Rain Man (1988)

Rain Man isn't so much a Best Picture as the best of a series of movies you might catch on basic cable on a Sunday afternoon...

SPOILER ALERT: We reviewed the costume design in-depth for Phantom Thread. If you don't want to hear spoilers, it's tagged to the end of the episode, so you can simply stop after the final music.

This week we watched 1988's Best Picture, Rain Man. The script has the same sensitivity and thoughtful understanding of autism as a brick fused with a giant boulder, and the only redeeming character also happens to be the one who has the least ability to relate to other people. We're all for Dustin Hoffman's Oscar-worthy performance, and even get some shining moments from Tom Cruise. But honestly, even though this is a pretty good movie, we have to wonder - what happened to make this the best film of 1988? Was it just that bad?

After the break, we talk about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest venture, Phantom Thread. Daniel Day-Lewis retires not with a bang, but with a subtle, twisted performance with a ton of wicked humor. Lesley Manville might just be our pick for Best Supporting Actress, and we get into a fight over Jonny Greenwood's fantastic or atrocious Mr. Rogers-esque score. 

NEXT WEEK: The Sting (1973).

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Music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.