Cinema Experts

“Everyone in my family is in the film business; I knew I wanted to be creative and it was important in my family to be artistic.”
Coppola began her career as an infant making several background appearances in her father's films. The most well-known of these early roles is her appearance in The Godfather as the baby boy in the christening scene.
Frankenweenie (1984) was the first film she performed in that was not associated with her father. However, it often goes unnoticed due to her stage-name "Domino" which she adopted at the time because she thought it was glamorous.
Her best known role is Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990), a role for which she was cast at the last minute after Winona Ryder fell ill. This heavily criticized performance (for which she received the award of "Worst New Star" in the 1990 Golden Raspberry Awards) practically ended her acting career, save for appearances in the independent film Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992) and in the background of films by her friends and family. In 1999, she appeared as a handmaiden in George Lucas' Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).
She can also be seen in several music videos from the 1990s, appearing briefly in Madonna's video for Deeper and Deeper in 1992 and went on to play a gymnast in the 1997 video for "Elektrobank" by the Chemical Brothers, which was directed by her future husband Spike Jonze.
Coppola is now better known as a successful film director. Her first three films were Lick the Star (1998), The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in Translation (2003). Lost in Translation won the Academy Award for original screenplay and three Golden Globe Awards including Best Picture. With her Oscar nomination for Best Director (for Lost in Translation), Coppola became the first American woman and third woman to receive an Oscar nomination for film direction. Her win for best original screenplay made her a third-generation Oscar winner. In 2004, Coppola was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Coppola's most recent film is the biopic Marie Antoinette, adapted from the biography by British historian Lady Antonia Fraser. Kirsten Dunst plays the title character who marries King Louis XVI. It débuted at the Cannes Film Festival where, despite boos in the audience, it received a standing ovation. Critics were divided.
Coppola has often been lauded as a pop culture icon within the indie music/film communities, in Paris and Tokyo especially. Her fashion sense was always apparent, and as a child she stayed in the wardrobe department of her father's films. In 2002 fashion designer Marc Jacobs handpicked the actress/director to be the face of his house's fragrance.

“Let's never come here again because it will never be as much fun.”
People who know me know I love movies and frequently ask me, “What's your favorite?” Of course I never have a single answer. When I used to think of what made a good movie, I would look at a movie from all aspects: direction, cinematography, editing, acting, story etc. The sum of all these parts make up the whole, and are also what lead me to my opinion of a film...
Then came Lost in Translation.
The first time I watched this movie, I felt a strange sense of depression that lasted for a few days, but I couldn't put my finger on why. I watched it again and again, and felt the same way each time.
Superficially, Lost in Translation is a movie about culture shock, but the experience of Westerners in Tokyo is a metaphor for more existential themes of alienation, loneliness, and the desire for companionship. The film explores these themes against the background of the modern Japanese cityscape.
People like Bob and Charlotte really exist, and they really do meet up in very similar situations. After a week, they must go their separate ways, he to his family and activities of his kids, she to wait for her husband and figure out how to get out of the rut. We sense that he does not love her they way she needs and we wonder what will happen.
The movie takes a while to truly glean out the deep-seated motivations of both of its characters, but they become fully-realized in a marvellous scene where Bob and Charlotte lay fully-clothed in bed together. Here, they handle the 'big' questions in life, and not "Where did you go to college?" or "What did you want to be when you were little?" but "What is my purpose?" and "Does marriage get easier?" I was amazed at the honesty of the character's responses. Bob relates to Charlotte the experience of having children and the ongoing struggles of marriage, but a tinge of fear and apprehension runs through his speech. Charlotte hasn't really figured things out for herself yet - she says she's tried just about everything but hasn't found that niche. Coppola's screenplay takes these two separate beings, far apart in age and experiences, and makes a profound statement - both are in the same exact emotional limbo. Charlotte is confused and worried, but Bob is regretful and washed-up. In a way, these two are some form of deeply odd soul-mates. That is the heart and soul of Coppola's amazing work.
How many of you can relate to and have actually been that guy/girl on business, in the hotel in some foreign city, happily married yet feeling alone and beaten by life's banality? How many of us have been tempted in that very situation, to stray from the confines of moral adherence for the lure of a forbidden, if fleeting, joy? How many have felt that tingle- that spark- when a stranger smiles and you think, "you know, in another life..."?
Think of the last movie that really made you think, that had such a great influence on you that it somehow changed your life, even for the littlest bit. That, to you, is a great movie... 10/10