This is a hard one- its visually stunning so I can see why it cleaned up at the Academy Awards and 1987 was a weak year for the Best Picture category (Fatal Attraction, Hope & Glory, Broadcast News, Moonstruck) so I can see that for practical reasons it made sense that it won Best Picture- but overall I just didn't think it was worthy of such an honour. It's overblown and just seemed to drag on and on. It seemed to lack any sparkle.
What do people think?
Hmm
shareI guess everyone has different opinions, but I consider it to be totally worthy of the honor. I think it's the best film of the 80's and one of the most worthy Best Picture winners of all time. I've seen it several times now and I have not been bored by it once, but I can understand why some would think it just drags on and on. But not for me.
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I haven't seen it since shortly after it came out but think it was an OK winner, certainly one of the better best picture choices in the mostly dismal 80s. Only Amadeus is better, and otherwise only Platoon even comes close to oscar worthiness.
Broadcast News and Hope & Glory are much, much stronger films though, and a fair few eligible films which weren't nominated are better too - My Life as a Dog, Radio Days, Au revoir les enfants, Empire of the Sun... I'm sure there are others.
The biggest mystery might not be why it won best picture but why, with it clearly widely loved by the Academy, neither John Lone or especially Peter O'Toole managed acting nods. I suspect O'Toole might have given Sean Connery a run for his money that year had they nominated him in support.
> I suspect O'Toole might have given Sean Connery a run for his money that year had they nominated him in support.
Have no idea about that, except that the role of Reginald Johnston was first proposed to Sean Connery (who physically looks much more alike to the real Reginald Johnston, who by the way was Scotish).
As for no actor nominations, it's simple; who is voting for the nominations for the oscars? Of course the best greatest actor in this film would never even get a nomination, since nobody in America or even in Europe have never heard of Ying Ruocheng, even if he was one of the greatest actor alive.
I mean, though O'Toole was pretty good, not only that Ying Ruocheng's performance is far superior, his role in this film is far more important, a key element--the heart of the film is with that character. And you see, you haven't even thought of him as a possible "best supporting actor."
As a subtle sign of his importance, the real person that Ying Ruocheng played his role in the film, the governor of the detention center/correction camp is the only person who was part of the real history appearing in the film as a cameo (Pu Yi's brother Pu Cheh also acted as an advisor for the production). He is the person who gives the document of pardon to Pu Yi.
> Only Amadeus is better,
Hardly so. The Last Emperor is one of the best film of the 80's, and by the way though it is in English it is an Italian film. Amadeus is just a good play executed with high-level of craftsmanship, while The Last Emperor is cinema as an art form, not just a movie version of a play.
The Last Emperor is good, but I think the award that year should have gone to Empire Of The Sun, which wasn't even nominated.
shareIt was pretty boring. I'd say Full Metal Jacket was the best of '87. Though Raising Arizona and Predator are my favorites.
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I did sixty in five minutes once...
I would have given Best Picture to Empire of the Sun, which somehow missed out on nominations for Picture, Director, and Lead Actor (Christian Bale's performance was simply astonishing). It was the best film of the year and one of the finest of the decade and of Spielberg's career, as the film succeeded as a beautifully crafted and moving epic war adventure and as a very personal, intimate, and subtext-heavy coming-of-age tale. Though its relagation to semi-obscurity frustrates me, I at least always get great pleasure from recommending it to those who have never even heard of the film.
As far as the films that were actually nominated for BP in '87, The Last Emperor is probably the best of a weak bunch. Fatal Attraction was at best a moderately enjoyable thriller, and I found Broadcast News, Moonstruck, and Hope and Glory all extremely overrated.
You call a year in which Wall Street wasn't even nominated "weak?"
The Last Emperor is one of the great films of the era, and my favorite of all time.
I have not seen The Last Emperor, so I can't quite speak for certain, but I do remember that movie year, and all of the other films, save Hope and Glory had a lot of buzz to them, and were commercial and artistic hits, made in Hollywood.
I was in college when this happened, and certainly the Hollywood Media Machine is quite different then, before the Internet, but I remember being so surprised that the "foreign film" beat out all the other contenders.
Personally, I loved Fatal Attraction, Broadcast News and Hope and Glory. I thought Moonstruck was good, but not great. And Empire of the Sun should have been a much bigger presence at the Oscars.
Just my opinion.
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