Rain Man (1988)

I came across this movie by accident. I was dozing off this afternoon and suddenly I caught a couple of familiar faces on the screen. It was the HBO Signature playing Rain Man (1988).

A simple search later provided me with the awards this film had won:
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Picture;
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Dustin Hoffman);
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Director;
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Writing, Original Screenplay;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Art Direction, Set Decoration;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Best Cinematography;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Best Film Editing;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Best Music, Original Score;
- The People Choice's Award as The Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture.

You can find the other information including the synopsis here but believe me, you would want to watch this movie by yourselves.

The plot of this movie was not very complicated. After all, it's family oriented. The story went like this: Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise) was the prodigal son that never returned. Too bad for him because his father then removed his name from his shocking three-million-dollar will. The estate went to Raymond Babbit (Dustin Hoffman), the autistic-(but also remarkably genius)-elder-brother Charlie never knew he had. In a quest to claim his share, Charlie then kidnapped Raymond from his mental facility and took him on a 7-day-road-trip in which both of the brothers developed a connection so much deeper than what the doctors and psychologists had ever developed in the past 20 years.

What happened in the end was predictable although not quite a Hollywood style happy ending.

There are several trivia in this movie worth mentioning:
- In this movie, you can see the young and handsome Tom Cruise dancing with Dustin Hoffman with the ever-wonderful Las Vegas cityscape and lights as the background;
- Raymond had always thought that Charlie called him Rain Man (instead of Raymond);
- Raymond Babbit (like many other autistic children) had potentials. He was a genius mathematician and he had a photographic memory. Find more about autism here.
- Dustin Hoffman's son and the movie director (Barry Levinson) appeared as cameo;
- Again, you can see the young and handsome Tom Cruise (it's freaking 22 years ago after all and he's freaking young and handsome);
- You can find more trivia here, but those only made sense if you have watched the movie.

In the end, I recommended this movie very much. I was so touched by watching it, not to mention my logic was awed by the superb acting of Dustin Hoffman. Tom Cruise was an eye pleaser (I'm NOT gay, friends) and his acting was very good as well. But what's most important was that it reminded me again what family's really worth. As Lilo's father always said, "Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind."

I watch, I talk. Feel free to watch and talk by yourself.