she looks EXACTLY like Hedwig. So i can't. I just keep waiting for her to burst out singing about Berlin and gummy bears. Damnit. |
I found this site that has the translation of the "Santory Time" commercial scene with the director. |
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http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JMJ4.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg In Canada we got a better one: http://www.cinemaclock.com/images/dvd/5414-1-lost_in_translat.jpg |
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I defy anyone to watch the school pageant scene in without crying freely. |
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