Soundtracking: Diane Warren's 11 Nominations

by Chris Feil

This year, songwriting legend Diane Warren scored her 11th nomination. Readers, er, listeners will know her stamp on big ballads and pop music from as far ranging of legendary artists from Celine Dion to Cher to Mariah Carey. Ballading has mostly been the name of her game, and she's one of the greatest contributors to the past quarter century of pop music because of it.

Despite her legendary status, recent years have had some Oscar obsessives confusing her Oscar history for an entirely sour one. It's true that this year's Breakthrough nomination shows a music branch defaulting to her good name (without yet offering a win) all while sometimes overlooking more prominent work such as Burlesque or even A Star is Born's butt song. Yet what also remains true is that she is one of the great unawarded yet multinominated crafts artists among Oscar history. If music is essential to our relationship to movies, then she's written so many of our memories.

To celebrate Warren, here's a ranking of her 11 Original Song nominations...

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Happy 50th to Heather Graham

Happy half century to the one & only Rollergirl!

We were so obsessed with Boogie Nights when it came out that the characters were as real to us as the stars playing them. We haven't seen much of Graham lately -- she was sadly missing from the Twin Peaks reunion series despite her character (Annie Blackburn) still being officially alive and in a mysteriously non-aging catatonic state when last we heard news of her --  but she has three movies in post-production currently including the thriller Wander (2020) with Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhart. 

What's your favourite Graham role from the 90s... and were you a fan of Annie Blackburn on Twin Peaks? 

Links

Gurus of Gold - current predictions
Cartoon Brew - talks to the directors of all the animated short nominees
Movie City News - David Poland thinks the Oscar season is not too short but not short enough. Eeep! We wildly disagree since the shortened season made voters even lazier than usual.

More after the jump including Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Under the Skin, Lee Grant, and List-Mania...

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Nicole Beharie is "Miss Juneteenth"

Murtada Elfadl reporting from Sundance..

Beauty pageant films are a genre into themselves used to tell many different stories. As when a filmmaker wants to tell a heartwarming story about female ambition (Miss Firecracker) or a satire about striving for perfection (Drop Dead Gorgeous). Sometimes they even debut at Sundance (Little Miss Sunshine). The latest in this tradition is Writer/Director Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth which focuses on mother-daughter beauty pageant contestants. However i don't think we've seen one as Black or as enmenshed in specific traditions as this one.

Nicole Beharie (Shame, 42, and TV's Sleepy Hollow) stars as Turquoise Joines. She was once Miss Juneteenth, a title commemorating the day slaves in Texas were freed, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. As every character in the film keeps telling her constantly -- how rude -- she has not lived up to the promise of her teen years...

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12 Days till Oscar - What will win Best Animated Feature?

by Nathaniel R

With just 12 days till Oscar most of the big ticket races are feeling quite locked up apart from arguably Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature. The latter is particularly volatile...

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