Academy Tweaks Best Original Song Oscar Criteria and Cuts Tribute Awards
Following up on last week’s announcement about adding more Best Picture nominees, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have introduced a couple of additional tweaks to the Oscars that will further streamline the ceremony.
The first change is that they have decided to relegate all of the special tribute awards (such as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Thalberg Award for creative producers, and miscellaneous honourary career achievement awards) to a separate ceremony in November, a black-tie gala limited to 500 invited guests. This will free up some time during the main Oscar telecast, and also allow them to give out as many of these special awards in a given year as they see fit. Win/win if you ask me.
The second, and slightly more confusing, change is that they have modified their method for selecting nominees for Best Original Song. Every year voters watch clips of the films where each song was used, and then rate it on a scale from 6 to 10. (Apparently the requirement of a song to be used in an actual scene, rather than over credits, is why Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wrestler” was shut out.) The new rule stipulates that a song must receive an average rating of 8.25 in order to be nominated, and if no songs qualify, there will simply be no nominees that year. It seems like this may be a way of slowly phasing out the Best Original Song category altogether, perhaps without ruffling too many feathers. Do you agree with these changes? Do you think they should just eliminate the Best Original Song category?
Comments (13)
I’m still confused by the lack of a nomination for Bruce Springsteen. I could be wrong here, but wasn’t Annie Lennox’s Into The West played over the credits, but not used in The Return Of The King?
Posted by mrbenning on June 30th, 2009Best moment of the Oscars in the last 5 years was Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performing “Falling Slowly” then winning the Oscar.
Posted by Mike on June 30th, 2009wasnt jai-ho played over the credits also?
Posted by Hannes on June 30th, 2009I’m positive that Lose Yourself was only played over the credits in 8 Mile
Posted by MJS on June 30th, 2009they should only count songs that are used in scenes AND include lyrics that recount actual plot points or recite dialogue from the movie. That’d keep things interesting.
Posted by Joel on June 30th, 2009“AND include lyrics that recount actual plot points”
“The Wrestler” is absolutely tied to the soul of the movie of the same name, but in no way recounts plot points. Sorry, but no way man.
Posted by Goon on June 30th, 2009“Best moment of the Oscars in the last 5 years was Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova performing “Falling Slowly” then winning the Oscar.”
Complete agree Mike.
This category has rarely nominated good songs and even less often chosen the correct winner. They should pick songs that not only work in the context of the movie, but also stand well on their own. I wouldn’t miss this category at all.
Posted by Ashley on June 30th, 2009I think they’ve been picking a lot of good songs in the last decade. Lose Yourself was one of the best pop songs of recent memory, Falling Slowly was beautiful, Jai Ho was astonishingly catchy, Things Have changed is a great Dylan track, Into the West was a perfect coda for the LOTR trilogy, and Its Hard Out Here For a Pimp winnign was a great pop culture moment.
Posted by MJS on July 1st, 2009I think they should nominate Bruce Springsteen for his song “The Wrestler” and if they don’t want to do that, they can go fuck themselves.
Posted by Henrik on July 1st, 2009@MJS
It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp/Hustle & Flow is one of the very few song/movie combos that are inseparable. I can’t think of one without the other.
Posted by mrbenning on July 1st, 2009That couldn’t have been why Bruce Springsteen wasn’t nominated. Both Peter Gabriel’s “Down to Earth” and A.R. Rahman’s “Jai Ho” were played over the credits.
Also, am I the only one who enjoys the special tribute awards? They actually have good speeches ready since they know that they’ve won already, and I’d rather listen to a good acceptance speech that watch one of those awful clip packages.
Posted by James on July 1st, 2009This makes me angry… if a song is somewhere within the actual runtime of a film, it should be considered for nomination.
The end credits are and have always been a part of the film. And the best original song cat is a vital part of the academy awards IMO.
Separating the other honors I think is a great idea. I do hope it will be shown somewhere on television, at least maybe PBS or AMC or somethin’.
Posted by Alicia Stella on July 2nd, 2009“Jai Ho” wasn’t merely over the credits. It was the closing song-and-dance number, a standard part of Bollywood cinema. The movie was based on Bollywood conventions, so it counts as part of the film.
I disagree that the end credits in the usual Hollywood film are part of the movie. They do nothing to advance the plot.
I do agree that the choices as of late have been awful and rarely consistently good in the 80+-year history of the awards. I still cannot believe “Into the West” beat “Triplets of Belleville,” and that’s just one example. What they really need is to make that award a specialists’ prize and only allow musicians to vote.
Posted by Lysana on July 2nd, 2009Leave a Reply