The Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1987 is two weeks away so get your votes in! We've already had a lot of fun revisiting 1987 films but before we get to the main event let's get some general context of that year in showbiz history. Ready?
Great Big Box Office Hits:
The comedy Three Men and a Baby, the erotic thriller Fatal Attraction, and the Eddie Murphy action comedy sequel Beverly Hills Cop II, and the Robin Williams vehicle Good Morning Vietnam were easily the four biggest hits of the year, box-office wise. The enduringly popular Moonstruck wasn't quite in their league in tickets sold back then but still very popular, rounding out the top five. The other top ten hits of that year were the acclaimed mobs vs feds costume drama The Untouchables, the now arguably forgotten comedies The Secret of My Success and Stakeout, and the buddy action movie Lethal Weapon (which spawned a franchise).
The competition for #10 was down to just a $320,000 dollar difference with best-seller all-star adaptation The Witches of Eastwick just barely beating out teen favourite Dirty Dancing. But back in the 1980s adults actually went to the movies a lot rather than only obsessing over "peak TV"...
Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: Of those 11 box office smashes of '87, Oscar cherry picked Moonstruck (6 nominations) and Fatal Attraction (6 nominations) as the cream of the crop and included them in the Best Picture race (correct choices).The beloved Broadcast News (7 nominations) and the costume drama historical epic The Last Emperor (9 nominations) were also popular with Oscar voters (and ticket buyers, too, it should be noted)...
The only non-mainstream title to make the lineup was Britain's arthouse success Hope & Glory (5 nominations). On Oscar night The Last Emperor made a rare clean sweep, winning every single Oscar it was up for.
What would have been nominated in a field of 10 if the Expanded Lineup had existed? We'll let you decide in the comments but here, we'd argue, are the 10 most prominent contenders for those 5 "phantom" slots.
AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS (2 nominations but it lost foreign film)
CRY FREEDOM (3 nominations)
THE DEAD (2 nominations)
EMPIRE OF THE SUN (6 nominations but all 'below the line')
GOOD MORNING VIETNAM (1 nomination and a huge hit)
MY LIFE AS A DOG (2 significant nominations and an arthouse hit)
RADIO DAYS (2 nominations)
ROBOCOP (2 nominations plus a special achievement Oscar)
WALL STREET (1 nomination but it won Best Actor)
THE UNTOUCHABLES (4 nominations and it won Supporting Actor)
WHICH FILMS DO YOU THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN?
Films That Endured (in some way) That Were Neither Oscar Nominees Nor Blockbusters:
Raising Arizona, The Lost Boys, Adventures in Babysitting, Some Kind of Wonderful, Overboard, No Way Out, Withnail and I, Law of Desire, and Ishtar
Nathaniel's Top Dozen of 1987
- Moonstruck (Jewison, US)
- Law of Desire (Almodóvar, Spain)
- Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring (Berri, France)
- Raising Arizona (Coen, US)
- Broadcast News (Brooks, US)
- Roxanne (Schepisi, US)
- Fatal Attraction (Lyne, US)
- Housekeeping (Forsyth, US)
- Maurice (Ivory, UK)
- The Dead (Huston, UK/Ireland)
- Princess Bride (Reiner, US)
- Near Dark (Bigelow, US)
Only the top two I've seen in recent years so I can't really vouch for this list as is... but that's a combo of what I love now and what I obsessed over in the late 80s...
Magazine Covers for Context...
(You can click to enlarge)
Frequent cover stars included: Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, anybody related to The Cosby Show but particularly Lisa Bonet, Charlie Sheen (hot off of Platoon), the Fatal Attraction stars, Madonna, Michael J Fox, Steve Martin, and Harry Hamlin. Other cover subjects pictured: Alf, River Phoenix, Anjelica Huston, The Last Emperor, The Golden Girls, David Bowie, Pee Wee Herman, Faye Dunaway, Woody Allen, Jon Bon Jovi, Dennnis Quaid, Vanna White, John Huston, Donald Trump, and William Hurt.
Mix Tape (Select Hits of '87)
"Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles, "Alone" by Heart, "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley, "La Bamba" by Los Lobos, "Causing a Commotion" and "Who's That Girl" by Madonna, "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" and "Didn't We Almost Have it All" by Whitney Houston, 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by Kim Wilde, "Livin' on a Prayer" and "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi, "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by U2, "I Want Your Sex" by George Michael, "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" by Aretha Franklin and George Michael, "Looking for a New Love" by Jody Watley, "It's a Sin" by the Pet Shop Boys, "Big Time" by Peter Gabriel, "Touch Me" by Samantha Fox, "Change of Heart" by Cyndi Lauper, "Little Lies" and "Big Love" by Fleetwood Mac, and "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake.
During this year Aretha Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Madonna's hugely successful stadium tour "Who's That Girl" stretched from June to September earning buckets of money, and U2 became rock superstars with their fourth album "The Joshua Tree". George Michael's "Faith" is released in the fall and will dominate 1988 eventually winning the Grammy for Album of the Year.
TV: Fox TV made its PrimeTime debut meaning there were suddenly four networks -- this was a major development that would lead to the WB, CW, and so on... as there'd been only 3 networks for decades. The Golden Girls (season 2) and LA Law (season 1) were tops at the Emmy Awards. Acting Emmys went to Michael J Fox, Rue McClanahan, Bruce Willis, Sharon Gless, James Woods, and Gena Rowlands (for leading players) and John Laroquette, Jackée Harry, John Hillerman, Bonnie Bartlett, Dabney Coleman, and Piper Laurie (for supporting performances). In the case of the Golden Girls the Emmy history is crazy, like the entire voting body was thinking in unison and not splitting the votes. Season 1 Betty White wins. Season 2 Rue wins. and Season 3 both Bea Arthur and Estelle Getty win. Each of the actresses won only once during the 7 seasons.
1987 was the end for Hill Street Blues and it went out with a whimper at the Emmys despite dominating for several years before then. Other shows that aired their last episodes in 1987 were Fame, Scarecrow and Mrs King, The A Team, The Love Boat, Remington Steele, Silver Spoons, and Fraggle Rock. Famous shows premiering that fall were Full House, Star Trek: Next Generation, Thirtysomething, Beauty and the Beast, and Cosby Show spin-off A Different World
Literature: Peter Parker married Mary Jane Watson, a major event in Spider-Man comic books. In the comics book world the critical concensus swarmed around the new graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Other acclaimed titles at the time were Swamp Thing, Cerebus, and Batman (with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns run). Major new novels published that year that will become movies included but were not limited to: Toni Morrison's Beloved (which will win the Pulitzer the following year), Tom Clancy's Patriot Games, Bret Easton Ellis' Rules of Attraction, James Ellroy's Black Dahlia, Stephen King's Misery, and Scott Turrow's Presumed Innocent, and Tom Wolfe's instant sensation bestseller Bonfire of the Vanities. Hollywood paid Wolfe $750,000 for the film rights but the movie (in 1990) flopped.
Stage: August Wilson's Fences (which wins the Pulitzer for Drama) and blockbuster success Les Misérable dominated the Tony Awards winning Best Play and Best Musical respectively. Other nominees that year were (musicals) Rags, Starlight Express, Me and My Girl, and (plays) Broadway Bound, Coastal Disturbances, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (the latter was very quickly adapted for the movies). Off-Broadway Steel Magnolias debuted and like Dangerous Liaisons immediately went into production for a film version.
Showtunes to Go: "Do You hear The People Sing?" from Les Miserables. I was SOOOO obsessed when I was young. It was my favourite stage musical prior to moving to NYC and seeing lots of them. Still have a soft spot for its earnest epicness.