h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm not a 'Lord Of The Rings' fan, but even so one story from this year's Oscars has really delighted me: the richly-deserved award to Sofia Coppola for 'Lost In Translation' in the 'Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen' section. It is one of my all-time favourite films: a truly touching story about finding right in the empty heart of celebrity-obsessed consumer culture. If you haven't seen 'Translation' yet, I can't recommend it too strongly: I emerged from the cinema moist-eyed and thrilled.

It is a film I keep meaning to go and see. I've been avoiding the cinema recently as it always seems to be full of bloody Orcs these days!

Exactly! I can really enjoy fantasy if it's played for laughs - Terry Pratchett or Harry Potter, for instance. But I have a deep-seated aversion to 'serious' fantasy like 'Lord of the Rings', which I'm sure stems from the fact that when I was a lad the Tolkein fans were the same hairy bores who preferred Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer to The Sex Pistols and The Clash.

Actually favoured neither of these 4 in particular - but did like LOTR. Does that make me ?

Recommendation duly noted

Mrs Gosho rented Lost in Translation on Saturday and we sat and watched it that night with a big bowl of

It's a bloody good film Makes me want to go to Tokyo even more than I did before Man, I would so love to see Japan, but right now I can't even afford the $75 it'll cost me to get my passport renewed, so I'm not holding my breath

So... what did he whisper in her ear at the end?

And I ought to point out that - unusually for me - I previewed this before I hit 'Post Message'. Good thing too. I really don't know what you'd have thought of Mrs Gosho and I eating a 'bog bowl of

I strongly suspect that the whispered line is deliberately mysterious. That would fit in with the theme of poor communication that runs through the whole movie.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've seen it again since I posted the Journal Entry, and I loved it even more the second time around.

I think you're right about the mystery.

We've got the DVD for a week, so I may watch it again tomorrow when Mrs G is in San Antonio. Partly because it's such a good film, and partly because I want to see those shots of Tokyo again

I was so glad the line was whispered - otherwise I feel it would have been like emotional porn and just too much. the whole film (which I loved except for the gratuitous japanese jokes) was very raw and at times it felt almost as if we were being shown too much of some very personal moments (i DO realise they weren't actually real, but it felt so true!), that keeping that climactic aspect of it between the two of them just seemed right.

I can understand why the film has been accused of being xenophobic, and at times it did feel a bit as if it was just laughing at the funny Japanese people. But I felt that 'Translation' was attacking consumer culture, not Japanese culture. A big part of its point seemed to me to be that money and fame do not automatically bring happiness: a simple truth, but also a rejection of the American dream. There are grotesque and absurd characters from both Japan and America in the film: the Japanese chat show host and the 'premium fantasy' woman are balanced by the vacuous American starlet, by Bob's wife with her obsession about getting *just* the right shade of carpet, and by Charlotte's career-obsessed husband. Some aspects of Japanese culture that seem beautiful to Western eyes - the temples, the flower arranging - are shown as well as the stuff that looks shrill and tacky.

'Translation' had a huge personal resonance for me because it reminded me so much of how it often felt when I was working as a music journalist. I was travelling a lot and doing something that other people thought must be very glamorous and exciting. Actually, although (just as in the film) there were some good parties, a lot of the time I was acutely aware of how shallow the whole business and most of my relationships within it were. Like Bob Harris in 'Translation', I often felt lonely, alienated and depressed and took refuge in . Charlotte's preoccupied husband, fixated on work and neglecting a terrific person at home, was just like me 10 years ago. I ruined at least one potentially great long-term relationship that way.

All of those things you mentioned Ormy - the temple, the flower arranging - were things Charlotte found when she ventured beyond that windowsill she seemed to spend so much time sitting on. She obviously had the confidence to go out on her own, to take trains in a country where she couldn't speak or read the language (even though most signs seemed to have an English translation), and to visit some very Japanese places, such as the temple. At one point I wondered if she was going to be told off for entering the temple with her shoes on, or even be shooed out for being a woman. There could have been a whole new sub-plot of rejection there, on top of the apparent rejection from her husband.

the only Japanese joke that i really objected to (that i can now remember) was the one in the lift. the truth is that Bill Murray is actually really tall, rather than all Japanese really short, so that irked me greatly, and it just cheapened what was otherwise a great film. i didn't really object to the "lip them" bit as that was symbolising the isolation in terms of communication - even when they were both speaking English the Murray character was still isolated and unable to understand.

to be honest the film made me want to avoid Tokyo, and other consumerist cities like it, like the plague (beyond some symbolic window-sill sitting).