The Photographer of The Lost

This inspirational memoir, told with uncensored Southern wit and guidance, recounts the story of a Hollywood film executive who journeys through the cosmic wilderness and, against all odds, discovers psychic superpowers that radically transform her life.

Like a good dream, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation envelops you with an aura of fantastic light, moody sound, head-turning love, and a feeling of déjà vu, even though you've probably never been to this neon-fused version of Tokyo. Certainly Bob Harris has not. The 50-ish actor has signed on for big money shooting whiskey ads instead of doing something good for his career or his long-distance family. Jetlagged, helplessly lost with his Japanese-speaking director, and out of sync with the metropolis, Harris (Bill Murray, never better) befriends the married but lovelorn 25-year-old Charlotte (played with heaps of poise by 18-year-old Scarlett Johansson). Even before her photographer husband all but abandons her, she is adrift like Harris but in a total entrapment of youth. How Charlotte and Bill discover they are soul mates will be cherished for years to come. Written and directed by Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), the film is far more atmospheric than plot-driven: we whiz through Tokyo parties, karaoke bars, and odd nightlife, always ending up in the impossibly posh hotel where the two are staying. The wisps of bittersweet loneliness of Bill and Charlotte are handled smartly and romantically, but unlike modern studio films, this isn't a May-November fling film. Surely and steadily, the film ends on a much-talked-about grace note, which may burn some, yet awards film lovers who "always had Paris" with another cinematic destination of the heart. –Doug Thomas

Now in its 2nd Season, the story of archaeology fascinates both laymen and professionals. In these installments we accompany Ernst Herzfeld on his last expedition to Persepolis in 1923; we travel to Mexico with the man who cracked the code of the Aztec calendar; we visit the greatest pre-industrial city on earth at Angkor; we join Isidoro Falchi as he discovers proof of the existence of the Etruscans; and we watch Alfred Merlin found the discipline of marine archaeology when he discovers shipwrecks in the Mediterranean..

Hasaan’s 1965 Atlantic recordings, restored from long-lost acetate copies of the sessions.