Oscar Talk: Music

The music branch of the Academy continues to be fun, if only because attempts to predict what they’ll do become more and more exasperating as the years go by. But, here goes.

        

ORIGINAL SONG

I’d say that the race is between “I See the Light” and “Coming Home” when it comes to actual merit, with the slight edge going to the former. The music branch has a thing for well produced duets, it’s difficult to deny that with all its issues Tangled does know when to place its songs.

NOMINEES: “Coming Home” from Country Strong / “I See the Light” from Tangled / “If I Rise” from 127 Hours / “We Belong Together” from Toy Story III Prediction “I See the Light” Alternate “We Belong Together”

But, then, multiple nominee 127 Hours has such obvious spoiler potential, I wonder if Rahman is headed to a third Oscar, and if they like duets they like pain and heartbreak and inspirational tosh just as much – so, I wouldn’t be shocked if Rahman takes it here, still I'm putting Newman as my alternate because he lost last year and because I have a feeling they're going to want to reward Toy Story III as much as they could (barring the screenplay and picture category), so why not choose it over Tangled, since it's more loved animated film. (Not that I think it even deserves to be nominated, but I digress...)

ORIGINAL SCORE

Is it insularity on the part of AMPAS, or is it just coincidence that three of the 2008 nominees are back to battle it out (the winner included). Naturally, I assume that this is the chance for voters to write that egregious wrong and reward Alexandre Desplat. True, it’s an all-round good set of nominees – but they can’t continue to snub Desplat after robbing him in 2008 and 2009, right? But, then, there’s Zimmer’s VERY intrusive work in Inception and we know that voters like their music loud.

NOMINEES: How to Train Your Dragon (John Powell) / Inception (Hans Zimmer) / The King’s Speech (Alexandre Desplat) / 127 Hours (A. R. Rahman) / The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Prediction: The King’s Speech Alternate: Inception

      

Then, there’s the more subtle work on The Social Network which I don’t think has much upset potential – but is still not one that I should rule out completely. I’m sticking with Desplat, for now, though. It’s about time they reward the music branch’s most ubiquitous composer of the moment.