Sofia Coppola'sLost in Translation ranks highly on my favourite films list from the past decade, but I'm concerned that her new movie
Somewhere (
Dec, Focus Features), looks something like a tonal sequel. There's the same mentor/student dichotomy in two leads finding themselves connecting in a hotel (this time the relationship between a father & daughter), the same young girl who is in awe of a powerful but damaged celebrity in retreat, the same freestyle direction with a hipster soundtrack. Presumably it will hit the same 'where are we going in life' emotional beats and there's at least five scenes I recognise from the the Tokyo set movie; (Guitar Hero = Murray/Johansson karaoke, swimming pool = swimming pool, Dorff looking awkward on stage = Murray on the chat show, lots of sleeping and looking aimlessly in bed, etc). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOJHhwHPw7g&feature=player_embedded I'm not saying I'm not interested, because I truly am. The movie looks good, I'm just worried that I might have seen this movie already with better actors, a better setup and location. Nice to see
Stephen Dorff, a pretty obscure C-list actor in undoubtedly his biggest role to date in a movie that by all intents and purposes will be fighting for Oscar recognition. He's no Bill Murray and the young
Elle Fanning is no Scarlett Johansson either, but if they create 1/3rd of the same chemistry, then this movie will work.
Anyway as much as I loved
Lost in Translation, there's no mistakening that I loathed
Marie Antionette - one of the most boring feature films of 2006. Nicely shot, with a great colour scheme and poster campaign but wow... was that a boring movie with a confused modern period setting. The trailer for
Somewhere possibly hints at a movie that may be one-note without two good actors, but we'll see.
Michelle Monaghan and
Benicio Del Toro support.