Rain Man 1988

The Film:

I was sixteen in 1988 and I saw a *lot* of films at the cinema that year. Rain Man was by far my favourite and it has been in my Top Ten of all time ever since.

So, whilst I also have previous winners such as All About Eve and The Godfather in my Top Ten, this is the first in our challenge that I have been pretty fanatical about since it first came out. Which means I'm not sure what I'm going to make of it in the context of this challenge.

I've not been keeping count of how many times I've seen it, but it's somewhere between ten and twenty times. Out of all the films on our list, there's only (possibly) The Sound of Music that can match up to that.

However, it's been a few years now and we are in a time of very different sensibilities when it comes to the portrayal of disability. I know a lot more about Autism now (as do most people!) and have more personal experience through students and friends. I am really worried that Hoffman's portrayal of Raymond Babbitt isn't going to cut it for me any more - and even the possibility of that makes me really sad.

The Ceremony:

I'm writing this on the eve of this year's Oscar ceremony. After various controversies, it's going ahead without a host this year. The last time this happened was on March 29th 1989 at the Shrine Auditorium. In the greater scheme of things, the ceremony should be remembered as the first time the words "And the Oscar goes to...." were used instead of "And the Winner is...". Also, it's the first year that Bruce Vilanch took on main writing duties - a role he has held ever since.

However, it's always going to be more remembered for the Opening Sequence (the BBC even wrote an article about it this year!) and the fact that it practically killed Allen Carr's career (not that Alan Carr, the other Allen Carr...). It's gloriously awful - have a drink or two before you watch it, or be prepared to pick your jaw up from the floor!

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Dustin Hoffman won the second of his Oscars, and Jodie Foster won the first of hers (for The Accused). Supporting Oscars went to Kevin Kline and Geena Davis. Rain Man took home four awards all together, but didn't even get a nomination for Tom Cruise - and Hans Zimmer missed out on the Best Score Award (even though it's one of my favourite scores of all time - but what do I know!)

Probably the most notable winner of the night was in the category of Animated Short. The winner was Tin Toy - the first of 19 awards (to date) for the mighty Pixar. Here it is, serving both as a marvel of technology and reminder of how far we've come in thirty years:

Best Song:

Three of my favourite ever Theme Songs to films are sung by Carly Simon (the other two are Nobody Does it Better and Coming Around Again). This one won her an Oscar and it still sounds wonderful today, even if it does mean that the first five minutes of Working Girl are by far the best five minutes!

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

I'll leave you to write your own caption for this one....in French!

Obviously I'm happy with the winner here - it's one of my favourite films! However, there are some other worthy contenders.

The other nominations were for The Accidental Tourist, Working Girl, Mississippi Burning and Dangerous Liaisons. Objectively, Mississippi Burning is the best of those films, but I had nearly as much of a thing for Dangerous Liaisons as I did for Rain Man - so it's getting the runner up prize for me. (I liked to make out that my love for Dangerous Liaisons was entirely due to studying French literature at A Level at the time. I bought the book in French and went on about it in a really pretentious way. However, I never actually read it - and I've since seen Cruel Intentions far more often than Dangerous Liaisons, so I'm guessing there were other reasons....)

Our Verdict:

He's an excellent driver!

Counting cards

I know times are changing and both the understanding and portrayal of disability has come a long way in thirty years. However, I am going to continue to defend this one to the hilt. Firstly, this isn't a film about autism - it's a film about a particular autistic person. Raymond's character is based on Kim Peek, who worked closely with Hoffman to help him prepare for the role. This makes all the difference - particularly because it means I can get down off my defensive high horse and focus on what the film is really about - the relationship between two brothers and how one needs the other in order to see and experience the world fully, to understand his emotions and how to interact fully with other people. And - clever but gloriously subtle twist - the brother that needs that is Charlie, not Raymond. That, in a nutshell, is why I love this film so much and why I still love it thirty years later. It's also why I think Tom Cruise should have won Best Supporting Actor. I can't believe he wasn't nominated: if you compare his performance with Kevin Kline's in A Fish Called Wanda, how can you possibly give KK the award?

The screenshot that sums up the whole film!

Ok - I've got my big bugbears about other people's takes on this film off my chest. I'll calm down now. However, the relationship between Raymond and Charlie and the stunning performances of both actors are, in my view, the best things about Rain Man. The film could so easily have been overly-sentimental and mawkish, but it isn't. It could also have been really insensitive and ill-informed (even if it was well meaning) but it isn't. It could have been far too serious and sure of its own importance, but it isn't. The script (which also won an Oscar) makes sure this doesn't happen.

Twelve minutes to Wapner.....

I still find Rain Man an easy film to watch, and an enjoyable one. It's incredibly quotable and much parodied but it stands up to both of these things. It has a lovely streak of humour running through it and yet it reduces me to tears at the end every time I watch it. The cinematography is beautiful - for a film that is so character-driven, so much loving attention is paid to how it looks. The musical score is one of my favourite of all time and gave Hans Zimmer the first of his eleven nominations to date. The score is a good example of what I like about the film this time round - it's incredibly 1980s, but it hasn't become dated.

Ultimately, Rain Man is a variation on one of my favourite film tropes - the Road Trip Buddy Movie. It comes a close second to Priscilla Queen of the Desert in this genre. The two films have more in common than I previously realised! And I recommend them both to you.

The Last Emperor 1987

The Film:

This is not one I'm particularly looking forward to. I don't know a great deal about it, but what I've heard makes it sound very much like it's "not my sort of thing".

First of all, it's very long - over three hours in the version we've got. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (Gone With The Wind, The Godfather) - but it also gets praised for its sweeping cinematography and cast of thousands, which makes me think rather more of Lawrence of Arabia or Ben Hur.....

All the reviews I've read talk about how beautiful it looks - and all the pictures I've seen show a two year old emperor dressed up to the nines in front of several hundred troops of beautifully attired minions. It doesn't bode well. But I'll keep an open mind!

The Ceremony:

April 11th 1988 at the Shrine Auditorium. It was moved to the new venue mainly because it had a larger audience capacity. Everything bigger and better in the 80s! It was hosted by Chevy Chase and went on for three and a half hours.

The show was affected by the big Writers' Guild strike, which was about one month in to it's five month run. Some of the script for the event was already written, but the rest of proceedings were covered in less formal fashion by a variety of Stand-up Comedians.

Other Notable Winners That Night:

And very tasty it was too.....

None of the actors in The Last Emperor were even nominated, so the acting awards went elsewhere. Moonstruck took the female awards, for Cher and Olympia Dukakis. The male awards went to Michael Douglas for Wall Street (which was criminally overlooked for Best Picture!) and Sean Connery for the also shockingly overlooked The Untouchables.

Best Foreign Language Film went to a personal favourite, Babette's Feast - adapted from a novella written by none other than Karen Blixen (as seen a couple of years ago wafting aimlessly around Africa). It's a beautiful film and I am very fortunate to have spent an evening in excellent company sharing as close to the exact menu as is human(e)ly possible. (No actual turtles were consumed!)

The Animation award went to something else that I have a fairly strong nostalgic memory of. Probably from a retreat or something. It's called The Man Who Planted Trees and it's a beautiful thing:

Best Song:

There can't be many people in the western world that don't know this one. The number of people of about my age who had this as their first dance at their wedding must be pretty high. Here's Baby, definitely not in a corner:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline - what's not to like!

If ever there was a year to argue that the Best Picture List should be lengthened again, this is it. Until I actually watched The Last Emperor, I not only reckoned that it probably wasn't a worthy winner, but I had a whole different list of five nominees in my head.

The actual other four nominees are: Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, Hope and Glory and Moonstruck. Nothing really wrong with that, but I would have gone for Wall Street, The Untouchables, Good Morning Vietnam, Babette's Feast and - the one that gets my vote - Cry Freedom. Attenborough's other big epic. I actually do think it's better than Gandhi. The two leads are both incredibly good, the story is compelling and really well paced - and the funeral scene is the reason I cry whenever I hear the South African National Anthem (it's happened several times at athletics events!)

Our Verdict:

Ahhh. Grasshopper!

Ok, I admit it. I was about as wrong as I could possibly be. In fact, I don't think the difference between my expectation of a film and what I actually thought of it has ever been so vast! With the greatest respect to Gordon Gekko, Eliot Ness and all the others mentioned above, I was so wrong in thinking they had all been robbed blind. Puyi is the rightful heir of all things Oscar in 1987!


I have absolutely no idea why the marketing for this film was the way it was - yes, it's gorgeous to look at, it's got massive crowd scenes, beautiful costumes and amazing cinematography. And it's got a small child dressed up to the nines - for about the first half hour or so of the three hours plus running time. But it's got all sorts of other, far more impressive and interesting things going on that I was never told about. And it is a fantastic film!

Not just a three-year-old in a dress.

Firstly, this is a film with a lot of heart. It follows the life story of Puyi from his birth through six extraordinary decades of personal discovery and political change. We see most of it through his eyes, and this really captures the feeling of constantly being a pawn in everyone else's political games. Puyi - at all stages of his life - is such a compellingly written and acted character that I got sucked into his story very quickly. For a character whose life was so extraordinarily different to that of most people watching the film, his struggles and reactions are very relateable.

Sumptuous film, complicated story - but ultimately
just about flawed characters in difficult situations

Because of this, the political story that runs alongside - and gathers pace as the film unfolds - is totally compelling! Although I profess to be fascinated by early 20th Century History, I know shockingly little about how events unfolded in the Far East. This film has gone a long way to fill those gaps for me. It could have ended up being very complicated, technical and wordy - but it didn't. Mainly because we saw things as Puyi did, but also because of a few other equally compelling characters that really made the film for me.

Peter O'Toole is, quite famously, the only Westerner among the main cast (another red flag before I watched film!). He did his job well, but was quite underwhelming. Apart from Puyi himself, it is the women who steal the show. Puyi's wife, "secondary consort" and cousin (the wonderfully named spy, Eastern Jewel) are all superb - again, both in the way their parts are written and how they are played. Between them they hold the second half of the film together - not because they are female characters providing some sort of light relief from the political shenanigans, but because they are right at the heart of all the political shenanigans. And they are brilliant!

Sisters (well, cousins sort-of) doing it for themselves.

In conclusion then - what a fantastic film! Which leaves me wondering what on earth was going on with the marketing? Nothing I had ever read or seen about The Last Emperor gave me any real reason to want to see it. I even decided to buy a cheap import DVD rather than the more expensive lavish BluRay, because I reckoned we'd probably never watch it again. How wrong I was! - anybody want a cheap import DVD version, because next time I want to watch it on remastered BluRay!