kostu-san

Watching this movie was a very disappointing experience. The premise was good (like with most movies out there), but the execution was just atrocious, and the story was unrealistic at best. For example, the movie shows us that a westerner was allowed to go in and out of Soviet Union, as well as go though streets of Moscow without any surveillance in the midst of cold war!!

Moreover, the actors seemed like they were made out of wood in terms of expressiveness. The story was painfully slow and was heading nowhere, really: nothing changed nor happened though the entire movie...

Funny how our protagonists had a view at the Basilica of Christ the Saviour in early 70s (Destroyed in early 20th century, restored in late 90s by the mayor of Moscow)... This and many other anachronisms give out the fact that the production team didn't even research the subject of their work before filming...

2/10

This is probably the worst movie I've seen in a while.. Think of the "Blair Witch Project", only cheesier and dumber.. Add some pseudo-documentary inserts and the corniest ending ever, et voila - you've got searching for Haizmann. The "actors" can't act for two cents of worth, making this work seem like a cheap student movie shot for 500$. This is farther accentuated by lack of professional lighting (such as shadows without any associated natural light sources), as well as numerous synch problems (one second a girl is topless, then the camera shifts the angle, and suddenly she's fully clothed.. Alternatively, the protagonists' "on the fly" clothing changes was annoying as well). It's really a shame that this movie undermines such an interesting subject with such a poor execution. Avoid. 1/10

I still don't get how come so many people find Lost in Traqnslation "awesome".. It's a movie that portrays the "spleen" of normality, the "ennui", and ends up being a total bore itself. Yes, the movie can be called artistic, since it shows to the average americanized viewer ("you," or, in fact, "us") the certain aspect of "beauty" of modern Japan, under a sort of "mystic" light. Yet, did it ever occur to any of you that this is not necesserly an accurate portrayal of Nippon society, but rather a caricature created by well-established stereotypes? Maybe not, but that's how it seamed to me, as I watched this "amazing film".

But anyway, back to the movie... Two "wooden" bored out of themselves characters that just float around for 2 hours and do nothing, except expressing their ennui in every possible way (especially Bill Murray) make a chef-d'oeuvre? Not to me.. This is not my idea of great movie, really, but then (as we say in pseudo-liberalism) to each their own... The redeemable features of the movie could have been that it is "smart", but alas, it is not the case, since it lacks anything that remotely resembles a plot. When we break down the movie, at the end we see that besides the pseudo-ambience, we only see standard people doing standard (non-exciting)things, and we can't help but to draw parallels with the boring normality of everyday's life.

In my humble opinion, just as the similarly acclaimed American Splendor, this movie is overrated. Either that, or I am missing something everybody else sees.

Perhaps I am to blame my unfamiliarity with the original novel by Benjamin Constant (1816), but this movie turned out to be one of the most boring titles that have graced my eyes. As a fan of French cinema in general, and Adjani in particular, I was eager to watch this `movie about great tragic love' (as I was told by people who recommended it). As I watched this movie, I realized that I've been tricked, misinformed: there's no such thing as `love' in this movie, just appalling lust. Basically, to sum it up, this is a shot at the time-old story of a man who falls for a woman; woman sleeps with the man; man stops caring about the woman yet sticks with her `out of principle'. Meanwhile, the viewer is forced to sit though a good hour and half of Adjani's lamentations (which got tiring after the first 20 minutes of the movie) and with the male lead that `floats' around mumbling quasi-meaningless clichéd observations while being about as expressive as a log. Nothing really happens in the movie (which could have been easily shortened two-folds), and when the credits finally start to roll the only thing that redeems this piece of cinematic work is the fact that it finally came to an end. Ultimately, the story as it is presented by this disappointment of a movie feels like a distasteful version of Eugene Onegin (even though Adolphe was written slightly before Pushkin's chef-d'oeuvre), minus the parts that made Onegin exciting and thrilling.

1/10

(might contain minor spoilers)

I have hard time seeing why this movie is rated so highly by so many viewers. It shows an uninspiring life led by a failure of a person over the years, and that's about it. We get little character development and little humour, but then we get a lot of slow-moving scenes depicting mediocrity of a random guy.

Am I missing something here? Do people like this movie because they can associate themselves with the leading characters? If so, I can't help but feel pity for them: the movie shows unmotivated, lazy people who don't really strive for anything, as they pass though their (mediocre, uninspiring, uninteresting) life and its challenges. When the lead characters learns he got cancer and says `I wish to die', for example, it just accentuates the `let-down' attitude these people have. Sure, in the land of the pseudo-freedom people are allowed to live their life as they want, but it's hardly a good and "healthy" reflection of the aforementioned freedom that is shown in this movie.

Now, the technical aspects... Although I found myself enjoying the comic/real-life translations, they felt like a long cry from an almost 20 year old popular A-ha music video. Then again one would argue that it was the purpose to make those scenes more static, and who am I to argue? On the other hand, the camera work is very dull and uninspiring: basically your average melodrama fare. The `behind-the-scene' cuts were original, and it was particularly interesting to see the real faces behind the actor-portrayed characters of the movie.

All in all, the only redeemable parts of the movie were the `comic relief' cuts, such as `Revenge of The Nerds' discussion and the old lady at the store scene. In everything else, this movie seems like it wants us to see how mediocre is an average American Joe. Pity.

4/10