Saturday, November 15, 2008

Silent Knight

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The Academy rules for Oscar consideration are usually more complicated than they need to be, and often end up shutting out valid nominees because of arbitrary rules. Last year, one of the more high profile rulings went against Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, for his score to Paul Thomas Anderson's highly acclaimed film There Will Be Blood. The Academy decided that Greenwood's score which ran a total of 35 minutes (and contained some of his 2006 composition "Popcorn Superhet Receiver") was not distinguishing enough from the other 45 minutes of pre-existing music that was also used for the score. At the end of the day, the startling effect of Greenwood's score on the film - that many reviews noted and, logically, should be the only factor in deciding if a film merits a shot at being given an Oscar nomination – was shrugged off for nonsensical technical reasoning.

And this year, more idiocy arrives from the Academy as the score for the biggest film of the year, The Dark Knight, has also become disqualified for consideration because too many people were given writing credits. That's right, too many people were involved for their liking. This is more inane reasoning from the Academy that completely ignores the fact that collaborative score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, is one of the better compositions this year. The paranoia inducing "A Little Push" was in itself another dimension to Heath Ledger's already icon-making performance as The Joker, and one of bravest pieces of music found in a mainstream film of any year.

As the Academy each year wonders why the audiences are dropping for the televised ceremony maybe they should consider stopping these petty, semantic politics and let the films speak for themselves. The audience wants to know that the films that are being nominated are there for the right reasons, not because they managed to navigate their way through the thicket of the ever-changing Academy rulebook and made nice with the right players in the upper reaches of the Academy's boardroom.

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