Godfather 2 is as close to Shakespeare as American film gets.

Oh HELL yeah.

This is why I adore Lost in Translation while many don't, because I love the characters. Nothing happens in the movie. But it's pretty, and there are characters I can get into. That's what I need.

I felt like there was a great movie struggling to get out. I loved the scene where they talked in bed. I loved "That was the worst lunch ever." There were a lot of nice moments, but they were few and far between. You make an interesting point about character and story not always intertwining, but I think it's hard to learn about characters unless they're in some semblance of a story.

But the characters *were* the story. It was all internal. (Which is not a popular mode of storytelling, I'm aware.)

I haven't seen any French films, but I do seem to like German films. Everything from M to Das Boot and Run Lola Run. Toss in the silent films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caliguri and Metropolis and I'm a happy camper.

(A neat Metropolis thing I saw on Antiques Roadshow FYI a few weeks ago--the appraiser was asked what would be his "Find of His Life" that he would do anything to locate, and he said it was the one-sheet for the American release of Metropolis. There are some promotional stuff from the initial release (lobby cards, mostly), but no one-sheets have ever been found. He estimated that, if it did ever show up, it would probably sell for over $1 million.)

But the characters *were* the story. It was all internal. (Which is not a popular mode of storytelling, I'm aware.)

Yeah, I guess I just can't get into it that way. Do you feel the same way about Garden State ? Or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ? Because people compared both of them to Lost in Translation, which made me all a-feared, but I really liked the former and loved the latter.

Yes. The story of LiT is entirely in the connection, and its silliness, and its importance.

It makes me think of people I've spent little time with, usually mere days, but whose faces and names I remember with crystal clarity. Friends at week-long church camps as far back as elementary school, including my first real crush. The girl I still think of as the most beautiful person, internally and externally, I've ever met, despite our total lack of compatibility and a total time spent together of maybe 15 hours over 3 years. Friends from summer programs age 12 and higher who inspired me in late-night conversations, that could exist only because of the temporary nature of our acquaintance, to express my true nature and mature into me.

I don't talk to many of these people anymore. Their importance was in the temporary nature of our meeting. And that is a story.

But not one that everybody would want to hear.

And in answer to your question: no. Eternal Sunshine is one of my other favorite movies, but it has a much more accessible story to go along with its compelling characters. Garden State, much the same.

But the characters *were* the story. It was all internal. (Which is not a popular mode of storytelling, I'm aware.)

Yeah, I guess I just can't get into it that way. Do you feel the same way about Garden State ? Or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ? Because people compared both of them to Lost in Translation, which made me all a-feared, but I really liked the former and loved the latter.

I *do* feel the same way about Garden State, which I love as much as LiT. Eternal Sunshine was purely Meh for me.

I *do* feel the same way about Garden State, which I love as much as LiT. Eternal Sunshine was purely Meh for me.

I'm the opposite of Steph here. Hated the hell out of Garden State, but I think Eternal Sunshine is one of the best movies of the new millenium. I liked LiT quite a bit, but think that it's a little overrated (which is to say, I thought it was a lovely little puff of a flick). I think both LiT and Eternal Sunshine made excellent choices about how to develop the characters (and how the actors embodied them), but Eternal Sunshine actually went so far as to provide external representations of memory and loss of real love, with all its imperfections and near-misses, which is so goddamn poignant and beautiful that it breaks my heart to even think on it.

I've come to think it's my baggage that kept me from enjoying "Eternal Sunshine". As somebody with brain damage, having my brain...scrubbed, just like horrified me *too much* beyond the intent of the film. It got into some things that really scare me, as it turns out, but they weren't thinking of folks like me when they made it, obviously.

Lost in Translation so perfectly captured a certain mood: the intensity of a temporary friendship, the perfection of those few stolen days, the certainty of loss, all wrapped up in both the wonder and the overwhelmingness of being adrift in a foreign country. It felt like it was made for me.

Eternal Sunshine hit me just as hard, for different reasons, and I can't be any more rational about than I can be rational about Lost in Translation. On the other hand, I liked Garden State a lot, but it never grabbed me the way the other two did, partly because I thought Natalie Portman's character was way more annoying than charming.

What did you think of Before Sunset, Tep? Because I thought it was one of the most perfect movies I'd ever seen -- it was just so pure, nothing but two people walking and talking for 80 minutes in real time.

LiT is a movie that hit me so hard I can hardly bear to hear people say anything bad about it. ESotSM wasn't quite that bad, but I love it all the same.

(I liked Garden State very much, but I have such affection for its existance as Zach Braff's first "real" movie that any reaction I may have had for it on its own terms is lost.)

I've been listening to the commentary on the Scrubs DVDs, and it's so weird to hear the writers/producers talking about how the reason they cast Zach is because they wanted a total nobody who would be in over his head trying to carry a television show. But he was such a superstar in college -- one of those people you just know is going to be a huge success, because he's That Good -- that thinking of casting him because of his anonymity isn't something my brain will properly process.