Reviews
The Terminal (2004)
Stupid! Pointless! Unbelievable
What a waste of time! I know that Spielberg wants to try uplifting, positive "people" pictures, but this doesn't do it. The premise is so improbable. If this really have happened, the moment that someone realized Tom Hank's plight, the TV Nightly News would've been all over this. The ACLU would've represented Hank's character and he'd been let into America within days.
There's lots of CUTE moments and weird characters, you could see Spielberg trying to flex his Frank Capra fingers, but he doesn't quite get it. Spielberg is still a great visualizer, but he needs to pick better scripts. Also, Catherine Zeta Jones' character is so unbelievable, she's TOO flaky. Stanley Tucci's character is so one dimensional: he's too selfish, too cold, too vengeful.
Maybe Spielberg was trying to create a light fable about waiting in limbo and the great people you meet there. But as I watched this film, I felt that my whole life was in limbo, waiting for this film to end.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Ho hum
I thought that the film was cute and entertaining, but no where near "Best Picture" caliber. It reminded me of the films of Francois Truffaut, especially "Jules and Jim" without the death. It rambled on without rhyme or reason and we had some interesting glimpses of Tokyo and this couple but never really knew them. It was a slice of life but with no real story. Bill Murray was great considering what he had to work with, which was very little character development.
I was in Tokyo for a year and a half and I was disappointed at how little Sophia Coppola used the strangeness of Tokyo. She could have commented on capsule hotels, love hotels, porno comics, the red light district in Shinjuku, the Harajuku rock 'n roll weekends, the Pachinko parlors, finding a Gelson's type store that sold American and European foods (this was the only place I could find Campbell soup, Taco meat mix and artichokes!), and Denny's where I could get a real American breakfast. Beware of hotel restaurants where they have sausages made from fish!
There's still a wealth of stories to be had of a gaijin in Tokyo, I wish Sophia made a good one.
Go for Broke! (1951)
A Japanese-American (Sansei) Point of View
Being a third generation Japanese-American (Sansei), and having my parents interned in the camps, this movie has a special place in my heart. Robert Pirosh did an incredible job in getting so much information about the Japanese- American situation: the camps, the differences between the Hawaiian and State- side Japanese (Kotonks and Kanakas), the different views of the war and even using a Japanese curse word as a password! I was so impressed and pleased with the results.
The movie follows the exploits of the 442, the first all-Nisei (Japanese- American) Regimental combat team in WWII. In early 1942, all the Japanese- Americans in California, Seattle, Oregon and Hawaii were uprooted from their homes and put into camps. All the volunteers were from the 10 internment camps throughout the western states. They felt that this was the only way to prove to the U. S. that they were as patriotic as anybody else, in fact most of them were American Citizens! Since they had nothing to lose, but their lives, their motto was "GO FOR BROKE!" and that's what they did. They are today the most decorated battalion in the history of the U.S. military and proved something that they shouldn't have to be proved, that they were Americans!
Van Johnson is used as the "white man" foil, to show how the rest of the country looked at the Japanese-American, and he does a great job. He starts off as a bigot, but as he begins to understand and respect his troops, he becomes one of them. There's a funny scene where one of his men call him "BAKATARE",
which is a curse word close to "Damn, stupid...." and tells him that the soldier is being very polite, he's bowing as he says this. This film has everything: humor, action, great characters and... truth!