We’re always reading in the movie industry press about how this big movie is vying against that big movie for attention on the same weekend, and how the weekends are packed with too many good movies. That’s certainly true over the summer, when I can’t see nearly all of the good movies I want to see. But for the last few weeks the movie reviews are boring as wheat chaff, because almost nothing really notable has opened. You wonder why they don’t save one or two of the “summer” movies to open now when there’s a dry spell and it could really clean up, rather than mopping up the leftover patrons who aren’t attending “Finding Nemo.”

But now comes “Lost In Translation.” I had heard absolutely nothing about this movie and haven’t seen an ad for it, but last Friday I checked out the trailer on Apple’s trailer site and was blown away. Bill Murray plays an American actor stuck in Japan to film some whiskey ads. It looks both funny and touching, and I can tell from this two minute preview that Murry puts in one heck of an acting job. Today Roger Ebert gives it four stars. (I don’t trust Ebert’s rating system, but his comments are often useful.) More importantly, it has a 93% approval rating on the Tomatometer, and it’s been a long time since a movie I wanted to see had that kind of approval!

I think this will be one to check out, and I wanted to bring it to the attention of others who may not have heard about it. Give the trailer a look, at least.