The Movie: Just another one of those movies that I should have seen that I've never seen before. And yes, I should have seen it. Rain Man received Academy Awards for Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman), Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for art direction, cinematography, film editing, and original score. Quite an impressive list of awards indeed!

Rain Man features Tom Cruise as Charlie Babbitt, the insensitive, power suit-wearing, jet set man who's world is falling apart and learns compassion for other people (a role we have seen him play numerous times since). Through the death of his estranged father he discovers that he has a secret brother in a mental institution.

Raymond (played wonderfully by Hoffman) is an autistic-savant -- an apparently retarded man with an extraordinary ability with memory and numbers. Rain Man is the story of Charlie and Raymond's cross-country road trip adventures as being with Raymond teaches Charlie how to deal with other people, and actually care about people other than himself -- as well as accepting this brother he never knew he had.

Actually, that description isn't exactly right and is far too simplistic for all of the layers and themes that are in this movie. But I guess that's the general idea.

Dustin Hoffman's performance was truly amazing, and Cruise plays... Cruise here, and overall I'd say this is a compelling movie that was definitely worth watching, even if it did feature a ridiculous depiction of card counting in Las Vegas, and has been a source of much myth and misinformation on the subject. But yeah. Good movie.

The DVD: Although the disc itself is physically labeled "WIDESCREEN/STANDARD", the only version I found on it was in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen format. The uninspiring video transfer lacked clarity and exhibited poor contrast, but I have seen much, much worse, and I'd say it's pretty average for a run of the mill made in the first few years of the format DVD.

The audio was more of the same, with virtually no use of the surround channels, and a somewhat murky sound quality to it, but again, I've seen (or heard?) much, much worse. The only special feature here is a theatrical trailer, making this a true movie-only DVD.