Happy Birthday John Williams - a god among movie soundtrack composers!

I want to take a moment to congratulate Mr. John Williams on his 78th birthday today (February 8) and commemorate his unbelievably dense catalogue of film music compositions.

Like many film music fans, Williams was largely responsible for my introduction and immediate adoration for movie scores. I still remember repeatedly listening to the double-vinyl Empire Strikes Back soundtrack on my “portable” record player, lying on the floor and intensely admiring the artwork on the gatefold album sleeve. From there it was on to Superman, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and before I knew it, I was collecting movie soundtracks the same way people collect baseball cards.

Williams is one of those elite composers who has the magical ability to grip a child’s imagination and hold onto it through adolescence. It is one of the many reasons that it is difficult to fling a negative comment in his direction.

Known as the man behind the music of many Hollywood blockbusters, New York-born composer John Williams is among the few artists worthy of the titles “icon” and “legend.” He studied at both University of California (Los Angeles) and Julliard, and his first scoring composition was for the 1958 film Daddy-O.

Read more of my tribute to John Williams at my Soundtracks Examiner page here!

Counting down the best Heavy Metal and Movie Soundtrack music of 2009

Now that 2009 is quickly becoming a fleeting memory, all the major media outlets are scrambling to remind the public of what it SHOULD be remembering as the best and worst of the year. Nine times out of ten, these lists are ham-fisted, shameless plugs for that which was the most popular, what is most likely to win awards, with smatterings of unknown indie releases simply to prove that the “experts” aren’t the nose-upturned snobs we know they are.

Whatever happened to culling lists because they were fun? Why not make a list of things that you genuinely like, without any kind of ulterior (or advertising-linked) motive? Ham-fisted concoctions like those you see in mainstream magazines only continue to act as ego-stroking that spoon-feeds us until we become so reliant on those “experts” to tell us what is “good” and what is not. And we ultimately forget that the “experts” are merely people with opinions…just like us.

This is why I agonize over making “best of” lists, because it only serves to express my own personal opinion. If you read any list you find online, you will undoubtedly see a string of comments of both praise and complaint – praising the writer for including some of the reader’s favorites (which was actually a coincidence), or chastising the writer for “forgetting” to include certain things or flat-out telling him/her that he/she is wrong in his/her choices and rankings.

So, with all of that weighty nonsense in mind, I have decided to offer up, to help close out the year properly, a list of 20 heavy metal and movie soundtrack/score albums (respectively) that I felt were great – be they fun, sophisticated, throat-crushing, or just straight-up earworm-y. If you don’t agree with the choices, I applaud you for not being a clone of me.

Read my Examiner feature on the best Movie Soundtracks of 2009 here!

And check out my Examiner feature on the best Heavy Metal releases of 2009 here!


Jolly day!

Discussing vocals on soundtracks with AVATAR and IRON MAN 2 songstress Lisbeth Scott!

Although you may not know her by name, you surely have experienced the vocal talents of Lisbeth Scott. Called upon to be the featured vocalist by many of Hollywood’s most noteworthy film music composers, Scott’s mesmerizing voice has contributed to many Hollywood blockbusters, including both Chronicles of Narnia films, the first two Shrek movies, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Munich, King Kong, The Sixth Sense, and The Passion of the Christ. She has also been featured on high-rating television series, like CSI, ER, The Tudors, and True Blood.

Currently, Scott can be heard in two films in theaters – Guy Ritchie’s revamp of Sherlock Holmes, and James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar. She is also booked to lend her voice to 2010’s Iron Man 2, and has several other opportunities on the burner. Read on, as we get to know one of the “unsung” heroines of movie soundtrack canon. [Feature can be found here!]

Getting in the holiday spirit with A CHRISTMAS STORY soundtrack composer Carl Zittrer!

Christmas movie soundtracks are a rare commodity. Most are only in print for a very short span of time, to coincide with the movie’s original release or tied to a DVD release, and some have never even made the transition to a digital format. Even rarer are those iconic films that never, ever see an official soundtrack released. Until last month, a soundtrack for A Christmas Story simply did not exist in the retail industry.

However, thanks to the persistence of the film’s composers Carl Zittrer and Paul Zaza, in cooperation with Rhino Records and Turner Entertainment, a 20-song soundtrack to the late Bob Clark’s holiday hallmark is now finally available for movie fans to enjoy for years to come.

Read on, as composer and soundtrack producer Carl Zittrer illuminates us all about the extraordinary journey that was to become A Christmas Story! [The Story continues HERE]

My Encounter with an Academy Award Nominee: Discussing The Twilight Saga New Moon soundtrack with composer Alexandre Desplat!

It’s not every day that you get an opportunity to speak with an Academy Award nominee, let alone one who recently was the recipient of two World Soundtrack Awards. But for all his accolades, French film music composer Alexandre Desplat is a true artist, devoted wholly to his craft. If he is publicly acknowledged for his work, so be it. He accepts it humbly, and keeps his head buried in whatever project he undertakes.

With the release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, however, Desplat may find himself unintentionally metamorphosing from workhorse to rock star. Having delivered a score that ignites imagination and passion from its listeners, surely many more honors are in the cards.

He completed seven scores this year (Chéri, Coco avant Chanel, Un prophète, L'armée du crime, Julie & Julia, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the aforementioned New Moon) and he’s already got three in production for 2010…so far. How can someone possibly concentrate on such a work load when he is consistently offered awards?

It is here where our conversation begins…

It’s funny; I thought I would get better at it when I go up on stage to grab whatever award it is. But as I look out into the audience, I see people like Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Robert DeNiro, and Charlize Theron, I get so impressed and I ask myself, “What am I doing here???” I’m very humbled by it and very happy at the same time.

Do they affect you as a creative energy and the projects you take on?

The main thing there is to be inspired by film. That’s what drives me; that’s what I like; that’s my life. The rest is just an accident. You get an award or you don’t get an award, who cares? But if you make a great film, it’s fantastic, and it’s the best thing you could do if you find a great relationship with a director. Of course, the great thing about awards is that your name becomes more exposed. But I think the body of work that’s behind you is most important. Because if I did bad work and provided bad music for movies, I’m not sure I would get another call.


Read the full interview here!

Sexy Vampires, Homicidal Farm Children, and Ambient Prayers? Welcome to the world of composer Jonathan Elias!

Although you might not immediately recognize his name, you surely know his work. From the “Yahoooooooo!” jingle to the Columbia Pictures logo that precedes many movies, New York-born music composer Jonathan Elias is a staple of music in pop culture. One piece of his music even became an iconic standard in the homes of millions of people through the 1980s – the MTV “moon man” station ID clip! Since establishing his own company, Elias Arts in 1980, he has built a formidable empire of commercial and film trailer music.

He had also been nominated for a Grammy for his hybridized neo-classical / world / new age music project, American River. Elias spends whatever time allows to another passion, the creation of his Prayer Cycle music series, which culls notable musicians and celebrities from around the globe in a passionate musical and spoken word experience.

But there is another side to Elias…a darker side. In 1984, the man who had helped make MTV a household name struck fear into the hearts of moviegoers, when he created the musical landscape for the Stephen King thriller Children of the Corn. The combination of choirs, gentle synthesizers, and the unassuming visuals of a cornfield made pulses race, and caused people to think twice before stepping onto a farm, in much the same fashion that John Williams and Steven Spielberg gave people Thalassophobia (fear of the sea and oceans) a mere decade before.

Read my full interview with Jonathan Elias here!

Getting Filthy: Movie soundtrack reviews with guest commentary by Cradle of Filth’s mischievous singer

As you may or may not know (it really depends if you read my album reviews at Examiner), but I’ve taken on the challenge of writing a horror (or related) feature every day for the month of October to bring a little autumnal cheer to the masses. What I didn’t count on was the overwhelming enthusiasm I received when I inquired if Dani Filth wanted to participate (and get a few nods for his new book, of course). Not only has this been a fun experience, but the man knows his movies and music, adding an extra dose of darkness to my features.

Here is the current rundown of where his assistance appears:

CANDYMAN

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

HORROR OF DRACULA (featuring excerpts from The Gospel of Filth book)

DRAG ME TO HELL


Stay tuned for more wickedness!

Here in Autumn TWILIGHT: An in-depth review of the NEW MOON soundtrack

Go ahead, say it. I sold out. Well, not exactly, but I was actually intrigued at how the music would turn out, given the year's worth of hype and speculation.

New Moon is inarguably the most anticipated soundtrack release of the year. There is an irony in that statement, because historically (with a scant few exceptions) soundtracks are the red-headed stepchild of the music industry. However, thanks to such monstrously popular releases like the High School Musicalseries, the Hannah Montana comps, and last year’s jaw-dropper Twilight, soundtracks are enjoying a resurgence that hasn’t been seen since the early 1980s, when Footloose, Flashdance, and Purple Rain were dominating the charts.

But with popularity comes a price. While the 1980s soundtracks were sculpted to draw in a variety of audiences, the modern soundtracks target very definite groups, be they children, ‘tweens, females, males, or genre-specific fans. New Moon seems to be designed to break down some of those barriers and open up its built-in audience to a broader spectrum of musical experience. While its predecessor Twilight was like a hodge-podge of “it” bands, taking advantage of a scene, building a franchise and an opportunity (not to mention bleeding Paramore’s fame just a little bit “more”), New Moon is more adventurous, no, daring in its bold choice of songs and artists.


Read my full track-by-track analysis here!

Slipping back into the water with JAWS – A new look at John Williams’ classic movie soundtrack

Today I posted an article, no, rather an essay about John Williams’ unparalleled soundtrack to the 1975 classic Jaws. I know it’s not exactly a horror film, but can anyone honestly say that it did not scare them, even a little? Anyway, I think a tribute to Williams’ work on this one is long overdue, despite his Academy Award for it, so I gave it a go. I also included excerpts of Spielberg and Williams interviews to add a bit of color to the piece, though it probably made it appear more like a book report than a retrospective review.

The more I do these articles, the more I get the weird feeling that I am among the last bastions of film score music. I can’t exactly explain it, but it seems as time goes on, less and less people care about this artform. But I’m not giving up; I need to keep these pieces of aural art in the minds of as many people who are willing to open their minds to them.

Check out the fishy fun here!

Halloween Horror Music Happenings – Soundtrack and Film Score reviews with bite!

For the month of October, I decided to start writing up extensive spotlights on a number of horror movies…well, some of them are horror, and some just have scary elements. Everybody does features pertaining to the best horror movies (or scariest, or goriest, or most shocking), but no one seems to give any attention to the music that, in many cases, is the actual backbone of the frightening atmosphere.

So, for every day this month, I am creating feature articles to give respects to some amazing soundtracks. Sure, some of the movies might not be the cream of the crop, but this is about the music, not the movies themselves. You would not believe how many bad movies are released every week that have great musical backdrops.

The factor that sets the horror genre apart is that most of the composers work either with unbelievably small budgets, or they have a very limited time frame in which to work. So it is even more incredible that they are able to produce quality product.

In addition to giving a little overview of the film and examining the soundtracks, I also have been coloring the features with excerpts from Roger Ebert’s reviews from when the films were originally released (because his work is more entertaining than it is legitimately critical), and I have also received some guest commentary from Cradle of Filth vocalist Dani Filth. I’ve also got some VERY special features to post in the coming weeks, so be forewarned!

So far, I have posted articles spotlighting Children of the Corn, Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Candyman, The Silence of the Lambs, The Lost Boys, Christine, and the recently released Trick ‘r Treat. You can join the fun every day here.

Enjoy!

Interview with Horror Movie Soundtrack Composer Tyler Bates (Halloween II)

I REALLY enjoy interviewing film composers. It probably has something to do with the facts that they never really ever get a lot of press, and that I've spent the last 15 years interviewing rock/metal musicians. So it's definitely fun to crack the mold and venture where few dare to tread.

Today I interviewed Tyler Bates on the day of release of the film he just scored, HALLOWEEN II.

Here's a taste:

One of the things I really enjoy about your work is that you’re not a canned composer where all your work sounds identical. I mean, you can tell a Bates score when you hear one, but it doesn’t sound the same as another score in your filmography. And I don’t know if it is something you consciously do, but the music plays a different role in each film. In Watchmen, the music was part of the setting. In The Devil’s Rejects, it felt like another character. In 300, it took on the role of the emotions of everyone involved. With your work on Halloween II, the music seems to suck all of the oxygen out of the air and replaces the atmosphere with this really dense, palatable, metallic sensation.

(Laughs) Well each movie calls for something different. My musical tastes are very broad and are not really formed at all by film scores, although there are composers whose work I admire and get me fired up to do good work. But to be honest with you, I just look at the individual challenge. I don’t gauge a movie by something I’ve done before. Even this new Halloween movie, following the one Rob and I did couple years ago, the point really was to turn the page and approach this a little bit differently, while hopefully carrying forward some of the experience we had from doing the first one and dealing with the characters and taking John Carpenter’s pre-existing material into consideration.

On the first one, there were footprints you had to tread and, to a point, you had this built-in audience that was expecting to hear an homage to Carpenter’s work. But the new one has a very clean-slate feel to it, where it expands upon, like you said some of the character themes.

Actually, when I started the Halloween II score, I was thinking very minimalist. I wanted it to be really muddy and bassy with some gongs and random hitting of stuff that made it sound really tactile and identifiable with a room you just really didn’t want to be in as opposed to a traditional, thematic score. And it does become thematic at times, but not exactly in the traditional sense, and definitely not as much as the John Carpenter-era Halloween films. Even though that stuff can be limiting in terms of structure and that it was created for that first incarnation of Michael Myers (which is a totally different film style from what Rob is making), at the end of the day, when I’m dead, if I could have done one piece of music that is even remotely THAT identifiable, I’d be completely happy.

And like I said, this film is pretty much a clean slate in that it is not a sequel to Halloween II (1981), but it is in essence a brand new movie. So you are given a freer range of things you wanted to do and ideas you wanted to explore. That said, were there things in this Halloween II score ideas from the first film that you wanted to expand upon but couldn’t?

Yeah, I would say that it is a progression of ideas. In the first one, there was a sort of grappling with how much do we pay homage to the original Halloween and its characters and how much we employ the Carpenter themes. Really, that’s Rob’s battle. He will talk to me about what he feels is appropriate. But that said, any time I had to do a Carpenter theme, it was very difficult to drop it into the middle of what I was doing, so it pretty much negated a number of ideas I wanted to explore in the first movie.

So when Rob phoned me up and asked if I was up for it, he said, “I don’t think I want to work with the Halloween themes as integral aspects of the score. It would be kinda cool if it was somewhere in the film, but let’s do our own thing.” I thought that was an interesting opportunity or way to go back and make it our own complete destruction of a movie. (Laughs) So, yeah, sure there were different ideas and motifs that were explored, as if this were ‘Rob Zombie’s first Halloween movie'.

Read the full story here!

My first interview with a Soundtrack composer, or How awesome it would be to be in San Diego between July 23-25

So, as many of you know, I've been a soundtrack / film score fiend for as long as I can remember. I collect scores (on CD and vinyl), and I used to do some soundtrack copywriting for Muze, before they were bought by Macrovision. That little void was what prompted me to pitch an idea to Examiner - to allow me to share my knowledge and passion for soundtracks with the masses via their site. Soon after, in addition to being Heavy Metal Examiner, I became Soundtracks Examiner.

It's been a rough road, because soundtracks are like the red-headed stepchild of the music industry - unless it's a Broadway musical, a Disney production, or Twilight, most people don't really care about soundtracks. It's definitely been an uphill battle to share the joys that film scores bring me.

However, today is a banner-day for me, as I have posted my first interview with a composer...and not just any ol' lacky from Media Ventures / Remote Control Productions (though they do seem to nab a lot of the high-profile movies these days). I was given the opportunity to spend some time with Battlestar Galactica / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles / Eureka music-meister Bear McCreary.

Here's a taste:

On the subject of Battlestar Galactica, word is out that you’ve completed compiling the music for the Season 4 two-disc set. How did this project grow beyond the confines of one disc?

Fans have been bugging me for a two-disc album since the beginning of Season 4. I’ve honestly been fighting it. I wanted to compose a nice companion piece the ever-expanding BSG universe. I don’t like having filler on my soundtrack albums, so if a cue isn’t good enough for me to put it on CD, I don’t put it on for the sake of filling space. So I really didn’t think I could fill two CDs, but when I got to the end, I realized that the finale alone had over 60 minutes of scoring that I thought was really good. There was maybe 100 minutes of music in that episode, but there was about 65 minutes of it that was worth putting on CD. So it was then that I realized that we really did have to do a two-CD set to do the show justice. I mentioned it to La-La Land Records, and I believe their words to me were, “well, duh!”

Regarding your latest release, Caprica, it sounds to me more emotive and character-centric than the Battlestar scores, which are very atmospheric, encapsulating all the action and drama of the environment.

Well, Caprica has a much smaller cast, and that cast can essentially be divided into two families – The Adamas and the Graystones. So I wrote two themes, one for each family, and they serve as the thematic thread that ties the Caprica score together. Battlestar, as you mentioned, tends to be attached to arcs, subplots, and sometimes thematic ideas. There are also themes for every single character on the show, and there are at least 50 of those alone, not that they all get used all the time. So Caprica was a very different approach.

Check out the full monstrosity here!

Thanks!

Grouch The Oscar or Spending An Evening Complaining About Entertainment

Okay, now that the Oscars are finally over and the noses-upturned-to-anything-interesting committee is able to focus their collective inability to acknowledge good movies towards next year, it is time for me to chime in on a few things.

Okay, since NO ONE was surprised that Heath Ledger was going to win, why is everyone acting like they are? Out of all the films in his hot-fudge-with-sprinkles career, only a handful was actually watchable. Now, outlets like EW and Rolling Stone are calling him the modern James Dean? Give me a friggin’ break. Did ANYONE see the piece of garbage that was A Knight’s Tale? Granted, he was good in The Patriot, but I think that was more because of the story than his acting ability, but people are now citing Ten Things I Hate About You as some kind of zeitgeisty, introspective work of visual art.

I’m not going to go on about this, because it really turns my stomach to see Hollywood (and the general public) get all gushy and sentimental just because dude died. Let’s leave it at this, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS AN ACCIDENTAL OVERDOSE! If it was accidental, then there would have been an eyewitness who was with him watching him do it. It was suicide, plain and simple, and I have NO respect for anyone who thinks their life is so hard that the only way for them to move forward is to cut the cord. Yes, I’m talking to you, too, Herr Cobain.

Anyway, let’s turn our attention to Sean Penn for a moment. Now, I loved the guy in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, We’re No Angels, Casualties of War, and Carlito’s Way. But ever since his portrayal as David Kleinfeld in 1993, it seems that he has started choosing movies for the sole purpose of getting Academy nods, rather than stretching his acting chops. Sure, you can say that he’s smart for doing it, but I think that is a cowardly, and safe, way to go through an acting career. Wouldn’t you rather be someone like Ed Harris or Robert DeNiro, who are great in everything, regardless of the Academy batting an eye at them?

I dunno, I think I’m just sick of seeing Penn’s name in the nominee list every other year. It’s kinda like the same thing with period and political films getting nominated for all the major awards every year. Come on guys, that’s the formula, why nominate the exact same crap every year? That extends to BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN, too. Umm, if period films are so plentiful all the time, do you really need to keep nominating them? What makes one film’s 19th Century-inspired attire better than anothers? Maybe I need to be a seamstress to understand.

And speaking of not understanding, what is up with BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR? Granted, I am glad that Wall*E won, but look at its competition. Kung Fu Panda and Bolt? What happened to nominating films of substance? What exactly are the criteria for nominating animated movies anyway? It must be pretty, it must be funny, and it must target 4-year-olds? Seriously, I think this award only exists to draw in the youngsters, who will be able to see the exact same award at Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Awards. It’s kinda like having Grammys nominating Latin artists, but having Latin Grammys, too. There’s no point.

What’s even more confusing, is that I looked up the nomination rules for Best Animated Feature. Check this out, I pulled it right from http://www.oscars.org/:

The Executive Committee of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch shall meet prior to the last Board of Governors meeting of this calendar year. At this meeting, a Reminder List of the animated feature films released during the year shall be reviewed. If the committee finds that there are eight or more eligible animated feature films that warrant a category, it may choose to recommend to the Board of Governors that there be a Best Animated Feature Film award given this year. If the governors accept this recommendation, the following nomination process shall be set in motion.

Okay, so the category is optional, no problem. I totally understand. Some years there just aren’t any nominatable films for Best Animated Feature – because anything more mind-numbing than Kung Fu Panda shouldn’t be considered. However, did you notice that they need EIGHT films for consideration to have the category submitted? Umm, there are only ever THREE films nominated. Where did the other FIVE go??? On top of that, John “Pixar” Lasseter is part of said committee! The dude is nominating his own movies! One more reason this category is irrelevant.

I really don’t want to go on a rant about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the curious case of its 13 nominations. You’ve heard it all before, it’s a half-baked, heartless Xerox of Forrest Gump, you don’t connect with the characters, Tilda Swinton is still a scary-looking bitch, and the tie-in to Hurricane Katrina was completely tasteless. Why the 13 noms? I guess the Academy was bored. Or they were too afraid to nominate movies like Appaloosa and Gran Torino. I thought whenever Clint Eastwood crapped dust, it got nominated. Oh wait, there were racial slurs in this movie. Can’t have that. Because reality isn’t what they go for with Oscar nominations…except Animated Feature.

This brings me to my biggest beef with Oscar nominations. And I have this same gripe year after year (I just never had a blog before). One of the most overlooked, and under-researched categories at the Academy Awards is BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR A MOTION PICTURE, ORIGINAL SCORE. I kinda figured Slumdog Millionaire was going to take this one, because it was so different from everything else.

However, I fancy myself a fan of film scores, and I found that one completely unlistenable. It was noisy, it was chaotic, but it was Bollywood! That’s the politically-correct way to go these days! Seriously, did it win Best Score, because it WAS the best score, or did it win simply because it also took Best Picture and Best Director? Maybe my ears are not attuned to Indian music, but that sloshy, gumbo of an album was little more than a sonic headache. Seriously, the hodgepodge of techno-Indian-dance-hip hop sounded like a bad Nintendo game or some bizarre fetishist amine.

But hey, let’s look at the other nominees.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Alexandre Desplat) – seriously? This was Desplat doing his best Danny Elfman impersonation. Yeah, I get that he was trying to fuse fantasy and drama, but I thought the licensed music for the film (you know, all the old school big band and jazz standards) were much more interesting.

Milk (Danny Elfman) - Speaking of not interesting, this was another one of those moments where Danny Elfman tries to make himself contemporarily relevant by NOT sounding like Danny Elfman. Milk came off sounding more like a cross between Splash and Arthur – uninspired and derivative.

Defiance (James Newton Howard) – and yes, on the derivative tip, here we have another go at standard espionage fare, a la John Powell’s Bourne series, or anything with a spy and guns in it for that matter. Why was it nominated? Oh, it had random cello solos, which drew some comparisons to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which incidentally won the Best Score Oscar in 2001). Ah, 2001 was actually the last decent year for nail-biting film score noms – Crouching Tiger, Gladiator, and The Patriot? All classics in my book. Defiance, however, is not.

Wall*E (Thomas Newman) – the only one of the bunch I felt deserving of a nomination. Since there was no dialogue during the first half of the film, it was the music that carried the action. I thought Newman did a stellar job combining childlike whimsy, isolation, and adventure in one little eco-friendly, cardboard-sleeved package. I guess the win is reparation for last year's Ratatouille upset. Yes, it is too bad the Academy is deaf.

And while we’re on the subject, I did some perusing at the Oscars website and learned some rather weird things about the committee that makes these bizarre and lackluster nominations. Here are the Board of Governors (as they are called on the site). I should also note that all my info about them can be verified on IMDB.

Charles Fox – primarily a TV composer, whose BIGGEST films include National Lampoon’s European Vacation (you remember, the really bad Pig In A Poke one), 9 to 5, Zapped! and Short Circuit 2. The last feature film he scored was a 1995 talking pig movie called Gordy. Truly a magnificent list of credits. He’s definitely qualified to make these decisions.

Bruce Broughton - also largely a TV composer. Biggest films include Silverado, The Presidio, and Harry and the Hendersons. Last movie scored was a 1998 Stephen Baldwin vehicle called One Tough Cop. Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s done some good things…20 years ago. Again, not really sure if his ears are attuned to making good decisions.

Arthur Hamilton - scored ONE FILM in 1955. He’s primarily a songwriter, who is best known for the tune “Cry Me A River”, (not to be confused with the Justin Timberlake ditty) which was featured in 6 movies. How in the hell is this guy qualified to sit on a board that decides what film scores get nominated for Oscars? That’s like making a 6-year-old teach astro-physics, because he can make paper airplanes.

Now, if I was on the board, what would I have nominated? Glad you asked. Besides Wall*E, I would have cleaned house and NOT even considered the other four noms. That frees me up to make four new choices. I would have nominated the following film scores:

The Happening (James Newton Howard) – Yes, I feel he was nominated for the wrong movie. He also could have very easily been nominated for The Dark Knight (which he would have had to share with Hans "needs more synthesized strings" Zimmer) as well, but I thought this score was much more visceral. It was probably among the best suspense scores since the days of Bernard Herrmann. He should have also been nominated last year for The Great Debaters, but I really don’t want to get into the debacle that was the 80th Academy Awards. I’d just start spewing about how American Gangster was completely robbed of any dignity.

HELLBOY 2 (Danny Elfman) – Again, nominated for the wrong film. Milk was extremely lactose-intolerant, while Hellboy was injected with an ample supply of Nestlé Quik. Sure, you could argue that it is standard Elfman fare, but I would disagree. Sure, most of the work he’s done since the late 80s has been a variation or rehashing of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice. To this day, I am shocked that Beetlejuice was never considered for an Oscar in 1988/89. But Hellboy II represents a more refined, mature, and no less adventurous Elfman. It’s a score that combines mayhem and heart, which is an odd mix, but Elfman can pull it off.

Mongol (Tuomas Kantelinen) – Yeah, the guy is a complete unknown in America. Then again, so is the film. But holy crap, is this a great, epic score. Kantelinen effortlessly channels the old school Hollywood epic film score legends like Miklos Rosza and Alex North, and offers something passionate and brutal. It’s like what Jerry Goldsmith was gunning for with The 13th Warrior, but better.

Nights In Rodanthe (Jeanine Tesori) – Sure, I know this is completely unbecoming of me, but this is some very moving music. This is also Tesori’s first proper film score, as she is primarily known as a Broadway composer. I have no desire to see the movie, but the music is completely gut-wrenching. It is like a modern classical sonata. Very romantic, and very rare for the world of film scores.

And there you have it, kiddies, my Oscar rant for this year. I really don’t know why I let silly little things like the get under my skin, because ultimately, what is more frivolous than an organization that puts on a multi-million dollar beauty pageant to pay homage to the entertainment industry? Think about it, it’s a show that honors movies. It’s kinda like a paradox, isn’t it? I just hope that somewhere down the line, the Academy Awards will be more based on what people want to see, rather than what Oprah’s Book Club thinks we should see.