The Christian Science Monitor examines why Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation is getting a cool reception in Tokyo, the city in which it is set.

But the film is under attack for cultural bias, and for maximizing its humor by depicting Japanese as robotic and cartoon-like. The question is: to what degree is the film insensitive - and to what extent is this the kind of "poking fun" that some ethnic groups now ignore?

Until now, none of these voices or questions has come from Japan. Indeed, while "Lost in Translation" opened all over the world last fall, it opened in image-conscious Tokyo only last weekend. Some sources say this is deliberate. Japanese decorum on culturally sensitive matters precludes angry protest or high-volume misgivings about images that might be considered unfair or "unpleasant," to use a local reviewer's term. But it is telling that the Academy-award-winning "valentine" can be seen here only in a small 300-seat theater in Shibuya, and critics warn that the film may hurt the feelings of ordinary Japanese.

During a recent publicity junket in Japan, one reporter asked Coppola why she set the film in Japan, asking 'aren't there lonely people everywhere?'. There are of course, but there's something to be said for setting your characters in an environment where the language - both verbal and written - is virtually undecipherable to you and where the customs and norms differ so greatly from your own country's. While I can see why some people might think Coppola's portrayal of the Japanese sometimes wandered towards satire, I don't think it was meant to be disrespectful and ultimately it's not a film about being a stranger in a strange land, but rather a study on loneliness, love and loss.

On that note, we saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Saturday and it left me amazed in a very sad, melancholy sort of way.

Interestingly, a Salon reviewer accuses the film of cloaking itself in movie gimmickry as a way to avoid heartfelt emotion but I completely disagree with that assessment. This is one of the most emotional films I've seen in a long time. It depicts, honestly, what's it's like to suffer at the hands of memory and what it's like to realize you've lost - or are losing - something dear to you. Sure, that sounds so simple and it is, at least in part, the way that Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman tell this story that makes it provocative. But even if you stripped away all the technical tricks, you'd still have something very powerful. Indeed, I could almost see this being presented as a stage play with props that played around with the concepts of scale and artifice and what we keep locked in the recesses of our minds. Also, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are great and although have liked Winslet in almost everything I've seen her in, I rarely like Carrey - I definitely left the theater impressed with his quiet, subtle take on what it means to be confused, disappointed, lonely and sometimes hopeful. A highly recommended film and I'm planning to see it again very soon.

Of course this is why I never see as many films as I plan to - I find one film that I love and then see it repeatedly.

Oh well....anyway, I have homework to finish and I've got one of the playoff games on (with the volume muted) and outside the cars are making that nice wheels-splashing-through-rain sound so I think I'll go enjoy the quiet now.