By Luke Tatge of Journalistic Skepticism.
Leave it to the Academy to do one or both of the following things every year with their picks for Best Original Score -- to stick with what they know (basically, your Williamses, your Horners, your Zimmers, etc.) and to pick certain scores based solely on the fact that they have "hype." So begins the discussion of the five nominees for Best Original Score for the 2009 Oscars.
A perennial Oscar favorite, Horner has been nominated eight times in this category, a relative favorite of the Academy. Strangely enough, though, he's only ever won the award for his work with James Cameron (1997's Titanic). And not so strangely enough, as is typical in much of Horner's work, there is a lot of borrowing from his previous efforts. The score includes his signature love of lulled "aahs" set to a melody (see Titanic for an example) as well as several dramatic, rousing portions as well. It actually slightly resembles the work of James Newton Howard in the little-seen 2000 Disney flick Dinosaur. Check it out for yourself, and you'll hear the resemblances. Aside from its similarities to other scores, Avatar is a relatively standard choice for the Academy - an adventure movie with lots of sweeping strings and battle scenes set to emotional cues. It's a decent score all in all, and it's probably the front-runner in the category, as Avatar seems set for a sweep in the technical categories.
An odd, off-beat choice for the typically stuffier category, chalk this nod up to the fact that Desplat is one of the newest members of the score boys' club (he's gotten three nominations in this category in the last four years). Desplat seems to be a light in the tunnel of all-too-similar work being churned out by his fellow composers. Of his three nominated scores - Fox, The Queen, and Benjamin Button - they have virtually no striking resemblances. This one banks on quirky six-stringed instruments to create a truly Wes Anderson vibe within an animated context. The score is a fitting companion to the movie itself. And though it doesn't really stand a chance - I'd say it lands in the fourth slot of vote-getters - it's a surprising and pleasing entry in the list of five.
Well, this is one that fits the latter of the aforementioned rules - it's a slightly confusing nominee that probably got lumped in to rack up the final count for The Hurt Locker. Though he's been a composer for some time, Beltrami has enjoyed Oscar attention only in the last three years, having been nominated once before for 3:10 to Yuma. The score primarily consists of building dissonant notes to create intensity, which makes perfect sense for a nerve-wrecker about a bomb squad in war time. Unfortunately, it's hardly a fitting choice if you're on the lookout for a diverse, original score. In fact, you can see - or hear, rather - Beltrami's experience with horror and thriller movies in this effort. Take a listen to some of Scream's electronic score and it may sound a bit familiar. But out of apparent sheer love for the film, I'd place this in the third likeliest spot of the five.
The insanely prolific composer (this his eighth Oscar nomination), Zimmer has dipped into just about every genre imaginable. He averaged about 3-4 scores per year this decade, so he just may be the busiest person in the film music business. Typically his scores tend to run together as far as memorability, but I'm one who would say that his efforts in Sherlock Holmes are notable for their relative uniqueness. He meshes the action and mystery genres incredibly well with the late 19th Century vibe combined with the modern kick-assery vibe. His odds to win, though, seem slim. I'd place him in the fifth spot, in fact. The last time he won (which was once) was 1994's megahit The Lion King.
Another new unique voice in the Original Score gang, Giacchino is on his second nomination (the first for 2007's Ratatouille), though it's rather, well, incredible that his possible best score, the one for The Incredibles, managed to miss out on an Oscar nod. His score for Up is both emotionally gut-wrenching and thrillingly epic, something that some other nominees seem to lack. Though I think Horner has this one in the bag, Giacchino's got to have the number two spot. He managed the BFCA, the Golden Globe, several critics awards, and, most recently, the Grammy. And with five total nominations for the movie, it seems like it has to win somewhere, with this being the next most likely after Best Animated Feature.
So it seems that Avatar or Up has this in the bag, but what of the other scores of the year? Some notable snubs include Marvin Hamlisch's score for The Informant!, which was nominated by the BFCA, the Globes, and the Chicago critics; Giacchino's score for Star Trek, which managed a Grammy nod and a win from the Las Vegas critics; and Abel Korzeniowski's score for A Single Man, which was nominated at the Globes and took home the San Diego critics' prize. And then there are my personal favorites that missed mentions, for your perusal: Randy Newman for The Princess and the Frog, Joe Hisaishi for Ponyo, Sergey Yevtushenko for The Last Station, and Christopher Young for Drag Me To Hell.
