Soundtracking: The 2019 Oscar Original Song Bake-Off

by Chris Feil

One of the biggest headlines among the Monday release of Oscar's shortlists among nine categories was a popstar omission from the season's splashiest musical. Yes, it turns out Taylor Swift will have to wait to lift up to Oscar's Heaviside Layer as "Beautiful Ghosts" (the original track she cowrote with Andrew Lloyd Webber from Cats) was left off the list of songs that will advance towards hopeful nominations. But perhaps "Ghosts" is a strong reminder that these days doesn't clear the runway for popstars or new songs for preexisting musicals as easily as we might expect.

But among the lineup of hopefuls are films huge and small, expected names and a few genuine surprises - and it may be a more competitive field than originally expected. Let's run down the fifteen songs that did make the lineup and their chances at a nomination...

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Soundtracking: Coyote Ugly

by Chris Feil

Few modern soundtracks distill the essence of a film as wonderfully as Coyote Ugly. In the vein of Flashdance and its ilk, the film follows a creative young woman as she navigates a world of male objectification. It takes its name from the famous bar featuring hot chicks serving booze to cheering men and plops Piper Perabo’s heroine Violet in that environment as she chases her songwriting dreams. But instead of the Hooters brand of male-defined sexuality that immediately comes to mind, this bar finds the women in power of their male audience. The musical world of Coyote Ugly revels as much in the girl power as it operates around (and subverts) male gaze, thanks especially to a few great originals by LeAnn Rimes.

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Soundtracking: 2018's Original Song nominees

by Chris Feil

Best Original Song always gets its fair share of side-eye among Oscar snobs and agnostics alike. Granted, some recent nominees have made a decent enough case for their argument - Alone Yet Not Alone, you are lost but not forgotten (or... alone in terms of being a bad nomination). But does this year's crop of tracks continue the category's uptrending in quality? I would argue it does and then some.

While our most expected nominee ("Shallow" obviously) provides the lineup a genuine hit song, we also have idiosyncratic picks as well as musicals and major artists nominated. This leaves the telecast with no rational choice but to allow all numbers to perform on the show, as they have been hesitant to do with lesser known nominees. So in addition to ranking the nominees, I have some suggestions on how to present all of them...

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Soundtracking: FYC 5 Original Song Outliers

by Chris Feil

In lieu of a regular deep dive into the soundtrack of one film, Soundtracking is indulging in some For Your Consideration tracks before the season narrows down to a few contenders. Naturally, all of the talk for original songs this season has been gobbled up by A Star Is Born with some hopes being thrown towards the likes of Mary Poppins Returns, Black Panther, and even Radiohead's Thom Yorke for Suspiria. I'll unpack the field once Oscar reveals its shortlist on December 17 (remember that quiet news item that the Academy will be announcing song and score shortlists all at once along with such categories as visual effects?).

But the outsiders deserve some love too, so allow me to champion a few solid tracks...

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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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