Lost and going nowhere fast
During Joel's fall break we were able to get free babysitting and decided to go to the movies. (The last thing I saw in a theatre was Matrix Reloaded. How sad is that?)

On a friend's recommendation we saw Lost in Translation starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. While the ads try to play up the comic aspects, this film's humor is pretty subtle. On the whole it felt far more like a drama.

Murray's character is a has-been Hollywood star who's visiting Tokyo to film a commercial. Johansson's a recent college grad in Tokyo with her husband, a photographer. The two are both plagued with insomnia and end up meeting in the hotel lounge and strike up a friendship.

As you follow each of them over several days, you see parallels--his career is over, hers hasn't begun yet. Both feel unneeded by their spouses. Both are deeply depressed and floundering to find any significance in their lives. Both are total outsiders in Japanese culture, though the younger one (Johansson) is willing to take some daytrips and explore on her own. Murray is routinely herded around by "handlers."

There are several quite funny scenes that highlight the Americans' inability to understand the Japanese language or culture. Yet the humor has an edge of the pathetic to it. You really feel sorry for these two lost souls.