I went to the Inwood Theater last night to see Lost In Translation. It’s been out for a while (since September, it would appear) and I was pleasantly surprised that it was still showing. I’ve heard so many good things about it and, until last night, I had figured that I had missed my chance to see it in theaters.
Lost in Translation scored 88 at Metacritic, but that only tells part of it. Of the 43 critics listed, 17 of them gave it a perfect “100” (and 9 more scored it between 90 and 100). More importantly to me, all of the critics I trust rated it highly (Salon, Film Threat’s Stina Chyn and Film Threat’s Rick Kisonak).
The film doesn’t have much of a plot to it (Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson’s characters mostly hang out in Tokyo), but that doesn’t detract from the film. It that sense, it can be a bit like a Seinfeld episode (in a good way), but the film seemed to remind me more of Amélie — each scene worked on its own, but I couldn’t wait for the next one.
In any case, I also noticed on the Inwood’s marquee that they're showing The Muppets Take Manhattan at midnight on Friday and Saturday this weekend. I enjoy the Muppets and I think I’ll go see that. One IMDB reviewer calls TMTM “The Best of the Muppet Films”. And, while it is a good film, I think The Great Muppet Caper may still be my personal favorite.