Oscars Playback: When ‘Rain Man’ ruled but the Snow White fiasco stole the show
Welcome back to Oscars Playback, in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng revisit Oscar ceremonies and winners of yesteryear. This week, in the season finale, we cover the 61st Academy Awards in 1989, honoring the films of 1988.
“Rain Man” ended the night as the big winner with four awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Barry Levinson and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman, but Oscar night began ignominiously. That’s because of the infamous Rob Lowe and Snow White rendition of “Proud Mary,” of course. But was that really more cringe than the “I Wanna Be an Oscar Winner” musical number? The interminable piece was performed by 18 “stars of tomorrow,” including Patrick Dempsey, Chad Lowe, Keith Coogan, Savion Glover, Corey Feldman, Christian Slater, Tricia Leigh Fisher, Tyrone Power Jr. and Blair Underwood. Both musical flops, in addition to nixing performances of the Best Original Song nominees, came from first-time Oscar producer Allan Carr, who was lambasted in the aftermath of the show and blacklisted from Hollywood. But one of his creations did remain: He introduced the phrase “And the Oscar goes to…”
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While Hoffman won his second Oscar, the other three acting categories went to first-time champs. Jodie Foster took Best Actress for “The Accused” as the film’s sole nomination, Kevin Kline scored Best Supporting Actor for “A Fish Called Wanda,” and Geena Davis grabbed Best Supporting Actress for “The Accidental Tourist.” The last was an upset as Sigourney Weaver, a double nominee for her lead turn in “Gorillas in the Mist” and supporting performance in “Working Girl,” was expected to prevail for the latter. Up until that point, every acting nominee with two bids in the same year had won one — and all in supporting. How did she go 0-2?
Elsewhere, since we’ve already covered the 62nd Oscars — you can watch here — we rank the Best Picture winners of the ’80s.
Timestamps:
Intro and the Snow White of it all (0:00)
Ceremony thoughts (14:01)
Our favorite films of 1988 (18:44)
Best Picture (45:56)
Best Director (56:51)
Best Actor (1:01:53)
Best Actress (1:10:58)
Best Supporting Actor (1:23:17)
Best Supporting Actress (1:28:17)
Screenplay awards (1:35:47)
Other thoughts (1:38:32)
Best Picture rankings of the 1980s (1:52:31)
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