Translated and Lost
I went to see Lost in Translation the other night, with Joey. Really, really enjoyed it. Scarlett Johansson was impressive…in Ghost World, she had this air of impatient frustration around her performance that really brought her character to life. Here, she’s playing a much more subtle, uncertain variation on similar ideas. And Bill Murray has become a really refined dramatic actor lately. The scenes between the two of them are understated and melancholy and tense and, above all, real. Oh, and the soundtrack is great (listening to it right now, actually).
I’ve heard some criticism of the film that focuses on what some people perceive as racist humor towards the Japanese, but i really have to disagree. The film is about people who are, if you couldn’t tell from the title, lost in a country they don’t belong in, in a culture they don’t understand, surrounded by a language they don’t know. If the Japan portrayed on screen strikes you as alienating, incomprehensible, silly, or exaggerated, it’s because we’re seeing it through the eyes of characters who are alienated, misunderstood, amused, and unsettled by their surroundings. The scene with Scarlett Johansson’s character sitting on the windowsill of her hotel room, as the camera pans around her, back and forth over the tiny Tokyo streets below, is the best and most visceral illustration of this in the movie.
Anyways.
I’m making it my new project to download all the Bends and OK Computer era Radiohead b-sides that I seem to have lost at some point. I still have somewhat low-quality versions on a burned CD, but I crave quality. Especially for songs like Talk Show Host.
I’ve also discovered the joys of .cbz and .cbr files for downloading comics. I’ve downloaded and read Grant Morrison’s entire run on New X-Men over the last few days, up to and including the big plot twist that has everyone abuzz. Fun stuff. Grant’s an interesting writer, and the only other thing I’ve read by him is the Filth (which just finished….see earlier postings about that title). This has made me actually engaged and interested in a superhero comic book again. Part of it is nostalgia triggered by the quality of the recent X-Men movies, of course.
More later…
