Soundtracking: "Hearts Beat Loud"

by Chris Feil

Brett Haley is quietly becoming the American independent counterpart to Once and Sing Street’s John Carney, crafting happy-sad narratives with music as a key ingredient. With music partner Keegan DeWitt, Haley’s films feature characters at the end of their performance days taking one renewed grasp toward fulfillment. His newest film Hearts Beat Loud is the most addictively musical, and like his I’ll See You in My Dreams before it, its songs come straight from the heart.

Loud is the story of Frank and Sam Fisher, played by Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons, a father-daughter pair preparing for imminent college bicoastal separation. Frank is a failed musician and now record store owner, forever pushing the gifted Sam towards a music collaboration she perpetually resists...

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Soundtracking: "The Lion King"

by Chris Feil

When The Lion King arrived in 1994, it felt like the first Disney film fully developed in its post-Little Mermaid resurrected era. Whereas the genius of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin feel like passion projects born of new financial fluidity, this film rings like a triumphant self-actualization of its return to dominance. It’s right there in the in the rising sun and thunderous opening incantation of “Circle of Life” - Disney reclaiming with force what they had lost and owning the cyclical nature of creative power.

It’s arresting stuff on a meta level, but that’s still incomparable to the song’s visceral gut level impact. Paired with the imagery of a convening animal kingdom both too fantastical to be true and rendered with breathtaking reality, “Circle of Life” feels so monumental that even immersive IMAX screens and sound systems can’t do its scale justice...

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Today in Showbiz History: Edith Massey, Notting Hill, Prince of Persia

by Nathaniel R

Happy birthday to any May 28th-ers out there. If it's not your birthday which of these events and people will you channel or celebrate today?

1431 Joan of Arc accused of donning male clothing again (GASP) therefore "relapsing into heresy". The heretic/saint has been portrayed in movies, tv, and stage, a bajillion times since. Condola Rashad is currently Tony nominated for playing her in "Saint Joan"

1888 Athlete Jim Thorpe born in Oklahoma. Became an Olympic gold medalist and actor and even got his own biopic.

1902 The Virginian by Owen Wister is published. The book becomes hugely influential in shaping the Western genre. It's later adapted into two silent films, four regular features, and a long running TV series.

1918 CENTENNIAL! Edith Massey is born in NYC.

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April Foolish Predictions: What film scores will be loved in 2018?

by Nathaniel R

Mary Poppins (1964) was nominated for 13 Oscars winning 5. Will Mary Poppins Returns (2018) also win Oscar hearts?

Since scores are often one of the very last components to fall into place in post-production, determining which scores might stand out at year's end is like throwing darts blindfolded. Each year some composers are replaced between our first round of predictions and the time their films arrive. Plus some 2018 movies haven't even hired a composer yet. Presumably they're waiting for Alexandre Desplat's schedule to open up. Only half joking! The perpetually in demand French composer and double Oscar winner generally scores anywhere from 5 to 10 (gulp) movies a year and he only has three films currently scheduled for release in 2018 (Isle of Dogs, Operation Finale, and Kursk... though we suspect The Sisters Brothers will hit this year as well, making it 4). Other Oscar favorites who have suspiciously empty schedules this year include Hans Zimmer and Thomas Newman.

From the year's releases that we've already seen we're curious about how A Quiet Place and Black Panther might hold up in the sound categories, too, since both films are blockbusters and A Quiet Place, especially, relies heavily on its aural elements for its success.

In related news: Best Original Song is next to impossible to predict this early as details are always scarce until late in the year but if you have any premonitions do let us know!  Here is our guesswork on the sound categories for the next Oscar race and the April Foolish Predictions thus far.

Soundtracking: The Oscar Performances

by Chris Feil

Isn’t it lovely that full performances of the Original Song nominees are here to stay? Well, hopefully here to stay. We’re not far enough removed from the Oscar telecast cruelly jettisoning less known tracks from the evening’s performances to breathe easy when we get to delight in each of the nominees. Off years or no, past omissions have been a decidedly bad look.

And the performances largely kept their spectacle simple and straightforward, providing some nice grand emotion in an otherwise mostly even keel evening. In one of the few upset's of the night Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez got their second Oscar for Coco's "Remember Me" (my favorite of the nominees). Coco’s triumph was so richly deserved particularly for how inextricable it is from the film’s narrative, criteria that the songwriting branch has famously demanded of late. But the telecast allowed for some reassessment of the nominated lineup...

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