Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

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Big Magilla
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

Post by Big Magilla »

Oops. You guys are right. I guess that means his cousin still has a way to go.
dws1982
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

Post by dws1982 »

No Big, he won his first Oscar the year of his fifteenth and sixteenth nominations and second the year of his twentieth. His nominations:
Score, Ragtime
Song, Ragtime
Score, The Natural
Song, Parenthood
Score, Avalon
Song, The Paper
Score, Toy Story
Song, Toy Story
Score, James and the Giant Peach
Score, Pleasantville
Score, A Bug's Life
Song, Babe: A Pig in the City
Song, Toy Story 2
Song, Meet the Parents
Score, Monster's Inc.
Song, Monster's Inc.
Song, Cars
Song, The Princess and the Frog
Song, The Princess and the Frog
Song, Toy Story 3
Big Magilla
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

Post by Big Magilla »

Randy Newman won his second Oscar on his 16th nomination. He won his first on his twelfth although it could be argued that his win for "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc. was his 11th since he was nominated for Original Score of the film as well but that's a little like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg.
anonymous1980
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

Post by anonymous1980 »

Actually Randy Newman won on his 16th nomination.
Big Magilla
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

Post by Big Magilla »

I wouldn't feel too sorry for Thomas Newman. His cousin Randy didn't win until his twelfth nomination and he can always look at his father Alfred's nine Oscars if he ants to get close to the little guy.

Greg T. Russell, really? We should care that the Transformers sound mixer has sixteen Oscar nominations and no wins? Consider him lucky. His guild has only nominated this year for the first time.

Actually I think Thomas Newman's score for Skyfall is a more likely winner than John Williams' score for Lincoln, though I agree with Sabin that Mychael Danna will tale it for Life of Pi.
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

Post by anonymous1980 »

Sabin wrote:
BIGGEST LOSER ALERT! Thomas Newman earned his eleventh nomination that will fail to translate into a win for the same movie that Roger Deakins shot his way to a tenth nomination that will fail to translate into a win. I hope both streaks are broken on Oscar night, and at the rate he's going within five years Alexandre Desplat will have chalked up more nominations than both of them combined.
Also, Greg P. Russell who's on his 16th nomination without a win for the same movie.
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Categories One-by-One: Best Original Score

Post by Sabin »

The year's two most honored compositions will sit this one out. Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin's score for Beasts of the Southern Wild and Johnny Greenwood's score for The Master.

The Academy has a tendency to nominate "active" scores, score that overstate rather than understate. The silent movie soundtrack of The Artist, the key-tone dread of The Social Network, the opening ten minutes of Up, the Bollywood of Slumdog Millionaire, and the typewriter affectations in Atonement. The last time I got this category wrong was when I thought it was between Pan's Labyrinth's iconic lullaby or The Queen's Alexandre Desplat who on his first nomination in 2006 was already "due" for his first win. Both lost to Babel's sixteen minutes of original composition. Taking that the average Academy does not know that "Igazu" was not recorded specifically for that film, I shouldn't be surprised.

The only nominated track I've yet to see/hear is Anna Karenina. I'm taking it for granted that it's an also-ran. So is my choice of these nominees: the way that Thomas Newman makes the old Bond score new again is awesome, and his nomination was pretty surprising to me. I thought Beasts had this nomination in the bag and would end up the likeliest to win. I gave up my hope of a nomination for Danny Elfman's excellent work on Silver Linings Playbook a while ago.

That leaves Alexandre Desplat for Argo, Mychael Danna for Life of Pi, and John Williams for Lincoln. Desplat has been nominated five of the past seven years, and he could have conceivably won a few times over now. This year, the only question was what music would he be nominated for. Claims that there wasn't enough of an original score in Moonrise Kingdom compared to the pop song use confuses me because I'm reasonably sure the ratio is about the same as his contributions to Fantastic Mr. Fox. His work in Zero Dark Thirty contributes quite a bit to the urgency of that film as it careens through history. It's strange to me that his work on Argo would be the one to receive a nomination as I can remember nothing memorable about it. It's urgent but I can't think of a recent precedent for a score winning for simply being urgent. If anything, it strikes me as one of the least accomplished pieces of music done by the most exciting composer alive.

Likewise, Mychael Danna's work on Life of Pi strikes me as a huge missed opportunity. There is enough of it over dramatic montage to secure it up for a win, but following Danna's incredible score for Moneyball (which the crew in charge of editing up the [always awesome] Best Picture montage wisely chose as the unifying music) it strikes me a huge letdown. I was surprised to learn that this is Mychael Danna's first nomination until I realized that all of the amazing pieces of music that seemingly just narrowly missed out on a nomination throughout the years were actually done by Michael Nyman. Something else that works in Danna's favor in a big way is his second nomination for Best Original Song. A tandem nomination for writing a song swept Slumdog Millionaire, the two Song & Score nominated LOTR films, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Brokeback Mountain would have had a nominated song as well were it not ruled ineligible after a Golden Globe win. Only 127 Hours failed to pick up one of the two, but I think that had more to do with a too-recent previous win by A.R. Rahman.

So, is it between Mychael Danna and John Williams' score for Lincoln. It's a lovely, quiet piece of music in contrast to his oppressive work last year in War Horse and its won an award from the Broadcast Film Critics which has matched up with the last four years in a row. John Williams hasn't won an Oscar since Schindler's List and Lincoln certainly seems like a serious enough collaboration between him and Spielberg to warrant another win, but it's such a quiet piece of work that it's hard to rank it for a win. It certainly barges in unwelcomely and far too loudly in certain scenes, like when Spielberg & Williams' undercuts Thaddeus Stevens sucking up his pride and lying for the greater good of the Amendment as if it was a true black & white victory worthy of patriotic anthem, and it's a shame that if it wins it will be for equal parts bullshit like that.

Right now, I'm guessing Mychael Danna's score work for Life of Pi is too exuberant to ignore.

BIGGEST LOSER ALERT! Thomas Newman earned his eleventh nomination that will fail to translate into a win for the same movie that Roger Deakins shot his way to a tenth nomination that will fail to translate into a win. I hope both streaks are broken on Oscar night, and at the rate he's going within five years Alexandre Desplat will have chalked up more nominations than both of them combined.
"How's the despair?"
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