City of Men
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Camila Monteiro, Darlan Cunha, Douglas Silva, Jonathan Haagensen, Phellipe HaagensenBrand: Universal Studios
Writer: Bráulio Mantovani
Writer: César Charlone
Writer: Elena Soarez
Writer: George Moura
Writer: Guel Arraes
Writer: Kátia Lund
Writer: Melanie Dimantas
Writer: Paulo Lins
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Portuguese (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 30 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-09-26
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Palm Pictures / Umvd
Product features:
- As Seen on the SUNDANCE CHANNEL From the team behind the Academy Award®-nominated feature CITY OF GOD, including directors Fernando Meirelles (THE CONSTANT GARDNER) and K tia Lund comes the hit Brazilian television series CITY OF MEN, a comedy/drama about two teenage boys growing up in a dangerous Rio de Janeiro slum starring Darlan Cunha and Douglas Silva, featured in the motion picture tha
Movie Reviews of City of Men
Movie Review: Acerola and Laranjinha
Summary: 5 Stars
City of Men is the story of best friends growing up in an especially interesting neighborhood, where one mistake could be your last. Through their teenage years, Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha) learn how to handle responsibility, make the right choices and break through cultural barriers.
I found their stories fascinating, filled with real-life insight and lessons learned through on the edge of your seat realistic experience. Some of the ways they escape from danger is to keep out of the way of those in power, trying to find real jobs and stay in school.
In one episode Acerola and Laranjinha must find a way to get back home with medication or a relative will die. Since at times access is denied in various locations due to internal struggles between warring factions, the boys have to figure out a way to get through the barriers.
The housing is mostly in a shantytown setting, but the story expands as the plot thickens and the boys work in the city, spend time surfing at the beach and go on outings to fly kites with new friends. They even take bus trips out of town to visit politicians and film their journey.
You wouldn't expect a TV series filled with violent neighborhoods to be heartwarming, humorous, adventurous and completely captivating but Acerola and Laranjinha will truly steal your heart. Even with the few scenes of violence, I felt that nothing seemed gratuitous, but more in line with a very in-depth character study of two boys growing up in an especially violent world. Everything that happens to the two boys is in direct correlation with what will happen next or what they will encounter and overcome.
The struggle for survival is always apparent, although money seems to flow freely in the favela. Whether the boys are earning money from making popsicles or trying to keep a job, they learn important life-changing lessons. The grandmothers in the family are very influential, but the fathers seem to be absent most of the time. Laranhihna and Acerola feel the absence of a father figure in their lives and often comment about how they wish they had someone there to teach them how to live. This was heartbreaking but enlightening.
Acerola is faced with the greatest challenges and the way he embraces his life choices and grows up to be a responsible man is truly inspiring. My favorite scene is when Acerola and Cristiane are dancing at the prom with their newborn baby between them. It is such a beautiful moment and really does explore the depths of the love between Acerola and Cristiane who must overcome incredible hurdles to be together and survive.
Throughout there is humor, family struggles, competition between residents and major problems are solved through creative involvement of the citizens. The last episode seems to be a playful mix of cartoons and surprises.
This should probably be rated at least R for the club scenes (sensual dancing), violence (realistic shooting scenes), sexual language and brief sensual encounters that mostly hint at sexual situations. While these things do occur, they seem to be brief and don't seem to distract too much from the main story.
~The Rebecca Review
Summary of City of Men
As Seen on the SUNDANCE CHANNELFrom the team behind the Academy Award®-nominated feature CITY OF GOD, including directors Fernando Meirelles (THE CONSTANT GARDNER) and Kátia Lund comes the hit Brazilian television series CITY OF MEN, a comedy/drama about two teenage boys growing up in a dangerous Rio de Janeiro slum starring Darlan Cunha and Douglas Silva, featured in the motion picture that inspired this series.
The CITY is a shantytown located in one of the many mountains of Rio de Janeiro. The MEN are two 13-year-old kids, Laranjinha and Acerola. This series brilliantly mixes humor and reality to explore life in the "favelas" and in particular the indomitable spirit of two best friends growing up in one of most volatile communities in the world.
Brazilian TV series City of Men is a dazzling, propulsive, and fiery exploration of life in a chaotic Rio de Janeiro slum, seen through the eyes of Acerola (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlan Cunha). These two boys prove to be amazingly charming tour guides to a world by turns terrifying and exhilarating. Using the jam-packed storytelling that made the movie City of God such a revelation, the first episode alone is a marvel, merging the history of Napoleon with a cutting analysis of drug lords and class structure in the poverty-ridden neighborhood. The other three episodes of the first series carry on this riveting approach, mingling social observation with rich, compelling characters. From the second series on, the show becomes less overtly political and more about Acerola and Laranjinha's passage from youth to adulthood (embracing, with humor and pathos, the adolescent boys' obsession with sex)--though every episode has some sly or startling observation about race, wealth, and gender. Each series is filmed a year after the previous one, so the boys literally grow before our eyes; it's impossible to watch and not feel deeply involved as Acerola woos a girl named Cristiane and ends up a way-too-young father, or as an innocent prank escalates into a life-and-death struggle. Some episodes teeter on the brink of silliness--one of the last ones has the boys engaging in absurd cross-dressing--but the briskness of the writing and the charisma of Silva and Cunha carry the show through. Add to this the dynamic musical score of Brazilian pop and samba, and you have essential viewing. World music has already found popularity in the U.S.; welcome to a masterpiece of world television. --Bret Fetzer
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