Neurotech - the weblog of Luke Reeves

It sure was. Actually, I think I don’t like this movie. Robin, Athena and I watched it last night and Robin was the only one that came out with a good experience. Personally, I felt this movie was like a twenty- to thirty-minute love story, with an hour and a half of Japanese scenery smothering it.

I’d love to see Bill Murray and what’s-her-name in a full story together. I can dig that. I’d also like to see a full length movie-format documentary on Japan. But this thing felt like Coppola was unsatisfied with competing in either the short film or documentary category at Cannes or Sundance and said, “Fuck it! Let’s just make both!”

Now if the painfully overwhelming setting of Tokyo and other small parts of Japan actually had anything to do with the plot, right on, that’d be cool. It didn’t though; this movie could have easily taken place in any city on the planet. They touched a little on Japanese culture - and almost every part they touched on was pretty damned insulting to Japanese people. They make fun of the fact that the Japanese mix up the “R” and “L” phonemes while speaking English - so the girl actually asks Murray why this is. He sloughs it off and says it’s for a joke.

So most little cultural tidbits were like this - show us really crazy Japanese stuff without explaining any of it (like a freaky talk show host, painful translators, etc), and to make the audience laugh and forget that this is pretty much the Simpsons episode where Homer almost cheats on his wife.

I’ll probably watch it again on the movie network or something, but maybe with the volume muted. It might be better that way.

I don’t want to sound like a total cynical asshole, which I usually am. So please refer to my entry from a couple days ago where I actually a bunch of movies high praise.