The rules for what qualifies as best song are just plain stupid. it's a good thing they are going back to the drawing board on this one.
Richard Richard Del Belso Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:36:57 -0800 From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MOPO] OSCARS---WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GREAT SONGS? To: [email protected] At 10:53 AM 2/23/2009, [email protected] wrote: Over the past few years, I've noticed that the level of songwriting in the "Best Song" Academy Award category has diminished to the point of pure mediocrity. Not only are only THREE songs nominated (didn't it always used to be 5?), but the songs that ARE nominated won't be remembered 3 or 4 years from now---songs like "As Time Goes By" will never be forgotten. Hey, I'm not a big fan of "Moon River", but it seems like Mozart next to the inferior "songs" that are nominated these days. When "It's Hard To Be A Pimp" won a couple of years ago, I thought we'd nit an all-time low (maybe we had, come to think about it...) Why wasn't Bruce Springsteen's closing song from "The Wrestler" nominated? When I saw that film, the whole audience stayed in their seats to listen to that song, which captured the essence of the movie perfectly. Isn't that what "Best Song Of The Year" should do? It was BY FAR the best song of the year. Whether you're a fan of Springsteen or not, I think you'll agree with me if you watch "The Wrestler" and listen to it over the closing credits. It seems like the art of writing a great, enduring song is a thing of the past when it comes to The Oscars.... The rules for the Oscars are a bizarre amalgam of attempts to correct problems by which they create new and different problems. In order to eliminate nominations for songs unrelated to the content of the film but included at the end to goose up soundtrack album sales, the Academy change the rules a couple years ago to declare that songs had to appear during the film and could not be just in the credits (this also dealt with Disney's submitting versions of songs sung by rock stars over the closing credits rather than the version sung by voice actors during the actual film). That's what did in Springstein's song "The Wrestler". Seeing which songs ended up getting nominations and which songs were ineligible this year (there was another really good song that got axed for similar reasons but I forget what it was at the moment), the Academy is going back in to once again rethink the Best Song category's rules for next year. Craig. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Craig Miller Wolfmill Entertainment [email protected] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
