Healthy Living Books DVD
welcome to the Healthy Living Bookshop, here you will find a great resource for DVD for the whole family.
DVD : Rain Man [1989] .
Rating: 
- Cruise control with 246 tooth-picks
Take away Hoffman, and the often underrated Cruise, and you have a fairly mediocre, long winded and somewhat boring story. To some degree, this is because the film is a bit too pre-occupied with showcasing some of the inadvertent talents of an autistic person. But then again, somehow I feel that would have been fine, had the screen-writers ditched the backdrop of a film (Cruise in financial trouble and needs the inheritance money). Worse still, the backdrop made the final 30 minutes extremely predictable (money isn't everything... blood is thicker than water... blah blah blah).
PS. It probably deserves 4 stars, and Tom Cruise deserved the oscar.
Rating:
- Let's talk straight
Dustin Hoffman's performance as the autistic man earns the two stars I've given this film. Otherwise, however, I find it objectionable. It is true that, for reasons still unknown, there are so-called idiots savants, whose disability in one area is balanced out by some splendid capacity in another.
In reality, such abilities are extremely rare. Films such as Rain Man tend to propagate the notion that a defect in one area will have some compensation in another. The truth is that Nature's not as nice as that, far from it. And from that comes disappointment in a disabled person's relatives.
I am disabled myself - with epilepsy, not autism - and am familiar and/or fluent with several languages, including early Greek. Epilepsy, however, didn't compensate by granting me that fluency. I just happened to have an interest in language from early years, before epilepsy appeared, and spent much of my time working in language - because epilepsy (or rather, people who didn't like epilepsy) prevented me from doing so much else. For safety's sake, I couldn't even ride a bike or learn to drive. That would be both illegal and possibly suicidal. So there's the appearance of a compensating, special ability from nature. It's not: it's the need to find some way of using existing abilities in time I would spend doing other things without disability. I believe I can confidently make this statement for almost all other disabled people.
Granted, idiots savants do exist, and no-one knows how or why. But films such as this don't give the true picture: just how rare this characteristic is. Where it does score points, however, is in depicting at least some of the negative side of at least this disability: its sheer nuisance capacity. A truer picture of the general attitude to disability (acquired in this case) is in the outstanding, 'Born on The Fourth of July', a film worth watching by anyone thinking of enlisting, and not least in the present day. That's the reality of the matter, not the cheering, admiring crowds.
Rating:
- Boo's Cruise
Here again we see Satans felcher Tom Cruise playing a handicapped character looking after unorthodox genius Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman steals the show with his approach to his character's quirky nature, whereas Cruise just fluffs it all up with weak and insensitive portrayal of a shallow and vacous differently special person. Again, what with the subject matter of the film, it is unlikely that Cruise's character will have a death scene owing to the schmaltz factor inherent with these kind of films. Still, if it makes money. Notice the size of Cruise face in relation to the quality of the film? An oscar for Hoffman and yet again no awards for Tom Cruise and his very poor ability to pretend that the situation he is in is real. Story is okay, camera cuts a little bit amateur at times and sound editing is brutal. Generally a good film but ruined Cruise's involvement.
Rating:
- I Have To Do This Now...
I put off watching this film, having bought it, because I thought that a couple of hours of two brothers crossing the USA (and one of them autistic at that) would be a dreadful bore. The same feelings on the part of film producers meant that Rain Man nearly never got made. I was wrong and so were they. This is a brilliant film. I agree that the very end is a little so-so, but the other two hours or so is gripping, moving and interesting in its exposition (through the superb acting of Dustin Hoffman) of the autistic state or one form of it. Don't be put off. Watch this.
Rating: - A must see
My favourite movie. Hoffman is brilliant, Cruise is at his most mature. A brilliant, brilliant movie.
- Cruise control with 246 tooth-picksTake away Hoffman, and the often underrated Cruise, and you have a fairly mediocre, long winded and somewhat boring story. To some degree, this is because the film is a bit too pre-occupied with showcasing some of the inadvertent talents of an autistic person. But then again, somehow I feel that would have been fine, had the screen-writers ditched the backdrop of a film (Cruise in financial trouble and needs the inheritance money). Worse still, the backdrop made the final 30 minutes extremely predictable (money isn't everything... blood is thicker than water... blah blah blah).
PS. It probably deserves 4 stars, and Tom Cruise deserved the oscar.
Rating:
- Let's talk straightDustin Hoffman's performance as the autistic man earns the two stars I've given this film. Otherwise, however, I find it objectionable. It is true that, for reasons still unknown, there are so-called idiots savants, whose disability in one area is balanced out by some splendid capacity in another.
In reality, such abilities are extremely rare. Films such as Rain Man tend to propagate the notion that a defect in one area will have some compensation in another. The truth is that Nature's not as nice as that, far from it. And from that comes disappointment in a disabled person's relatives.
I am disabled myself - with epilepsy, not autism - and am familiar and/or fluent with several languages, including early Greek. Epilepsy, however, didn't compensate by granting me that fluency. I just happened to have an interest in language from early years, before epilepsy appeared, and spent much of my time working in language - because epilepsy (or rather, people who didn't like epilepsy) prevented me from doing so much else. For safety's sake, I couldn't even ride a bike or learn to drive. That would be both illegal and possibly suicidal. So there's the appearance of a compensating, special ability from nature. It's not: it's the need to find some way of using existing abilities in time I would spend doing other things without disability. I believe I can confidently make this statement for almost all other disabled people.
Granted, idiots savants do exist, and no-one knows how or why. But films such as this don't give the true picture: just how rare this characteristic is. Where it does score points, however, is in depicting at least some of the negative side of at least this disability: its sheer nuisance capacity. A truer picture of the general attitude to disability (acquired in this case) is in the outstanding, 'Born on The Fourth of July', a film worth watching by anyone thinking of enlisting, and not least in the present day. That's the reality of the matter, not the cheering, admiring crowds.
Rating:
- Boo's CruiseHere again we see Satans felcher Tom Cruise playing a handicapped character looking after unorthodox genius Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman steals the show with his approach to his character's quirky nature, whereas Cruise just fluffs it all up with weak and insensitive portrayal of a shallow and vacous differently special person. Again, what with the subject matter of the film, it is unlikely that Cruise's character will have a death scene owing to the schmaltz factor inherent with these kind of films. Still, if it makes money. Notice the size of Cruise face in relation to the quality of the film? An oscar for Hoffman and yet again no awards for Tom Cruise and his very poor ability to pretend that the situation he is in is real. Story is okay, camera cuts a little bit amateur at times and sound editing is brutal. Generally a good film but ruined Cruise's involvement.
Rating:
- I Have To Do This Now...I put off watching this film, having bought it, because I thought that a couple of hours of two brothers crossing the USA (and one of them autistic at that) would be a dreadful bore. The same feelings on the part of film producers meant that Rain Man nearly never got made. I was wrong and so were they. This is a brilliant film. I agree that the very end is a little so-so, but the other two hours or so is gripping, moving and interesting in its exposition (through the superb acting of Dustin Hoffman) of the autistic state or one form of it. Don't be put off. Watch this.
Rating:
- A must seeMy favourite movie. Hoffman is brilliant, Cruise is at his most mature. A brilliant, brilliant movie.
We have also partnered with Amazon and are able to provide a very wide selection of New and Used DVD for sale. Please browse our extensive collection and take advantage of our great discounts and savings offered. DVD : Rain Man [1989]
