Will the Hollywood Music in Media Awards Tell Us Anything about Oscar?
Tuesday, November 4, 2014 at 10:30AM Tonight in Los Angeles they're holding the Hollywood Music in Media Awards. I'm not familiar with this organization but this is apparently their fifth year. Two Oscar nominees, actor Eric Roberts (who has a small but key role in the upcoming Inherent Vice) and songwriter Stephen Bishop (Remember "Separative Lives" that duet from White Nights?), are among the handful of hosts and performances will include Antonio Sanchez (interviewed right here) performing a section of his all drum score for Birdman and Gregg Alexander doing "Lost Stars" from Begin Again (clearly the song to beat at this point but we wish they'd push for two nominations in that category because the whole soundtrack is so good).
But will any of this tell us anything about Oscar? [More...]
Will Imitation Game and Theory of Everything be the frontrunners for the Score Oscar?
The music branch within Oscar is notoriously insular sticking close to their comfort zone composers year after year which is why people rack up such incredibly high numbers of nominations. As a point of comparison with, say, best actress, well over 50 composers have won five or more nominations but only 15 or so women have and Meryl Streep wouldn't be anywhere close to the most nominated if she were a composer. So perhaps we should take these nominations seriously as a clue as to what Oscar might respond to (so long as the composer has been nominated previously) even though it isn't the same people voting.
After this adorable tweet from Antonio Sanchez -- who hadn't yet seen Birdman when Margaret interviewed him -- the complete list of nominees for the film portion of the HMIM awards as well as their Oscar track record of the composers so you can see if Oscar has previously welcomed them into the club. I'll update later with the winners.
About to watch Birdman for the 1st time! pic.twitter.com/9GViTatQMb
— Antonio Sanchez (@AntonioDrumsX) October 31, 2014
ORIGINAL SCORE - FEATURE FILM
Alexandre Desplat - The Imitation Game | 6 Oscar nominations
Antonio Sanchez - Birdman | This is his first score
Jóhann Jóhannsson - The Theory of Everything | never nominated
Hans Zimmer – Interstellar | 9 Oscar nominations with 1 win
Steven Price - Fury | 1 nomination and win
Thomas Newman - The Judge | 12 Oscar nominations
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Gone Girl | 1 Oscar nomination and win
ORIGINAL SCORE - SI-FI/FANTASY FILM
Tyler Bates - Guardians of the Galaxy | never nominated
Steve Jablonsky - Transformers: Age of Extinction | never nominated
James Newton Howard - Maleficent | 8 Oscar nominations
Michael Giacchino - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes | 2 Oscar nominations with 1 win
Howard Shore - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug | 4 Oscar nominations with 3 wins
Clint Mansell - Noah | never nominated
ORIGINAL SCORE - ANIMATED FILM
Danny Elfman - Mr. Peabody and Sherman | 4 Oscar nominations
Dario Marianelli - The Boxtrolls | 3 nominations with 1 win
Gustavo Santaolalla - The Book of Life | 2 nominations with 2 wins
John Powell - How To Train Your Dragon 2 | 1 Oscar nomination (for the original Dragon film)
Kristian Sensini - Rocks in My Pockets -- this movie is a Best Foreign Film submission
Mark Mothersbaugh - The Lego Movie | never nominated
ORIGINAL SCORE - DOCUMENTARY
Mark Adler - Merchants of Doubt
Vivek Maddala - American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs
Adam Crystal - Born to Fly
Emilio D. Miler - H.O.P.E. Was Here
Christophe Beck & Leo Birenberg - Red Army
SONG - FILM
"Lost Stars" (Begin Again) Written by Gregg Alexander & Danielle Brisebois. Performed by Adam Levine and Keira Knightley
"I'll Get You What You Want" (Muppets) Written and Performed by Bret McKenzie
"Wish I Was Here" (Wish I Was Here) Written & Performed by Cat Power & Coldplay
"So Now What" (Wish I Was Here) Written & Performed by The Shins
"Not About the Angels" (The Fault in Our Stars) Written by Jasmine Van Den Bogaerde. Performed by Birdy
SONG - ANIMATED FILM
"Where No One Goes" (How to Train Your Dragon 2) Written by Jonsi and John Powell. Performed by Jónsi
"Everything is Awesome" (The Lego Movie) Written By Shawn Patterson, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, Joshua Bartholomew and Lisa Harriton. Performed by Tegan and Sara feat. The Lonely Island
"What is Love" (Rio 2) Written and performed by Janelle Monáe
"Kid" (Mr. Peabody and Sherman) Written and performed by Peter Andre
"Still I Fly" (Planes: Fire & Rescue) Written by Windy Wagner, Michael “Smidi” Smith and Spencer Lee. Performed by Spencer Lee.
SONG - DOCUMENTARY
"Superman" (Hair) Written by Dalal Bruchmann & Nate "Impact" Jolley. Performed by Dalal
"Stopping For Death" (Coming Home) Written and performed by Joel Martin
“We Will Not Go” (Virunga) Written by J. Ralph. Performed by Youssou N’Dour, Salif Keïta and Fally Ipupa
"Heart of Africa" (Heart of Africa) Written and performed by Damien Horne and Big Kenny
OUTSTANDING MUSIC SUPERVISION – FILM
Dave Jordan (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Season Kent (The Fault in Our Stars)
George Drakoulias (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)
Dana Sano (The Giver)
Meghan Currier & Randall Poster (Boyhood)
Randall Poster (Divergent)
Holly Adams & Mary Ramos (Wish I Was Here)
John Houlihan (The Book of Life)
SOUNDTRACK ALBUM
Guardians of the Galaxy
Red Sky
Boyhood
The Giver
The Amazing Spiderman 2
Begin Again
Wish I Was Here
Divergent
Which soundtracks and scores are you totally into this year? FYC it up in the comments
Reader Comments (12)
Maybe a little off-topic, but I thought it was amusing that Eric Roberts was an Oscar nominee. I ended up checking his IMDb and he has over 60 acting credits that are either just completed & awaiting release, in production or post production. WTF? 6 titles are listed as filming now.
Anyways, poor Thomas Newman.
Totally loved James Newton Howard's retro techno-ish score for "Nightcrawler" and hope he gets his due with another nod (though he still has yet to win somehow).
And I assume the Theory of Everything guy will win everything because the score is really showy, but it's the type of music we've heard before in dozens of other "important" movies, with lots of frenetic strings playing lots of whirling notes. Not my thing.
Category by category:
Original Score - Feature Film: Birdman
Original Score - Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film: Guardians
Original Score - Animated Film: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Original Score - Documentary Film: ?
Original Song - Film: Lost Stars, Begin Again
Original Song - Animated Film: Everything is Awesome, The Lego Movie
Original Song - Documentary Film: ?
Music Supervision and Soundtrack Album: Guardians.
Am I the only one who prefers Like A Fool over Lost Stars? It's been in my head since I saw the film two weeks ago.
'Under the Skin' for best score.
Do you have a correlation between this award and Oscar nominations/wins? This seems very un-AMPAS in many of its choices (which is nice to see). Do nominees here go on to Oscar noms in later years?
Quite shocked to see that Grand Budapest Hotel was nowhere to be found
What the hell? Jonny Greenwood's score for Inherent Vice won't be eligible? That guy should've won the Oscar for There Will Be Blood. It would've at least made the NIN/Radiohead rivalry more interesting.
I'm gonna predict this as the out of nowhere Oscar nominee in the song category this year :
“We Will Not Go” (Virunga) Written by J. Ralph. Performed by Youssou N’Dour, Salif Keïta and Fally Ipupa
I love Dalal's work! CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR SUPERMAN! HOPE SHE WINS!
Dominique- I also prefer Like a Fool to Lost Stars. However, I don't particularly care for any of the Begin Again tracks relative to some other Oscar contenders-- "Land Ho" (more people need to see this film!), "Everything is Awesome," and "Not About Angels" (Birdy FTW).
Rebecca- I agree about Under the Skin's score. Never gonna happen though. :-(
Stephen Bishop is so talented. Two Grammy noms for his debut, one for Best New Artist (losing to Debby Boone!), and singer of the Oscar-nommed theme to Tootsie.