1987: The Year that The Chinese Empire Died Along with Nic Cage's Talent

Much like Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage seems to be better the farther back in time you go. I still haven't seen his Oscar-winning performance from the 90s, but his performance in this year is actually pretty good. What happened? Apparently he's actually against scientology and speaks out against it, so it can't be that. Unless...maybe he was kidnapped by scientologists and had one of those electro-shock therapies put on him against his will...so that his acting would be just as bad as Tom Cruise. It all makes sense now! Either way, his "cute but not great" film in this year is sadly the year's best offering in many ways. The upshot of this fact is that my birth year is not the worst year for nominees anymore (suck it 1987!) but the down...shot, if that's a word, is that there are 7 more years of the 80s to get through.

Let's begin with yet another film in the same style that I ranted on in my 1988 post: Broadcast News. Now I know that my reviews and rants can be tricky sometimes because I over-emphasize things for what I hope comes off as humor. There are movies that I don't dislike as much as I let on (I'll make brownies for whoever can pick them out) and I simply exaggerate because it's a lot more interesting than saying "meh, that movie was so-so." But let's be real for a second: if I have to sit through one more freaking romantic comedy with literally the EXACT same plot, I'm going to put a list of dangerous addictions into a hat and start incorporating one of them into my everyday life. The reason I mentioned my hyperbole before is this: I'm not even exaggerating when I say they have the same plot. This even has the same actor as The Accidental Tourist (William Hurt) so it's pretty much the same frickin' movie! On that fateful day a long, long time from now when I finish the escapade I'm actually going to count how many of these films there are. And I'll send the grand total to the Academy with a picture of me in a Batman suit flicking them off and saying in a word bubble: "no love for the Caped Crusader?" The only difference between all of these movies is the profession the dude has that leads to the two people meeting. Jack Nicholson was a writer, William Hurt was a writer, William Hurt the second time was a broadcast journalist...wait a minute. Those are all the same! So in this movie he's a TV writer basically, except for non-fiction since it's the news. Still, the news is just "info-tainment" at the end of the day, they're still selling you a story. The women also get progressively less attractive in my not-so-humble opinion. Helen Hunt is pretty hot, Geena Davis is cute, Holly Hunter (in this movie) isn't unattractive but her voice is seriously annoying. I had no idea how much worse The Piano could've been if instead of playing a deaf-mute her character could actually talk. It's the stuff of nightmares. And yet again this film sits around the same basic running time of about 2 hours and 15 which is WAY too long for a movie like this (as I believe I've mentioned several times). I'm sure there's some sort of interesting phenomenon about how the writers of film and television all have tenuous love lives that somewhat resemble the plots in these types of movies (or inspire them rather) but you know what? I don't care. I'm all for putting aspects of one's life into a body of work, but at least tack something fairly interesting on there. Or give it some snappy dialogue like Juno did. Do ANYTHING, but don't keep churning out the same stuff. I get enough of real life in my real life, I'd like to see something a tad more interesting and thought-provoking in an Oscar nominee.

Which you won't find in Fatal Attraction, I can tell you that right now. Although, as my mother pointed out: it was a lot more shocking when it first came out because people had never really seen something like that before. I realize that's often the case with some of these films I can't quite get into, but then I think about how something like Lawrence of Arabia was a spectacle to behold when it first came out and it still is today. Or to use a more recent example, Viggo Mortensen who played Aragorn in LOTR once said, and I'm paraphrasing, that "hard as it may be to believe, the special effects in these films will someday look cheap and outdated. But the story will live on." And that's totally true, I don't let it bother me when I watch a movie from the 40s and someone gets shot and there's no blood and no bullet hole. Because that's not what matters. So with this movie, I can certainly understand the morbid fascination that people had with it when it came out, but I don't think it particularly stood the test of time. The film, much like many Michael Douglas films if you check and see, is about a dude who has a fling with a woman who turns out to be a psycho. Maybe that was original when Clint Eastwood did it in 1971 with Play Misty For Me, but it's certainly not in 1987 (it probably wasn't original with Clint either, it's an age-old story). Perhaps the level it goes to was more original, such as the bunny being boiled on the stove. That was disturbing even for me...but other than that the whole thing is pretty much predictable. I will say that Glenn Close gives a really solid performance, but casting her in the movie wasn't a great choice overall. This leads me to my main problem with the film: lack of overall believability (which could've been fixed with a few minor changes). First off, Michael Douglas' character isn't a previous philanderer (or if he is then it's not mentioned). If he had been, then you'd get a "this is his comeuppance for years of cheating on his wife" feel, and then he can realize how bad he's been, learn a lesson, yadda yadda. Kinda cheesy, but it'd make more sense. Since it's the only time he's done this, they should've A) made his home life a lot more strenuous or B) cast someone way hotter than Glenn Close. I know this is all a touchy subject because asses like his character pull crap like this every day and are sadly not attacked with knives, but within the world of film you need more believability. Because lies require more proof than the truth (did I just blow your freaking mind?). With either of those changes, we could've at least understood his decision on the level of "people are bad and things are complicated" if obviously not on a moral level. Something else that bothered me is that Glenn's character is presumably about the same age as Glenn herself, so about 40 within the film. Her psychological issues probably aren't new, so why is this the first time she's gone psycho on a guy after a fling? Michael Douglas really isn't that special (I don't think) and nor was he particularly forward with her when they began their fling. If the woman had been fresh out of college and discovering the wide world of business and power for the first time, I'd have bought that. If she had been hot too, I'd have bought the situation even more. So I respect that they chose someone with the best acting talent instead of a pretty face, but they should've changed certain aspects of the movie to better suit this and it would've worked a lot better. Since I'm attempting to be not quite as hyperbolic in this entry, I'll say that the movie wasn't bad at all and was even enjoyable at times. But it's still a far cry from a nominee, unless that was a year of REALLY slim pickens.

Which it may well have been, because I'm really not sure what to make of the film Hope and Glory. There have been very few occasions where I had such a small response to a movie, either positive or negative. The overall plot seems to quite possibly be a big influence on the 1998 film Life is Beautiful. Except that movie is incredible and made me cry, and I just kind of sat and watched this one. It's essentially a quasi-biography of the director's life growing up during World War II. So it kind of shows the war through the eyes of an 8-year-old boy, which is a fascinating concept. Because even if a young boy was interested enough in global politics to ascertain why the war was happening, even the adults in his situation didn't fully grasp the entire situation because there's no way they could have. The only way to even begin to understand all of it is from a historical perspective today. Which is, once again, what makes the idea of this film so fascinating. I think it was a bit too British for me though...I often appreciate and love British things but there are aspects of their humor that are lost on me. And since the movie is supposed to be a comedy of sorts, I really wasn't sure what was supposed to be funny and what was meant to be ironic and what was meant to be sobering. I certainly recognize it as being well-done and even deeply personal given that it's largely the director's story. But for some reason I just couldn't connect with it. Maybe I'm not British enough or maybe I just wasn't in the right mindset, I don't know. Or maybe I'm still sick of sitting through WWII films, because once you've seen Patton and Saving Private Ryan you really don't need to watch anything else (anything relatively recent anyway). I also realize it's bad to say a film isn't great because a similar movie that was made 11 years later was better...but for all I know when I reach 1974 or something there will be something that this ripped off. Still in all, I suppose the movie was a breath of fresh air just because I didn't hate it.

Nor did I hate Moonstruck, but I didn't love it either. Yes, it's a romantic comedy. But it's not in the same formula as the stuff I've been ranting about as of late. It's got a bit more of an edge to it. Because it's about Italians! Say what you want about my race of people, but they're pretty hilarious all the time. It's not quite as funny when some of the ridiculous crap is actually happening around you...but when you see it satirized on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond it's absolutely hysterical. Just as that show is the classic sitcom with a twist, this movie is the classic romantic comedy with a twist. And I never thought I'd enjoy Cher in a movie, or anywhere, but she actually does a pretty great job. And so does Nicolas Cage! This movie was clearly made in the Twilight Zone. The basic plot is that Cher's character was married once before and her husband died, and now she's 37 with not much hope of finding "Mr. Right" and so when her schmuck boyfriend proposes to her (in probably the most pathetic/hilarious way I've seen) she says yes because her options are few. Well, not too long after that she meets her soon-to-be-brother-in-law, played by our buddy Nic. She initially meets with him to convince him to forget about the bad blood with his brother and come to the wedding. And just when you're starting to think, "oh this is going to be one of those not serious things that Italians make really serious and blow out of proportion," he reveals that his right hand is made of frigging wood! Due to the fact that his actual hand burned off. Oh, and then the woman he was going to marry left him. All because his brother really needed some fresh bread from the hot oven, and fast. I'd be pissed too. So you've got that aspect of the film giving it a nice twinge of darkness. Then there's the fairly morbid humor surrounding her first husband's death. All of this makes for a somewhat dark, but pretty enjoyable comedy. She of course ends up with Nic even though he's a bit younger than her and they don't exactly live happily ever after (because they're Italian) but they're better off than they were before. So it's a cute little movie and it uses Dean Martin's "That's Amore." That makes it pretty good in my book and exactly what I needed to get me back into the escapade, after it was brought to a halt by...wait for it...

The winner for the year: The Last Emperor. It sounds exactly like something I would like, doesn't it? The idea of being the last of one's kind is something I've always found fascinating and hauntingly sad. I love movies about emperors and empires, because as far back as I can remember I always wanted to rule the world. And I figure I can pick up a few pointers from all the failed empires and avoid those mistakes. So by all means I should've liked this movie. But it sucked. Aspects of it were interesting, but I kept remembering that it won 9 Academy Awards. Freaking nine! That's almost as much as LOTR, more than The English Patient, and more than either Godfather. That's craziness, but I know why all of that happened. This was the first (and maybe only) Western film that was allowed to be filmed within China's "Forbidden City." So that makes this a political and diplomatic film. Because since China is a bunch of commie psychos who refrain from destroying us for the sole reason that we buy all of their products, the Academy probably thought it'd be a nice (and safe) gesture to throw them a bone. But did they really need to throw them nine bones? That's just insulting. And no, it seems many of the other films that year weren't particularly good either. But still, the movie is about basically nothing and it's not too well-done. The kid speaks perfect English when he's like, 3. And then when he gets older he speaks fragmented English with a Chinese accent. None of that makes any sense! Plus we never see him do anything as Emperor, except for breastfeed from a mid-wife up until he's 8 and protest when his chosen wife is 17 and he's 14. Maybe I screwed up those years, I don't feel like checking. Points being: A) gross and B) what kind of teenager wants to marry someone who's like 12 instead of 17? And let me add C) why should I care? Well, all of the interesting aspects of the story, such as how he's a puppet for some Japanese regime, were either left on the cutting room floor (there's a director's cut that's about an hour longer but 2 hours and 45 minutes was plenty already, believe me) or were never included in the film in the first place. So what we have instead is a film that is about a real-life person who was involved in interesting events, but we never get to see them. We just see all of his cabana boys following him around the city and him being a whiner because his brother wore yellow and he's the only one who can wear yellow. The kid's your classic spoiled brat, except that he also runs a country. So that makes him the ultimate spoiled brat. Why would I cheer for this person? Answer: I do not. Which is why I completely don't care that he ends up as a prisoner and subsequently a peasant. Because he didn't really have a "fatal flaw" that led to his downfall, and though we can say he was a victim of the world around him and of the times, we don't care enough about him enough to feel any sympathy. I will admit that the final scene was pretty good, even though it involved a grasshopper that somehow survived in a jar for 50 years (don't ask). Bottom line: I'm glad we avoided World War III by giving this movie an award, but it's a Catch-22 because then we have to live in a world where movies like this get Best Picture and I'm not sure it's worth it.

But of course it's worth it! Because remember in the 90s write-ups when I used to say, "I overall agree with the Academy's decision?" Those were some good times. Good times I hope to have again soon. And though I understand that hope is what kills a man, I still have some optimism in my heart for 1986. Truly. I already know I like the winner well enough, so who knows? Maybe my slump will end. All I can say for the moment is that it will include Robert DeNiro opting not to kill people, Charlie Sheen being not a self-centered jerk, and freaking William Hurt hopefully being not in a derivative piece of crap.