‘N, to confuse you, because it could be either IN or AND. That was part of the “slang” lesson I taught today, employed for confounding purposes.
A friend somewhat indirectly recommended that I watch the Bill Murray movie Lost in Translation. I knew before that it was a very well-received and critically applauded film; academic pedagogy has even swept it up into its bookshelves and references across multiple disciplines (in the same way, I guess, that Paul Virilio would talk about Mad Max.) (Yay if you understood that.)
I’m about half an hour into it and so far I can say this:
Consider avoiding this film if you are a Westerner currently stuck in the East. Some of the frustrations it portrays will hit a little too close to home.
Seriously consider not watching this film if you are an Asian-American stuck in the East. Those frustrations will be there, but further nettling will be how the film uses the distinct border of cultures and races as an object of ridicule (even though it aspires to inspect it, it approaches it with a gaze through ludicrous-colored glasses.) A bored looking Bill Murray standing in an elevator, a head taller than all the Asians surrounding him in it, a bored looking Bill Murray snarkily picking at his translators’ English mistakes, and a bored looking Bill Murray trying to get rid of a histrionic Asian escort lady with a language lisp are scenes that will just frustrate you even more if you are also yellow and American because while you also confounded by these differences, you can’t mock them because that would be mocking a part of yourself too. Between feeling too alien for one team and too betrayed by another, I wonder if this movie is going to get any better in the next half.
