89th Academy Awards (2017 Ceremony for 2016 films)

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 minute ago, mrbellamy said:

 

 

There's a bit of score here and there. It's probably the most sparsely spotted Hollywood movie since No Country for Old Men, anyway. 

 

Also maybe I'm just out of touch but I honestly found it faster paced than I was expecting...I mean, it's not Goodfellas but it's not Tarkovsky slow either. It's still Thelma/Marty's rhythms, I thought it kept a steady clip and I really didn't think it felt nearly 3 hours. Anyway, I think it's a great one, probably his best this century.

 

I can't wait to see it.  Haven't been able to make it to the movies since Christmas holiday, sadly, despite there being many movies I want to see.

[Romão 2,274]

It's the 2016 film that left the biggest mark on me

[KK 3,307]

4 hours ago, publicist said:

Jackie - Mica Levi > should probably win 

Meh. But yeah, maybe the best of the bunch.

 

4 hours ago, publicist said:

La La Land - Justin Hurwitz > shoo!

This will win. And I wouldn't put up a fight when it does.

 

4 hours ago, publicist said:

Lion - Dustin O'Halloran and Hauschka > must listen

 

 Meh. Pleasant, but redundant and much less effective derivation of Johannsson's Prisoners. Go listen to that instead.

 

4 hours ago, publicist said:

Moonlight - Nicholas Britell > must liste

Shoo! Overrated crap!

 

4 hours ago, publicist said:

Passengers - Thomas Newman > nice but hardly award-worthy

Agreed.

[crumbs 14,316]

5 hours ago, king mark said:

Was Scorceses' Silence eligible?

 

Yes. It got one nomination.

[publicist 4,643]

As for movies, i'm interested in 'Silence', 'Hacksaw Ridge', 'Jackie', 'Paterson', 'Manchester By The Sea'.

 

Of those i saw i would recommend:

 

Midnight Special

Kubo and the Two Strings

Cloverfield Lane (minus last 10 minutes)

Toni Erdmann
Loving
High Rise

The Lobster

Hail, Caesar!

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

 

With reservations:

Arrival

The Neon Demon
Swiss Army Man

 

[Jay 37,364]

Out of all films nominated for any major award, the ones I've actually seen are:

 

Arrival (I REALLY liked it)

Hell or High Water (I loved it)

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (fun popcorn entertainment)

Rogue One (meh)

Zootopia (I liked it)

Hail, Caesar! (I liked it)

Star Trek Beyond (fun popcorn movie)

 

The ones I will probably see are:

 

The Red Turtle

The Lobster (Been waiting for my wife to want to watch it)

La La Land (feels like homework, but whatevs)

Hacksaw Ridge (no rush, though)

Hidden Figures (will be nice rainy day entertainment some day)

Captain Fantastic

Kubo and the Two Strings

Moana

Passengers (why not, not expecting much though)

Manchester By The Sea (wife really wants to see this one)

Silence (Scorsese... I'm there, no rush though)

Nocturnal Animals

20th Century Women

Allied (It's Zemeckis... why not)

Doctor Strange (I've seen every other MCU movie, so why not this one)

The Jungle Book (Mildly curious)

 

 

The ones I don't know anything about, or do but don't know I should see them or not, are:

 

Fences

Moonlight

Lion

Jackie

Deepwater Horizon

Sully

Florence Foster Jenkins (I think my wife watched this one)

A Man Called Ove

Elle

Loving

My Life as a Zucchini

Land of Mine
The Salesman
Tanna
Toni Erdmann

 

 

 

 

 

 

2016 films I've seen that weren't nominated at all:

 

Deadpool (fun)

How To Be Single (terrible)

Eddie The Eagle (alright)

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (alright)

10 Cloverfield Lane (very good)

Batman V Superman (entertaining)

Captain America 3 Civil War (not that good)

Green Room (A massive disappointment)

The Nice Guys (funny but weird)

Neighbors 2 (Stupid, but I like the cast)

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (HILARIOUS! One of the funnist movies I've seen in a while!)

Now You See Me 2 (terribad)

The BFG (fine)

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (Stupid, but I like the cast)

Ghostbusters (eh)

Into The Forest (bad)

Yoga Hosers (I liked it)

The Magnificent Seven (meh)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (meh)

The Girl on the Train (meh)

The Accountant (meh)

Keeping Up with the Joneses (a decent "dumb" movie, we laughed enough it was worth it.. plus, Isla Fisher, hubbahubba)

Inferno (meh)

 

 

Films I heard buzz about, but didn't get nominated?

Midnight Special

American Pastoral

The Founder

A Monster Calls

Live by Night

Birth Of A Nation 

Miss Sloane

Queen of Katwe

 

Are they bad, or did they get snubbed?

[publicist 4,643]

The Jungle Book: entertaining for what it was. Would have been a killer Jerry score in his day.

Sully: old people entertainment. Not bad in any way but square like an insurance leaflet.

A Man Called Ove: this was rather good ordinary folk movie, i liked it better than our own 'Toni Erdmann' which is more famous now but also got on my nerves somehow.

[Will 2,215]

Well well well. 

 

The Academy managed to nominate only one score I've actually heard. I did like it, though.

 

But that snub for JW! 

 

Sure, the Academy Awards don't actually better, but his resume sounds better and better the more nominations you add! 

 

Well, maybe it's actually better to not get the token nomination and then predictably lose...

[Jay 37,364]

Cool:

 

 

[publicist 4,643]

2 minutes ago, Will said:

But that snub for JW! 

 

Honestly, were i an academy member, i wouldn't have nominated The BFG.

[Thor 7,504]

7 hours ago, Jay said:

 

It was a relatively weak year for films overall.

 

Quite the contrary, it was one of the strongest film years in years. I had MAJOR issues making my list this year.

 

7 hours ago, king mark said:

I saw only 2 of these films..Hacksaw and Arrival

 

Was Scorceses' Silence eligible?

 

For score, no. Neither were MANCHESTER BY THE SEA and ARRIVAL, as previously reported.

 

I thought this year's nominations were a huge, predictable bore. Usually, there is at least one or two surprises that sneak in there, but not so this year. But I'm delighted that Isabelle Huppert made the cut for the magnificent ELLE.

 

I've seen most of the movies nominated in these categories, with some exceptions. I don't think I've seen any of the shorts, for example (might be mistaken, I'll have to doublecheck), and I'm missing 13TH, JACKIE (premieres late February here), LALALAND (missed the screening during last week's film festival up North due to a hangover, but I'll be seeing it in February) , CAPTAIN FANTASTIC, FENCES, HAIL CAESAR, KUBO, LIFE ANIMATED, UNDER SANDET and SUICIDE SQUAD. I'll be seeing them shortly, to have a complete overview.

 

There ARE some really good films nominated, but also several inexplicable hits -- mediocre or outright embarassing affairs like MOONLIGHT and HIDDEN FIGURES, for example.

[Jay 37,364]

What kept you from wanting to see Hail Caesar?  Not a Coen Brothers fan?

[Thor 7,504]

The Coens are a bit on/off to me, but the main reason I didn't see it were the disparaging remarks from almost ALL of my film critic colleagues here in Norway -- and not only those I work for. But now that it's Oscar-nominated, I guess I need to see it.

[igger6 894]

Ugh.  The Oscars managed to get even less interesting this year.  I heard the Cinematic Sound suites of Lion and Jackie and was bored by both.  It looks like the trend of Best Original Score becoming a piggyback award for Oscar sweepers is only accelerating.  I want to see but haven't yet seen La La Land, and I'll probably wind up pulling for that score as a candidate for a "Menken win," (i.e. "Hey, that musical had lots of good music in it, right?  Isn't this award something about music?  Give it to that one!"). 

 

And I'm sorry, but nominating Passengers is a joke.  That score didn't even deserve the nomination it got when it was called WALL-E in 2009.  I was turning up my nose at it in the theater, thinking, "Who wrote this utterly generic Thomas Newman ripoff?" only to discover it was, in fact, written by Thomas Newman's secret admirer, Thomas Newman.  I'm at a loss for what people see in this self-replicating factory.  His career output honestly makes Hans Zimmer and James Horner look like fountains of self-reinvention.  At least they each have/had about half a dozen tricks up their respective sleeves.  Newman has two.  And I've heard so many variations on bouncing/floating pianos/strings that I don't even seek out Newman scores anymore.  He could have become a farmer after Road to Perdition and we'd have lost nothing in his oeuvre. 

 

To be clear, not one of these score broke through in a nominating contest voted on entirely by composers:

 

Fantastic Beasts (Newton Howard)

Dr. Strange (Giacchino)

Star Trek Beyond (Giacchino)

The Hunstman: Winter's War (Newton Howard)

The Jungle Book (Debney)

The BFG (duh)

Gods of Egypt (Beltrami)

Kubo and the Two Strings (Marianelli)

Now You See Me 2 (Tyler)

 

I could understand if a buzzy Oscar steamroller movie won this category every time from a slate of worthier nominees, but I can't fathom the nominations being dominated by steamrollers when it's supposedly composers who do the voting at this stage of the game.

 

</rant>

 

Upside: nothing for Trent Reznor?

 

P.S. If anyone thinks they can convert me away from my quasi-religious conviction of Thomas Newman's hackitude, I'm open to track suggestions.  I like Perdition and Scent of a Woman and two tracks from WALL-E.

[Thor 7,504]

Quote

 

Fantastic Beasts (Newton Howard)

Dr. Strange (Giacchino)

Star Trek Beyond (Giacchino)

The Hunstman: Winter's War (Newton Howard)

The Jungle Book (Debney)

The BFG (duh)

Gods of Egypt (Beltrami)

Kubo and the Two Strings (Marianelli)

Now You See Me 2 (Tyler)

 

 

He. The only ones I liked on your list were the JNH ones -- and even then only partially. We obviously have a very different taste. 

 

I agree that Newman can be a bit of a one-trick pony, but he has shown on multiple occasions that he has more gears, like the horror cue in THE GREEN MILE. His two "Indian"-style scores for HE NAMED ME MALALA and THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL were both wonderful. The first was even on my Top 10 list in 2015. Personally, I like his 'riffs and variations on a particular style', but not if it feels lazy. PASSENGERS was kinda inbetween somewhere; better on album than in the film. An OK affair, but not Oscar-worthy.

 

 

 

 

[publicist 4,643]

2 minutes ago, igger6 said:

Fantastic Beasts (Newton Howard)

Dr. Strange (Giacchino)

Star Trek Beyond (Giacchino)

The Hunstman: Winter's War (Newton Howard)

The Jungle Book (Debney)

The BFG (duh)

Gods of Egypt (Beltrami)

Kubo and the Two Strings (Marianelli)

Now You See Me 2 (Tyler)

 

Fantastic Beasts (Newton Howard) > could have, but no great shakes

Dr. Strange (Giacchino) > nah

Star Trek Beyond (Giacchino) > fair for a ST franchise score post-Goldsmith but great music it ain't by any wild stretch of imagination

The Hunstman: Winter's War (Newton Howard) > i quite liked parts of it, very lyrical in places, but also very cookie-cutter and blockbuster-ish

The Jungle Book (Debney) > orchestral routine recalling undistinctive 90's scores, the old Bruns tunes only saving grace

The BFG (duh) > out of the maestro's moth-ridden trunk; no nomination required

Gods of Egypt (Beltrami) > loud and boorish with some decent action passages but overall blockbuster fodder

Kubo and the Two Strings (Marianelli) > yeah ok

Now You See Me 2 (Tyler) > are you kidding?

 

As usual, the JWFan steamroller ignores most stuff that is not connected to dreary franchises, blockbusters or in any way subtle (like, say, 'Jackie' or 'Tortue Rouge'). Given your limp examples i am actually glad Newman got a nom even for a routine work like 'Passengers'.

[Jay 37,364]

Laurent Perez Del Mar was robbed!

[Thor 7,504]

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

Laurent Perez Del Mar was robbed!

 

Indeed! But at least the film was nominated; also one of the best films last year (well, THIS year in Norway). 

[mrbellamy 6,287]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

Films I heard buzz about, but didn't get nominated?

Midnight Special

American Pastoral

The Founder

A Monster Calls

Live by Night

 

Are they bad, or did they get snubbed?

 

Midnight Special is good but came out in the spring and it's not hugely attention-grabbing to have survived the awards onslaught at the end of the year. It's just a solid sci-fi thriller rooted in a nice father-son drama.

 

The Founder is supposedly good enough, apparently Michael Keaton would have been worthy, but it got rushed out at the end of the year and I think awards promotion ended up being sort of dropped. Weinstein Company isn't doing so hot lately and so I think they just focused on their best shot which was Lion.

 

I saw A Monster Calls and quite liked it but it's also hard to really pin down in general because it's basically this serious cancer drama disguised as a big special effects movie. Too heavy for young kids, too fantasy-oriented to appeal to adults looking for a good drama....it's really best for mature 10-15 year olds. I'm not sure it would have had a chance at anything except Visual Effects, maybe Felicity Jones or Sigourney Weaver could have gotten some attention if it had been put out there more, but it wouldn't have won anything.

 

And American Pastoral and Live By Night got mediocre-to-poor reviews.

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

As far as score nominees, this is hands-down the weakest group of my lifetime (although I haven't listened to Passengers yet).  La La Land is decent, but the selling point there is the song material, not the score itself.  Jackie is, again, decent, but not really all that remarkable.  As others have said, Lion is just a pastiche of the much better Prisoners (with some of Young's lighter scores thrown in), and Moonlight was just dreadful and served the film terribly.  The frustrating thing is that there are some excellent scores this year that got completely ignored.

 

And then there are the other categories.  One nomination each for Sully and Silence and nothing for A United Kingdom, but Lion somehow got 6?  What?

 

9 hours ago, crumbs said:

It's The Artist all over again! Remember that film? No? Me neither.

Except La La Land is much better than The Artist.

[karelm 2,913]

I am very surprised Silence only received one nomination.  I thought it was a very good movie with complex characters, deep themes of faith, doubt, and the nature of suffering, and superb direction.  It was a deeply moving film that lingered in my memory long afterwords and deserved more attention from the Academy.  Interestingly, the film is 3 hours long and has no score.  In some ways, it is a retelling of Apocalypse Now which is one of my all time favorite films (especially in the directors cut). 

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Why do people continually cry in agony and outrage every year when these nominees are announced? Why do you care about rich people paying other rich people to give gold statues to those who want to get richer?

 

The award does absolutely nothing for your career unless you're already successful and famous.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

33 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

 

The award does absolutely nothing for your career unless you're already successful and famous.

 

Tell that to Lupita Nyong'o.  

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

Who?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

33 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Tell that to Lupita Nyong'o.  

Two voice acting roles. Woah!

 

 

[Jay 37,364]

3 hours ago, karelm said:

Interestingly, the film is 3 hours long and has no score.  

 

 

It has a score, you can hear it here:

 

http://www.paramountguilds.com/silence/score/

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

2 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

Why do people continually cry in agony and outrage every year when these nominees are announced? Why do you care about rich people paying other rich people to give gold statues to those who want to get richer?

 

The award does absolutely nothing for your career unless you're already successful and famous.

 

Plus, at times like this, Hollyweird just uses the awards to rally criminals to their left wing cause. There's been no reason to watch this program since 1998, the last time they had their act together.

[Tom 4,658]

2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Tell that to Lupita Nyong'o.  

and Kanjiklub. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

1 hour ago, Rose Dawson said:

 

Plus, at times like this, Hollyweird just uses the awards to rally criminals to their left wing cause. There's been no reason to watch this program since 1998, the last time they had their act together.

 

But...but last year Hollywood was right wing??

 

I don't get it!

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

12 hours ago, Jay said:

Actor in a Leading Role: 1 black nominee

Actress in a Leading Role: 1 black nominee

Actress in a Supporting Role: 3 black nominees

Actor in a Supporting Role: 1 black nominee, 1 Indian nominee

 

Patel is not indian.

 

And black is a race, indian is not.

 

I think you meant to say "brown" nominee.

[publicist 4,643]

4 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

Why do people continually cry in agony and outrage every year when these nominees are announced? Why do you care about rich people paying other rich people to give gold statues to those who want to get richer?

 

It's a fun ritual?

[Quintus 5,399]

13 hours ago, Romão said:

It's the 2016 film that left the biggest mark on me

 

Ugh, I keep seeing "it's" "it's" "it's" but no title when I scroll up. I hate this. 

[mrbellamy 6,287]

We were talking about Martin Scorsese's Silence. 

[Quintus 5,399]

Thank you. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Sssstttt...

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

This year's Oscars... 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It's not right wing enough for you?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Too boring.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

#OscarSoDull!

[karelm 2,913]

10 hours ago, Jay said:

 

 

It has a score, you can hear it here:

 

http://www.paramountguilds.com/silence/score/

You can?  The link redirects me to the paramountguilds page and there is no score option under Silence.  There was some music in the film but it was source music of ethnic street musicians from 17th century Japan.  Maybe total of 3 minutes of music.

[KK 3,307]

It was available for a time. It was about 30-45 minutes of aimless droning from what I remembered. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

1 minute ago, KK said:

It was available for a time. It was about 30-45 minutes of aimless droning from what I remembered. 

 

Johann Johannsson? 

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Hehehe...

[Jay 37,364]

20 minutes ago, karelm said:

You can?  The link redirects me to the paramountguilds page and there is no score option under Silence.  There was some music in the film but it was source music of ethnic street musicians from 17th century Japan.  Maybe total of 3 minutes of music.

 

Oh wow, looks like Paramount took it down already!  It had been up for months, see here:

 

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/26697-2016-for-your-consideration-studio-sites-featuring-music/&page=3#comment-1295865

 

Some discussion of the score:

 

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/19349-what-is-the-last-score-you-listened-to/&page=618#comment-1295912

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=116160&forumID=1&archive=0

http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=118336&forumID=1&archive=0

 

 

Maybe the files are still on the server, the file links are here:

 

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/26697-2016-for-your-consideration-studio-sites-featuring-music/

[Thor 7,504]

I was actually transfixed by those clips that were available for a period of time. Not pure 'music' per se, but something about the hypnotizing sound design, complete with bird chirps and whatnot -- much like some of the tracks on Horner's THE NEW WORLD.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

12 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

Hehehe...

 

[KK 3,307]

2 hours ago, Stefancos said:

 

Johann Johannsson? 

 

No...that had craft and nuance.

 

This was barely audible drones with occasional nature effects thrown in there.

 

Pity Shore couldn't commit

[Romão 2,274]

The movie doesn't really need or lend itself to a musical score. Scorsese did the right thing

[mrbellamy 6,287]

Yeah, there wasn't even a place for an end credits piece.

[Thor 7,504]

Scorsese does this now and then -- i.e. eschews almost all music in his films (except source music). I love it! Most of these films tend to have very interesting sound design instead; or interesting use of existing compositions.