My Award nominations: Original Score

Only one of my own Best Original Score nominees went on to be nominated for the Oscar, but that doesn't undercut what a diverse year it's been for film music. The other four that found room on the Academy's slate are quite terrific, even if they didn't find room on mine:

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.

2012 Capsule Reviews

As the season revs up I tend to spend less time on full reviews, but often deposit a paragraph or two for new films (or old ones I've just caught up with) in one post throughout the winter.

Annie Award nominations

Nominations for the 40th annual Annie Awards have been announced by ASIFA-Hollywood. Leading the pack are the prize hopefuls from the Mouse House: Pixar's Brave and Disney's Wreck-It Ralph each landed ten nominations. ParaNorman and Hotel Transylvania took eight apiece. DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians nabbed six.

More than ever, the organization feels like one with a severe identity crisis. In order to quell backlash from the realization a few years back of a disproportionally DreamWorks-based voting membership, they have been continually tweaking their voting process to cast a very broad net. It's more of a dishonour not to be nominated! And yet they still manage to miss obvious achievements in several categories. How does Brave not get cited for storyboarding? How does Frankenweenie lose out on character design? How do Wreck-It Ralph leads John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman get passed over for Alan Tudyk's broad impersonation of Ed Wynn in Voice Acting?

All in all, take it with a grain of salt. This group is hardly an influential one when it comes to the awards race.

Also nominated here are Animated Short shortlisters Paperman, The Longest Daycare, and Head Over Heals.

Best Animated Feature
Brave – Pixar Animation Studios
Frankenweenie – The Walt Disney Studios
Hotel Transylvania – Sony Pictures Animation
ParaNorman – Focus Features
Rise of the Guardians – DreamWorks Animation
The Pirates! Band of Misfits – Aardman Animations
The Rabbi’s Cat – GKIDS
Wreck-It Ralph – Walt Disney Animation Studios