Lost in Translation Saturday night, interested in seeing it because we’d heard so very many good things about it. Fifteen minutes in, Fred was ready to turn it off, but I wanted to see how it ended. All in all, I’d rate it an “eh”, but I don’t resent the time spent watching it.
Clearly I possess not the depth and understanding of the human condition that would let me pretentiously wax poetic at length about the magic of the movie. Give me the beginning-middle-end kind of movie girl meets boy zany moments ensue they break up but end up together. Give me the zany girl meets boy meets another boy has a threesome dumps them both to “I choose me”. And christ almighty, if you’re going to ask me to join you on your hour and a half or two-hour (tour! A two-hour tour!) journey that is your movie, don’t fucking end it with one character whispering into the other character’s ear and not let me know what he said. Don’t keep secrets from the people who’ve paid money to watch your fucking movie; you end up coming across as self-impressed and smug and next time the option to watch a movie written and directed by you comes along, I’ll just pass on that, thanks.
I WANT TO FUCKING KNOW WHAT HE SAID.
(Also, something about Scarlett Johansson‘s face really REALLY bugs me, and I look longingly forward to the day when her It-Girl status is gone with the wind.)
* * *
Also, I watched
In the Cut Friday afternoon and clearly – snore – I am getting old and stodgy, because the dick-sucking at the beginning of the movie (’bout five minutes in, I’d guess, if you’re fast-fowarding to see it) was completely unnecessary, all I could think was “MUST WE SEE THE PENIS SLIDING IN AND OUT OF THE MOUTH?” I mean, what the fuck? It’s not like I’ve never seen porn before, but is it not possible to show that a blowjob is being performed without SEEING mouth and penis? It’s like the trend lately of showing someone vomiting by focusing lovingly on the vomit spewing out of the vomiter’s mouth, because OBVIOUSLY if we just heard the heaving noise and saw the person leaning over as if they were vomiting and heard the liquid hitting the ground we would be sitting there with huge question marks over our heads, and we would be saying “I don’t understand what’s going on. Why is he making that gagging noise? Why is he leaning over? What’s going ON? I’m so confused!”, clearly we MUST see every little bit of the vomit spewing forth from the mouth and the disgusted
FUCK, how many times are we going to shoot this fucking scene? look on the actor’s face.
And then later on in the movie when Mark Ruffalo and Meg Ryan (who should sue her plastic surgeon) are having sex and his face is right down there in her crotch, all I could think is “God in heaven, it just has to suck to shoot scenes like that. Because when you’re all writhing around with the moaning and shit, how can you NOT be thinking to yourself
Mark Ruffalo’s face is two inches from my crotch AND I’M NOT ENJOYING IT.?
It’s not even so much that it’s Meg “Sally” Ryan shooting explicit sex scenes, it’s WHY MUST THEY SHOW IT?? If I want to see explicit sex, I’ll download some porn, okay? Otherwise, just show some kissing and some nudity and fade to black, and when the next scene starts with both parties looking satisfied and smoking cigarettes, we will FIGURE IT OUT, I promise. Good lord.
* * *
So, because I know Fred won’t get mad at me for poking fun at him, remember when he
sent me roses for my birthday and I loved and adored them? I called him after I received them, and I said “I LOVE these flowers. I want these very exact same flowers, these Confetti Roses, for Valentine’s Day! I love them!” And about a week before Valentine’s Day, I said “Valentine’s Day is next week. Do I need to remind you what I want?”, and he said “No, I remember!”, all huffy at the thought that he might have forgotten. I left the house to do some errands on Friday and when I came home there was a bouquet of flowers sitting in front of the door, and I opened the door to find these:
Turns out that Fred had called the florist and said “Do you have something LIKE Confetti Roses, only not Confetti Roses?”
Give the boy points for taking initiative (“Who wants the
same roses two months in a row?” he said. Um, me?) and I’m not complaining because they really are pretty roses. Considering how often I got anything on Valentine’s Day from husband #1 (answer: never), I’m well aware of how lucky I am.
My gift to him was a cake I baked with my own little hands. A lemon poppyseed cake. Not only did he love it, he also shared it with the spud and I. Whee!
I couldn’t decide what to get the spud for Valentine’s Day. The traditional gift would be a small stuffed animal and some candy, but that child has SO FUCKING MANY stuffed animals that I was damned if I’d add to the huge-ass collection on her bed, strewn all over her floor, and stuffed in her closet. Finally, I printed out her wish list and took a trip to Target, where I bought
Legally Blonde 2 on dvd, a card, and a couple of heart-shaped Snickers.
Pretty good idea, I thought.
* * *
Tara! Is this your cute little baby cousin?:
We didn’t actually watch
The District, but I had made a note to myself to tape it so I could see your cousin (yes, I’m a dork). She is ADORABLE. Fred joked “I could have done an acting job as good as the one she’s doing!” Heh. Maybe he’ll go into acting next! That would be fun. Not!
* * *
Did y’all see
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition last night? That was AWESOME.
I can’t believe there’s only one episode of
Sex and the City left. I think it’s pretty obvious which way they’re leaning toward ending it, if last night’s episode was any indication and they’re not fucking with us.
* * *
Man on a mission.
The beast within.
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Will you PLEASE teach your brother how to buy flowers? He’s got the stuffed animals and chocolates down, and he’s great with the cards, but a girl likes roses every once in a while. Sheesh.
Robyn – The reason Scarlett Johansson’s face creeps you out is because it’s absolutely hideous. Remember when celebrities were required to be talented AND good-looking? Those were the days…
I hate pink, and them’s still some pretty flurs. *sigh* I think you got the last good man.
I’m in 100% agreement with you about Lost in Translation. I actually thought the ending was “clever,” but the rest of the movie? Yawn.
I LOVED the Home Makeover show. What is with Preston and that other chick? Could she be more pretentious? Anyway, how cute was it when the guy’s parents came over to check out the progress and his mom just about ran him over going to hug him? So cute!
Re:Scarlett Johansson’s face: She has absolutely NO chin! Like Jennifer Love Hewitt. She also sometimes dyes her hair (which naturally must be VERY dark) a hideous shade of orange/yellow. When I first saw it, I was surprised. It looked just like the hair of one of my sister’s friends in High School. Yeah, the one whose hair was naturally black, and wanted to be a platinum blonde? But who couldn’t/wouldn’t pay a salon to do it.So she did it herself? And it turned that same funny orange/yellow color? Sooo very trashy!
Re: Scarlett — are we sure that’s not just Kristy McNichol with an unnatural dye job?
I am sooo relieved my husband, daughter-in-law and I were not the only ones wondering what the fuss is about Lost in Translation.
I was ready to walk out after the first 10 minutes, but hung in there waiting for something to happen. What exactly IS the point of the movie?
Ok…I really loved Lost in Translation..however, I turned the volume up REALLY high and stuck my ear right next to the speaker and re-played that damn whisper 10 times! Still couldn’t make it all out but he did say at some point ‘Don’t worry’..at least I think thats it!
Okay, okay, I confess. I’m one of those people who can analyze a movie for days, even if the movie sucked ass. I even have a permanent column for recent movies I’ve seen on my site.
I guess I’m just one of “those people”. I should have been a movie critic. (But then again, I also should have been skinny.)
Amen on Scarlett J!
I think that she just looks trashy. She has that skank look about her face.
Robyn, we thought “In The Cut” was a porn movie when we watched it this past weekend. No, we didn’t rent it for that reason! John doesn’t care for that sort of film. We were both rather shocked with the blow job shot…and when he was two inches from her crotch…hmmmm. Explaining how he was going to bring her to the pleasure zone. I did get a bit hot during that one…heeheehee. I don’t think we would have gotten it had we known. We did see “Identity” and “The Watcher”…both were interesting.
I am one of those especially strange people…never watch reality shows and don’t enjoy them. Give me a good mystery and I’m all over it.
My husband wanted this as his Valentine’s gift, so we watched it on Saturday. He’s spent a LOT of time in Japan for his job and the whole family actually was able to stay at the Park Hyatt (the hotel in the movie) on the bonus points that he’d earned in his many stays.
We could relate to the silly too-small hotel slippers and low shower heads but I’m glad they resisted the urge to do wasabi/sushi and Toto toilet jokes.
I felt like the term “Lost in Translation” is the best explanation for the relationship between Bill and Scarlett’s character. Yes, there are protective rescuer–father/daughter elements to it but there are clearly romantic feelings too. So it didn’t bother me not to hear what he whispered. Words would only limit and define something that had no nor needed definition. That’s why it’s such an “actor-y” movie. So much is expressed without dialog. I knew all I needed to know when he touched her foot as they both drifted off to sleep on the bed.
lulu
P.S. The flowers are lovely………….
I watched Lost In Translation while visiting my parents over the weekend and we didn’t get it either. I thought the relationship between the two was kind of sweet, but other than that didn’t see what the big fuss was about. We watched the whole movie waiting for that one moment that was going to reveal the deep meaning of the movie, but that moment never came for us.
Today’s irrelevant observation:
Number of times Robyn says “fuck” or “fucking” in today’s entry: 7.
Reason I counted? Because I have no fucking life, apparently!!
Now I am not so excited to see Lost In Translation, tho.
This is a late comment, but I cried in the Caribbean when I spent $37 on my cruise ship checking my email and learned that Tubby had died.
Just had to share.
Today’s irrelevant observation:
Number of times Robyn says “fuck” or “fucking” in today’s entry: 7.
Reason I counted? Because I have no fucking life, apparently!!
Now I am not so excited to see Lost In Translation, tho.
This is a late comment, but I cried in the Caribbean when I spent $37 on my cruise ship checking my email and learned that Tubby had died.
Just had to share.
Robyn, you’ve gotta see the roses on this page http://www.speakingroses.com , they have them in yellow too:-)
We watched “Lost” this weekend and we loved it- actually plan on buying it when they start weeding out copies at the video store and sell them for $10. That and “Intolerable Cruelty,” (love me some Coen brothers and George Clooney is totally channelling Cary Grant in that one). We watched the last 45 minutes or so over again immediately and Jamie watched the whole thing over again the next morning. He was a little more curious about the whispering than I was- he looked through all the various flame wars about what they say, but I really didn’t care. I thought it was a visually interesting movie and I liked that it had a non-traditional storyline. Loved the toe touching and the head on the shoulder at the party. I think I just identify with what Sofia Coppola called the experience of being awake at 4am thinking about your life- I’m going through that a lot right now and I’m not even in a strange time zone, it’s just chronic insomnia 😉
Hehe, my husband replayed the ending of Lost in Translation about 10 times, trying to hear what he said. I told him you weren’t supposed to be able to hear it, so he thought he’d be smart and turn on the captions to see what it said. Yup, it says, “whispering, indistinct.”
I thought the movie was ok, but certainly overhyped.
Interesting take on the movies.. certainly makes me less willing to fork out the $.88 on cheap movie night Wed’s 😉 The one sounds a little too porny for my tastes, if I wanted porn, I would RENT it!
Found your blog a few days ago and have ripped through the archives 🙂 Go girl!
BTW your site is cat addictive to the non cat person… Caught myself teasingly suggesting to hubby that we get ourselves a shelter cat today.. This from a woman who is allergic to the felines! He rolled his eyes and said “go for it”, knowing bloody well when I get something in my head I will not let it go and do what I want regardless of how he reacts (5 angora rabbits, one hamster, two tanks of fish, and a spoiled shih-tzu later… hey!! They are for the KIDS right?!?! 😉 But alas no cat for us.. grampa is highly allergic and we DO enjoy his visits.. Great to see you out there doing good for the many cats that are homeless.. drooled on a few at the SPCA this past weekend.. Hoping they will find loving homes soon.
Both my husband and I teared up at the end of that home makeover show – it gave me the chills!!!
Scarlett is a mouth-breather. That’s why she irritates me. Go blow your nose, lady!
I didn’t see the home makeover show. *sob* My husband is a carpenter, so the last thing he wants to watch is OTHER people doing the job he does all day long.
I thought the same thing about Lost in translation. My son had rented it and i was half watching it as I did other things. I couldn’t believe that was the end, i kept saying, “Is that it?’ i thought he had turned it off too early. Reminded me of The Horse Whisperer. My friend and I had read the book and couldn’t wait for the movie. So I snuck to the washroom for a pee so i could be ready to cry for the finale. I came right back and it was over! My friend was standing up yelling; “Die like you are supposed to God dam it!” Lots of others must have read the book also because no one was too shocked at her outburst.
As for carpenters watching renovation shows, my hubby loved Bob Villa because the renovations were always way over budget and the client always understood that it was because they were constantly upgrading as they went!
Pat
I loved Lost in Translation – but it has perhaps been overhyped. I like the relationship between them… and the whispering is so you can imagine what he said? i think he tells her, she’s not hopeless (like she said) and that she has plenty of time to work things out. I personally really liked the way their relationship was portrayed…. the ambivalence of their feelings. Like she doesn’t really want to be with him, but is still irationally jealous when he sleeps with the singer? and he manages to control his feelings for her but then randomly sleeps with the singer. It struck me as pretty real. I didn’t think they were trying to be prententious!
Scarelett Johanssen was on all the front pages of the papers here yesterday for the look she tried to pull off at the BAFTAs – marilyn monroe but skinny with orange hair! I wsih she’d dress more like a 19 year old? I don’t get what she was trying to do there. But i think she’s actually pretty!
I didn’t actually say that anything about the movie was pretentious, Rhiannon – I said I didn’t have the depth to wax pretentiously about the magic of the movie. 🙂 I actually didn’t hate it, but I have no desire to see it again. I think that Scarlett Johannson has the ability to be pretty, but something about her face just really bugs me – all I can guess is that she reminds me of someone from my past.
Hey Robyn, yes, that’s my cousin! Thanks so much for putting up that picture, because after I told you about it, I completely forgot! LOL! Bad cousin….very bad…..