翻訳で失われる

Edit: I decided to change the title of this post seeing as it was a bit too long. The title now is supposed to be "Lost in Translation" in Japanese. I'm not sure if that's what it says since I used Babelfish to translate English to Japanese. Of course, if you don't have Japanese Language support, it'll look like gibberish anyway.

-I watched Lost in Translation on Thursday night. Overall, it wasn’t a bad movie but I’m not sure it’s as good as the critics say it is. Bill Murray is very good in it, however. There really isn’t a lot of dialogue, so he conveys much of his performance via his expressions and demeanor. There are some funny scenes in the movie such as when Bill Murray’s character is on the set of the whiskey commercial, the scene with him on an exercise bike, and his appearance on a Japanese TV show. The scenes of Japan are beautiful. My personal faves are when Bill Murray first arrives in Japan and when Scarlett Johannsen’s character visits a shrine. Some have said that the portrayal of the Japanese in this movie is stereotypical. I have never been to Japan, so I can’t truly judge, but it seemed fairly realistic. Given what little knowledge I have of Japanese culture, I was able to identify some things that give the film some authenticity (it was after all filmed on location in Japan). I enjoyed seeing the people play the rhythm games, for example. So, I definitely recommend this as a rental. If you’ve ever been to Japan, like Bill Murray, or have ever been to a foreign country, you can find something to like. If you’re expecting a laugh-out-loud experience or a fast-paced film then skip it...it’s neither.

-The power went out Thursday night, only about 10 minutes after I finished the movie and watching some of the special features. Fortunately, the power was out everywhere in our vicinity, meaning that it wasn’t an electrical problem with the house (we have had some fuse problems in the past...yes, our house uses fuses). The power went out in our surrounding area, affecting three other south suburbs. Plus, it was the only power outage in the Chicago area that night. We don’t know if the weather caused it or something else (like a transformer exploding which caused a power outage for our area back in the summer). For some reason, our area seriously gets shafted when it comes to ComEd. We normally are the last people to get our power back when a major outage happens. This time, our power was back within 90 minutes.

-I may go see Barbershop 2 this weekend. I’m almost certain it will be better than You Got Served. By the way, You Got Served only cost $7 million, which means that it made back its budget more than twofold last weekend.

-Random Admission: I enjoy soap operas. My family has watched soaps (or daytime dramas as they are technically called now) as long as I could remember. Many of the soaps started when my parents were young, so they have been watching them since they began. My mom favors the ABC soaps (All My Children, One Life To Live, & General Hospital). My dad favors that old CBS standby The Young and The Restless as well as watching NBC’s Passions. My sister also enjoys the ABC soaps, and shares my dad’s liking of Passions (in fact, she started watching it first). As for me, the one soap I can say I truly like is All My Children, and I keep up with the other two ABC soaps. So, how did I end up watching them? Well, one summer when I was younger, I started enjoying and watching All My Children. After a while I stopped watching, although the core characters of a soap really don’t change greatly so it wasn’t too hard to get back in. I started watching AMC again when a character was raped, and the subsequent outrage over the rapist’s acquittal resulted in his murder over the summer. Now, I have gotten back into enjoying soaps, with their melodramatic serial style. I also appreciate the acting and writing that goes into creating something that has 5 hour-long episodes a week, no repeats, complex storytelling, dozens of characters, and decades of backstory. Soaps truly are the most underrated of all television artforms. While they aren’t for everyone, they provide escapist fun that entertains without being completely mindless.

-I really didn’t want to talk any more about the Justin/Janet Super Bowl incident, but frankly, the recent results of it have ticked me off. Apparently, Janet was uninvited from the Grammys but Justin is still performing. Combine this with the media coverage that basically puts all the blame on Janet and you can see why I’m none too happy. I don’t want to write a long rant about it, but I’ll say just a couple of things. Justin and Janet share blame for the incident. While she may have came up with the idea, Justin is the one who pulled a little too hard and showed her breast to the world. The media is coming down hard on Janet exclusively, while letting Justin get away unscathed. That is unfair, plain and simple. If Janet was uninvited, so should Justin be. Given the circumstances, I have to wonder if the way the participants are being treated would have been different if the races were reversed or if the genders were reversed. Would a white female artist be blamed exclusively for this stunt if a black male performer had showed her breast to the world? Would the man be blamed exclusively if the woman had revealed his genitalia to the world? It’s a shame that the blatantly unfair way that Janet was treated by the Grammys and/or CBS would come the year that N.A.R.A.S. finally recognizes the impact and artistry of urban music.