Rain Man

“Am I using you Raymond?” Well, this checks a very personal box for me. My dad and I talk a lot about things we collectively enjoy. Sports, life stuff, and media. Rarely have I seen the things he holds dear to his heart. This was one of those things. “Oh Cole, you gotta see Rain Man”. Until now, I just never found it anywhere and probably wouldn’t have seen it until I bought the 4k someday. Then tonight as the Sixers were losing horribly and were unwatchable and I was scrolling, TCM had Rain Man about 5 minutes in. I clicked on it, said “Hey Dad! Come look, what movie is this?”. His realization and the “Well, I mean just leave it on now.”, made me laugh. We watched the whole thing. He hadn’t seen it in its entirety for 20 years. Needless to say, for the rest of my life when I see the title of this movie or I hear that Totoesque tune that recurs throughout the film, I’ll hear my dad. “Adventure music.” That’s priceless. I understand when people say this is Tom Cruise’s best acting job. He’s goddamn amazing in this. Truly a complete asshole for the majority of the film, and he plays it so well. I don’t want to say “his character’s transformation” because honestly it doesn’t feel like that, it feels like Tom Cruise himself changes who he is by the end of the film. He disappears into his work here. Now, Dustin Hoffman. Holy hell what a job he did. I mean he literally turns himself into an entirely different KIND of human being. He doesn’t just look like a guy playing somebody with high functioning autism, you’d have to convince me that’s NOT how he is in everyday life. It’s unbelievable what those two were able to bring to the movie. Generational type performances. The story is simultaneously heartbreaking, motivating, and hilarious all at once. Some of the things Ray says is so fucking funny. The scene at the beginning where Charlie and Susana are enjoying some adult time in their bedroom and Ray starts to mimic them…I cannot tell you how they managed to get that done. I wouldn’t have ever stopped laughing. Yet, there’s plenty of time where it wouldn’t be out of place to cry. It’s a tremendously complex emotional conflict and therefore should feel like a chore, albeit a worth it chore, but a chore nonetheless. Except it doesn’t. It maintains a lighthearted nature most of the time and like I said, you find yourself laughing more than you’d think for a movie that’s not an out and out comedy. The filmmaking aspect is equal to the story as well, Barry Levinson made a really special film. The way the camera moves, the cinematography, the writing, all equal to the task of matching the story. Such a good movie. And yeah Ray, you’re right. K-Mart sucks.