Who Will Be Nominated For Best Score And Best Original Song At The Oscars

Ok, so now that Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s riveting “The Dark Knight” score is officially back in contention again, the game has changed all over again.

Who’s going to score nominations in the two Oscar music categories for Best Score and Best Original Song?

Let’s start with the Best Song category. This year there’s no Eddie Vedder original “Into The Wild” soundtrack, there’s no “Dreamgirls,” or “Enchanted” to eat up all the multiple nominations and no Sondre Lerche songs for “Dan in Real Life” and certainly no indie-hopeful like “Once” and the songs by Glen Hansard and Market Irgolva. Update, we put up a better edit of “The Wrestler.”

In other words, there’s not a tremendous wealth of songs to pick from. What we have is a limited playing field which makes the nomiations easier to predict. Surely, shoo-ins for Best Original songs are Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman’s “Wall-E” song, “Down To Earth” and Bruce Springsteen’s soulful titular track for “The Wrestler.”

From there however, nothing seems a lock, though in this limited year, A.R. Rahman’s “Slumdog Millionaire” songs seems like the probably have a great shot, including the one penned with M.I.A., “O… Saya,” but more likely is the celebratory Bollywood number at the end, “Jai Ho” written and performed by Rahman, Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah & Mahalaxmi Iyer.

Outside of there, it’s could be an open field unless Disney’s innocuous “Bolt” scoops up multiple nods. The film features Jenny Lewis’ “Barking at the Moon,” and the songs sung by Miley Cyrus and John Travolta for “Bolt.” Maybe those will suck up a few nods from everyone else?

Probably going to be overlooked is Jon Brion’s lugubrious score and title song to “Synecdoche, New York,” titled, “Little Person” sung by jazzy torch singer Deanne Storey.

The Eels wrote “Man Up,” for Jim Carrey’s “Yes Man,” and Zooey Deschanel and Von Iva wrote original songs for the comedy under the fake band, Munchausen By Proxy, but again, they seem like a distant long shot.

David Mamet’s wife Rebecca Pigeon and he wrote original songs for “Red Belt,” but that film all but fell off the map, no? There’s Fergie’s “Sex And The City” track, but we assume even Academy voters don’t want to hear that ear abortion sung onstage. There’s no way in hell any Paramore songs written for “Twilight” will make it in there either. They could even nominate that eponymous song that Clint Eastwood coughs, ahem, sings in “Gran Torino,” stranger things have happened.

Best Original Songs Sort Of Predix
Bruce Springsteen – The Wrestler
A. R Rahman and Co. – Jai Ho
Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman – “Down To The Earth”
Probably two songs from “Bolt” that we never cared to hear. Though, “I Thought I Lost You” seems to be the big one.

We’re probably forgetting something and we’d love to hear your thoughts. We’ve put thought into songs, but not like a ton of thought. Maybe there’s material from earlier in the year, that we’re forgetting.

Best Score nominations seem somewhat easier to predict because its a richer field. Surely, Zimmer and Howard’s “The Dark Knight” score is a lock for nod. Similarly, Alexandre Desplat’s lovely score to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” should also easily earn itself a nominee prize. Thomas Newman’s “Wall-E” score might be a safe bet.

Two recent scores that we think could make the cut are Nico Muhly’s beautiful score to “The Reader” and James Newton Howard’s score to “Defiance.” We have yet to hear them, but Thomas Newman also did the score to “Revolutionary Road” which could be a definite possibility and Playlist contributor David Benjamin also says Howard Shore’s work in “Doubt” is also excellent.

A.R. Rahman also wrote the score to “Slumdog Millionaire,” but that might too modern, pulsating and electronic for Academy voter taste. We would also love to see Alberto Iglesias’ score to both parts of “Che” earn a nomination, but the music is used sparsely in the two films (especially “The Argentine”), so it might not be at the top of people’s minds, but the gorgeous Spanish guitar music in “Guerilla” is moving.

Danny Elfman could probably score a nom for his “Milk” work and its better than most of his vastly overrated scores, but we don’t think its that good or Oscar worthy.

Scores that will certainly be ignored but were very good include David Torn’s sunshine soaked music to “The Wackness,” J Spaceman/Sun City Girls score to the highly underrated “Mister Lonely” and David Wingo (of Ola Podrida) and IDM artist Lusine’s twinkling compositions to David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels.” Clint Mansell’s “The Wrestler” is also way too minimalist to get nomiated.

Best Original Songs Sorta – Predix (As Of Right Now… still films to actually see)
Alexandre Desplat – Benjamin Button
Thomas Newman – Revolutionary Road
Nicolas Mulhaly – The Reader
Hans Zimmer & James Newton Howard – The Dark Knight
Howard Shore – Doubt

Alright, so Critics Choice is a decent bellwether of some Oscar picks yes. What did they nominate? (We honestly didn’t look cause we knew we were doing this piece last night when Newman/Zimmer were back in the game).

Best Song
“Another Way to Die” – Jack White and Alicia Keys/Jack White – Quantum of
Solace
“Down to Earth” – Peter Gabriel/Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman – Wall-E
“I Thought I Lost You” – Miley Cyrus and John Travolta/Miley Cyrus and
Jeffrey Steele – Bolt
“Jaiho” – Sukhwinder Singh/A.R. Rahman and Gulzar – Slumdog Millionaire
“The Wrestler” – Bruce Springsteen/Bruce Springsteen – The Wrestler

God, we hate that Jack White-written “Quantum Of Solace” song. We still don’t think it has a shot either.

BEST COMPOSER
Alexandre Desplat – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Clint Eastwood – Changeling
Danny Elfman – Milk
Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard – The Dark Knight
A.R. Rahman – Slumdog Millionaire

“Changeling” huh? Elfman and Rahman? Hmm… we’ll see we guess. It is important to note that if Best Score and Best Song generally doesn’t have much to do with what gets nominated for Best Picture, so maybe the Critics are onto something.