This movie was great the first time I saw it, when it was called "Lost in Translation." But somehow Bill Murray turned into an eccentric black man played by Morgan Freeman, Scarlett Johansson turned into a cranky Latino woman played by Paz Vega, and Tokyo, Japan turned into Carson, California. Instead of meaningful conversations and silence we enjoyed in Translation, we get meaningless blabbering in 10 Items that verges on annoying. Instead of characters that were pensive and introspective as in Translation, we get characters that spew pointless advice on topics they have no clue about. How can a character that wears hundred dollar T-shirts and has never been inside a Target department store expect to give advice to a working-class woman on how to prepare for a job interview as an administrative assistant? Don't think that stops him. If he isn't giving her clothing advice, he's telling her what she should eat. The most annoying part of the movie for me was how supposedly they were in a hurry to make an appointment, and yet the characters keep finding time to run another errand, be it washing the car, stopping at Arby's, or just laying around to list off their 10 Items or Less lists of things they love and hate. I kept wanting to yell at them saying, "Didn't you say you had somewhere to be? What the heck are doing? A minute ago you were practically late, now you're eating roast beef and pondering your lives!" Until I saw this movie, I never truly understood how something could "insist upon itself," but I think this movie does exactly that, and undeservedly so. The dialogue makes the characters cheesy and unsympathetic
with the exception that I felt sorry for both of the actors for having signed onto this project.
Review of 10 Items or Less
