Rating: 
Summary: Filmmaking at its finest
Review: City of God is pure cinema. Pictures, not words, tell the story here. The direction and cinematography is some of the finest I've ever seen. Movies don't come better than this...a must see.
Rating:
Summary: wonderful...
Review: I'm brazilian and I'm very very happy that american people, mainly, enjoyed this movie.Laurence Daggett from Dallas, said:" I dont usually like films where I spend the entire time reading to keep up, but this movie was brilliant.[...]" but, here in Brazil, we have already get used to watch american movies (wich you've got to read the caption)... It was very strange to read what Laurence said... Cidade de Deus (or City of God) is a briliant movie and, with caption or not, it must be respected. Brazil has capacity to produce quality movies. Thanks... Uma brasileira muito orgulhosa por ser quem é.
(a very proud brazilian gir for beein who she is)
Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: I dont usually like films where I spend the entire time reading to keep up, but this movie was brilliant. I have never really enjoyed any foreign made films but this one is definately worth the money. I am going to preorder it and I cant wait for it to get here so i can watch it again.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest movie i have ever seen
Review: The only movie you'll watch that'll make you remember all the charecters in this movie, Li'l Ze a.k.a Li'l Dice, Rocket, Benny, Hoodlum Trio and Knockout Ned with the Carrot Crew, this is a highly acclaimed movie based on life in the slums, How bad it is for those people in those days, this is actually based on a true story and the charecters aren't fictional at all, Rocket, a great charecter, survived throughout the entire story and was the only one to live and tell the tale, and this movie provides the greatest ending i have ever seen. My greatest movie of all time and a definite Top Tener. Please, if you didn't watch this, rent it buy it, just watch it causeit is worth it.
Rating:
Summary: The Human Condition- Brazil style
Review: This is a really good movie but hard to watch at times due to its subject matter and content. Watching children carrying and using guns is disturbing. You realize that it's only a movie but non-the less it will still turn your stomach. The hour-long feature included on the DVD is most disturbing especially the part where the women explain why they follow the police when young boys are arrested. I have seen this movie in a theater and own the DVD, I watch it about once a month and see soemthing different each time.
Rating:
Summary: A Visual and Emotional Mugging
Review: This film attacks with images which resemble predatory birds flying at us at supersonic speed, trying to claw out our eyes with their talons. Paradoxically, the film also numbs us to the relentless carnage it so graphically portrays. Directed by Fernando Meirelles with invaluable assistance from Katia Lund and set in the slums of Rio de Janeiro (a squalid and violent area known as "City of God"), the film's narrator is Buscape ("Rocket"), an amateur photographer. Listing other actors and the names of the characters they portray will be meaningless to most (all?) of those who read this brief commentary. Cut to the chase. This is one of the most visually exciting films I have ever seen. The quality of the acting is outstanding. Most of the members of the cast were recruited from the City of God and are quite effective. Apparently anyone who hopes to survive in that squalid combat zone must be a consummate actor. The pace of this film is FAST but there are so many tender, endearing moments also. The climax is probably predictable but, meanwhile, it suggests that the cycle of aspiration, posturing, physical and verbal violence, and ultimate death or despair will continue indefinitely. This film celebrates the best while revealing the worst of what it means to be a human being.
Rating:
Summary: Hollywood and the Oscars X City of God
Review: City of God is undoubtedly one of the best films ever. It was not even nominated for best foreign language film last year! This year they tried to correct the mistake by nominating it to four Oscars. Lord of the Rings was a shoo-in in three of the four categories, but not necessarily better than City of God. The Academy lost the chance - one more time! - to honor this amazing Brazilian movie and gave the Oscar for best cinematography to the more traditional Master and Commander. But when you see City of God you simply come to an obvious conclusion: its strength and brilliantness goes way beyond Hollywood and the Oscars!
An Amazed Viewer(...)
Rating: 
Summary: thought-provoking
Review: At times disturbing and very thought-provoking, this film captures youth on the edge, thus evoking existential thoughts about struggles for existence and life in general.
Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Analogy of War
Review: CITY OF GOD is an area of government subsidy housing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil which like so many such projects in this country became an area of slum and crime. Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund have had the courage to examine the quality of life in this unfortunate 'city' and have produced a film that is brilliant on many levels. First, the method of story development - using a narrator to explain piecemeal the backgrounds of all of the principal players and places that form this explosive look at crime - is riveting, genuine, and captivatingly forceful. Repeats of previously viewed sections transplanted throughout the movie in different contexts advance the intricacies of the story and the tension between the characters in a way few other 'docudramas' have succeeded. Second, the cast of nonprofessional actors is uniformly superb. There is no sense of 'acting' here, just a feeling of propulsive story development. Third, the message about how crime drives children to have guns, to kill, steal, bludgeon, and hate all in the name of survival is horrifyingly real and believable. The one child who manages to grow out of his environment does it quite by accident: Rocket loves cameras and eventually satisfies both the corrupt police and the criminally obsessed that his talent allows him an escape hatch from the inevitable early death that City of God promises its inhabitants. Fourth, getting up from your seat in the theatre and leaving the movie behind leaves an indelible mark on the consciousness of the audience that not only is this film about slum life, street crime, juvenile delinquency: this is a film that demonstrates VERY forcibly what WAR is all about. Food for thought: judicious warnings about current events. All said and done, CITY OF GOD is a powerful experience and should be part of everyone's cinematic calendar.
Rating:
Summary: The best original movie eith great charecters.
Review: This is one of the best movies out there and tells the story of ghetto life in rio de jinero through the eyes of professional photographer, Rocket. Life has been though since the city of god has been runned by self proclaimed boss, Li'l Ze. He took over the buisness after shooting two members of the legendary 'hoodlum trio', the best and greatest young thieves if the city of god. The story takes us through the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s when a great charecter hoping for peace, benny was shot dead in his farewell party as he was leaving the game of crime and drugs to live with his girlfrind outside city of god in a quiet farm. Later then brews up a rivalry between Li'l Ze and a new charcter, Knockout Ned who fight to the end as two of the biggest gangs in the city of god brought it to the streets of Rio. With a shocking ending and terrific screen play, this movie has earned its spot as the greatest adaptation play of all time, ending the reign of a ruthless druglord and a man sought on revenge. This is City of God through the eyes of a great charecter keen on survival, Rocket.
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