I'm beginning to think that I can no longer judge a movie. So many movies that have been recommended or highly touted in the media come across as crap to me. Double case in point this weekend from two different ends of the spectrum. Tom was out for the weekend and he brought Wedding Crashers. Mildly funny, but certainly not the uproarious comedy I was led to believe. Another movie that I saw this weekend was Lost in Translation. Again, led to expect great things. It certainly had the Oscar hype it was nominated for four and actually won one. Not impressed. Not only did I not find any connection or reason to care about any of the characters, the general implausibility left me wondering what the casting director was sniffing throughout the picture. At what point could a couple as completely different as Giovanni Ribisi and Scarlett Johansson end up being married? He spends part of the movie rubbing in the fact that she has an ivy league education and yet she sits in a hotel room all day instead of exploring the culture. Most people would kill for the chance to be left alone in a new culture. Sure, I guess I can believe that if they were married she'd want to spend some time with him, but there's sightseeing out the wazoo for someone who's not been to that particular place. I'm also wholly unimpressed with Sofia Coppola's writing. The lack of coherent narrative thread might have been the point of the movie, but it was so distracting, I almost didn't care to finish.
So, maybe I have lost my ability to judge a good movie. Or, maybe there are no more good movies? Who knows?