April Foolish Predictions: Sound, Score, Make Up & FX
Monday, April 27, 2015 at 11:16PM April is almost over and we MUST finish our April Foolish tradition - the first wave of Oscar nomination predictions before anyone knows anything. The film year is still only a toddler but they grow up so fast. The first third of the year always features the least amount of Oscar content but from movies already released we'll hope for miracles that Cinderella and Ex Machina could be remembered in the places they deserve to be. But the bulk of the heavy hitters are yet to come. Even in the more popcorn categories like Visual Effects.
NEW CHARTS --> ORIGINAL SCORE, ORIGINAL SONG, SOUND MIXING, SOUND EDITING
Which movies will have original songs? Will the composer Thomas Newman ever win an Oscar? Will Skyfall, atypically embraced by the Academy, have any sort of afterglow with AMPAS to help Spectre win nominations as well? And who will the composers be on a whole slew of Oscar Bait movies that haven't revealed their composer yet (since the score is one of the last things to happen)? These are the questions we're already asking so please do suggest answers in the comments once you've looked at the charts.
NEW CHARTS ---> VISUAL EFFECTS, MAKEUP AND HAIR
Is Ex Machina too subtle for Oscar? Will Mad Max Fury Road be too outre for them? Will the visual effects category just be a quintet of franchise favorites they've honored before like Jurassic World, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Age of Ultron and so on? Will the makeup category be dominated by old age latex, fantastical character creations or a trans woman's journey?
Care to make any predictions yourself?
Reader Comments (19)
Sadly Dario Marianelli's score for "Pan" was deemed insufficient by the studio for whatever reason, so they brought in John Powell to redo it against Joe Wright's wishes. Such a shame because the Wright + Marianelli collaboration has always been A+ in my book.
Jordan -- damn. i missed that news. I shall have to fix that chart immediately.
50 Shades of Grey, Oscar-nominated? As much as I'm a big fan of Ellie Goulding and Love Me Like You Do, I still think the prospect of having it nominated laughable. I would rather push for Strong from Cinderella.
I'd be swinging MR HOLMES around in make-up and hairstyling based off of the trailer, and would probably shove JURASSIC WORLD out of vfx since they didn't go for the third one and it can be a case once you're out you're out unless the film becomes a phenom and people don't talk about how dodgy the CGI actually is. Regarding PAN, it still bums me out that PJ Hogan's film wasn't nominated for visual effects *at least*.
At first I thought CRIMSON PEAK wouldn't be a smart choice, but then I remembered they did nominate HELLBOY 2 despite ignoring the first one. It came after PAN'S LABYRINTH. Hmmm.
PJ it was really just not knowing any movies with original songs yet. I did't know Cinderella had one and I've seen the movie!
Omg if Love Me Like You Do managed any kind of nomination for anything ... I hate that song so deeply.
Rumour is that Sam Smith is doing the song for Spectre, so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him pull an Adele. Fingers crossed.
Strong is that song played during the end credit, but then again rarely has a song appears only at the end credit being nominated anymore.
For Song, there's also the international No 1 hit from FURIOUS 7, 'See You Again' written by Wiz Khalifa, Charlie Puth, DJ Frank E, Yaseen Zuberi and Andrew Cedar (Wikipedia).
OK, so it's unlikely to get nominated. But, along with 'Love Me Like You Do', it feels like 1984 all over again - a time when hit movies actually produce hit singles.
I wonder "Furious 7" can finally get the "Fast/Furious" franchise its first Oscar-nominations since it is one of the better received installments of the series, make crazy amount of money and has that added emotional impact due to the death of Paul Walker. I can see it maybe breaking through one or two of the following categories: Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Song, Film Editing or Visual Effects (for making it seem like Paul Walker actually completed his film almost seamlessly!)
Isn't it time they brought back the Song Score / Score Adaptation category?
And it'd be nice if they introduced a Voice Acting category - for narrating and animation acting performances.
Bette Streep -- i'm not sure there's enough worthy work in either category to justify an annual category (i dont think there's another musical opening this year sadly) but i wish Oscar wouldnt' be so stingy with special awards when something really transcends. i.e. they should have given Andy Serkis a special Oscar by now for his cumulative work contributing to a nascent wing of acting.
I'm not sure that if Spectre gets nominated it will necessarily be due to Skyfall afterglow. Spectre may be brilliant! And there have been plenty of Bond movies that, in my view, should have received nominations and didn't, that if anything, the Skyfall love was partly afterglow from the films that came before it!
Glenn: I agree with you on P. J. Hogan's Peter Pan film. I so wish it had received some nominations - it was in the bake-offs for Makeup and Visual Effects but didn't get nominated. And I think James Newton Howard deserved to win for his wonderful score.
Bette and Nathanlei: If I remember rightly, there is a 'Best Musical' category that lies dormant in the Academy's rule book, waiting to be activated in an exceptional year. We can but dream!
Are we holding off on Best Actress nominations for a reason?😄
Nat and Bette Streep: And ScarJo DEFINITELY should have gotten a special award for her performance in Her.
Jamie - we always save that for LAST very soon my darlings, very soon
I wonder about the possibilities for The Dressmaker in Costumes and Makeup & Hair. It seems like the kind of film that may succeed there even if met with critical reviews. Some of the stills of Kate look stunning, and wouldn't it help that the costumes/makeup will presumably be so foregrounded in the narrative?
Good point about the visual effects category-- sometimes it seems like once a franchise is out, they're done for good. Although perhaps Jurassic World will feel like enough of a reboot to merit inclusion again, if it's good.
John Williams will not score the new Star Wars. Desplat got the job. http://time.com/3753918/john-williams-star-wars-alexandre-desplat/
Victor S- I think Desplat will do the score for a other Star Wars movie, not the one coming out this December.