Rain Man

Roger Ebert started his review out by saying, “Is it possible to have a relationship with an autistic person? Is it possible to have a relationship with a cat? I do not intend the comparison to be demeaning to the autistic; I am simply trying to get at something. I have useful relationships with both of my cats, and they are important to me. But I never know what the cats are thinking.”

That is exactly the issue that Charlie Babbitt, played by Tom Cruise, comes across in “Rain Man,” released in 1988. His brother, Raymond, played by Dustin Hoffman, is “high-level” autistic. He has excellent conversation skills, a set schedule, knows baseball statistics, memorizes dinner menus and gets distressed when anything messes up his schedule. He can also count 49 spilled toothpicks with a blink of an eye and calculate square roots instantly. But what is he thinking? There is a scene in “Rain Man” that develops every frustration that Charlie feels about Raymond, a part when he says, “I know there has to be somebody inside there!” Who is it and where? “Rain Man” is so intriguing because it doesn’t ask every question with emotional but unlikely answers. Ebert noted, “This is not a movie like "Charly" in which there is a miracle cure.”

“Rain Man” works brilliantly inside Raymond’s limitations because it is a movie about limitations, mostly Charlie’s own limited habit to love people in his life, or to see things from their point of view. Ebert said, “As the film opens, we see Charlie frantically trying to juggle his way out of a crisis in his Los Angeles business, which seems to consist of selling expensive imported automobiles out of his hip pocket. He is driven, unhappy, a workaholic.” One day he hears that his father – a man that he has never talked to in years – has died back East. When he reads the will, he finds out that he was given nothing (including the luxurious 1949 Buick Roadmaster), and his father’s $3 million fortune has gone into a trust.

Who is the trust for? After going through some investigation, Charlie surprisingly finds out that it goes to support an older brother he never knew he had – an autistic brother who is in an institution for years. Ebert noted, “Visiting Raymond at the home where he lives, Charlie finds a methodical, mechani cal, flat-voiced middle-age man who "definitely" knows things, such as that tapioca pudding is "definitely" on the menu, and that his favorite TV program is "definitely" about to come on the air.”

“Rain Man” goes through this discovery with a story line that is as old as time. Livid that he was not even a part of the will, Charlie steals Raymond from the institute and promises to bring him to live in California. However, Raymond will not get on the plane (he “definitely” tells the dates and fatalities of every airline’s most recent accident). That makes Charlie put Raymond in shotgun of the 1949 Buick and they drive off on a cross-country journey of discovery.

Ebert credits, “It is an old formula, but a serviceable one, using shots of the car against the sunset as punctuation. The two brothers meet genuine actual Americans on the road, of course, and have strange adventures, of course. And although we have seen this structure in dozens of other movies, it is new this time because for Raymond it is definitely not a voyage of discovery.”

Everything changes in the movie except for Raymond. In a roadside diner in their drive, he still willfully demands the routines of the dining room in the place he has stayed at: The maple syrup is “definitely” supposed to be on the table before the pancakes are given. At first, Charlie doesn’t want to accept anything that Raymond demands and gets irritated at what looks like almost malign difficulty. Eventually, toward the end of the movie, he realizes that he loves his brother, and that love involves accepting him as autistic.

“Rain Man” is a movie that Hoffman and Cruise were determined to bring to the screen for a long time. Barry Levinson came on board after three previous directors refused to be a part of the movie.

Obviously, the problem was Raymond. Ebert asks, “If fiction is about change, then how can you make a movie about a man who cannot change, whose whole life is anchored and defended by routine?” Few actors could actually embody this type of role, and fewer could still take in and even entertain us with their performance, but Hoffman does it once again that he almost looks like he can take on impossible acting challenges. “You want taller” he asks in the audition scene in “Tootsie.” “I can play taller. You want shorter? I can play shorter. You want a tomato?” And he can play autistic.

Ebert credited, “At the end of "Rain Man," I felt a certain love for Raymond, the Hoffman character. I don't know quite how Hoffman got me to do it.”

Ebert goes on to say, “He does not play cute, or lovable, or pathetic. He is matter-of-fact, straight down the middle, uninflected, unmoved, uncomprehending in all of his scenes - except when his routine is disrupted, when he grows disturbed until it is restored. And yet I could believe that the Cruise character was beginning to love him, because that was how I felt, too.”

Ebert admitted, “I loved him for what he was, not for what he was not, or could not be.”

The one who actually does change is Charlie, who starts the film as a me-first luxury person, a wannabe President Donald Trump without an ounce of credit. By the end of the film Charlie learns how to pay attention, how to listen and how to be at least a little patient sometimes. He does not go through a spiritual change. He just starts to feel things that are more important than car selling. He is helped in this change by his girlfriend, Susanna, played by Valeria Golino, a Latina who loves him but depressed that he never changes.

By the end of “Rain Man,” what have we learned? Ebert says, “I think the film is about acceptance. Charlie Babbitt's first appearance in the movie has him wheeling and dealing in the face of imminent ruin, trying to control his life and the lives of others by blind, arrogant willpower. What Raymond teaches him is that he can relax, because try as he might, he will always be powerless over other people. They will do just about what they choose to do, no matter how loud Charlie Babbitt screams.” Raymond teaches Charlie so much about acceptance, even if it is something he knows alone.

Hands down, this is another one of my favorite movies and, quite possibly, the best role Dustin Hoffman has ever done. He really embodies this role so much that you actually feel like he has studied and been with autistic people of all levels when he was preparing for this role. I actually studied autism for a public speaking class I took in college, and he did it perfectly. Near the end when Hoffman puts his head on Cruise's, that part was done in one take and Hoffman went off script and improvised that part. Definitely see this if you haven’t, I cannot do the film justice with my review.

Thank you for joining in on “Dustin Hoffman Month.” I hope all of you enjoyed my reviews as much as I have. Stay tuned next month for more reviews.”

Death of a Salesman

Rumor has it that every night Death of a Salesman is performed somewhere around this planet. It has connected with the hearts and minds of everyone all over. Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat said in their review, “While critics have debated whether or not the play is a tragedy, a piercing social commentary, an affirmation of the American spirit, or a depiction of the salesman's life, individuals around the world have been emotionally touched and intellectually challenged by the drama's poignant portrait of human beings just like themselves.”

Famous playwright, Arthur Miller, won a Pulitzer Prize for this play, which premiered in 1949 and won both a Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Brussat noted, “The drama was made into a film in 1951, has been translated into 29 languages, and is a staple item in the repertoire of professional touring companies around the globe.” This film is directed by Volker Schlondorff and originally broadcasted on CBS Television in 1985.

Willy Loman, played by Dustin Hoffman, is a dedicated salesman who after 34 years in his job has been taken off salary and forced to work only for commission. He is really depressed and humiliated by this turn of events and understandably concerned about his financial future.

Willie’s youngest, Happy, played by Stephen Lang, is kind of successful in business. His other son, Biff, played by John Malkovich, has tried different ongoing jobs over the years and is now home again, a shattered man at 34. He is annoyed of Willie’s high standards for him and still furious over the dark secret he found about Willie years ago.

Willie’s long-suffering and beloved wife, Linda, played by Kate Reid, tries to reconcile the fight between Biff and Willie, but the hatreds are skin deep for both of them. When Willy is fired from his job, Charley, played by Charles Durning, a friend of many years and neighbor, gives him a job opportunity but Willy says no.

Maintained by another aspiration of success – the kind his father taught him his whole life – Biff tries to get a loan from a former employer to start a new business. Like it has become a staple in his story, he fails. In a powerful moment where Biff tires to make Willy realize the truth about both of their lives, Biff reaches out to his father lovingly. However, since Willy is sunken so deep into depression, he kills himself so that his family can get the insurance money.

Brussat said, “No matter how many times one sees Death of a Salesman, it continues to yield new meanings. In this version, Willy, Biff, Linda and Happy all struggle mightily with change. Arthur Miller in Salesman in Beijing tells the Chinese actors working on the play, "The salesman motif is in some great part metaphorical; we must all sell ourselves, convince the world of a persona that perhaps we only wished we possessed."” Willy goes so far in order for him to be accepted by others and advises his son to pay attention to his surroundings and make a good impression. Brussat is right when they said, “But, of course, this comparison strategy only leads to immense disappointment.” Willy eventually realizes that he is a failure and even guesses that he is the outcast in his own family. Volker Schlondorff presents us with top notch performances from the entire cast, especially Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich.

Dustin Hoffman actually did this play when he was younger, because of his own father. I guess that he had relatable experience to it since he may have had a similar relationship to his father, in the same way of Willy and Biff. I can also say for sure that I can relate to Biff, since I have been struggling out there to find that right job. There have been several intern, seasonal, temporary and contract jobs that I have done, but none of them have led to permanent jobs, I guess you can say I have certain similarities to Biff, and my dad could be looked at as Willy, but not completely. I feel that maybe we have that sort of relationship, but we’re not in the same boat as Willy’s family is.

If you haven’t seen this movie, you must, it’s a powerful movie that will leave a huge impact on you, especially if you can relate to it. I would say this is another one of my favorites, since I can really relate to this story, but not in every way possible. So, like I have said with every single one of Hoffman’s films that I have reviewed, just don’t read my reviews, go out and watch him because they have to be seen to be believed.

Watch out next week when I finish off “Dustin Hoffman Month” with what might be the highlight of Hoffman’s career. I’m talking about a film that was so groundbreaking that anyone who mentions Dustin Hoffman’s name will immediately think of this film. You might even know what film I’m talking about, but I’ll just wait until next week to let you know.

Tootsie

One of the most sincere aspects about “Tootsie,” the 1982 movie where Dustin Hoffman plays a middle-aged actress, is that the actress is able to play most of her scenes as herself – even if Hoffman wasn’t dressed up as her. “Tootsie” works as a story, not as a stunt.

Roger Ebert noted, “It also works as a lot of other things. "Tootsie" is the kind of Movie with a capital M that they used to make in the 1940s, when they weren't afraid to mix up absurdity with seriousness, social comment with farce, and a little heartfelt tenderness right in there with the laughs. This movie gets you coming and going.”

Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey, a character that probably wasn’t anything like Hoffman in his youth. Michael is a New York actor, upbeat, forceful, talented – and without a job. “You mean nobody in New York wants to hire me?” he asks his agent (the late Sydney Pollack), doubtfully. “I’d go farther than that, Michael,” his agent says. “Nobody in Hollywood wants to hire you, either.”

Michael has a bad status for taking viewpoints, having outbursts, and thinking roles differently than the director. How to get work? He goes with a friend, played by Terri Garr, to an audition for a soap opera. The character is a middle-aged hospital administrator. When his friend doesn’t get the job, Michael goes home, thinks outside the box, decides and dresses up in drags and goes to an audition himself. With intelligent improvising, he gets the part.

Which brings us to “Tootsie’s” main question: Can a New York actor in his 40s find health, happiness and romance as a New York actress in her 40s? Dustin Hoffman is actually very believable as “Dorothy,” the actress. Ebert says, “If his voice isn't quite right, a Southern accent allows it to squeak by. The wig and the glasses are a little too much, true, but in an uncanny way the woman played by Hoffman looks like certain actual women who look like drag queens.” Dorothy might have trouble living in Evanston, but in Manhattan, nobody even questions her.

Ebert credited, “"Tootsie" might have been content to limit itself to the complications of New York life in drag; it could have been "Victor/Victoria Visits Elaine's." But the movie's a little more ambitious than that. Michael Dorsey finds to his interest and amusement that Dorothy begins to take on a life of her own. She's a liberated eccentric, a woman who seems sort of odd and funny at first, but grows on you and wins your admiration by standing up for what's right.”

One of the things that annoys Dorothy is the way the soap opera’s sexist director (Dabney Coleman) mishandles and condescends the attractive young actress (Jessica Lange) who plays Julie, a nurse on the show. Dorothy and Julie become friends and finally close friends. However, Dorothy has an issue where the man that is dressed up as her eventually has an uncontrollable love for Julie.

There are other problems. Julie’s father, played by Charles Durning, a grumpy, friendly, no-nonsense man, lonely but sweet, falls in love with Dorothy. Michael hardly knows how to deal with everything, and his roommate, played by Bill Murray, doesn’t help at all. Looking at Dorothy in one of her new costumes, he looks subtly, “Don’t play hard to get.”

Ebert noted, “"Tootsie" has a lot of fun with its plot complications; we get almost every possible variation on the theme of mistaken sexual identities. The movie also manages to make some lighthearted but well-aimed observations about sexism. It also pokes satirical fun at soap operas, New York show business agents and the Manhattan social pecking order.” The movie becomes a touching love story, in the end – so touching that you might be shocked how emotional you get at the end of this comedy.

Hands down, this is one of the best comedies ever made and another one of my absolute favorites. This movie predates other comedies along this line like “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Big Momma’s House,” and it’s hilarious in its own respectable way. If you haven’t seen this movie, I insist that everyone watches it. You will love this movie, I promise you.

Now if you liked that, stay tuned next week for a movie that Dustin Hoffman did that was based on a play that Hoffman also did, in the next installment of “Dustin Hoffman Month.”

Kramer vs. Kramer

“Kramer vs. Kramer,” released in 1979, wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is – not as interesting and gripping – if the movie had chosen sides. The movie’s about a problem that is realistic in the chance to choose a side: a divorce and a fight for the custody of a child. However, the important thing in a story like this (in the movies and also in real life) isn’t who’s right or wrong, but if the people involved are able to act the right way to their own better nature. Isn’t it that often the case where we act selfish and mean-spirited at the difficult human problems that require our limited about of goodness?

“Kramer vs. Kramer” is exactly about that sort of problem. It starts with a marriage that has so much unhappiness, ego and selfishness, and ends with two single people who have both learned important lessons about the ways they want to behave. They have their son in the middle – Billy, who is in first grade = but this isn’t a movie about the trouble of the kid but about the trouble of the parents.

Hollywood regularly does stories like this from the offspring’s point of view, showing them upset and ignored by the parents – but what if the parents don’t act like adults? What about a family where everyone still is a kid begging for attention and trying to find out who they are?

That’s exactly what it’s like here. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman as an advertising executive who only thinks about his new account – and he thinks only about that that when he comes home and his wife tells him that she wants a divorce, he barely hears her and doesn’t think she is being serious. However, his wife, played by Meryl Streep, is leaving. She needs time to find out who she is, which is what she claims. To find out the person who also doesn’t know who he is when she tied the knot.

From the start, we feel like we know which side to go on and who to blame: How can she leave her home and son, which is what we ask. However, we can’t exactly ask the question sincerely, because what we’ve already seen from Hoffman is evident as to why she must have wanted to separate. She may be leaving eh family but he’s barely been a part of it. Bullied, not on time, taking his son to school on the first day after his wife left, he asks him: “What grade are you in?” He’s in first, but Hoffman didn’t know.

The movie takes out Streep during the climax, as Hoffman and his son get to know one another, and as Hoffman’s duties as a father eventually make him get fired from his ad agency. These parts are what make the movie really heart-warming. The movie’s writer and director, Robert Benton, has given his characters with dialog that has so much complete everyday precision, but when you look at the son, played by Justin Henry, he and Hoffman appear to have improvised where they thought was needed.

Situations are created after the kid son is more or less left free to respond how he wants, with Hoffman leading and improvising along with him, and many moments have that feeling of off-script real life.

That means is that we can see the father and son learning about each other and getting closer. Another movie might have gone around that, but “Kramer vs. Kramer” stays right on point of that where real people are making real choices. This is true as well when the movie reaches the huge problem: when Streep comes back and says that now she feels ready to claim custody of their son.

By now we don’t know whose side to choose. We feel concerned for the father – we’ve seen him change and grow – but now we are basically looking on as witnesses to the dilemma. The movie has encouraged us to realize that these people are deep and difficult enough, as everyone else is that we can’t give those labels unnecessarily.

“Kramer vs. Kramer” is a movie of excellent performances, and that was a must, because the performances can’t be on unoriginal tragedy. Roger Ebert stated in his review, “Dustin Hoffman's acting is about the best in his career, I think, and this movie should win him an Academy Award nomination and perhaps the Oscar. His performance as Ratso in "Midnight Cowboy" (1970) might strike some people as better than this one, but he had the advantage there of playing a colorful and eccentric character. This time he's just a guy in a three-piece suit, trying to figure out the next 24 hours.” One of his best moments is when he apples for a job during an ad agency’s office Christmas party, and insists on knowing right away.

Ebert credited, “Meryl Streep has certainly been having quite a year, and has appeared in what seems like half the year's best female roles (so far she's been in "The Deer Hunter," "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" and "Manhattan," and "Holocaust" on TV).” In “Kramer vs. Kramer,” Benton asked her to voice her character’s exact case in the main scene when she argues for her child in court. She is persuasive, but also is Jane Alexander, who plays her best friend, and whose character is an eyewitness and witness as Hoffman slowly learns how to be a father.

Ebert noted, “This is an important movie for Robert Benton, who co-wrote "Bonnie and Clyde" and also wrote and directed "Bad Company" and "The Late Show." He spends a great deal of attention on the nuances of dialog: His characters aren't just talking to each other, they're revealing things about themselves and can sometimes be seen in the act of learning about their own motives.” That’s what makes “Kramer vs. Kramer” such an inspirational film: We get those moments where personalities change and decisions are made even as we see them.

This is another one of my favorite films. I really like the realism that they captured because these types of situations exist, realistically speaking. Everyday couples are separating/divorcing, but then come back to fight for the custody of their children(s). If you haven’t seen this movie, stop reading this review. Go out and see this because I highly recommend everyone see this. Especially since we all know those parents who still act like children and they get so much help in order to become adults.

Check in next week for a hilarious comedy and one of the best in “Dustin Hoffman Month.”

The Graduate

I have got some good news for everyone: this month is going to pay tribute to one of the best Hollywood actors out there. None other than the powerhouse Dustin Hoffman. All throughout this month, I will be looking at some of the most classic films of his that are just groundbreaking and everyone should see. Let’s not waste any time, let’s kick things off with the 1967 classic, “The Graduate.”

“The Graduate” must have been the funniest comedy that was released in 1967 and was inspired by the free spirit where rookie British directors have inserted in their movies. This one’s funny, not because of the appearance jokes and punch lines and other tired tropes, but because it has a point of view. What this means is that it is against something. Roger Ebert was right when he said, “Comedy is naturally subversive, no matter what Doris Day thinks.”

Most Hollywood comedies have non-movie guesses put in them. Ebert noted, “One of the most persistent is that movie characters have to react to funny events in the same way that stage actors do. So we get Jerry Lewis mugging.” However, when looking at the style of up and coming British directors, the audience is the punchline to the joke, and the funny events do not happen in the movie – they are the movie.

Ebert said, “This theory is based upon a belief that audiences, having seen hundreds of movies, come into the theater with an instinctive knowledge of film shortland. So the new-style British comedies ("The Knack," "Morgan," "Alfie," "Tom Jones," "A Hard Day's Night") go against standard practice, and their use of film itself is part of the comedy. When something funny happens, the actors don't react; the movie itself reacts by what it shows next.”

This is precisely the case with “The Graduate,” where Mike Nichols makes his major directorial debut.

He introduces us to Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, a young college graduate who returns to a viciously ridiculous upper-middle-class California suburb. He would like the opportunity to lounge around and think about his future in the upcoming months. You know – think?

His family and their group of friends order him to perform in the role of Successful Young Upward-Venturing Clean-Cut All-American College Grad. After two weeks Benjamin has sunken into a huge hole of desperation that he models a new scuba outfit (birthday present from proud dad, played by William Daniels) by standing on the bottom of the family pool: Finally alone.

One of his parents’ colleagues, played by Anne Bancroft, seduces Benjamin (he says the famous line, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?”), who surrenders mostly out of exhaustion and doubt. Then he falls in love with her daughter, played by Katherine Ross, and soon starts an interesting chain of events that ends with Katherine (just married to, how Ebert describes him, “a handsome blond Nordic pipe-smoking fraternity boy,” played by Brian Avery) being kidnapped from the church by Benjamin. He puts a cross in the church door to prevent anyone to stop them, and they escape on a bus.

This is rebellious stuff, but it works in “The Graduate” because it is dealt with in a straightforward way. Ebert describes our leads, “Dustin Hoffman is so painfully awkward and ethical that we are forced to admit we would act pretty much as he does, even in his most extreme moments. Anne Bancroft, in a tricky role, is magnificently sexy, shrewish, and self-possessed enough to make the seduction convincing.”

Ebert goes on to say, “Miss Ross, a newcomer previously seen in "Games," not only creates a character with depth and honesty, but is so attractive that now we know how Ann-Margret would have looked if she had turned out better.”

Nichols stays on top of his movie. He never breaks to make sure we’re understanding the story. He never explains for the ones who don’t catch on as quick. He never apologizes. Ebert said, “His only flaw, I believe, is the introduction of limp, wordy Simon and Garfunkel songs and arty camera work to suggest the passage of time between major scenes.” Overall, “The Graduate” is a success and Benjamin’s serious honesty and embarrassment are done on point that we never know whether to laugh or to observe ourselves internally.

Hands down, this is one of my favorite movies. I can relate to Benjamin in a way that ever since I graduated college, I don’t really know what I really want to do. I know that I’m not alone and that a lot of people are in the same boat as I am, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t gone out and have gotten work experience. I have tried working at several places, but anyone who sees this movie can relate and have a connection to Benjamin in the way that they can completely understand what he’s thinking and what he’s going through. Especially in the end, when him and his girlfriend escape, despite their parents telling them not to do anything rebellious and break the rules, when their smiles all of a sudden change to a worried face, they got what they wanted, which is freedom, but they now are stuck and don’t know what to do with it, just like Mrs. Robinson. Their rebellious nature caused them to not get anywhere in life and are still just as lost as they were in the beginning. Despite everyone around them, especially Mrs. Robinson, pleading with them to listen and not seek this carefree nature, they didn't listen. Think about that when you watch the film, if you haven’t. Stop reading this review, go out, and watch this movie.

Check in next week when I look at the next installment in “Dustin Hoffman Month.”