First Predictions: Music / Sound Categories

by Nathaniel R

The year's surest bet: A 55th Oscar nomination for John Williams scoring DISCLOSURE DAY © Universal

Encourage me to keep going with these charts via comments. Let's talk sound and music. These categories generally stay mysterious until late in the year since post-production is such a heavy part of eligibility and credits for music and sound categories. Sometimes they'll switch out composers after filming has ended! And of course Original Song is notoriously hard to predict. 

One thing that feels certain, though, is that John Williams will receive his 55th nomination for the score to Disclosure Day. John Williams just turned 94 which will mean that he is likely to break two of his own records (again) as the most nominated person ever AND as the oldest person to ever receive an Oscar nomination (any category). He currently holds the latter record for his nomination at 91 for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). The Academy's music branch never passes up an opportunity to vote for him, even if the film isn't in play anywhere else...

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The 'Guild Week' starts with the Cinema Audio Society

by Cláudio Alves

The Cinema Audio Society sure loves themselves some Timothée Chalamet.

This week will be all about the Hollywood guilds having their say, giving us awards obsessives a better picture of the industry's reaction to the season's top contenders. Today, the Cinema Audio Society shared their film and TV nominations, with various of the Academy's shortlisted picks making the cut. But pundits beware, for the CAS can fail to be in perfect synchronicity with AMPAS. The TV nominees are much of the same as we've seen so far in the season, Emmy and Golden Globe favorites on repeat. That being said, there's a sense of individuality to the organization's taste. The voters love music-heavy projects, war, and racing cars…

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Cinema Audio Society nominees. How are they as a precursor?

by Nathaniel R

THE BATMAN

In the mad rush of guild announcements last week (all over but for the ACE Eddie awards which will curiously be announced after the Oscar nominations this year) we missed this one: The Cinema Audio Society. While Top Gun Maverick has long been marked the frontrunner for the Best Sound nomination it has formidable competition in the sound spectacle department. Nominees, comments, superhero split, and Oscar stats after the jump...

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Interview: Ryan White on "Good Night Oppy" and recording Angela Bassett

by Nathaniel R

Director Ryan White and his new film "Good Night Oppy"

In October I had the pleasure of introducing director Ryan White to a warmly receptive audience at the 10th annual Middleburg Film Festival. They'd just screened his buzzy documentary Good Night Oppy and there was lots of love in the room. That's been a through line with the film wherever it's shown. The space exploration documentary has since received glowing notices and several awards including five wins at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. The charming doc about two sister robots on Mars, "Opportunity" and "Spirit", who wildly surpassed initial expectations, also represents a change of pace for the director. He's always had range. His previous lauded projects have included films as varied as the Oscar finalist short Coded (2021) about the gay golden age illustrator J.C. Leyendecker, the Emmy-nominated political doc The Case Against 8 (2014), the Emmy nominated unsolved crime doc-series The Keepers (2017), and profile docs like Ask Dr Ruth (2019) and Serena (2016). 

When we first met Good Night Oppy had not yet reached Amazon Prime but it was headed there for the Thanksgiving holiday. A feast it would likely be to families that gave it a try. I was delighted to catch up with White to talk about the film again now that it's available to a wide audience...

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Mahler's 5th - the secret destroyer in "Decision to Leave" and "Tár"

by Lynn Lee

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is enjoying a bit of a renaissance these days, thanks to its prominent placement in not just one but two of the most fascinating films of the year, Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave and Todd Field’s Tár.  Not that it’s ever really been out of the public eye.  It’s been a staple of classical orchestras for decades, and its fourth movement – the dreamily romantic Adagietto, which cinephiles may recognize from Visconti’s Death in Venice – long ago reached a degree of mainstream popularity rarely accorded classical works.

Just because it’s a war horse, though, doesn’t mean it can’t be used in constantly different and surprising ways.  The Fifth – like all of Mahler’s symphonies, but perhaps even more so – contains multitudes...

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