Best film of the year

Rating: 10/10 (29 January 2004)

I personally feel that this is the best film of the year, although I know that the Academy won't honor it is as such at the awards because a small, poignant film will never beat out such a huge Hollywood production as Return of the King. I know that everyone who thought it had no plot or was boring or that Sofia Coppola just pointed her camera at downtown Tokyo and passed it off as a "cool" flick won't agree with me, but I think Lost in Translation surpasses every other film of the year on so many levels. Very few films can truly move the audience (I doubt that anyone felt truly touched by Return of the King or Cold Mountain), fewer films offer so much with the camera, and even fewer films give performances that say so much while saying almost nothing at all. Murray and Johansson's performaces communicate the deepest and most genuine feelings and thoughts when they are saying nothing at all (like when they are sitting on the bench at the karaoke studio, or staring out the taxi window). I am so glad that the Academy honored the film with such important nominations, and I can only hope that it receives the awards it deserves.