Soundtrack Nerd
Soundtrack reviews and stuff
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Tomorrow is finally the day when we get to hear the nominees for the most prestigious awards. Every year The Academy Awards surprise us with the nominees in every category, especially in the Best Original Score category. Last year they had Tinker Tailor Solider Spy by Alberto Iglesias out of the blue, in 2010 the winner was The Social Network and so on. It’s always about publicity for the film and not the quality of the score when it comes down to being nominated for an Academy Award. But it’s always fun to get around predicting this madness of a Awards show.
Let’s begin…
For me the most secure choice for getting on the nominees list has to be Lincon by John Williams. The film was praised by the critics, did well in the Box Office, is nominated in a lot of other awards including the Golden Globes and also we are talking about John Williams, the man who has 47 Academy Award nominations and is the second most nominated person after Walt Disney.
Now let’s go with two obvious but not that secure. Yes, I’m talking about Life of Pi by Mychael Danna and Dario Marianelli’s Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina is a great score and for me deserves a nomination this year. Marienelli’s done a splendid job and also same as Lincoln, the score was included in the nominees list in other Awards including most recently the Golden Globes and BAFTA. The other one (Life of Pi) is a bit of downer because there are way better scores that need to be included but because the film was a cinematic masterpiece, the score is getting a good reception.
The last two are shaky and may not be included but I will go with Cloud Atlas by Reinhold Hell, Johnny Kilmek and Tom Tykwer and Beasts of the Southern Wild by Dan Romer and Behn Zeitlin. Cloud Atlas wasn’t accepted as the masterpiece as it is and had a terrible run on the Box Office but I still think it will be included in this category. The score was greatly done and what’s even more interesting was a part of the story of the film. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a gem that was hugely praised by the critics from the story, acting to the score. It’s always great when a film makes the critics notice the score and praise it. I would be very happy if those two make the list.
Now there are 3 more that I won’t be surprise if they make the list even though I don’t think they deserve it. They are Jonny Greenwood’s The Master, Alexandre Desplat’s Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. I know that Desplat has done a wonderful work this year but if they want to nominate him, they should go with this year’s best effort of his, Rise of The Guardians.
Who do you think will be nominated and who do you think deserves it?
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The Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. This is their 17th time hosting this awards and they are a good addition to the film score world. They include two categories for music: ‘Best Original Score’ and ‘Best Original Song’. They tend to pick some odd choices sometimes for the nominees like in 2010, ‘The Social Network’ and not including ‘Tron Legacy’ or ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, or last year with ‘Drive‘ by Cliff Martinez. This year they have safe choices except maybe for one or two. So here are the nominees:
Original Score
Alexandre Desplat ‘Argo’ - Warner Bros.
Dario Marianelli ‘Anna Karenina’ - Focus Features
Thomas Newman ‘Skyfall’ - Columbia Pictures
Jonny Greenwood ‘The Master’ - The Wenstein Co.
John Williams ‘Lincoln’ - Dreamworks/Touchstone
Dan Romer, Benh Zeitlin ‘Beasts of The Southern Wild’ - Fox Searchlight PicturesOriginal Song
Learn me Right - Birdy & Mumford and Sons ‘Brave’
Still Alive - Paul Williams ‘Still Alive’
Skyfall - Adele ‘Skyfall’
Suddenly - Hugh Jackman and Alain Bobil ‘Les Miserables’
Fire in The Blood/Snake Song - Emmylou Harris ‘Lawless’
Love Always Comes As A Surprise - Peter Asher ‘Madagascar 3’Who do you think will win and who should win?
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The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood has announced the nominations today for the 40th Annual Annie Awards. The Annie Awards cover 30 categories and include two categories that us score enthusiasts are interested in: ‘Music in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production’ and ‘Music in an Animated Feature Production’.
Winners will be announced on February 2, 2013 at UCLA’s Royce Hall, in Los Angeles, CA.
I’m a fan of the Annie Awards because they are one of the few that can do a good job on the music animations. I said it many times that most of the Awards don’t really care about the music nominations and just go and nominate the same films that are nominated for best picture which isn’t the case in the Annie Awards. Also when it comes down to winners they have a good reputation since the last 3 winners are: ‘Coroline’, ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and ‘The Adventures of Tintin’. So without any delays here are the nominees:
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It’s one of the films this year that critics adore being praised by Roger Ebert and included in a lot of Top 10 of 2012 lists. Since we are in December everyone is starting to push for Oscar nominations so this kind of videos are expected. Nevertheless the score for ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ created by Dan Romer and the director Benh Zeitlin is one of the great ones this year. It’s always perfect when we have a director that is musically educated. Those films (Cloud Atlas was this year too) are always amazing at least score wise, because they understand better where and what the score should be doing. Yesterday the score won the Best Use of Music from the Boston Society of Film Critics so it will definitely will be an Oscar watch. This clip was made by The Creators project and was found on the page of Firstshowing.
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Yesterday the big news broke that Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion and they are going to release 3 films starting with Star Wars: Episode 7 in 2015. I am a big Sci-Fi fan and somehow I’m not a Star Wars fan (don’t kill me please), but here lies a big opportunity not just to bring back the old fans but also to make new so I’m open to this one because it has so much potential. This is still in very early stage and nobody has any detail if the franchise is going to continue the story from Episode 6 or will be going in a new direction or anything about who is going to direct, write and compose.
Nevertheless since hearing the story I started thinking who should compose this one? I tried to make a top 10 list but names just came to me that I thought it would be fantastic if they were composers so without any further delays this is the Top 10 Composers who should score ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’ plus 7 extra choices.
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Jim Guthrie once again has done a very successful job. This will probably end up on the IFMCA nomination list for “Best Original Score for a Documentary Feature”.
Score: 8/10
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Another unique soundtrack from Ghibli studio and an amazing first score from Cecile Corbel which perfectly fits the film.
Score: 8/10
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The soundtrack has some cues good for listening but it’s one of those score that work better in the film
Score: 5/10
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Dull monotone soundtrack. One of those which will be forgotten
Score: 5/10
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If the structure of the soundtrack was better, without any doubt the score would have been more interesting and people would enjoy it more
Score: 4/10
