IFMCA nominees

Composers in Hollywood don't have a guild or trade group to give us hints as to Oscar potential like other craft sectors, but each year we get to see what the International Film Music Critics Association thinks represents the best of the year, and it's always a treat! The organization drops their nominees well after Oscar nominations, and with a plethora of categories, they often spotlight artists that the Academy's insular branch overlooks, like TRON Legacy's Daft Punk two years ago or Drive's Cliff Martinez last year.

This year's nominees include wonderful but sadly Oscar-snubbed scores like Cloud Atlas, Rise of the Guardians, The Dark Knight Rises, and others. The biggest presence on this slate is enjoyed by Alexandre Desplat, with four nominations including Composer of the Year (he's gotta win that one, right?).

Film Score of the Year
Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Howard Shore)
The Impossible (Fernando Velázquez)
Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)
Lincoln (John Williams)

I'm guessing this comes down to the two Oscar nominees, Lincoln and Life of Pi. They gave it to Williams last year, and it looks like Mychael Danna is on route to Oscar, so it might be his to lose.

Visual Effects Society noms

The VES has revealed their nominations for the 2012 year in film, and leading the way with seven nods is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, followed closely by Life of Pi and The Avengers with six. All are presumed Oscar nominees, but guessing those final two slots gets a bit tricky.

The Dark Knight Rises has been an assumed nominee all year, but only scooped one mention from the guild; for its great miniatures. Another superhero film to reap a sole nomination is The Amazing Spider-Man, which few are anticipating will earn Academy love anyway. I'm beginning to come around to the thought of Prometheus -- which garnered three nods -- taking that fifth slot. Its effects work was pretty terrific, and three of the Alien films earned Oscar nominations for visual effects.

The four other films shortlisted by the Academy were snubbed altogether. Skyfall's shutout here might be attributed to its abundance of practical effects, but could ride a wave of momentum through the craft categories to a surprise effects nomination on Thursday. Cloud Atlas' Oscar chances are all but dead in the water after being largely written off as a confusing flop. Ditto John Carter. Snow White and the Huntsman might be a dark horse to watch.

On the animated side of things, I'm delighted to see ParaNorman do so well with five nominations. For those of you who've been asking about my own awards, I may as well mention right now that its effects are among the most impressive of the year in my opinion.

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture
"The Avengers"
"Battleship"
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
"Life of Pi" The current frontrunner, and likely Oscar winner
"Prometheus"

Seven Makeup finalists revealed

As usual, the Academy's makeup branch is one that defies prediction, snubbing high-profile work every year when it comes to their contestant-whittling bakeoff, and often including at least one fringe contender in their final three. The big shaftee this year in the bakeoff stage is Cloud Atlas, whose plethora of genre-spanning, gender-crossing, and race-warping transformations just wasn't enough to overcome the hit-and-miss nature of the actual makeup. And perhaps with good reason. Quantity shouldn't substitute for quality, and while the film's makeup team deserves a hearty pat on the back for being the hardest working members of the crew, a lot of the makeup was just plain bad.

Another snubbed movie which I thought might have a shot at being this year's fringe contender was Leos Carax's Holy Motors, whose shape-shifting star Denis Lavant dons many guises which are not only well executed, but spotlighted in the film itself as Lavant applies and removes the makeup himself. I guess it was too fringe for the makeup branch to even see it, which is probably why it didn't get a mention.

Review - Cloud Atlas

Combining arthouse ambition with studio production value, Cloud Atlas is an existentialist Rubik's cube with commercial sensibilities; a beguiling tale of reborn souls meeting over again across time and space, spun into a sprawling tapestry about what connects us as human beings... or, you know, something like that.

In 1849 a young aristocrat returns home from an expedition to the slave colonies in the Pacific rim. In 1936 a young music writer keeps correspondence with his gay lover as he helps an aging composer put his melodies to sheet. In 1973 an investigative journalist uncovers a nefarious conspiracy between big oil and nuclear power. In 2012 a book editor seeks refuge from Irish thugs only to be committed to a rest home. In 2044 a genetically engineered servant in the dystopic Neo Seoul becomes the key face of an underground revolution. In the distant post-apocalyptic future, warring tribes fight for survival as a more technologically advanced visitor comes with a mysterious mission.