Terms of Endearment Score - was it a surprise?

[Eric]

AFAIC, Michael Nyman runs the category of criminally under-nominated composers for The Piano, Gattaca, The End of the Affair and foremost Ravenous. (Of course, it appears we're talking about composers who have actually been nominated.)

[Sabin]

Don't leave out Gods and Monsters. The music combined with Fraser's walk in the rain made for one of the most haunting endings of any movie I've ever seen.

This is true. I prefer the Being John Malkovich score for finding an almost impossible register of pathos in such an absurd film, but Gods and Monsters has a glorious score.

[Mister Tee]

Carter Burwell (Being John Malkovich, Fargo)

Don't leave out Gods and Monsters. The music combined with Fraser's walk in the rain made for one of the most haunting endings of any movie I've ever seen.

[Damien]

Terms not winning wasn't a big surprise. I think voters felt there wasn't enough variation to the score -- it was essentially one very appealing theme played over and over.

[Sabin]

I love the Lord of the Rings movies, but aside from The Fellowship and much of The Two Towers I don't think it classifies as Howard Shore's best work. Shore, in my book, is the best composer not remotely nominated for his best work. The Departed, Esther Kahn, Crash, Naked Lunch, The Silence of the Lambs, Dead Ringers, and After Hours are all far superior.

Also:

Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine..., Synecdoche, New York)
Carter Burwell (Being John Malkovich, Fargo)
Nick Cave, Warren Ellis (The Assassination of Jesse James...)
Alexandre Desplat (Birth, hopefully not Fantastic Mr. Fox!)
Philip Glass (The Illusionist, The Thin Blue Line)
Johnny Greenwood (There Will Be Blood)
Alberto Iglesias (Bad Education)
Clint Mansell (The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream)
Mark Mothersbaugh (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums)
Michael Nyman (Gatacca, the Piano)
Yo La Tengo (Old Joy)

[flipp525]

Omissions are aplenty in this category; Jerry Goldsmith's score for Malice in '93, for example, is a personal fave that didn't make the list that year.

How could the Academy not recognize Henry Mancini's haunting score for The Glass Menagerie in 1987? It's practically sublime.



Edited By flipp525 on 1260306826

[Mister Tee]

Bill Conti was already a name based on his Rocky theme, and the main theme from The Right Stuff was stirring in a very Oscar-friendly way (it was even used as the credits music for the Super Bowl in January '84). I thought it was a perfectly rational choice, though Terms of Endearment could certainly have won without serious argument.

[rudeboy]

I don't remember anything about the Terms of Endearment score. Mark Knopfler's score for Local Hero is, for me, by far the stand-out of 1983.

[jack]

An omission from recent years that confused me was the fantastic score for Letters from Iwo Jima.

[Greg]

It was somewhat of a surprise to me. Speaking of scores overlooked by Oscar, I've always been stunned that the scores for both Crimson Tide and Contact failed to even get nominated.

[rain Bard]

The Right Stuff has some great music by Gustav Holst in it, which if it had been composed for the film instead of for the concert hall would certainly have deserved awards. Even Bill Conti's original contribution is not bad. But I think it's one of those classic cases in which Oscar voters got confused, or at least swayed, by significant usage of previously-composed music.

[Movielover]

Was it a surprise the beautiful Terms of Endearment score didn't win? I just listened to it and can't imagine The Right Stuff beating it.