Grammy & The Movies
I’ve already trashed Oscar for not throwing a Best Song nomination to Eddie Vedder’s “Guaranteed” from Into the Wild while finding room for 1-2-3 songs from Enchanted and a sappy ballad from the saptacular August Rush. Worse, it ignored Jonny Greenwood’s landmark score from There Will Be Blood because the Radiohead innovator referenced other music. Apparently sampling is not a term the Academy of Motion Pictures Farts & Biases has ever heard.
With the Grammy awards this Sunday, it’s time to see how music people do with judging movie music.
Here are the Grammy nominees for BEST MOVIE SONG:
“Falling Slowly” (from Once)/Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, songwriters
“Guaranteed” (from Into the Wild)/Eddie Vedder, songwriter
“Love You I Do” (from Dreamgirls)/Siedah Garrett & Henry Krieger, songwriters
“The Song of the Heart” (from Happy Feet)/Prince Rogers Nelson, songwriter
“You Know My Name” (from Casino Royale)/David Arnold & Chris Cornell, songwriters
Jeez, talk about time warps! Dreamgirls, Happy Feet and Casino Royale came out two years ago.
Put that stupidity down to Grammy’s dragass eligbility time frame, which is Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2007. That leaves “Falling Slowly,” the emo hit from Once the only song Oscar and Grammy have in common. But I’m giving Grammy points for including Eddie Vedder, whose songs for Into the Wild helped raise that film’s already high-level game. Vedder, after winning a Grammy in 1996, famously said, “I don’t know what this means. I don’t think it means anything.” Hmm.
Moving on to the BEST MOVIE SCORE, here are Grammy’s picks:
Babel/Gustavo Santaolalla, composer
Blood Diamond/James Newton Howard, composer
The Departed/Howard Shore, composer
Happy Feet/John Powell, composer
Pan’s Labyrinth/Javier Navarrete, composer
Ratatouille/Michael Giacchino, composer
Double jeez. Only one new movie in the bunch — Ratatouille, which is a solid choice. Maybe next year, time eligibility rules will let in Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood and Dario Marianelli’s tonally experimental score for Atonement, which even tin-earred Oscar found the balls to nominate. If so, congrats are in order. In the meantime, can some friendo find a way to wipe the mold off of Oscar and Grammy rules and recognize the importance of music to movies in a timely manner?