Best Original Song Oscar- What Happened?

One of the traditionally most ridiculous categories to predict, beyond the short films, is the Best Original Song Oscar.

The big complaint this year is that three songs from Enchanted got nominated. Now, I understand that Alan Menken has history on his side: eight wins for Disney standards like "Under the Sea," "A Whole New World," and "Colors of The Wind" from The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Pocahontas, respectively. So I actually went to YouTube and checked out the three songs. "So Close" is okay- kind of a cheese-ball ballad that really feels dated to me, but I could see why it's nominated, at least in a year with a Randy Newman Pixar song or something. But both "That's How You Know" and "Happy Working Song" are complete pieces of fluff- pale imitations of earlier Disney musical songs that are absolutely nothing special.

The August Rush song, "Raise It Up," is nice and soulfull- but honestly some of the after-school rap lyrics are honestly cringe inducing. Also, children singing is very hit or miss for me.

So here are my choices, from the original list of 59, for what I'd vote for.

"Do You Feel Me" - Diane Warren (perf. by Anthony Hamilton)
from American Gangster



Randomly sung during a nightclub scene in Ridley Scott's all-but overlooked crime drama, this song left an immediate impression- it could have been any random seventies cover, but Diane Warren (an Oscar song giant herself) captured the soul of the era, and Anthony Hamilton delivers it. No offense to Amy Adams' singing voice, but come on.

"My Hands Are Shaking" - Sondre Lerche
from Dan In Real Life



If I had known that Norwegian troubadour Sondre Lerche composed the score and wrote several songs for Dan in Real Life, I probably would have gotten off my ass and seen it. As it is, you shouldn't have to be a former Beatle to get an Oscar nomination for a pop song.

"Pop! Goes My Heart" - Andrew Wyatt (perf. by Wyatt and hugh Grant)
from Music and Lyrics



Good song? Yeah, it's cheesy and captures the era. But mostly, how awesome would it be to see this performed at the Oscars? (assuming there is an Oscars).

"Guaranteed" - Eddie Vedder
from Into the Wild



Usually I'm not the biggest Eddie Vedder fan, but this seems to fit the mood of the story perfectly. What's with the Academy not liking pop stars anyway? This getting the shaft, after winning the Golden Globe, is pretty strange on the heels of both Vedder's and Johnny Greenwood's late-breaking disqualifications for Best Score.

And finally, the only one of the academy's five I agree with:

"Falling Slowly"- Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
from Once



Curiously, this song seems like it shouldn't have been nominated, as per the Academy's bitchy rules (it was written well before the film, and even released on Hansard and Irglova's "The Swell Season"). But as long as the voters were ignorant enough of it to nominate it, there's no way it should lose.

I would be well more pissed than any other Oscar fiasco (including Crash over Brokeback Mountain, Titanic over L. A. Confidential, anything) if "Falling Slowly" doesn't win the statue.

Handicapping the Best Picture Race

Later, Dave and I will be posting predictions for 20 out of 24 Oscar categories (the short films being impossible for anybody, and foreign being crazy obscure this year). For now, these are my thoughts on what to do with Best Picture, which just got a whole lot murkier with Atonement's Golden Globe Win.

The Eat My Hat with A-1 Sauce Lock

No Country For Old Men

The Coen Brothers' masterpiece looks completely unstoppable. Virtually every guild has nominated it, even technical ones like sound mixing and art direction, which points to a sure-bet nomination. There's no question in my mind about this one.

The Proven Contenders

There Will Be Blood

Michael Clayton

Both are looking like pretty safe bets, winning Guild nominations from pretty big indicators like the Director's, Editor's, and Producer's. And they have the numbers one and two candidates for Best Actor, which makes them hard to overlook (Day Lewis leads Clooney by a whole, whole bunch though.)

So that's three pictures on my list. The rest is.. up in the air, to say the least. We've got five movies for two slots, so let's break them down one by one. We'll go alphabetically, to be fair.

Atonement

It's good to remember that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is actually only about a 90 member group. And any member can block the induction of a new one, for any reason, so it's a very odd, exclusive club of people from all over the world. And with the Globe awards themselves robbed of any glamor and ad revenue, and no opportunity for the winners to bask in the speeches and publicity of a victory, Atonement's Best Drama win doesn't seem like it guarantees anything.

The real reason I'm not sure about Atonement, though, is because Joe Wright and company have no Guild support. At all- the director's snubbed them, the producer's left them off, the actors, the editors- just Art Direction and Cinematography. But, the names of all of these guilds end with "...Of America," so it's the foreign members of AMPAS that I think can get this film nominated.

The BAFTAs, the British Oscars, announce nominees tonight (around 3AM EST), and if Atonement leads the field there, I'll have to add it to my five.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly

I wish I had seen this already. I almost drove to Chicago last weekend, just because it's playing there now, and not in Milwaukee until Febuary 1st. So I'll have to make my Oscar Predictions blind. Either way, it keeps gaining steam in the awards circle- could it be this year's Letters From Iwo Jima?

The Producer's liked it (more than Atonement), the Director's Guild, the Writer's Guild, the Editors and Cinematographers. Julian Schnabel even upended the Coens at the Globes for Best Director. Does this mean it'll edge something else out? Or will will Schnabel's nomination be it's reward?

Into the Wild

This film also puzzles me (I also still haven't seen it, because I just never got up the enthusiasm.) It's got all the Guild Awards that Atonement is missing (Directors, Editing, Writers), but the Producers left it off, and so did the Golden Globes. And I know they're a small group, but they nominated seven movies for Best Drama and not this one. Wha?

But then, Into the Wild and No Country are the only two films of all these to get a Screen Actor's Guild nomination, and actors are the largest voting block of the Academy. So the case for this is strong. I mean, the SAG nominees are never five for five right, but they're never one for five, either.

Juno

Another head scratcher- Producer's Guild yes, Writer's Guild yes, but it loses the Comedy or Musical GG? Will it live up to the way-too-numerous Little Miss Sunshine comparisons and get nominated, or will it only get the Original Screenplay statue it's sure to win? Can a film whose director is completely overshadowed by the film's screenwriter and star (heck, I've even read more about the hamburger phone than Reitman) really score a Best Picture nod?

Some sort of intuition tells me it'll make the field of five for the sake of variety, since it's far different than most of the other front runners in tone, and it's the most commercially succesfull out of all of them. Maybe it pushes out Into the Wild?

Sweeney Todd

Another film in the Atonement boat, with absolutely no love until the Globes win. Does that really mean it gets into the BP race? Without a probable large foreign support, I think not. I can't see this overcoming the multiple snubs of Tim Burton in directing races, and Depp in acting races (at least ones without "Musical or Comedy" categories) to be a strong contender.

For the record, this means I consider other things like American Gangster, 3:10 to Yuma, and Charlie Wilson's War dead in the water, and not worth breaking down. We'll see what happens when I'm forced to make concrete predictions soon.

Links-

Producer's Guild Nominees
Screen Actor's Guild Nominees
Writer's Guild Nominees
Editor's Guild Nominees
Art Director's Guild Nominees
Cinematography Society's nominees
Cinema Audio Society Nominees
Golden Globe Nominees/Results
BAFTAs Home

Trailer Report: In the Valley of Elah, Into the Wild, Lust, Caution, Margot at the Wedding

These are the trailers I saw in front of Eastern Promises. I went to Milwaukee's premiere art-house theater, and one of the ten best in the country, so I got four artsy trailers this time.

In the Valley of Elah

Hey, this looks like the best movie of the year that I couldn't be less motivated to see. The situation in Iraq is depressing enough with seeing films about it all the time. Maybe if I keep hearing good things about Tommy Lee Jones' performance I'll make it this one.

But even though Paul Haggis is pretty humble about the whole Crash debacle in this interview, I'm still nonplussed on him in general. Hey everybody, Paul Haggis wants you to know that not only is racism bad, so is the war in Iraq! Way to go out on a limb there, buddy.

Also, they need to include a bit of dialogue in this trailer that explains the title, because I had too see this about eighteen different times this summer before I remembered what this movie was called.

Into the Wild

Spoiler Alert! If you've read the book, you know that this guy dies. The description on the back of the book says he dies. This Wikipedia entry says he dies. The book starts with his body being found, and works backwards from there. So why does the trailer for the movie not mention that he dies? We're heading for a The Perfect Storm style backlash on this one.

Also, Emile Hirsch looks like he's twelve, even with a beard.

Lust, Caution

Ang Lee? Tony Leung? Sign me up already.

Also, I love the trend of foreign film trailers with no dialogue in them. It's as if they want to trick all the douchebags whose first thought is "Subtitles? Queer!" into going. Because frankly, I don't want those people sitting next to me on October 12th (when this comes to Beer-town).

Margot at the Wedding

I really liked The Squid and the Whale, and I have Kicking and Screaming on my Netflix. So I was planning on seeing this either way, especially given Noah Baumbach's involvement with Wes Anderson.

And the trailer looks pretty good- I wasn't sure if Nicole Kidman's usually cool demeanor and Baumbach's cynicism were a good match, but color me intrigued. Also, it looks like Jack Black can act a little bit. Go figure.