Rating: 
Summary: Big Time Banality
Review: From the reviews this film has garnered, I went into it anticipating some first rate film making and acting. This is probably as disappointing a viewing experience as IN THE BEDROOM, another vastly overrated snoozer. In fact, I can guarantee that if you loved IN THE BEDROOM, you will also enjoy this movie, as both appeal to similar sensibilities. I have come to expect a certain level of quirkiness, tension, character development and inventive direction when I rent or buy foreign films. This turkey has none of the above. I was also extremely unimpressed with the acting, particularly Fernanda Montenegro in the lead. If she is the queen of Brazilian drama, I'd hate to see the runner-ups. One-note, monotonous, and the scene on the bus at the end of the movie was the most hackneyed display of emoting I've ever had the misfortune to witness.
Sorry if I come across as a John Simon like sourpuss, but this movie really does define pretentious, overwrought film making and gives rise to the fallacies among people who aren't exposed to much foreign cinema that said cinema is usually dull and self indulgent. The extras on the DVD includes commentary from director Walter Salles and Ms Montenegro. He comes across as just the sort of self-inflated film school auteur that one would expect after watching this "masterpiece." Every other comment is some sort of self-congratulatory, "aren't I wonderful?" bit of insight into his overblown ego. Ms Montenegro, when one can understand her, has also had her head enlarged from the stream of rave reviews that no doubt line her dressing room. OK, vent over. Now come and get me with the negs! I just had to warn film buffs with tastes similar to mine not to go anywhere near this bad boy. Let the chips fall where they may.
BEK
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best foreign films of all time!
Review: This is like the only third foreign movie I've seen and from then on, I became a foreign film addict. Movies this good should be released not only in its home country but everywhere in the world. I've been reading the reviews of a lot of people for this movie and I find mixed reactions but generally, everyone loved the great performances, wonderful story, perfect setting and the mood it created to achieve that melodramatic audience appeal. It is a very simple yet very touching movie. It will definitely touch that soft spot in your heart. I am proud to have a Central Station DVD on my collection. This is definitely one of the best and very much recommended film.
Rating:
Summary: banality
Review: What's all the noise about "Central square" if nothing in it adds up? It is just one more example of cinematic trash, this time not from Hollywood but from Rio, where everything is settled before you start watching it. There are a few bearable scenes in this movie (people dictating their letters, etc.) but on the whole it is banal and boring.
A child loses his mother in a street accident. Does he cry, you may ask? No, he does not. Why doesn't he? Is it because he is a "tough" kid (oh, these tough Brazilian kids living in the streets!) used to hard facts of life? No, he is not tougher than anyone else, and he has never lived in the street. But he still doesn't cry. Why doesn't he cry then? The answer is simple - because this movie is a fairy tale, and in fairy tales one does not want to be distracted by so insignificant events like, for example, a boy's mother's death. Fairy tales are made to be enjoyed, preferably with a can of soda and a pack of pop-corn in the vicinity, not to be thought about or, God forbid, affected by it. Why bother about it if it is only distractful? Let's move immediately to the real business, which, in the given case, is the glorious idea that every ordinary man is really an unrecognized saint doing great deeds (the idea is also rather comforting, since it does not require you to do anything except for watching movies - why do anything if I am already a saint, albeit not yet recognized). The movie starts, and from its very beginning we are given to know that an ugly haggard, at first not showing too much concern about our unhappy young hero (and even exphibiting other human faults), is to be redeemed by him towards the end of it. And so she does get redeemed. And so we sit back and revel in this beautiful tale of a lost woman found by a lost boy. And wonder at how amazing this world is. Nicely packaged. Designed especially for people who are into "spirituality".
Rating:
Summary: A cinematic classic from Brasil
Review: I have forced friends and family to watch this film with me, people who offered varying degress of resistance to foreign film, road movies, and the consensus was unanimous: Centro do Brasil (Central Station) is a film of quiet power, rare genius and sensitivity. Ideologically, it falls midway between the extremes of the violent, gritty "Cidade de Deus" and the warm, romantic "Bossa Nova," adding to these portraits its particular view of Brasilian daily life. Fernanda Montenegro (Dora) and Vinícius de Oliveira (Josué) give completely honest and believable performances, and it is these performances, and the wonderful screenplay, which keeps the subject from deteriorating into melodrama. Each character has, for different reasons, been embittered and hardened by experience, and the film documents their emotional, intellectual, and spiritual breakthroughs in getting past their emotional crises. The characters' existential journey is mirrored in the geographical journey across Brasil, from gorgeous but scary Rio de Janeiro to rural central Brasil. There is no convenient "fix" to the characters' problems, and even religion is offered as but one possible diversion from life's problems, not a permanent solution to them. This makes sense, given the fact that Brasil's 185 million people are nominally Catholic but many are forced by poverty and other circumstances to live a more secular and pragmatic life (including the traditions and rituals of umbanda, candomble, Kardecism, etc). Ultimately, the film offers a message of hope that, if you can't completely turn your life around, you can at least try to change the things which prevent you from going any further. I find that perspective a lot more realistic, less patronizing than, say, a typical Hollywood "on the road" drama, where all the characters find their respective epiphanies en route to their destination, just before the final credits roll.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Take Things For Granted
Review: A very touching story. So some say it's a real story. It does look like so judging from the realistic way it is presented, it's very convincing indeed. From this movie one would be able to see a cross section of the life in Brazil. Their passionate religous faith,their helplessness, their economy, their outlook, various towns and everything...
Often one's fate is predestinated and hinged upon the change of a thought of somebody else no matter he/she is related to to you or not. Here the boy's fate turned at least twice. First he dropped the toy on the roadway which his mother decided to and subsequently bought to him causing her a fatal traffic accident. And then it turned upon the retired teacher who sold him and later changed her mind and decided to rescue him from the kids-monger and brought him back to his father who had earlier abandoned him living with another woman and died before meeting this boy... But this is not exactly a tragedy. There was the meldramatic episode of the retired teacher with the truck driver. Even the relation between this retired teacher and the boy are so full of humantiy and tenderness. Highly recommended. -
Rating: 
Summary: Too cliche
Review: Montenegro is great in this movie. That said the movie is too cliche with the boudn between an adult and a little kid. We've seen many of these movies (Cinema Paradiso for example) for better Brazilian movies try "Pixote" or "O que e isso companheiro" (For days in September). For lighter fare try "A Partilha"
Rating:
Summary: Brazilian's Greatest Female Actress at her Peak
Review: This is a film of contrasts. From Rio de Janeiro's Metropolis-like urban hell to Brasil's Nordeste - a barren place of barren and huge landscapes and unmittigated Faith.
Dora's character, played by sublime actress Fernanda Montenegro (Oscar nominated and certainly worthy of winning...) evolves from an urban Rio de Janeiro's letter writer-devil'll do all to a mother figure to street kid Josué after his own mother dies.
After that this is a spiritual road movie - for Josué's long lost father - and for Dora's long lost faith in herself and in other human beings - which she eventually achieves most purely in Josués character.
This is a powerful movie. Christianly so. Any religion-so. But mostly a movie about trust in the residual bits of humanity that allow those in near-despair to believe. Maybe not in God as such - but in christian individuals as such...
So is this a religious movie? Not exactly. And not at all a Catholic one.
But it is a delightful innocent mix-up of beliefs, with a kind of untainted christianism standing out.
Rating:
Summary: From Central do Brasil do deepest northeasren Brasil
Review: A sentimental journey for world-weary cynic Dora (Academy Award Nominnee Fernanda Montenegro) and orphaned Josué in a çong trek search for his never-present father.
Dora discovers her sensuality (only to have protestantism twart it) and surrogate-maternity (only to have real brotherhood honestly defeat it)
Still she ends with happy memories of a recent pasr and a bittersweet one of her own youth.
Extremely touching score underlines a very moving movie.
Fernanda Montenegro should have won the Oscar! At least she got plenty of other international accolades
Rating:
Summary: A warmly told, yet harrowing story.
Review: Central Station is the story of two people on a quest, a retired schoolteacher who writes letters for the illiterate in the Rio's Central Station, and a seven year old boy who's mother came to her to contact her husband, the boy's father. Then, in a scene straight out of numerous Shirley Temple films, the mother is suddenly dispatched by a bus. But this is not Old Hollywood, nor is it a first world country, and the events that follow, the fate of the boy as illustrated, will shock the average first worlder and American. That there is no social safety net is only the beginning. Fortunately, the letter writer, initially a cold and cynical, judgemental, shell of a human being, begins to see a greater calling and she and the boy set off in search of his father. This is not the Rio of Carnaval, nor the Brazil of Samba and bikinis. Still, the bleak settings, the sparse dialogue, weave a captivating story that deserves the tears one eventually sheds. This is cinema!
Rating:
Summary: Sad, pathetic, ugly, and hopeless
Review: This movie would actually kill all of your fantasy about Brazil and turn it into an ugly, sad, hopeless wasteland. people there actually live in a very lousy condition. The whole country looks very hopeless. The heroine is a very ugly old woman but still trying very hard to get romance. But fate changes her to be linked with a stubborn boy. The story is not an interesting one sometimes even contrite and would bore you to death.
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