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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
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74
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48
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56
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82
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Beaches of Agnes, The
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Big Man Japan
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Brothers Bloom, The
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Easy Virtue
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End of the Line, The
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Examined Life
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Gigantic
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Girl from Monaco, The
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89
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Great Buck Howard, The
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Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
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New York
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Paris 36
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Pontypool
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Pressure Cooker
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Rudo y Cursi
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Seraphine
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Sex Positive
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Shall We Kiss?
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Sin Nombre
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Song of Sparrows, The
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Valentino: The Last Emperor
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What Goes Up
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Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
City Lights Pictures
 |
|
MPAA RATING: Not Rated
Starring
Michel Joelsas,
Daniela Piepszyk,
and
Liliana Castro
Set in the turbulent year of 1970, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation is a poignant and humorous coming-of-age story. Mauro is a 12-year-old boy thrust into a maelstrom of political and personal upheaval. When his left-wing militant parents are forced to go underground, Mauro is left in the care of his Jewish grandfather's neighbor in Sao Paulo. Suddenly finding himself an exile in his own country, Mauro is forced to create an ersatz family from the religiously diverse and colorful population of his new neighborhood. Mauro befriends Hanna, a street-smart tomboy, and develops a crush on Irene, a pretty waitress in a local bar. It is at this local bar that everyone, including Mauro (an ardent soccer fan), gathers to watch iconic star Pelé in the 1970 World Cup championship, which Mauro hopes to watch with his parents if they return to Brazil in time. (City Lights Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Cao Hamburger
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Cao Hamburger
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: July 15, 2008
Theatrical: February 15, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
110 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Brazil |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Portuguese / Yiddish |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bill White
Most political films involving children are vicious or sentimental. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, set in 1970 when Brazil was under the military dictatorship of General Emilio Medici, is neither.

88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
Pulls you into a well-observed world and its characters.

83
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
A sweet, intelligent little movie.

75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
This sweet, yet unsentimental film is about growing up, losing innocence, and longing for a place, and people, to call home.

75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
What makes this film appealingly honest are its details, not its grand events.

75
New York Post
V.A. Musetto
The movie is stolen by 11-year-old Daniela Piepszyk as tomboy Hanna, one of Mauro's new friends. She has a face in a million.

75
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Hamburger's earnest effort offers interesting perspectives on Jewish life in South America's most populous city as well as the fate of political dissidents during a particularly dark period of Brazil's recent past.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
The filmmakers succeed with an unexpected ending. It's as fresh as everything in the movie, which turns out to be about so much more than one youngster's resilience.

75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
It really only comes alive in its shots of people in the neighborhood sitting around their television sets. What we're really talking about here is a problem in scope. In Hamburger's film, the world is no bigger than a cup.

70
Variety
Deborah Young
Sensitive, delicate and involving.

70
Village Voice
Jean Oppenheimer
This warmly engaging film benefits from its understated approach (it suggests rather than spells out the political turmoil), and its light, comedic tone never mitigates the drama of the central story.

70
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
The performances are charming and convincing, and Mr. Joelsas does a good job of conveying Mauro’s loneliness and confusion as well as his playfulness. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation may not be terribly fresh or original, but its warm, sweet, nostalgic tone is hard to dislike.

70
Chicago Reader
Andrea Gronvall
This nuanced coming-of-age drama by Cao Hamburger exudes warmth without getting mired in nostalgia.

67
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Generally, this writer-director is too sensitive for his own good. He never lets his boy-hero lose himself fully in his new world - or relinquish hope that his parents will return.

67
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Writer-director Cao Hamburger works well with child actors and has a spare, unforced style. But too much of this film is desultory and thin.

63
Miami Herald
Marta Barber
One true gem is Daniela Piepszyk, Mauro's teen neighbor, who is a fireball and the leader of the neighborhood gang of boys. You can't take your eyes off her.

60
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
A sweet and somber film that works hard to overcome its limitations.

50
Washington Post
John Anderson
What The Year My Parents Went on Vacation seems to be about, in the end, is big-time sport as the opiate of the masses.

40
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
A curiously unaffecting amalgam of the archetypal coming-of-age tale, here twinned to "outsider" religious overtones (in this case São Paulo's Orthodox Jewish community) and a small but deadly dose of uneasy political melodrama.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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