The Word Cloud

5 Comments

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  by Pimlicokid 3 years ago

  Marakami's 'Wind-Up Bird Chronicle? I don't know how he gets away with breaking many of the rules we're advised to keep - eg long narrative sub plots and stories - but the overall effect works. It's 600 pages though.
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  by Kim 3 years ago

  Tommy, I thought I was all alone in not liking Lost in Translation, thank goodness I'm not. As a budding screenwriter I thought I may well have lost my way as the film won Best Screenplay. Why? Any ideas? I haven't even been able to make it through the first hour and I've tried twice.
  I can't recommend any other films or books on Japan but Anthony Bourdain once made a fascinating couple of cookery/travel doco's about the country. They can be found every now and again on Sky or possibly over the net?
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  by PsychoPat 3 years ago

  Of the group of action loving film-goers I know, I'm the only person who did like 'Lost In Translation'.
  
  I've studied SP writing and spotted that the movie built storylines up to each turning point, then instead of having a climatic moment that set off the next act, it dissolved into humdrum reality instead. Things didn't click; things didn't happen.
  
  Once I'd sussed (or thought I'd sussed) that, I was able to come out of the cinema feeling all warm and smug, 'cos I'm a smart ass; whereas all my mates thought it was crap. They also thought my theory was crap, too. Feel free to do the same :-)
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  by Tommy 3 years ago

  Hi PsychoPat. Your theory isn't crap at all. If you go looking for plot points in Hollywood films, you'll almost always find them in the expected places, because that's what the producers and execs demand. There's a real cult following for the likes of Robert McKee, Syd Field, Joseph Campbell, and that lot in Hollywood.
  
  But I think that the very fact that it is constantly setting you up for an anticlimax just proves the way its shittiness works. They may think it's clever, but one is not impressed, I find myself muttering from my royal box. I can see why it would make you pleased to recognize this in the film, but would it really make you like the film in and of itself?
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  by Russ 2 years ago

  I've been on business to Tokyo... I think that Lost in Translation was a sickeningly accurate portrayal of what its like to be alone in that city. All right, I didn't meet a Scarlet Johannsson style friend, but the rest of it was spot on. The bit where he's sat on the bed watching a samurai movie in utter isolation was just about right.
  
  Word to the wise - don't go on your jack jones!