Lost in nepotism - Hollywood

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2018)

Let's face it, most Hollywood celebs have kids, and they want those kids to eventually work in the lucrative movie industry with its fame and fortune and easy luxurious lifestyle, so that the family's (i.e. dynasty's) fortune expands and everyone buys even more yachts and villas while all of its members involved in film keep pretending in interviews that they're creating "art", that they're in it for the artistic glory or some such sham. Just like politicians, their real motives are usually hidden, though very obvious.
This is why almost everyone in Hollywood supports nepotism so much. They want other people's kids to succeed (hence actively support their careers) because that automatically makes nepotism acceptable which in turn means that their own kids will or could get into the business without too much hassle - and certainly with no criticism from the media which these days even acts all HAPPY when some star's talent-free/uncharismatic daughter/son/nephew starts a mediocre acting or directing career.
And this is where Sofia Coppola and her decidedly overrated, pointless drama come in. Any one of tens of thousands of film-makers could have written and/or directed this exact same film - yet nobody would have noticed it. But because a Coppola directed it - the daughter of the "Godfather" series director, no less - the whole movie world stood up and took notice, as if Martians had landed on Central Square.
Granted, some people GENUINELY believe that Coppola must have inherited the "movie gene" (some fictional, unproven DNA strain), hence their interest in her. I will refrain from commenting further on such people, i.e on their understanding of art and biology.
LIT is like any one of hundreds of indie films made from the 80s onwards, but with a much richer budget. (What daddy's girl wants, daddy's girl gets.) It is one of those lazy slice-of-life dramas, in other words movies that lack a real story but simply plod along, hoping that film critics will imagine seeing some layers of "deep meanings" in it and then convince the easily-lead mass audience that they MUST enjoy this because it is high art. (It would be comical were it not so pathetic.) Finding anything more intellectual or more meaningful or above-average in this mediocrity than one would normally find in an average TV drama requires hallucination as the main operating tool.
Coppola is not only not talented, she is the opposite. She'd managed to make even Bill Murray uninteresting. Even Ana Faris, who is always interesting, struggles to be interesting. The only use I see for this film could be that it might be fun for japanophiles or people considering going there for a vacation. Japan is a fascinating country, so, yes, LIT is not bad as a sort of extended, lavish travel infomercial. But how many Travel Channel documentaries get nominated for Oscars?
And yet, even visually LIT is nothing to shout about. I've seen visually more impressive and more interesting scenes of Japan with Karl Pilkington doing one of his "An Idiot Abroad" episodes in this country. Karl was much funnier and vastly more interesting than all these average/dull characters put together, and he did it by walking around and observing Japan just as they did. Strangely enough, he was considered a buffoon while doing it (in spite of making occasionally sharp and often witty observations), whereas Sofia's characters are somehow much more "profound" because they only make faces while watching this unusual culture unfold. Perhaps the fact that Sofia's tourists are so WITHDRAWN (hence automatically "mysterious") whereas Karl is open and everyman about it makes Sofia's bunch more "artistic" or "spiritual" than Karl, dunno. The human mind is a wonder. So much confusion there.
Just check out the DEPTH with which Scarlett observes a group of young Japanese men play computer games. Wow. So deeply profound: a young American blond dyevochka staring at the vastly different Japanese culture - you just CANNOT get more artistic and philosophical than that. So so many mindless arty conclusions to draw from Scarlet observing the Japanese, isn't there? That is, if one is inclined to succumb to such obvious filmic traps, not to mention succumbing to the all-powerful Oscar hype.
Except that Karl's program was a travelogue, and is not supposed to be more interesting than a Hollywood movie that got bundles of Oscars. And yet it is.
Laughable. Don't believe the hype. Stop believing the hype. Just because all the media raves about something isn't a reason to jump on the bandwagon. I am flabbergasted how many people fell for this classic con-trick. Sort of like a bunch of tourists gathered around a very abstract, ugly Picasso pencil-scribble in a European museum, trying desperately to find reasons to "appreciate" it, even though their common sense (which they prefer to switch off in such instances) is telling them they're looking at a piece of junk.
Someone put it best: "I feel like this movie really banks on the idea that if you don't like it, you don't 'get' it and therefore are a plebeian. I don't like my sensibilities and ego being bribed in that way." If everyone thought this way, movies like these would be sold in discount bins for $5 instead of being praised as masterpieces of the decade.