Rating: 
Summary: One of the top 10 movies in the past 100 years!
Review: This moive should have won the Oscar for the best Actor, Actress and Movie! Fernanda is much better than Brad's ex-girlfriend! Vinicius is as good as the girl in "Ponette"! It is a movie which you should watch tonight!This movie helps us to understand the situation of Brazil and how people feel about their country!
Rating:
Summary: Ignored by the Oscars .....
Review: Is more reason to see this movie. I use this criteria - if the Oscars reject a movie on the awards podium, or an actor (especially non-American) chances are the movie is a good bet for the serious movie watcher. So let's not get hung up why it did not win the Oscar - we have seen Cate Planchett, Judy Dench, Kristin Scott Thomas, Brenda Blethyn all passed over in recent years. You must remember for a non-American (especially in a non-English movie) to get a Oscar nomination is an achievement in itself. Frankly speaking, I was quite taken aback by the boldness of Fernanda Montenegro's nomination! However, the fact that she did not win surprised me not. If you have to use an (award) criteria to select movies, choose the Golden Globe awards as a more accurate pointer. The latter is yet to be held hostage by special interest groups and big cash ad blitzes by Hollywood movie studios. Instead enjoy the movie for the fine performances, sweeping sceneries, and a dialogue that is sparse and confrontational but so tender and caring at the same time. Maybe a bit of a melodramatic finale, but overall a sublime movie. I know we want to see work like this to be veted and recognised on the world stage. But the Oscars can hardly be crowned as the Holy Grail for recognition of achievement. Media may want us to believe that - but come on! Most of us know better.
Rating:
Summary: Pure magic
Review: This movie is true magic and so beautifully crafted that it really deserved to win the oscar for best foreign movie. Alas, there is only one place for one winner and no chance to get it "exequoe" with La vita e bella (that I really liked too : I cried in both movies). There are no sexual or big action scenes, it is all about life, true life. You do not have to think, you just have to feel, feel how love and trust grow between Josue and Dora (two antithetic persons that just crave for human relations and affection), share Josue's stubbornness and hopes and Dora's cynicism and fondness for the boy.. For me, Fernanda Montenegro has won the oscar for best actress. I watched the other nominees' performance (that were all good in their own way) but she is the only one that made me cry at the end and the only one whose character I can easily relate with (Fernanda renders it extremelly well) : she is the best. Watch this movie, it reflects reality and real concerns and problems of today (materialism cannot replace human touch, organs traffic, poverty, ...). Its message is simple: Life is hard enough, do not let people spoil it and destroy your dreams, do not give them up no matter what, and if you are desillusioned in your attempts, at least you would have tried and would have known and learnt from them. Life is all about experience.
Rating:
Summary: HOW CAN I EXPRESS HOW TOUCHING THIS FILM IS!
Review: The first time I saw this film I came to the conclusion it was not only a simple movie. It was pure MAGIC! I was so touched that I could not stop crying.At the end the audience gave the movie a great and long run of applause! I saw it again in movie theaters many other times. And the pleasure I felt each time I saw it again was greater and greater. After the fifth time I started going to the cinema to see the other people's reaction to it. It was incredible the way the movie pleased all kinds of people (the young, the old, men, women, etc). I am so glad I can share this experience with people from all over the world! Thank you for the oportunity of having it in video! WATCH CENTRAL STATION, and if you're at least a little bit sensitive you'll have an extraordinary experience!
Rating: 
Summary: 5-Star Movie; 2-Star DVD
Review: This was the first non-english movie I ever watched all the way through. The story, scenes, and actors were outstanding. DVD - Why would you release a foreign language movie on DVD without an english track? Also, I had problems turning off the commentary and cannot remove the sub-titles. Wait for the lower-priced VHS to be released. The DVD is not worth the extra money.
Rating:
Summary: THE Inner Child Film, par excellence
Review: I can't and would not want to verbalize the depth of this film, and the emotions--many long-buried--that it evoked in me. Though sparely rendered, I think that the story is mythic in proportion. The parallel journeys, outward toward love for the boy, and inward into Love for the woman, are so redolent of the world-widespread alienation of people from their own hearts. Love was the star of this film, rising, as noted in another review, from angry suppression to direct authentic expression. This movie is true nourishment in its presentation of what people need (Love), rather than the endless things we want then drop in succession. The fact that it comes to us from a country with so little compared to my own (the united states) affirms my own long-standing hypothesis that the apprehension of truth is available only when outer circumstances are inimical to the satisfaction of our desire for distraction. From this poor and seemingly chaotic country comes an injunction to which our indefatigable yen for "options" and "upgrades" deafens us: Love alone is real. The first time I watched it I cried at the end. I've watched it many times since, and have each time wept throughout the film, observing its trajectory, and knowing where it will end up. May I ask, why is it that our country can't produce performers like Fernanda Montenegro? Her Oscar loss to Gwyneth Paltrow can only be attributed to xenophobia and ageism. Gwyneth may be able to speak stylishly, and even emote a wee bit, but Montenegro brings to her performance a range spanning haggard cynicism to vulnerable abandon and beyond in many directions. The piano theme which repeats throughout the film has become like a mantra reminding me to stay in my heart. I've seen all of Bergman, Fellini, de Sica, and others...and, at least for now, THIS is my favorite movie of all time!
Rating:
Summary: Federico Fellini meets Brazil
Review: From the first shot in Rio's central station one can appreciate the class of this most enjoyable and unpredictable "love story". The setting of low-class contemporary Brazil is a perfect setting for a movie in which the influence of the early Fellini is palpable. Montenegro is amazing!
Rating:
Summary: A MASTERPIECE! The best Brazilian film ever!!!
Review: 5 stars is not enough to classified this great film! With a great direction, by Walter Salles, great cinematography, wonderful original score, divine screenplay and the best role played by Fernanda Montenegro, the biggest actress in Brazil, this film was simply made with heart to those who have hearts! For me, THE BEST FILM OF 90's!!! There's no other that has the quality and the Beauty of this! I'm proud of being brazilian, watching this film! It shows my country like it realy is, with lots of problem, but with people touched by heart! Thank you Walter for a marvellous work! And Fernanda Montenegro, the Oscar doesn't deserve your magnitude! You're the best in 1998 for sure!
Rating:
Summary: Asian Cinema should learn from "Central Station."
Review: I am compelled to say that "Central Station" is by far the best American (South & North included) film I've seen in my life. Why? Because it is unpretentious, because it never aims to be an important picture the way some Hollywood films do, because viewers foreign to the Brazilian culture can empathize with the characters, and because in the end it stands out & delivers cinematically---the way "Cinema Paradiso" and "Babette's Feast" did---in a most unique way. Asian movies ought to learn from the simplicity & power of this movie. "Central Station" provides the greatest substantiation that movies which have transcended (or will transcend) time need not be expensive nor based on technological advantages; rather, the best movies are borne out of REAL EMOTIONS or experiences of people who, throughout the duration of the movie, are REAL to us and have their own cultures & stories to share. This is a kind of 'heritage' that "Central Station," together with only a few Hollywood movies, has imparted to world cinema.
Rating:
Summary: Quite Simply, A Joy
Review: The tone of the film is one of movement--movement from the darkness into the light, from the chaos of the city into the desolation of the country, from mistrust to hesitant, then profound love. Montenegra is a jewel, a gift, and a sentinel of pathos to behold. Her performance reminded me very much of the late great Giulietta Masina, Fellini's muse and wife. Oliviera was superb in his debut. The direction in this film is assured and the plot, while toying with the edges of schmaltz,never seems indulgent in the end. A little Brazilian treasure. Own it and share it with your family and loved ones.
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