Film Bitch Awards: Song, Score, Sound & Film Editing

Around this time of year when I abruptly stop watching movies in full (a breather if you will. It usually lasts two to three weeks) I tend to spend a lot of time skimming through films I've already seen for writing purposes or little reminders of what makes them tick (or tick me off). Scanning through Hanna recently I was amazed anew at the rich theater of its sound work. I didn't quite love the movie or even like it at all in spots and yet it's really difficult to shake.

Of course, you always notice great sound work more when you're also responding to the music and you'll see that reflected in the song, score, sound mixing and sound editing categories which contain nominations for films ranging from Drive to Captain America, The Skin I Live In to The Muppets, Moneyball to Super 8. I don't tend to write much about these categories and I don't claim to be an expert but every year I promise myself to pay a little more attention to sound and scoring. I can't say that I kept the promise in 2011 but since Hollywood was busy obsessing over silent movies (Hugo and The Artist) I'll interpret that as a deferrment.

Let's talk scoring a lot more in 2012, mmmkay?!

As for 2011, which is still going on in our world since Oscar is the New Year's Eve of the film year, I'm all about Alberto Iglesias. There are a number of composers that do multiple films a year these days. Many of them repeat themselves. I think the strain is starting to show a smidgeon with Alexandre Desplat, for example, a god among composers. He's the Jessica Chastain of composers; working round the clock and signing up for endless more projects.  But WOW with Iglesias this year. He's done great work before but The Skin I Live In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are both A grade scores for very different films. I'd nominated him for both but for my policy of not doing that (I treat the craft categories like Oscar treats acting. You're only allowed on nomination in a category each year).

I hope Iglesias hasn't peaked yet but if he has, you'd be hard pressed to find a better twofer from any composer in the space of a single year. Both scores really fit and elevate their films.

NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED IN ALL FOUR AURAL CATEGORIES

P.S. I've add editing to the VISUAL CATEGORIES. I meant to have more done by now but I'm told that I was wrong about their being 32 hours in every day. Who knew?

Box Office: Kate Beckinsale Still Unstaked, Oscar Hopeful Money

There's just no killing Kate Beckinsale's career. No matter how many terrible movies she throws at you, her undead heart will go on. I think she avoids Heigl levels of hatred because she doesn't make as many movies. That's my theory. But nevertheless the fourth installment of her werewolf vs. vampire franchise Underworld Awakening took the top spot at the box office, besting the George Lucas' produced war drama Red Tails and the third week of the hit action film Contraband, and the wide release of the presumed to be failing Oscar hopeful Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Steven Soderbergh's Haywire (reviewed) had a rough first weekend coming in fifth but there were a lot of other action films fighting it for dollars. Plus wouldn't people who go "ooh!" when they hear 'Steven Soderbergh' have been seeing the Oscar contenders anyway?

What did you see this weekend?

Oscar Money Talking Points...
The Artist finally got a major expansion though it's per screen average is no longer something to celebrate. Nevertheless this is good news. Within the next couple of weeks it's likely to pass The Hurt Locker's gross so if it wins Best Picture it won't be the lowest grossing BP ever. The film has earned $33 million worldwide to date. That's pretty impressive for a black and white silent. It just passed one of its Weinstein stablemates My Week With Marilyn's in terms of domestic gross. Although it's roughly 47 times better than that film I think it only goes to show how mishandled Marilyn was ... such a small release for such a pre-branded "wide" topic! 

The Descendants just crossed the $50 million mark and will soon leapfrog Hugo and Midnight in Paris for the "Top Grosser That Isn't Named The Help" title among the predicted BP nominees. Unless Moneyball or Dragon Tattoo get nominated in which case this milestone is no biggie.

Best Picture Hopeful Grosses as of 01/22/2012

P.S. I was at a birthday party last night attended by a very international crowd (the birthday girl, a good friend of mine, is German). The movie everyone was talking about was... A Separation. I was surprised how many people had seen it and everyone seemed to love it... though one woman told me she just thought it was "good" until about 20 minutes after it ended when it hit her in full force. It just crossed the 1/2 a million mark at the box office but it's still barely at any theaters. One wonders how well it can expand with word of mouth so strong and potential Oscar glory coming? 

Naturally all of these movies are hoping for a boost next weekend to capitalize on their presumed Oscar nominations. How many of them will keep expanding and how many will wither from people losing interest?

Producers Guild Wins for Spielberg and Actors Behind the Cameras

Another day, another awards ceremony. Who can keep up?!?

Last night The Producers Guild of America gave their big prize, a transparent glassy gargantuan paperweight, to the man who helped The Artist come into being, Thomas Langmann. One thing that's not being much noted -- since behind the screen forces rarely get attention -- is that Langmann was once a regular presence in front of the camera in France and he's actually the son of director Claude Berri (of Jean de Florette/Manon of the Springs fame!). Of course right at the moment he's best known Stateside as 'that guy who was trying to tell his heartfelt story at the Golden Globes while Uggie was doing his tricks' and distracting the television cameras... as discussed on the most recent podcast. Another actor turned producer, Michael Rapaport was also honored (along with his co-producers) for the documentary Beats, Rhymes and Life.

Finally, Steven Spielberg was honored twice. He got a career-tribute and also won for The Adventures of Tin Tin because in Hollywood they like to re-reward the already abundantly successful people. (Notice how honorary Oscars often go to people who've already won Oscars instead of people who never won! Such a strange impulse. Perhaps it's a bit like paying tithing or making sacrifices to your gods?)

Winners List
Motion Picture The Artist
Motion Picture, Animated The Adventures of Tintin
Motion Picture, Documentary Beats, Rhymes and Life

Brangelina at the PGA. Sans cane!

TV, Long Form Downton Abbey
TV, Drama Boardwalk Empire
TV, Comedy Modern Family
TV, Competition Amazing Race 
(speaking of rewarding the same things over and over again...) 

TV, Non Fiction American Masters
TV, Live Entertainment/Talk The Colbert Report

Tobey and The Bening were among the many big names presenting

Vanguard Award Stan Lee (the award was presented by Spider-Man himself Tobey Maguire)
David O Selznick Award Steven Spielberg 
Stanley Kramer Award Angelina Jolie for In the Land of Blood and Honey.
(For young Oscar obsessives in training out there Stanley Kramer was famous for "message movie" staples like Inherit the Wind, Judgement at Nuremberg, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, and the like)
Milestone Award CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves 

Sunday Breakfast Anyone?

Until Oscar season is over I won't have time for those lengthy "Ask Nathaniel" Q & A columns but I sure do miss 'em. Why not a live chat right here on Sunday morning, 11 AM EST? We tried this for the Critics Choice Awards and it was way too chaotic so I jumped back to traditional live blogging for the Globes. But breakfast should be more suitably conversational.

I'll be eating pancakes -- maybe with funny shapes -- and while I'm doing that you can ask me any question you want about the final Oscar predictions (which I'll have finished by Saturday), current movies, and whatnot. Join the morning fun!

Naked Gold Man: Final Oscar Predictions !

I've never been good at math so predicting this year's Oscar race feels especially challenging. You can tell me that a picture requires 5% of #1 votes or that it's 10% or 406 votes or that you need #2 or #3 placements on 69.3% of ballots with odd #1 choices that weren't already tossed aside... None of it will really sink in. For the first time in well over a decade, I had a flashback to my high school algebra class and how my friends (who were in calculus) kept teasing me about my "polynomials?" confusion.  I hate math!*

But in the end what does it matter? Buzz, also an abstraction, is more fun to play with and closer to the truth for non-mathematicians. Best Picture nominations have long required #1 votes, maybe not in the same configurations but they've always required them. And as Joe recently pointed out on the podcast, we're tricked into thinking too deeply about this each and every year. Who thought Frost/Nixon was the best movie of 2008? Who would ever have voted for Chocolat as the best film of 2000? And yet it happens year in and year out. Focusing too much on #1 votes can cloud this certainty: Any film still being discussed as a possibility this late in the game has a fanbase. The question is just 'is that base big / loyal enough within the Academy to secure it a best picture nomination?'

Mo'Nique reading the Best Picture nominees last year!

What Happens With The Screens Behind the Presenters?
For the first time in modern history we'll have no idea until the names are read whether there will be five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten nominees. In past years when they announced the nominees you'd see the blank boxes where the nominees would be revealed while they read out the names. You knew, for instance, if there would be 3 or 5 animated nominees by how many boxes were there even if you hadn't been paying attention to the number of eligible pictures released.

My current hourly obsession is wondering whether we'll be tipped off to how many pictures there are seconds before we hear the titles...

When we knew there would be ten they simply appeared as they were read but there weren't actually boxes behind the announcers to be filled in as there were in years with five. You follow? So this year if there are, say, 6 nominees will we first see the empty boxes and KNOW there will be six before the names are read? 

PICTURE
If we only had five nominees, this race would be easy to call. Our nominees would be: The Artist, The Descendants, The Help, Hugo, and Midnight in Paris. And in that order of likelihood. (My preference order, just as reminder from my year in review, would be The Artist, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Hugo and The Descendants.) I believe the nomination tally hierarchy is going to be Hugo, The Artist, and The Help way out in front of other films. Moneyball would, I think, be the spoiler in a traditional shortlist year. No matter how you feel about those films on an individual basis, as a group that's a pretty beautiful spread of the film year: message movies, family dramas, cinematic novelties, smart comedies and releases stretching from summer to Christmas, from critical triumphs to sleeper hits. It's representative and we like the Oscars that way.

More after the jump...

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