Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1987

The Contenders:

Adrian Lyne: Fatal Attraction
John Boorman: Hope and Glory
Bernardo Bertolucci: The Last Emperor (winner)
Norman Jewison: Moonstruck
Lasse Hallstrom: My Life as a Dog

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1987

The Contenders:

The Dead
Fatal Attraction
Full Metal Jacket
The Last Emperor (winner)
My Life as a Dog

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1987

The Contenders:
Broadcast News
Fatal Attraction
Hope and Glory
The Last Emperor (winner)
Moonstruck

The Last Emperor

Film: The Last Emperor
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on The Nook.

One of the things I love about historical dramas is that I frequently learn about something I’d have otherwise never known. The Last Emperor is a case in point. I know a very tiny bit of Chinese history, mostly connected to World War II. Even so, I knew very little of the history of the Chinese monarchy before seeing this (and I remembered very little before this rewatch). The problem with historical dramas is that any deviation from actual history becomes canon.

Pu Yi (played as a toddler by Richard Vuu, as a child by Tsou Tijger, and as an adult by John Lone) is named as the Emperor of China at the tender age of three. He is moved into the Forbidden City and is forever unable to leave it. While is power is complete and supreme, he is a prisoner of his own position. Additionally, unknown to him because such things are kept from him, China has become a republic, and the position of emperor is nothing more than an elaborate figurehead.