Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

It was the 77th Annual Kentucky Fried Oscars, as Chris Rock acknowledged in a bewildered moment of real clarity, the Oscar ceremonies were being processed for television so heartlessly, they may as well hand them out in the parking lot or through a drive up window.

Fortunately here were classier moments, Kurosawa was mentioned by Sidney Lumet and the great theme by Elmer Bernstein from The Magnificent Seven based on Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai was encored by the orchestra. Million Dollar Baby winner Clint Eastwood owes his early Fistfull of Dollars to Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.

As an English speaker, if you’d like to experience numerous Lost In Translation laughs, check out the DVD of Kurosawa’s 1948 Drunken Angel. The ailing derelict gangster, played by K’s fave Tishiro Mifune, ends up in a delirious knife fight while falling and flailing around in spilled paint. There is an overall impression of polluted souls, and the outstandingly bad English translations makes the corrupted effect even better.