 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
Here's the first movie with "the Lubitsch touch" since Ernst stopped touching in 1946.It's also the best chick flick ever -- with a male lead *and* made for a general audience.
Bill Murray has impeccable comic timing.
Scarlett Johansson looks lovely and acts totally believably.
And the third protagonist, Tokyo, comes off as a real, uh, character too.
Sophia Coppola, the director, has added further lustre to her family's name.
Do not read the reviews. Just go. Then read them later (as I do).
clark
Follow Ups:
8~{}Chris
.
.
.
Just as I've sometimes not gone and sometimes wished I'd not gone to see movies with positive reviews.
But plenty of garbage gets positive reviews - as they say: there's a buyer for every product.
This largely stems from the fact that a lot of reviewers have a given film's target-audience in mind (will it or won't it entertain its demographic?) rather than the promotion of film itself as an art form. Many reviewers thus fit the role of consumer advocate better than that of critic. My favorite reviewers I tend to like because they're relatively good writers and because, even when I think they're wrong they can still be insightful; usually they're willing to pay equal attention to the good and the bad. But that doesn't mean I trust them unconditionally. Anthony Lane, whom I generally like, practically creamed his pants over The English Patient (his critical faculties often short circuit in the face of actresses for whom he's ga-ga--in the case of the Patient English, as I recall he had a hardon for Binoche), which movie is a great example of garbage reviewed positively.
Lost in Translation
Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum
ACCIDENTAL TOURISTS Johansson and Murray explore Tokyo in a captivating tale of connection
She calls her exquisite study in emotional and geographical dislocation Lost in Translation. But much of what's astonishing about Sofia Coppola's enthralling new movie is the precision, maturity, and originality with which the confident young writer-director communicates so clearly in a cinematic language all her own, conveying how it feels to find oneself temporarily unmoored from familiar surroundings and relationships. This is a movie about how bewilderingly, profoundly alive a traveler can feel far from home. It's a movie that anchors Coppola (''The Virgin Suicides'') as an original artist. It's also a movie that inspires Bill Murray's greatest work yet. And coming from this devotee of ''Rushmore,'' ''Groundhog Day,'' and ''Caddyshack,'' that's saying a lot.Mainstream-junk American movie star Bob Harris (Murray) meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), the young wife of a hepped-up celebrity photographer (Giovanni Ribisi), in the elaborately luxurious Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo. Bob, stuck in a stagnant, long-term marriage back home, is in Japan to make a quick, big paycheck by shooting a Japanese whiskey commercial; Charlotte, depressed in a new marriage to someone she already senses is wrong for her, is left to decorate the hotel room while her groovy climber husband hustles and flirts with fame and girls. (Anna Faris from the ''Scary Movie'' factory nails it as a tin-pot Hollywood starlet in town.) Sleepless in a society of elaborate courtesies and a city of dizzying sensory stimulation, Bob and Charlotte, jetlagged and wired, bump up against each other in hallways and lounges. They make a connection. And, for a while, the middle-aged man unnerved by sadness and the young woman paralyzed by possibility venture out together to explore the lunar exoticism of a visitor's Japan -- temporarily, intimately found, not lost, in each other's company.
Melancholy and longing have rarely looked so attractive -- even desirable -- nor has a movie with opportunities for ''Lolita''-hood been turned into so subtle, wise, and often funny a study of chance encounter. Coppola has an eye for this stuff -- she gets exactly what's crazy-appealing about the cocooned freedom of karaoke bars, or about the ridiculousness of striking movie-star poses to hawk booze. (She's also got a sensibility that attracts simpatico production talent, including the exciting ''Adaptation'' cinematographer Lance Acord, who shoots a photographic love letter to Tokyo.)
Most crucial of all, Coppola had the determination and good taste to pursue Murray until her famously hard-to-pin-down choice for leading man said yes to the role that is, perhaps to his surprise, the most vulnerable and unmannered he has ever felt comfortable enough to be. Murray handles both absurdity and sincerity lightly -- in some scenes he improvises on a hot streak any comedian would kill to ride. But working opposite the embracing, restful serenity of Johansson, Murray reveals something more commanding in his repose than we have ever seen before. Trimmed to a newly muscular, rangy handsomeness and in complete rapport with his character's hard-earned acceptance of life's limitations, Murray turns in a great performance that, once again, gets admirers hoping for an Oscar nomination. Maybe this time, the credit due won't get lost in translation. -A-
(Posted:09/10/03) Entertainment Weekly
The performances were great and much more understated than I expected. Murray's and Johansson's relationship, its alternations between sexual tension, father/daughter intimacy, and friendship is very believable. There were moments when Coppola betrays that she has some maturing yet to do (I have no objections to the opening ass-shot per se, but what's its point in the film? And where went the understatement during Ribisi's embarrassingly patent flirtation, in the presence of his wife whom he egregiously attempts not to introduce, with the vacuous actress?), but on the whole it's a very solid film, and a considerable leap from The Virgin Suicides.
I saw it as more of a sucking-up.clark
I can see that. But until he finally got around to introducing his wife, the actress seemed to me to be proceeding with the conversation under the assumption that he was still single, an assumption I felt he was doing his best to support. Her response to the revelation that this by-stander was his wife seemed to me to comfirm this, but she may have been responding more to his oversight.
the right material he is the funniest man in movies.
Loved him in "Ground Hog Day" and "Mad Dog and Glory." The older he gets, the better he gets.
I value clark's advice, generally speaking, but on this one I think I will wait at least a year... let it mature, so to speak.Bill Murray? No way, man, no way...
I think he is one of the most lame "comedians" around. He is still playing Animal House... as everyone else has left long time ago.
Radi krasnogo slovza, eh?What about RUSHMORE?
You might consider a bowling movie lowbrow, but I dare you to sit through Bill Murray's scenes without laughing out loud.
What was the last thing you saw him in? Did you see Rushmore? Even if he had been in Animal House, you could not claim that Rushmore, or even Groundhog Day, is in the same lowbrow league as Animal House.Perhaps you should open your heart to a re-evaluation. And, Scarlet Johansson...come on. Who cares what else happens in the movie, really? I'd pay to see her take a two hour nap.
I said he keeps playing that stupid movie.Open my heart to reevaluating Murray? Don't you think there are more important things in life?
I believe I had seen most of his films... unfortunately.
Groundhog Day is not lowbrow, it is must lame middlebrow.
and Osmosis Jones was a good (for a kid flick).mp
I haven't, but the way the critics talk about it make me want to see both films.Ah... if only Murray wasn't there... but I guess I just *will* have to suffer.
There are few American actors I find so revolting that their mere presence makes any film a no-go... and Murray is close to that category.
I won´t go that far! I did found his role in Gostbusters quite funny..that is not too much but better than nothing..as so many others.
PS: In Rushmor, he was not that bad, too.
You should hear what my wife has to say about him. I at least can stand his presence on the screen. But wait... I think she sat through the Groundhog Day!
Ah...This women romantic comedy...I felt in a deep sleep....
Impossible not even good Wilder had it.
But i will see this picture, now I am curious.I do hope it won´t come out as " The lost Week end " ....hehe..
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
