I posted something the other day about how I think the Academy should wait 10 years, at least, before naming the Best Picture of 2011.
I think you need perspective to see what’s really great and what’s merely good … or merely popular or pretentious or politically correct or especially well promoted.
Amy, who blogs at FixItorDeal, commented that she thought “Raising Arizona” should have won Best Picture of 1987.
I loved that movie. I remember skipping class and going to a matinee with my girlfriend at the time. I didn’t know anything about the movie except that it was by the brothers who made “Blood Simple.” I laughed so hard I cried. I’ve quoted the movie ever since, and when I was in Phoenix a few years ago, I made a pilgrimage to the “hayseed bank” Gale and Evelle Snoats robbed in the movie. (“Well, which is it, young feller? You want I should freeze or get down on the ground?”)
Amy’s comment made me wonder, though: Why didn’t “Raising Arizona” win Best Picture?
Probably, I thought, because it’s a comedy, and comedy’s never win, but, also, it turns out that 1987 was a great year for movies.
“Raising Arizona” came out the same year as:
- “The Princess Bride,” a fairy tale everyone remembers and loves. (“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”)
- “Radio Days,” Woody Allen’s look at a Brooklyn family’s life during the Golden Age of Radio.
- “Cry Freedom,” a politically important apartheid drama with Denzel Washington as Stephen Biko.
- “The Untouchables,” which earned Sean Connery an Oscar as an honest cop who taught Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) how to do things “the Chicago way.”
- “Dirty Dancing,” which put Baby in a corner.
And what’s funny is that those movies weren’t even nominated for Best Picture, because 1987 was also the year of:
- “Wall Street,” Oliver Stone’s indictment of corporate greed. “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”)
- “Full Metal Jacket,” Stanley Kubrick film about U.S. Marines during the Vietnam War.
- “Good Morning, Vietnam,” with Robin Williams as an irreverent disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio during the Vietnam War.
- “Empire of the Sun,” Steven Spielberg’s film about an upper middle class English boy (a young Christian Bale) living in Shanghai who is separated from his parents and placed in a Japanese internment camp.
- “Roxanne,” Steve Martin’s charming take on “Cyrano de Bergerac.” (“We haven’t had any irony here since about, uh, ’83, when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at.”)
And none of those movies were nominated for Best Picture, either.
The Best Picture of 1987 was “The Last Emporer,” a beautiful epic about the last emporer of China before the Communist revolution.
The other nominees were:
- “Broadcast News,” a brutal smackdown of the network news business, disguised as a romantic comedy. (“I’ll meet you at the place near the thing where we went that time.”)
- “Fatal Attraction,” a thriller about a mistress who stalks her boyfriend after he breaks up with her.
- “Moonstruck,” a romantic comedy that won Cher a Best Actress Oscar. (“Fear of death?”)
- “Hope and Glory,” about a London family during the Blitz.
I read somewhere it’s almost impossible to make a great movie, because so many pieces have to fall into place, but sometimes the gods smile, and on this, the 25th anniverary of 1987, it’s pretty clear 1987 was a great year for movies.
When I am asked to make a list of favorite movies, The Princess Bride and Roxanne are nearly always on tht list. Moonstruck is nearly perfect. You are so right, that was a great year for movies.
And some years, it’s slim pickings.
BTW, I have given you the ABC Award. I know you probably have a pile of these so the pile will just get bigger.
Well, thanks, Rumbley! That’s awfully nice of you!
Like most of the last decade?
I’m not a big moviegoer, and I am amazed by the number of these movies I saw at the theater in 1987.
Well, Hollywood was still making movies for everyone 25 years ago. Today, too many movies are aimed at 12-year-old boys and only 12-year-old boys.
Amy has mentioned Raising Arizona before and I’ve meant to watch it because I trust her sense of humor. I still haven’t, but through the magic of Netflix, I shall change that.
1987 was one of those years that, if I could go back, knowing what I know now, I would gladly do so. Maybe subconsciously the movies have something to do with that.
This was an enlightening post. If it’s a re-post, I hope my comment is consistent with what I said before.
So many quotable lines in “Raising Arizona.”
“Her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.”
“My motto is, ‘Do things my way, or watch your butt!’”
Q: “These blow up into funny shapes and all?” A: “Naw, unless round’s funny.”
“Son, you got a panty on your head.”
“I NEED me a baby, Hi. They got more’n they can handle.”
“You an’ me’s just a fool’s paradise.”
Dammit, H.I. The sun don’t rise and set on the corner grocery.
I’d rather light a candle than curse your darkness.
I donno, they were jammies! They had Yodas and shit on ‘em!
And when there was no crawdads, we ate sand.
You ate SAND?
1987 was, indeed, a great year for movies. Not so much for fashion. “Raising Arizona” was one of the best movies ever. Ever.
What, you have a problem with big hair and big shoulders?
I forgot about Radio Days. What a great movie.
Kind of amazing that Raising Arizona and Blood Simple come from the same source. Blood Simple is so violent.
It’s violent, but I liked (spoiler!) the gun fight at the end between people in different rooms who don’t know who they’re shooting at.
Great movies for sure, and I like your idea about waiting a decade to decide but the academy would still be way out of touch with regular people. Art is in the eye of the beholder I guess.
You know what else is in the eye of the beholder? Contact lenses. I don’t have a point. I’m just sayin’.
And those movies didn’t rely on special effects to make them interesting,
Funny how that works, isn’t it? When you don’t have a lot of money, you have to rely on story and craft. When you have $150 million to $200 million to spend, if something’s not working, you just make it 3D.
That was a charmed year, wasn’t it? You neglected to mention Evil Dead II, however.
This is one of the great points about how meaningless it can be to try and give awards to art, especially if you’re going to place great weight on first impressions. An immediate strong impression isn’t the only way to judge the value of a movie. Sometimes I love a movie and walk out of the theater thinking it’s the greatest thing ever, but in the days to come it fades and in the years to come I never have the desire to see it again. But sometimes I see a movie and feel indifferent at first but it sticks with me and I find myself thinking about it for weeks and weeks–these are the movies I’ve watched again and again.
I think the academy should give a best of the decade Oscar ten years after the decade ended,
That’s I was with Forrest Gump and Titanic. Both movies made a strong impression in the theater, but I don’t think either holds up.
Wow! I never realized all those movies came out the same year. I don’t recognize all of them, but most. And I loved most of those.
I saw Raising Arizona with my parents and none of us liked it the first time. I think it needed time to digest or something, because we all watched it again and loved it. One of my favorites. Glad I gave it a second chance. I had the same experience with What About Bob.