Best Original Score

[Akash]

Giving Babel this award was just as silly as giving Elizabeth an obligatory Make up award in 1998 for basically making Cate Blanchett's pale face even paler. They really need to stop ghettoizing these "technical" awards as compensation for losing elsewhere. So what if a Picture nominee goes home empty handed? That didn't stop them from giving nothing to Terrence Malick's gorgeous The Thin Red Line (the best freaking film in the Picture lineup that night).

Babel deserved nothing. LMS should have walked away with nothing also.

[Sabin]

Bleh - bleh - bleh - BLEH!

Had the voters of this category any sense whatsoever, 'Pan's Labyrinth''s beautiful lullaby score or wonderful Alexandre Desplat would be Oscar-winners by now and 'Babel' would come up snake eyes.

[rolotomasi99]

i posted this before but it seems to bear repeating. this is the link to the npr program highlighting the oscar nominees for score. according to the host of the piece, most of the third world music in the film that sounds like it was not original is actually created by santaolalla.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7273454

this excerpt from an online music review seems to say it best:

"Other than the tune by Hamza, it was left to Santaolalla to capture many of the other Moroccan moods and themes in his cues -- he did a tremendous job. A case must be made, however, for a separate recording of Santaolalla's haunting and deeply moving score, accomplished with a minimum of instrumentation, immediate and intimate production, and plenty of space. This takes nothing away from the rest of the music here; it's just that the original score comprises 19 different cues in a total of 36 and deserves to be heard as a complete piece."

personally i wanted desplat to win for THE PAINTED VEIL (best of the year) and newman to win for THE GOOD GERMAN (best of the nominees), but at least glass did not get the award. that would have definitely been the worst win of the night. i really thought that PAN'S LABYRINTH was going to win, but i like that no best picture nominee was shut out.

[rolotomasi99]

The worst winner of the night. And they played that piece that as been used repeatedly for the past seven years. Someone needs to break that man's guitar.

many people keep saying that the best piece of music from BABEL is seven years old. that beautiful guitar work that they played when they highlighted the film's score is my favorite. is that what everyone is talking about? can someone explain?

[anonymous1980]

Apart from that guitar in the end credits, I don't remember any music from Babel. This is a bizarre win.

[Hollywood Z]

The worst winner of the night. And they played that piece that as been used repeatedly for the past seven years. Someone needs to break that man's guitar.

[Akash]

Very sad choice... Pan's and Queen's were better (but far better) scores than Santaolalla's work... I absolutely love his work on BBM but this is no way near that...

So true. I just hope it's a "Here you go Babel, now please sit down" award like Elizabeth winning Make up in 1998, rather than a "Here you go Babel, out it next to the Big One" award. I'm willing to sacrifice Score to have Babel lose Picture.

[Akash]

When was the last time a composer won two years in a row?

Menken did it in 91 and 92. He won Score and Song both years.

So did Stephen Schwartz for Pocahontas in 96.

[Big Magilla]

Crappy choice, hope it's the only one this thing wins.

[dws1982]

When was the last time a composer won two years in a row?

Menken did it in 91 and 92. He won Score and Song both years.

[HarryGoldfarb]

Very sad choice... Pan's and Queen's were better (but far better) scores than Santaolalla's work... I absolutely love his work on BBM but this is no way near that...

[Tree18]

I was rooting for Pan's or The Queen, which I thought it actually would win.

[dylanfan23]

it was a pretty good score, though painted vail was the best of the year....and the queens was better, thought it was going to win...my favorite out of these was actually the good germans.

[Dennis Bee]

Pan's Labyrinth really did deserve this. When was the last time a composer won two years in a row? Mancini in '61 and '62 is the last I can think of, and one of those years was for song.

[dws1982]

Awful, awful, awful, awful, awful choice.

The only decent pieces of music in the movie were the ones he didn't compose. (Mostly the pieces by Ryuichi Sakamoto.)

Worst award of the night, by a mile.