LOS ANGELES: By most accounts, it was even bigger than the premiere. Lost in Translation, which counts a best-picture bid among its four Oscar nominations, debuted on DVD on February 3 with a sushi and karaoke party reminiscent of the Tokyo bar where the lonely Americans Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson forged their semi-romantic friendship.

“The thing that was great for me was just to make the movie, to see it finished, and make the movie that I had in my mind. So all of this is great, but not at all what I’d have guessed,” writer-director Sofia Coppola said.

Coppola’s film debuted to critical acclaim in September, and slowly became a box-office hit that has held its own during awards season against The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Her father, an Oscar winner for The Godfather: Part II and a directing nominee for each film in the trilogy, said he had this advice for her during the Academy Awards race: “Accept it all with a sense of honour and tradition.”