Best Song has been cut down to three songs this year, much to the chagrin of some folks. To make things even more irrelevant, the songs will be cut down to a little over a minute each for a medley. Peter Gabriel is thus refusing to perform, and M.I.A. just had a baby so she might not be there either. Good times. Anyways, OSCARDEATHRACEON!
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
- "O Saya" from Slumdog Millionaire - A.R. Rahman; Maya Arulpragasam
- "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire - A.R. Rahman (music); Sampooran Singh Gulzar (lyrics)
- "Down to Earth" from WALL·E - Peter Gabriel (music/lyrics); Thomas Newman (music)
Who should win?: "O Saya", no contest. I know we all love WALL·E a lot better than Slumdog Thrillionaire, but even if you take Maya out of the equation, "O Saya"'s awesome drums are easily the best thing about this category. Petey Gabriel's song is kind of animation theme song by numbers, and prefer "Jai Ho" to it too, but really, "O Saya" is gr8. Maya's rap on it is pretty typical of her, and it makes sense for her to be here, yeah? Where Slumdog succeeds it succeeds on the same levels as M.I.A., bright colors, quick cuts, multi-culturalism. However, where M.I.A. interacts with this the politics and consequences of this multi-culturalism, even if only at a superficial level, Slumdog stays completely away from them until the credits, and prefers old-fashioned melodrama to interrupt its brightly colored tornado of inner city life and game shows. "O Saya" definitely reminds me of the parts of Slumdog I enjoyed. (Sorry but I'm too uninvolved in this category to revise that and make it make sense).
Who will win?: On one hand Slumdog looks to roll through these Oscars and I hesitate to pick against it anywhere, but even with the Academy down to vote for it in any way possible, I still think that in a vote-splitting situation the classic Oscar-style "Down to Earth" takes it.
Who got snubbed?: Springsteen-gate is kind of odd, I think. Like, I think "the Wrestler" is a good movie song from a really good movie, but since when does anyone care so much about this stupid Oscar category? Whatever tho. I perused some of the other eligible selections, and while Matty McD faves Miley Cyrus, Jenny Lewis (both for Bolt), Regina Spektor (Narnia), and Beyonce(Cadillac Records) had eligible songs, here's a few other gems I found.
Danny Elfman, nominated this year for Milk's score, apparently did the theme song from Wanted, and it kind of kicks ass. Clint Eastwood's theme song for Gran Torino would possibly get us Clint growling on stage, so this is obviously a crime. Finally, Robin Hitchkock's "Up To Our Nex" makes it, if only as a prelude to all the righteous bitching I'm going to be doing in the next few days about Rachel Getting Married not getting enough love.
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Alexandre Desplat
- Defiance - James Newton Howard
- Milk - Danny Elfman
- Slumdog Millionaire - A.R. Rahman
- WALL·E - Thomas Newman
Who should win?: Lemme be honest with you. Maybe I have a blind (aural) spot this year, but I don't remember a goddamn thing about any of these scores except for Mumbai Poop Party. And it was pretty dope. I'm sure WALL·E's was great too, cuz the first bit of that movie was dialogue-free and perfect, so I imagine the music had something to do with that. I don't care, to be honest.
Who will win?: Who Wants to be an Oscarionnaire?.
Who got snubbed?: Waltz With Bashir I really liked musically, but a lot of that was its use of non-diagetic music that wasn't original score or song, which really isn't covered in either of these categories but whatever. I no cares.
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
- The Dark Knight - Richard King (I)
- Iron Man - Frank E. Eulner; Christopher Boyes
- Slumdog Millionaire - Tom Sayers; Glenn Freemantle
- WALL·E - Ben Burtt; Matthew Wood (I)
- Wanted - Wylie Stateman
Who Should Win?: Now, as I understand it, Sound Editing is what happens until the moment that all the individual sounds are recorded and processed, and sound mixing is what comes afterward. That might be wrong, and I still might have no clue who should win this, whatever the fuck, man, let's live. Give it to Iron Man. It was loud.
Who Will Win?: I know, I know, picking against Poopdog Indionaire, but this one goes to loud action movies with metal smashing against metal. Fucking Pearl Harbor won in this category. So I'm picking the Dark Knight, a) because it's loud as shit, and b) because it's a big movie that many folks feel should be up for more stuff and could easily reward in this category.
Best Achievement in Sound Mixing
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - David Parker; Michael Semanick; Ren Klyce; Mark Weingarten
- The Dark Knight - Lora Hirschberg; Gary Rizzo; Ed Novick
- Slumdog Millionaire - Ian Tapp; Richard Pryke; Resul Pookutty
- WALL·E - Tom Myers; Michael Semanick; Ben Burtt
- Wanted - Chris Jenkins; Frank A. Montaño; Petr Forejt
Who Should Win?: Yah, I dunno.
Who Will Win?: All the stuff I said about Sound Editing almost applies here, but they've thrown in some musicals (Chicago, Ray, Dreamgirls), in the past few years, and while City of Rama isn't quite a musical, there's enough of a combo of music and LOUD NOISES that I'll hedge my bets and go for the favorite. The Three Slumketeers ftw.
More categories we actually care about in the coming days.
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