by Nathaniel R
The Film Bitch Awards continue with ballots for Best Score, Best Sound, Best Original Song, and in the non-Oscar parallel category Best Adapted, Combined, or Song Score (since so many films opt to have scores that lean into "soundtracks" as opposed to "scores" if you know what we mean)...
ORIGINAL SONG and ADAPTED/COMBO/SONG SCORE
You could fill the entire Original Song ballot with Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga but this is why we have an additional song score category --- the best place to honor it. If the movie were as strong as the funny, accurate, and range-filled song score, we would think it a comedy classic rather than a botched opportunity and a horrifically paced movie.
Emile Mosseri (Last Black Man in San Francisco, Minari) is one of the fastest rising composers in the film world... and with good reason
We're not sure if Oscar's music branch is still holding the bake-offs in which they watch the songs in context in the films but if they aren't (which they might not be given how their finalist list is mostly end-credits song) it's a missed opportunity. Songs that are fully incorporated into their movie are preferrable. Though sometimes an end credits song finds a way to feel spiritually connected. Two of my five nominees are end credits song: The melancholy but comforting "Rain Song" from Minari by Emile Mosseri which is sung by the film's female lead Yeri Han; and the festive traditional/modern mix of "Queen Bee" from Emma., which is written and sung by the film's male lead Johnny Flynn. Both are perfect exit music, imaginatively and unexpectedly distillling the movie's feeling for you as you leave it behind.
ORIGINAL SCORE
I am more visually oriented than aurally attuned. While I trust my own instincts and critical thinking skills as to what constitutes great work in visual fields for the sound and music categories, I consider a variety of things beyond my own screening evaluations. I make up preliminary lists and then look externally for other takes and recommendations. That's especially true for Best Score. When critics groups failed to put any options forward beyond Pixar's Soul for worthy films in the Best Original Score category (a pity since there were several great scores this year) I sought advice on twitter about what to listen to. The responses were numerous and about half of the top 12 cited on the chart come from reconsiderations based on this. I rarely trust the Oscar's finalist list in this regard as they tend to favor very high profile films and established composers with one or two outliers. Of the scores that Oscar's music branch ignored or eliminated I would heartily recommend these four: Tamar-Kali for Shirley, Christopher Willis for Personal History of David Copperfield, Richard Reed Parry for The Nest, and Isobel Waller Bridge & David Schweitzer for Emma. If I were FYC'ing to members of the music branch from their more limited options, I would hope that they would nominate Emile Mosseri for Minari, Ludwig Goransson for Tenet and James Newton Howard for News of the World. And yes Reznor & Ross (with Batiste) for Soul.
SOUND
We think that Oscar made the right call in combining their sound categories. If set decorators and production designers have to share a category, and makeup effects people and hairstylists and wigmakers have to share a category, then why shouldn't sound mixers and sound editors? So we've opted to combine our categories too even though it did present a good challenge each year to try and differentiate what editors versus mixers were bringing to the table. For instance, I would personally regularly nominate Christopher Nolan's films for sound editing but their frequent sound mixing nominations have always been upsetting since they uniformly preference music and effects over dialogue in the mix; if you're not watching those films with closed captioning at home, forget about catching all the dialogue.
Check out my ballots here. What would you name as the best-sounding movies of 2020?