Podcast: On the Basis of Sex and Destroyer

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl and Chris Feil talk new films

We recorded this one just before Christmas so apologize on the delay at delivering it to you! 

Index (57 minutes)
00:01 Felicity Jones underwhelming RBG in On the Basis of Sex
06:50 Mixed takes on Karyn Kusama's Destroyer with Nicole Kidman
12:52 "Festive" Christmas movies like Vice, Shoplifters, Destroyer, Capernaum, Beale Street... so many depressing films scheduled for the holidays
18:30 Oscar shortlists for Score, Visual Effects, and Makeup
28:00 The Documentary Finals and the short films
35:00 Will Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite) be nominated for Best Director? Will Green Book controversies derail its expected screenplay nomination?
46:22 Leave No Trace and A Quiet Place might be peaking at the right time for big nominations
56:00 The Wrap Up

Further Reading / References
• Oscar Chart: Screenplay Charts
• Oscar Chart: Visual FX & Makeup
• Oscar Chart: Original Score
• Documentary Finalists
• Nathaniel's Destroyer Review
• Shadow & Act's Green Book Article

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? 

Destroyer, On the Basis of Sex, Oscar Discussions

Interview: Justin Hurwitz learns the theremin and other "First Man" stories

by Nathaniel R

A lot of people who win two Oscars by the age of 32, with only three films under their belt (not that there's many of those people, mind you) might safely be said to have peaked early. If the Golden Globe nominated score for First Man is any indication however, Justin Hurwitz is still on a steady ascent into his power as a composer. The gifted 33 year-old has scored all four of Damien Chazelle's films. The first three were musicals in spirit or by nature. The fourth, First Man, is less of a departure than expected since the emotive score is crucial to the film's success. 

Chazelle and Hurwitz were college roommates and have been fiercely loyal since. While Chazelle was struggling to get his first films made, always with the plan for Hurwitz to score them, Hurwitz survived by breaking into sitcom writing "I don't take for granted how lucky I was to get to write comedy professionally," he says but the plan was always to be a composer "I am more passionate about music than anything else in the world."  

Our full interview, edited and condensed for clarity, follows... 

NATHANIEL: When did you first know you wanted to be a composer?

JUSTIN HURWITZ: I grew up playing piano, taking lessons since I was six. My parents gave me a synthesizer and a sequencer for my tenth birthday that lets you layer tracks, so I started composing then. I wasn't thinking about movies yet but it was around that same time that I started noticing film scores. The most impactful to me were the John Williams / Steven Spielberg films. Jurassic Park had a big impact on me. E.T. on VHS... I was so in love with that score. 

NATHANIEL: Touchstones for a lot of people!

JUSTIN HURWITZ: As I got into college I discovered composers like Nina Rota and Bernard Hermann and all sorts of others. 

Watching First Man, I thought 'god this most have been an overwhelming film to score,' but on the other hand after La La Land, maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it was a piece of cake?

It was definitely not a piece of cake. In a lot of ways it was my most challenging score...

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All the Oscar Shortlists

BREAKING: We don't like this new system of announcing ALL the finalist lists (in the categories that get finalist lists, that is) on the same day as it doesn't give you time to individually think about each list and write multiple thorough articles. So we'll have to investigate more deeply over the next few days. But for those who are okay with just the quick take list format you can see the lists and a few gut reactions right after the jump. Every Oscar chart will be updated tomorrow to reflect the past week of awards season madness and these lists.

But without further ado, the finalist lists before the nominations are announced on January 22nd... 

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HMMA Honors "Black Panther" and "A Star is Born"

We're not sure why or how the Hollywood Music in Media Awards came about but they're now in their ninth year honoring musicians in a few buckets worth of categories across all visual media. Their winners are determined by committee and like the NBR, who people tease for divvying up their prizes in a way that insures each studio buys a table at their banquet, there's a little something for everyone. The only multiple winners were Black Panther (Original Score -Scifi/Fantasy, Original Song - Scifi/Fantasy & Soundtrack Album), and A Star is Born (Music Supervision & Original Song).

The winners are after the jump though we're not listing the nominees because it's one of those silly awards shows that seems to have no consistency about how many nominees each category is allowed to have. All that said, you might see some of these winners again on the Oscar nomination lists, though...

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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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