worth it......
Added 5/23/2009
i was happy to see how well these people were to ship my item...they really took their time in wrapping and making sure my item was safe...so i do declare them very good...and would recomend them to anyone of my shopping friends...thanx......i am satisfied
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Dreadfully slow
Added 5/18/2009
This is tedious from the start, as we are forced to endure extended scenes of a Japanese businessman trying to speak English, not very amusingly. After he and Collette have a low-voltage romance, he dies. The movie then stops dead and turns into something else, very uninteresting. A very slow two hours that doesn't really tell us much. Collette's acting is the centerpiece. If you like her, then you'll want to watch. Just don't expect to be entertained.
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Toni Rules This Film!
Added 4/18/2009
This film won 8 Australian Film Institute Awards including Best Picture. While I don't know much about the Australian film industry, I do know that this film was worth the awards. Toni Colette gives a wonderful, unrecognizable performance as a geologist who lives in Western Australia. She is bummed out that she must accompany a Japanese businessman around Western Australia but the trip becomes one adventure after another until tragedy hits the couple and the aftermath. For Colette, she is perfect in this role. I didn't realize how hot that the Australian desert can get. My problem was with the tragedy and how I felt let down that it wasn't explained clearly or why it happened at all. Still, a love story mixed with adventure and solid acting by everybody involved.
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Well-intentioned, bit of a misfire
Added 7/29/2008
From the cover: "Collette, propelled by a beautifully understated script, digs deep to deliver the performance of her career." True enough. Understated, and not always deliberately.
"The film oscillates between a cross-cultural journey," Yep
"an emotional drama," Not so much
"and a haunting love story" Kinda dumb love story, actually
"while director Sue Brooks catches her audience off guard as she takes us down an unexpected route." Most definitely
So why am I giving it only 3 stars? Well, that's a whole lot easier to explain than why it won 8 Australian Film Institute Awards. It's an okay little movie, not all that.
We begin with a well-grounded little group of characters in Australia and throw in this silent Japanese guy. You could argue it's a Toni Collette showpiece or you could argue it's a great ensemble cast, and either way you'd be correct. The interactions are played very well, understated, mercifully free of stereotyping, well thought out, and wholly consistent with what I've seen living in Asia since 1999. It's realistic, it's well-written, it's clever, it has subtle humor, and the acting is top-notch.
Then comes a romance which is, I'm sorry to say, much too predictable. If someone made a movie where the cross-cultural romance didn't happen, THAT would be unpredictable. A few stereotypes creep in here, which we'll call "lazy writing" and just move on.
Then the unexpected direction. Oh yeah, eventually the film throws one hell of a curve ball our way. It could happen, it can happen, and sometimes it does happen, but you don't expect it in this film. Nice one!
After that, well, it seems to lose its way. My wife, who is Australian, thought it was an attempt at humor that misfired. I don't agree. I think they just had no idea where to go after that unexpected change of direction, almost as if they'd surprised themselves and couldn't recover. One reviewer thought it lost all momentum after the Land Rover scene, but I think it picked up momentum remarkably well after that, only to lose it here.
If you have seen the movie, I could use a metaphor here that would also serve as a plot spoiler, so for those who haven't seen the movie, I won't use the metaphor. Is that clear as mud? Good.
In the end, it's a 100-minute movie, and we were well past the 60 minute mark before I thought it got lost. Excellent acting throughout, a lot of fine writing for the most part, and some breathtaking scenery like you wouldn't believe.
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Lost in Translation -- only better.
Added 7/26/2008
Every Toni Collette fan has "The Japanese Story" in his library, but for the rest of you: buy or find a copy of this DVD before it's too late. These kind of movies tend to disappear over time. It's a chick flick with some of the most stunning outback scenery since the Apple Macintosh Promo "From Alice To Ocean" many years ago. The screenplay has a "Lost in Translation"- feel but is more subtle, more subdued.
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