70 Original Songs Eligible for Oscar

Chris here. Though the conversation around Oscar's Original Song category sways negative these days, there is the potential this year to have one of the strongest lineups in some time. And we now have the massive list of 70 tracks eligible this year to support that claim.

While there are the annual "huh?!" titles among the contenders, the lineup has some strong outsider fare like Patti Cake$, Step, and The Meyerowitz Stories. Among the things you won't see in the longlist are "I Get Overwhelmed" from A Ghost Story or "Cut to the Feeling" from Leap, as both of those weren't explicitly written for their films. Also two musicals, Coco and The Greatest Showman, are only eligible for their biggest tracks - however both remain likely players here, though curveballs should be expected in this category at all times.

Let's take a look at the eligible songs/films:

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Soundtracking: "Magnolia"

With a new Paul Thomas Anderson film waiting in the wings, Chris looks at the music of Magnolia...

Rarely is a film and musician as inextricable from one another as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia and Aimee Mann. The singularity of her voice repeated throughout helps streamline Anderson’s massively expansive vision, like a tidy bow pulling together the film’s many untidy pieces. With the film’s religious themes and allegories, her omniscient voice makes Mann the film’s watchful angel, perhaps a messenger of God. She's as much as character as everyone else, if a far more enlightened one.

“One is the loneliest number...” and Anderson announces his ensemble as a collection of “ones”. The Harry Nilsson track is a smart choice, establishing that no matter their twisty associations to one another, each is essentially isolated. Having Mann cover the classic song marries the old and the new, sounding like something that’s lingered for an indeterminate time but still aches like a fresh bruise. A curse of the biblical variety destined to perpetuate and repeat itself...

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Five Lingering Questions About the Globe Nominations. Do share your answers!

By Nathaniel R (and guests)

Okay last Globe conversation frenzy for a bit with SAG nominations happening tomorrow. We'll save a few truly silly questions about the Globes until the Golden Globe week hits but for now the rest of our informal polling of friends and TFE contributors now that you've read the Big Sick / All the Money / Snubs responses (you read that, right?). Join the conversation in the comments won't you?

Five questions and special guests answering them after the jump starting with this one. What's the "surprise" you don't think is surprising at all?

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woof woof. It's your daily Oscar trivia

by Nathaniel R

101 DAYS DALMATIANS until Oscar. For today's Oscar trivia did you know that neither the Disney animated classic of 1961 nor the live action Glenn Close starring remake in 1996 earned Oscar nominations?

Everyone knows that the Academy didn't have a Best Animated Feature category until the 21st century began but prior to that Disney's beloved animated classics were often honored in Original Song. But "Cruella de Vil," the hit single that dog-loving composer Roger writes in the film, the one that earns him enough cash to feed and care for 101 pups in that film's happy ending was not so nominated...

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La Pfeiffer and the Original Song Oscar Race

by Nathaniel R

Here's some rather surprising news: Michelle Pfeiffer sings the closing credits song of Murder on the Orient Express. The song is called "Never Forget" which we never in danger of doing for anything Pfeiffer. Though opinions vary about how well the goddess sings, we personally love it when she croons. Case in point: Grease 2 (1982), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and Hairspray (2007). Listen it's not her fault that her character in Up Close and Personal (1996) was supposed to be a bad singer or that "Miss Baltimore Crabs" is Hairspray's worst song!

"Never Forget" is written by two-time Oscar nominee Patrick Doyle, a regular on Kenneth Branagh films, who also composes the score. La Pfeiffer is, of course, not the sort who would deign to sing in front of the whole world on Oscar night so they will reassign the vocals if the song is nominated.

Regardless the Original Song category is beginning to show its possible contenders so we've updated that chart and still suspect the leader is The Greatest Showman's catchy "This Is Me" - which was recently performed in NYC by Keala Settle & Darren Criss.

We eagerly await the full eligibility list of 80ish songs we've never heard from 40 movies we've heard of and 20 movies we didn't know existed before this always surprising list hits.