Showbiz History: Band-Aid and "Best Original Song" Behemoths

6 random things that happened on this day (Nov 25th) in showbiz history...

1932 Claudette Colbert infamously bathes in milk in Cecil B DeMille's The Sign of the Cross, new in theaters.

1947 The Hollywood Blacklist begins, denying employment to those with perceived Communist ties or sympathies. This period has haunted ever self-reflecting Hollywood since as witness in Trumbo, The Way We Were, Guilty by Suspicion, Good Night and Good Luck, and numerous other movies.

1984 Bob Geldolf's blockbuster charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" recorded in London...

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Soundtracking: "Boy Erased"

by Chris Feil

Troye Sivan is one of those musical acts that makes me realize that I am suddenly, and without warning, very old. Forgive me if in recent years I’ve found myself incapable of distinguishing him between the Shawn Mendes and Charlie Puth hodgepodge of pop baritenor twinkery. But after this year, I can at least recall Sivan as the one who sings about his bootyhole and provides some understated grace to the emotional landscape of the so-so Boy Erased.

And Sivan’s musical stylings might also be making Oscar feel aged by adjacency, should he be nominated this year for his collaboration with Jónsi, Boy Erased’s original song “Revelation”. He’d be one of the category’s youngest nominees, and also join (certain nominee) Lady Gaga in the tradition of songwriter’s starring in their song’s film. Streisand, Parton, Björk, Blige - Sivan?

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Soundtracking: "The Omen"

by Chris Feil

Remember that time worshipping the devil got an Oscar nomination? And in Best Original Song no less? No, I’m not talking about The Greatest Showman last year, I’m talking about when The Omen made hell on musical earth with “Ave Satani”. In its Latin lyrics, the song hails the risen body of Satan, the coming Antichrist, and drinking blood. Yeah, this bonkers nomination totally happened.

I mean, how often does a musical composition meet the Venn diagram of approval from Anton LaVey (one assumes) and the Academy? Unsurprisingly, it's kind of rare. Unless the notorious founder of the Church of Satan is secretly super into Diane Warren.

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Middleburg Celebrates Diane Warren with the "Impact Award"

by Nathaniel R

Each year at the Middleburg Film Festival, TFE's favorite event is a live concert honoring a film composer. This year Sheila C Johnson, the co-founder of BET who created the Middleburg Festival opted to do things a bit differently. Though there was a composer honored at a smaller event (29 year-old rising talent Kris Bowers who scored both the likely Oscar smash Green Book and the critically acclaimed indie Monsters and Men this year) the main concert and "Impact Award" was reserved for hit-machine songwriter Diane Warren.

This year Warren co-wrote the much memed "Why'd You Do That?" from A Star is Born but her Oscar bid for 2018 will surely be the theme song from the documentary hit RBG, "I'll Fight"

More after the jump including a couple of song snippets...

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Soundtracking: "A Star is Born (1976)"

Last week Chris Feil looked back at Judy Garland and A Star is Born's musical beginning. This week, it's Streisand/Kristofferson...

Some viewers have chastised the current remake of A Star is Born’s presentation of pop music, but it kind of pales to the cynicism and condescension to 70s rock and roll in the Streisand/Kristofferson version of 1976. What had previous been told as a saga of the film industry is transplanted into rock arenas, the emptiness of fame represented by a ravenous crowd of thousands acting a fool. Know a little something about Streisand’s skittishness with (sometimes rabid) crowds and you can begin to understand the film’s boorish presentation of fandom, so some grace can be granted. But nevertheless, fame suddenly seems all the more vacuous here in the face of Real Artistry.

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