Autism was a subject that no one talked about before Rain Man. 60 Minutes devoted a segment to the subject and the film prior to the film’s mid-December release, giving it an importance no other film of 1988 would have. It instantly became the film to beat for the Oscar.
Nominated for eight Oscars, Rain Man won four for Best Picture; Director (Barry Levinson); Actor (Dustin Hoffman) and Original Screenplay. Second billed Tom Cruise, who actually has the larger part, would win only a Best Supporting Actor award from the Kansas City Film Critics, tied with Dean Stockwell in Married to the Mob and Martin Landau in Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Cruise played a used car salesman who discovers the older brother he never knew he had when his father dies and leaves his fortune to the brother (Hoffman). Hoffman’s deadpan portrayal of the autistic savant brother was one of his most popular performances and he won several other awards for it in addition to his second Oscar.
The seventh of thirteen versions so far of 18th century French novelist Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons was one of two versions filmed at the same time. Milos Forman’s Valmont would have to wait until the following year to be released.
Nominated for seven Oscars, Dangerous Liaisons won three. Sumptuously filmed, it easily picked off the competition to win Best Adapted Screenplay; Art Direction and Costume Design. Glenn Close as the treacherous Marquise and Michelle Pfeiffer as the victim of her bet with the evil Valmont (John Malkovich) were nominated, respectively, for Best Actress and Supporting Actress. Keanu Reeves, Mildred Natwick and Uma Thurman were also in the eclectic cast.
Also receiving seven nominations, Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning was riveting entertainment that took some heat for focusing on the FBI agents who investigate the civil rights murders of 1964 instead of the victims, but there was no denying the film’s power and the terrific performances of Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as the agents and Frances McDormand as the wife of a nasty deputy (Brad Dourif). Hackman and McDormand were nominated as was Parker for his direction. The film also received nods for Editing and Sound and won for Best Cinematography.
A warmly received comedy, Mike Nichols’ Working Girl made a star of Melanie Griffith, who hadbeen on the periphery of major stardom for much of the decade. Griffith as the fast rising office worker, Joan Cuasck as her friend and Sigourney Weaver as her boss from hell all received acting nominations along with the film’s nods for Best Picture and Director. It won for Best Song, Carly Simon’s infectious “Let the River Run”. Harrison Ford co-starred.
Although it won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Picture, Lawrence Kasdan’s The Accidental Tourist failed to receive much else in awards recognition. Its four Oscar nominations for Best Picture; Supporting Actress (Geena Davis); Adapted Screenplay and Score made it look like an also-ran at the Oscars from the get-go. Even Oscar favorite William Hurt couldn’t muster a nomination for Best Actor in a weak filed. It was all the more surprising, then, when Davis as a quirky dog trainer won over expected winner, Sigourney Weaver who had been nominated for Best Actress for Gorillas in the Mist, as well as for her widely hailed role in Working Girl. It was the first time a performer nominated in both categories had failed to win in the supporting category. Fay Bainter, Teresa Wright and Jessica Lange had all benefitted from double nominations in the past.
Other films Oscar liked this year in addition to the previously mentioned Married to the Mob; Tucker: The Man and His Dream and Gorillas in the Mist included The Accused; Running on Empty; A Cry in the Dark; A Fish Called Wanda; Bull Durham; Pelle the Conqueror; Stand and Deliver; Big; Little Dorrit; The Last Temptation of Christ; The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Who Framed Roger Rabbit; Die Hard; Beetlejuice and Bird, but not Madame Sousatzka; Crossing Delancey; Dead Ringers or Dominick and Eugene.
With Rain Man and Dustin Hoffman pretty much foregone conclusions, the year’s most intense speculation fell on the Best Actress race.
The L.A. Film Critics were first out of the gate with their award for Chrstine Lahti as a left wing fugitive in Running on Empty. Jodie Foster as a rape victim in the low-budget hit, The Accused, picked the National Board of Review award and Meryl Streep won her third New York Film Critics award as a woman accused of murdering her baby in the Australian courtroom drama, A Cry in the Dark. The Golden Globes couldn’t make up their mind. Although they nominated both Lahti and Streep, they split their Best Actress-Drama award between Foster, Sigourney Weaver as activist scientist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist and Shirley MacLaine as an aging piano teacher in Madame Sousatzka. Melanie Griffith won their Best Actress-Comedy award. Griffith beat out Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda; Amy Irving in Crossing Delancey; Michelle Pfeiffer in Married to the Mob and Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. Glenn Close was not a factor at the Globes as Dangerous Liaisons screened too late for their consideration.
Oscar nominations went to Close, Foster, Griffith, Streep and Weaver with only Weaver, who was expected to win in support, the only one seemingly out of the race. Former child star Foster, a big audience favorite, was the winner. Non-nominated Pfeiffer was, as noted, nominated instead in support for Dangerous Liaisons while her popular Married to the Mob co-star, Dean Stockwell, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor along with his Tucker: The Man and His Dream co-star Martin Landau; Lahti’s Running on Empty co-star River Phoenix and Jamie Lee Curtis’ A Fish Called Wanda co-star Kevin Kline. The fifth nominee was veteran Alec Guinness as the victim of circumstance in Christine Edzard’s film of Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit. Kline won.
None of Sarandon’s co-stars from Bull Durham were nominated, but the film did receive a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Hoffman’s competition for Best Actor, in addition to the previously mentioned Gene Hackman, included Max von Sydow receiving his sole recognition from the Academy as an out of work Swede in turn-of-the-20th Century in Denmark in Pelle the Conqueror; Edward James Olmos as a dedicated inner-city teacher in Stand and Deliver and Tom Hanks for his portrayal of a boy in man’s body in Big. In addition, Big received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Pelle the Conqueror won for Best Foreign Film.
Curiously left out of the Best Actor race were New York Film Critics award winner Jeremy Irons as murderous twin doctors in David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers and Golden Globe nominee Tom Hulce as Ray Liotta’s “slow” fraternal twin in Dominick and Eugene, arguably a better portrayal of a man with a mental handicap than winner Hoffman’s.
With two of the year’s Best Picture nominees out of the race for Best Director, the directors’ branch filled those slots with veteran British director Charles Crichton for A Fish Called Wanda and Martin Scorsese for the controversial The Last Temptation of Christ.
Philip Kaufman’s critically acclaimed The Unbearable Lightness of Being about the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia could only muster two nominations, one for Best Adapted Screenplay and one for Best Cinematography.
Popular films receiving at least one nomination included Who Framed Roger Rabbit (five nominations, three awards including a Special Achievement Award for Animation Direction); Die Hard (four nominations, no wins); Beetlejuice (one nomination and win for Best Makeup) and Bird (one nomination and win for Best Sound).
All films discussed except Little Dorrit have been released on DVD in the U.S.
This week’s new DVD releases include I Am Number Four and the Blu-ray releases of Platoon and Papillon.
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