One Category at a Time: Best Original Song

With little in the way of industry precursors to go by (The Golden Globe and Critics Choice are the only two that come to mind), trying to anticipate who wins Best Original Song at the Oscars can be a crap shoot. However, whenever those two precursors agree on a contender that's also Oscar-nominated, it tends to win.

One Category at a Time: Original Song

Not gonna lie: This doesn't promise to be an especially enjoyable Oscar telecast from a musical standpoint. These five tunes don't exactly form a chipper playlist. Only this time the music branch can't be blamed, as they were clearly starved for choice. On the one hand, it's guaranteed to keep me in suspense until the envelope is opened. On the other, it's also guaranteed to reveal a winner that I'm not all that excited about.

One Category at a Time: Original Song

After several years of embarrassment culminated in last year's laughable pair of Best Original Song nominees, the music branch finally got a clue and decided to abolish their asinine grading system, instead just letting the five songs with the most votes be the nominees. They also went the route of screener DVDs, allowing music branch members to evaluate clips of all eligible songs from the comfort of their own home.

The rule changes have instantly paid off with a respectable slate of tunes which we'll probably hear performed on Oscar night. That basically is what this category is for.

Oscar Nominations! ZOMG!

First and foremost, here's the link: http://oscar.go.com/nominees (it's just easier than writing 'em all down).

Second, and more substantially, here are my reactions:

WHOA!WOW!HOLYSHIT!IDON'TBELIEVEIT!AREYOUKIDDINGME!

In a phase 1 as condensed and crazy as this, we could be forgiven for hoping the Academy would throw us a few surprises, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Best Picture was stuffed, boasting nine nominees. Seven of them I anticipated -- Argo, Django, Les Mis, Life of Pi, Lincoln, SLP, and ZDT -- but the two I didn't predict have made me a very happy man; Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour (along with the aforementioned Argo), represent the three best movies of the year in my opinion, and it's a thrill to see all of them up for the big prize. And I thought I wouldn't have any movies to root for!

Review - Hell and Back Again

You know how I always qualify my own Best Foreign Film and Best Documentary nominees with that tepid “subject-to-change” line? This is why.

Less than four days after finally settling on my award winners, not only am I going to have to retroactively adjust my nominees (and winner) for Best Documentary, but several other categories as well. Hell and Back Again, which the Academy's documentary branch recently spurred me to investigate when they nominated it for Best Documentary, is straight up one of the best films of the year.

The subject is Sgt Nathan Harris, a gung-ho Marine whose leg was crippled by a bullet nearing the end of his deployment in a Taliban stronghold in the summer of '09. Now back on American soil and limping to readjust to civilian life, we see the exposed imbalance of a fragile mind who finds himself for the first time in a fragile body. Director Danfung Dennis employs a smart chronological structure that toggles back and forth between the “Hell” of Afghanistan and the “Back Again” of America, although by the end of the film it's suspected that home may have become Nathan's true hell.

My Awards nomiations: Original Song

As is usually the case, this is a thin category. Songwriting for film just isn't in vogue nowadays, but if you look close enough you can usually spot at least three of four decent Original Songs a year:

"Lay Your Head Down" from Albert Nobbs (Brian Byrne, Glenn Close):

This lovely Irish lullaby that concludes the film appropriately captures the film's subdued, delicate nature. Only used for the credits, but it's just so pretty.

"Star Spangled Man" from Captain America (Alan Menken, David Zippel):

One of my favourite moments of the film was the snappy montage set to this jaunty anthem that gently satirizes wartime propaganda in the spirit of a USO show.

"Lily (Rita)" from Chico & Rita (Bebo Valdes):

A romantic and melodious love theme that evolves over the course of the film from random ticklings of the piano keys to a sweeping full-bodied orchestration.

"Hell and Back" from Hell and Back Again (J. Ralph):

Soulful, poetically worded, and given melancholy voice by Willie Nelson's country rasp, this track is a soothing epilogue to a wrenching character study.

"Life's a Happy Song" from The Muppets (Bret Mackenzie):

A bouncy opening number that signals the beginning of a laugh-out-loud romp, and it even gets a heart-bursting reprise as the film's big finale.

Just missed:
"The Living Proof" from The Help, "Pictures in My Head" from The Muppets,
"The Keeper" from Machine Gun Preacher