My Award Nominations: Adapted Score

Being such a strong year as it was for original movie music, I have to admit I found myself struggling to find at least three worthy contenders that made effective use of preexisting music to tell their stories. But I ended up with some anyway, so here are my nominees for Best Adapted Score:

My Award Nominations: Adapted Score

Nest up on my list of favourite musical accomplishments of the year:
My selections for Best Adapted Score.

My Award Nominations: Best Adapted Score / Music Supervision

I only began rewarding this less heralded corner of movie music just last year, and I can see why so few people even bother. Unlike last year, which had many great examples of movies using previously composed music to great effect, this year I could barely scrape together the minimum of three examples that I felt merited recognition. You can forgive me for allowing this to be my only award category with fewer than five nominees (now that I've finally come around on Best Makeup & Hair).

Anyhow, here they are: My Best Adapted Scores of the year:

Quick Review - Inherent Vice

I honestly didn't feel that inspired to write about this one, but since Paul Thomas Anderson is one of America's foremost auteur voices, I figured he at least deserved a separate post for his latest film Inherent Vice, rather than lump it in with the capsule reviews.

Suffice it to say that I land firmly on the thumbs-down side of this divisive L.A. noir as seen through a pair of aviator shades and a haze of pot smoke. It comes off more as an empty stylistic exercise than a trippy work of art to me.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as 'Doc', a perpetually baked hippie P.I. investigating the disappearance of a housing mogul and his ex-girlfriend. That's about as much of the plot as I can summarize, because after that things become impossible to follow.

Review - Whiplash

“There are no two words in the English language as harmful as 'good job',” a teacher tells his student. 'Good job' means being content with mediocrity. 'Good job' means just doing what's required instead of doing all you could. 'Good job' does not describe greatness.

And so those are two words you won't find me using to describe Whiplash, which is an exciting, involving, invigorating, absolute lightning bolt of a film; As keenly observed as the most refined of dramas, and yet as pulse-raising as the most intense of action movies; An electrifying combustion of artistic crisis, coming-of-age and jazz music, announcing the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in writer-director Damien Chazelle. 'Good job' doesn't come close to describing this film. It is great.

My Award nominations: Adapted Score

Surprise! I'm adding a category to my list of superlatives this year.

But first, a confession: Even though many voices on the Oscar-web (with sharper ears then mine) have long called for the Academy to reinstate this defunct category, I can honestly understand why they haven't. I myself would struggle to find enough applicable soundtracks in one year that add so much to their films as to merit awards attention. This year, however, was something of a banner year for this oft overlooked microcosm of film music, and so I figure I may as well recognize the best of them.

Throughout the 70s and 80s, the Academy kept renaming and finagling with this category, but they usually only nominated three at a time, so here are my top three Adapted Scores of the year:

Review - Inside Llewyn Davis

If I had wings like Noah's dove,

I'd fly up the river to the one I love,

Oh fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well.

There's a timeless quality to folk music that allows it to resonate for generations because its poetry finds new life with every re-imagining. “Fare Thee Well” (quoted above and throughout this review) can be traced back to 1908 Texas, but has been interpreted and reinterpreted by artists ranging from Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan to Jeff Buckley, and now the Coen brothers in their brilliant new film Inside Llewyn Davis. It's just one of several traditional folk songs masterfully curated and re-purposed by the gifted ear of T-Bone Burnett to breathe truth and illumination into this transfixing character study of a sour musician (Oscar Isaac) trying vainly to get his career and life on track.