April Foolish Predictions #2: Music and Sound Categories

[drumroll] It's Time! Our annual April Foolish Oscar Predictions have begun.

Ad Astra was supposed to be out next month but rumors are that it's not finished yet

First we looked at Animated Features and now we turn our attention to the Sound categories. It's rather perverse to do them second and here's why: Original Songs and Original Scores are among the last things we have confirmed each year. Technically speaking you can wait until your whole film is nearly complete before adding a score or commissioning an original song. It's not always wise to wait of course since songs, especially, can be more effective if they're woven in and some directors prefer to work with some idea of what the score will be like while they're editing. Nevertheless there is much that's completely unknown about this film year in terms of its music...

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Beauty Break: Ten March 1st Babes

by Nathaniel R

Welcome to March! 2019 can officially begin (heh-we're on the film calendar, not the calendar-calendar). Today is Javier Bardem's 50th birthday. Happy half-century to one of cinema's most striking faces!

To help get us going this morning -- we're off to a slow start -- here are the ten beautiful (aka favorite) people born on this day (March 1st) in no particular order whatsoever...

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Podcast: Final Oscar Predictions

with Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl and special reccuring guest Nick Davis

 

With the Oscar on Sunday night, you'd better hurry and listen to this 65 minute podcast as it will self destruct in less than 72 hours. We kid, we kid. You'll still be able to make fun of our faulty crystal balls since we spend one hour making bold and not-so bold predictions as to who will win in 21 Oscar categories (minus the shorts). Hear us panic about how many Oscars Bohemian Rhapsody might win, and whether First Man might surprise with multiple wins, and will Roma really take the most statues?

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Oscar win predictions

Listening to the Best Score Nominees

18 days til Oscar so today is a perfect day to look at and listen to the composers nominated for Best Original Score. They have 18 nominations between them and on their Oscar chart, you can vote on who you think should win. Let's check out the nominees!

Terence Blanchard  for BlacKkKlansman  (56 years old | 33 features | 1st nomination!)
This New Orleans native is world-famous jazz musician and trumpet player. He's been working with Spike Lee in on capacity or another since Spike's second film School Daze (1988). His first full score for Spike was Jungle Fever (1991) and Blanchard has scored all but a couple of Lee's joints since...

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Michel Legrand (1932-2019)

by Eric Blume

Michel Legrand in 1981French film composer Michel Legrand passed away this past weekend after six decades of work in the industry. He was truly one of the greats. Chief among his accomplishments was the sung-through score for the masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), delivering music that soared and perfectly caught the melancholy tone of director Jacques Demy’s pastel/sad view of the world.  The Legrand-Demy collaboration was deliriously French and remains a pristine achievement over a half century later...

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