Year in Review: Best Music and Soundscapes

by Nathaniel R

Are all cinephiles "visual" people or are some more sonically attuned? I ask this because in order to draw up my own lists of "bests" in the aural categories, I have to really focus to note the soundscapes. In some cases, as with the sinuous alien creepiness of Nope and the haunted bold swings of TAR, the genius is hard to miss even for those of us who are more visually oriented. If any of you have theories as to how Oscar's sound branch didn't include either in even their finalist lists, I'm all ears... no pun intended.

For the most part it's the images I remember which may explain why I am so allergic to end credit songs over a dark screen being hailed the "Best" of any given season in Original Song. Marry the images and sound and it's far more memorable and valuable to the overall film experience...

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Interview: Composer Michael Abels on "Nope" and "Chevalier"

by Nathaniel R

MIchael Abels photographed for the LA OperaOne of the most exciting film composers to gain prominence in the past decade is Michael Abels. He's received multiple nominations for his work and prizes, too like the Jerry Goldsmith Award and the World Soundtrack Award. We wait impatiently for an Oscar nomination to follow, given his memorable inventive scores that have played such a huge part in the mass appeal of the films of Jordan Peele. We were honored to sit down with him to talk about his diverse interests in musical genres, his history with piano and voice, his Nope score, and what's next.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity...

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Baker's Dozen: Best Screen Animals of 2022

by Nathaniel R

One of the underdiscussed joys of cinema, at least if you're an animal lover, are the non-human creatures that swim, gallop, slither, hop, and play across the screens. Debates continue about the use of non-human actors onscreen, but animal characters can be as memorable as their human scene partners whether they're computer generated, stop motion puppets, or furry or feathered actors. 2022's cinema gave us the full menagerie. Among the most memorable "real" animals, for better and worse, were Empire of Light's wounded pigeon, A Man Called Otto's feral yet easily domesticated cat, Everything Everywhere All At Once's weaponized pom, the homicidal chimp and lion of Nope and Beast, respectively, and Babylon's diarrhetic elephant. If you prefer fantastical beasties, the titular animated characters from The Sea Beast, My Father's Dragon, and DC League of Super Pets had their charms while "Socks" the robot cat of Lightyear was that misjudged film's MVP.

Speaking of fantastic, the following list is dedicated to Meilin in Turning Red for embracing her inner red panda, even if she isn't technically eligible being an all-too relatable teenage human girl person... 

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AFI Top Ten gives a boost to "Nope" and "She Said"

by Nathaniel R

The American Film Institute has named their top ten films and television programs of 2022, giving them all a boost in the awards conversation. And that's clearly what the prize is intended for, given their resolutely mainstream Oscar and Emmy buzz focused lists each year (in their early years they were sometimes a bit more adventurous though still mainstream). The two most "daring" choices for films, if you can call them that, are Nope and She Said, neither of which have a huge amount of Oscar buzz at the moment, though Nope has been performing well in early top ten list / precursor season.

The AFI lists in film and television and some commentary after the jump...

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Oscar Volleys: The Worldbuilding of Production Design

Team Experience will be discussing each Oscar category as we head into the precursors. Here's Eurocheese and Nick Taylor... 

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

EUROCHEESE: Hi Nick! We have an exciting group of larger-than-life worlds to conquer for Production Design, but maybe it would be best to start with the elephant in the room: Despite some mixed reviews on Babylon, I have to imagine if nothing else it will make its coked-up presence known here, as homage to Hollywood's glory days. Then we have two blockbuster sequels to previous Best Production Design winners, with Black Panther Wakanda Forever and Avatar The Way of Water both asking similar questions: will the branch be excited enough for an encore nomination? I'm actually leaning towards no, now that we've seen the CGI-heavy worlds. Both might make more sense in other craft categories.  I'm curious to hear your thoughts though...

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