Talk:Rain Man

Age discrepancy
The ages/timeline in the plot section do not tie up.


 * "Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), a Los Angeles car dealer in his mid-twenties..."

and
 * "...his estranged father (whom Charlie has not seen in over 20 years since he ran away from home at age 15)..."

If he ran away at age fifteen, and has not seen his father for over twenty years, that puts him in his mid-thirties, doesn't it? Annesville (talk) 08:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

References to use

 * Please add to the list references that can be used for the film article.



Title
So why is this movie called 'Rain man'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.94.177 (talk) 02:12, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * May be the baby Charles used to call Raymond 'Rainman' incorrectly and latter he thought it was somebody called Rain Man who used to sing for him.Anuandraj (talk) 10:02, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Airport scene
Should there be a reference made that the airport was cut from some airings of the movie because of objections from the Airlines mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.80.62.93 (talk) 00:50, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Slang
The article does not seem to say what term has seen use in slang. 'Rain Man'?


 * The article has been clarified, and the term "Rain Man" (as you correctly guess) is the word the writer had in mind. 206.72.11.46 28 June 2005 20:01 (UTC)]]

Sony Watchman
The handeld TV Charlie buys Raymand ia a Sony Watchman FD-40A. --Phillipbeynon (talk) 20:13, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Plot revision
(UTC)


 * Scm83x – How exactly is the plot summary "lacking" in order, detail and accuracy? It may not be a bad idea to revise the article, especially if important plot details are missing. But I saw this film too, and I think this article hits a number of the high points, and is presented in a logical fashion. 206.72.11.46 28 June 2005 18:06 (UTC)]]


 * The article hits the high points but not really in a logical fashion. Some events are not explained well and cause and effect relationships are ignored.  The plot wouldn't make much sense if you hadn't already seen the movie. - Scm83x 28 June 2005 18:42 (UTC)


 * Scm83x – Yeah, I can see what you're saying. I was responsible for writing a major portion of the plot, though it's been awhile since I've seen the movie. Perhaps a new, fresher perspective would be a good thing (especially with the cause-and-effect thing). 206.72.11.46 28 June 2005 19:57 (UTC)]]


 * I fixed the typos - I think it is okay to take off the repair tag. -Mydotnet 23:52, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Casino
"However, Raymond is soon distracted by a spinning roulette wheel (which he likens to Wheel of Fortune), and Charlie's cover is blown."

It's actually the Big Money Wheel, not Roulette.

I don't understand why Charlie should be covered here, because the do not cheat anyways. The casino managers just think that they might cheat and want them to leave, but they didnt find anything of course.

actually some savants are faster than computers so it could be considered cheating, but i want to know if they can really count cards like that, or if they have to learn the skill.24.3.56.115 13:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The didn't cheat, that's correct. Counting cards is not cheating, nor is it considered cheating in any regulated casino. It is not cheating to have a superior mental ability; similarly, the house will not give you back your losses if you have an inferior mental ability and claim that you have thus been cheated. That's why they were thrown out, but not arrested. RUReady2Testify 02:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hot water incident
The article says:
 * As Charlie draws water for a bath, Raymond has a panic attack, screaming, "Hot water burn baby", suggesting that Raymond almost burned his infant brother in scalding water, and this is why he was sent to the Walbrook Institution, although it was more likely that the father found himself unable to look after Raymond following the death of the mother (Raymond mentioned that he was sent to Walbrook a few days after his mother's death).

I disagree with this elaborate explanation. Isn't the simpler explanation found in the shot when Charlie & Raymond walk away from the bath, and the viewer can see that unbeknownst to Charlie the photograph of Raymond with Charlie as a baby had fallen into the bath (Raymond presumably is unable to distinguish between the photo of a baby and a real baby). Ben Finn 15:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * No, the photograph falls in after the whole flashback scene & the singing. 166.113.52.54 15:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Family Guy reference
In the last episode of season 3, Peter shouts "UH-OH!" twice in very embarrassing scenarios. Obviously a reference to this film! Should this be included? 211.30.93.241 11:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source saying this? I've never heard of anybody else, a writer of the episode or otherwise, saying it was a reference. No offense, but I really think you just created that out of thin air. --69.248.1.200 (talk) 23:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

60 Minutes: George Finn
I believe 60 Minutes discused a man named George Finn as a basis for the character?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/26/60minutes/main2401846.shtml

(CBS) This segment was originally broadcast on Jan. 28, 2007. It was updated on Sep. 5, 2007.

Almost 25 years ago, 60 Minutes introduced viewers to George Finn, whose talent was immortalized in the movie "Rain Man." George has a condition known as savant syndrome, a mysterious disorder of the brain where someone has a spectacular skill, even genius, in a mind that is otherwise extremely limited.


 * Eh, no. I think you want Kim Peek. Maybe they mean his syndrome was immortalized in Rain Man... And anyways, I didn't think mental retardation was a prerequisite for savantism... 74.32.229.23 (talk) 19:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Critical reception?
It doesn't say anything about what people thought of it. Isn't that usually included in movie articles? Especially with such a successful movie about such an unknown topic. In fact, I thought I saw a show talking about how a bunch of autistic people (mainly adults) recognized their symptoms thanks to this movie. Well, it was probably a 60 minutes sort of thing, but still. At least from the standpoint of people dealing with autism (in whatever way), it was an influential movie. And anyways... we have so much of the plot and so little of what it did in the world. So... yeeeaaah. Go autism. 74.32.229.23 (talk) 19:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The second sentence of the Critical Reception section has an anachronism:
 * "Rain Man was overall positively received by critics. It garnered an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 7.7/10."

All other reviews are from 1988-1989; but Rotten Tomatoes was started in 1999. The paragraph makes it sound like the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregator scored the movie as it was released. I propose: either delete the sentence, or reword to: "It has garnered ...".Richard C. Yeh (talk) 20:08, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

What Rotton Tomatoes is trying to say is that 87 percent of reviewers gave Rain Man a positive rating. I really don't think that the sentence should be deleted, because if you mean the entire sentence, then the reader will miss out on the fact that Rotten Tomatoes said that %87 of critics who reviewed the movie said that it was great. --69.248.1.200 (talk) 23:42, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Plot summary
The plot summary has been overlong for quite some time. At over 2200 words it was one of the longest plot summaries on Wikipedia.

I've trimmed back drastically by removing excessive detail, removing over ten kilobytes and summarising, resulting in a plot summary of about 420 words, more in line with Wikipedia practice. --Tony Sidaway 05:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Popular culture
There are many references to Rain Man in popular culture but it isn't our job to catalog them all. I've trimmed the section to illustrate the common use of such references with two or three examples. --Tony Sidaway 20:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The rest of the English-speaking world
Charlie, what's a "Lucky Aide"? 92.251.255.18 (talk) 23:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

One of the best movies on the subject of autism
I think the sentence claiming that "Rain Man has been listed one of the best movies on the subject of autism" is not supported by the reference. The reference provided is for autism-world.com which seems to be a personal website. The webpage itself claims only to list movies with autistic characters, not "the best movies on the subject of autism". The list given on the website is incorrect: it lists "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape" as a movie containing an autistic character. The list is clearly an individual's personal list of movies, not a general consensus that Rain Man is one of the best movies on the subject of autism. 86.159.106.234 (talk) 11:49, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Categorizing within Category:Fictional characters on the autistic spectrum
Categorizing this article for the sake of its titular character isn't an abuse of overcategorization, in my opinion. In fact, it would be expected given the status of the character within a category which appears designed just for that purpose. Therefore, I have reverted the deletion.73.131.228.245 (talk) 12:47, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You are incorrect. Characters cats are for character articles. --- The Old Jacobite  The '45  12:50, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Not "social engineering"
Through social engineering, he learns the money is being directed to a mental institution, where he meets his older brother, Raymond Babbitt, of whom he was previously unaware. People were tricking each other several thousand years ago, before the English language even existed, and we don't need to use absurd terminology like "social engineering" here. NotYourFathersOldsmobile (talk) 01:03, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * At 17:10 Bruner clearly states that he is the trustee of the fund, and "the hospital doesn't get any of it", so the sentence "money is being directed to a mental institution" is clearly false. That might also be the reason why Charlie in the end makes his peace with Bruner taking care of Raymond. 2001:A61:BEE:E901:EDB5:A0D8:B233:FD20 (talk) 21:49, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Additional Source Materials
Below is a list of additional source materials that I plan to analyze in order to create additions to the main page. These center around savant syndrome, which is not discussed enough in the main page as of this time.

Aguilar, Gabriela. (2019). Mental disorders in popular film: How Hollywood uses, shames, and obscures mental diversity: by Erin Heath, Lanham, MD, Lexington Books, 2019, 106 pp., $80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-49-852171-0. Disability & Society. 35. 1-3. 10.1080/09687599.2019.1691838.

Chivers, Sally and Nicole Markotic. The Problem Body: Projecting Disability in Film. The Ohio State University Press, 2010. Project MUSEmuse.jhu.edu/book/27736.

Heaton P, Wallace GL. Annotation: the savant syndrome. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2004 Jul;45(5):899-911. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.t01-1-00284.x. PMID: 15225334.

Hughes, J.E.A., Ward, J., Gruffydd, E. et al. Savant syndrome has a distinct psychological profile in autism. Molecular Autism 9, 53 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-018-0237-1

Lyall, S. (2007, February 19). Living with savant syndrome: Learning to manage an extraordinary gift. The New York Times. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/health/19iht-savant.html

Treffert, Darold A. “The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. A synopsis: past, present, future.” Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences vol. 364,1522 (2009): 1351-7. doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0326 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Madelineutter13 (talk • contribs) 23:18, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: 22S-DIS STD-M114- Variable Topics in Performance and Disability Studies
— Assignment last updated by Elyonn (talk) 03:06, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Legacy misleading
The start of the Legacy section (at least as of the day I posted this) is misleading. A reader could infer a causal connection between the release of the movie and the increase in autism diagnoses. In fact, the surge is almost entirely due to the broadening of autism definitions in DSM-III-R (released the year before the movie) and DSM-IV (1994). KevinBTheobald (talk) 19:50, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Misattribution of misrepresentation of autism
Under Production: "Even so, audiences were swayed into thinking that most autistic individuals were intellectually capable of savant abilities largely by Hoffman's portrayal of Raymond Babbitt." -- This of course would be due to the script, not Hoffman's portrayal. It was part of the script that the character had these abilities, Hoffman did not invent those as an actor. 62.194.24.237 (talk) 12:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a reasonable point, and I was about to change "Hoffman's portrayal" to "the film's portrayal", but then I read the whole paragraph again and found statements like "Hoffman's deciding to make Babbitt not only a man with Savant Syndrome, but also an autistic man". According to the WP:RS we cite, Hoffman contributed a lot which hadn't been in the script. I now think the sentence about the portrayal is OK. But if there are other sources that put more weight on the script, I might change my mind. Thanks for your input! — Chrisahn (talk) 16:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)