Here are the 39 songs eligible for a Best Original Song nomination

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, the Academy announced that the following 39 films are eligible to nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Song of 2011. Considering how the awards season has gone so far, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that few of the songs that I truly enjoyed hearing this year are eligible. Still, it is nice to see that Capt. America will have a chance to score a nomination for “Star-Spangled Man.”

Then again, it would also be nice to see something from The Muppets win because I’m sure Bret McKenzie would give a perfectly charming acceptance speech.

One final reaction to this list: there’s a movie called White Irish Drinkers?

Yay!

“The World I Knew” from “African Cats”
“Lay Your Head Down” from “Albert Nobbs”
“Star Spangled Man” from “Captain America: The First Avenger”
“Collision of Worlds” from “Cars 2”
“Dakkanaga Dugu Dugu” from “DAM999”
“DAM999 Theme Song” from “DAM999”
“Mujhe Chod Ke” from “DAM999”
“Rainbird” from “Dirty Girl”
“Keep On Walking” from “The First Grader”
“Where the River Goes” from “Footloose”
“Hello Hello” from “Gnomeo & Juliet”
“Love Builds a Garden” from “Gnomeo & Juliet”
“Bridge of Light” from “Happy Feet Two”
“The Mighty Sven” from “Happy Feet Two”
“Never Be Daunted” from “happythankyoumoreplease”
“Hell and Back” from “Hell and Back Again”
“The Living Proof” from “The Help”
“Coeur Volant” from “Hugo”
“It’s How We Play” from “I Don’t Know How She Does It”
“When the Heart Dies” from “In the Land of Blood and Honey”
“Ja Nao Estar” from “José and Pilar”
“The Keeper” from “Machine Gun Preacher”
“Life’s a Happy Song” from “The Muppets”
“Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets”
“Pictures in My Head” from “The Muppets”
“Summer Song” from “The Music Never Stopped”
“Imaginary Friends” from “Olive”
“Sparkling Day” from “One Day”
“Taking You With Me” from “Our Idiot Brother”
“The Greatest Song I Ever Heard” from “POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”
“Hot Wings” from “Rio”
“Let Me Take You to Rio” from “Rio”
“Real in Rio” from “Rio”
“Shelter” from “Take Shelter”
“Gathering Stories” from “We Bought a Zoo”
“Pop” from “White Irish Drinkers”
“Think You Can Wait” from “Win Win”
“The Backson Song” from “Winnie the Pooh”
“So Long” from “Winnie the Pooh”

2011 Gotham Awards Recap

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In my previous post, I announced the start of “Oscar season” by offering up a recap of the films and performers honored by the New York Film Critics Circle earlier today. However, the Oscar season was actually kicked off on Monday night with the Gotham Awards. Much like the Independent Spirit awards, the Gothams are meant to honor the best in the year’s independent films. Below is a recap of which films were honored at this year’s ceremony.

Best Feature

Beginners(tie)
The Tree of Life(tie)

The big news here has been that Beginners and Tree of Life tied for best picture. (Actually, I’m not surprised as both films pretty much explored the same themes of memory, aging, and love.) It’ll be interesting to see if either one of these films manage to maintain the momentum of their victory through the rest of the Oscar season.

As for me, I have a new mission and that is to see Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same.

The Toadsuckers Have Spoken: 15 Semi-Finalists for Best Documentary And Still No Room for Werner Herzog

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the titles of the 15 semi-finalists for the Best Feature Length Documentary Oscar. This list will, of course, be narrowed down to the 5 final nominees.

Without further ado, here’s the 15 semi-finalists:

Battle for Brooklyn(RUMER Inc.)
Bill Cunningham New York(First Thought Films)
Buck(Cedar Creek Productions)
Hell and Back Again(Roast Beef Productions Limited)
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front(Marshall Curry Productions, LLC)
Jane’s Journey(NEOS Film GmbH & Co. KG)
The Loving Story(Augusta Films)
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory(@radical.media)
Pina(Neue Road Movies GmbH)
Project Nim(Red Box Films)
Semper Fi: Always Faithful(Tied to the Tracks Films, Inc.)
Sing Your Song(S2BN Belafonte Productions, LLC)
Undefeated(Spitfire Pictures)
Under Fire: Journalists in Combat(JUF Pictures, Inc.)
We Were Here (Weissman Projects, LLC)

My response as I look at this list is: “Huh?” Which is to be expected because I live in Flyover country and, as a result, our local theaters don’t get sent all that many documentaries. Still, I have to say that, as someone who tries her darndest to keep up with these things, I’m not familiar with a lot of these films. I saw Buck in the theaters and I watched Bill Cunningham New York via OnDemand after my sister recommended it to me. I meant to see Project Nin when it briefly played at the Dallas Angelika but, for whatever reason, I missed it. (I may have been burned out on movies about chimpanzees after seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes.) I’ll definitely see Paradise Lost 3 if it ever manages to get down to my part of the world.

If anything surprises and disappoints me, it’s that Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams isn’t on the semi-finalist list. Neither are two other documentaries that I loved — Jig and Resurrect Dead. (I have to admit that I’m not sure if those two films were submitted for consideration or if they would have even been eligible to be considered. I just know that I enjoyed them when I saw them OnDemand.) I’m also surprised that The Paper isn’t on the list of semi-finalists. I haven’t actually seen The Paper but just judging from the trailer and the subject matter (The New York Times struggling to remain relevent), it seemed like the type of documentary that traditionally seems to get nominated.

Finally, despite the fact that I haven’t seen it, I would kinda like to see Paradise Lost 3 win the award if just to honor the entire Paradise Lost series. After all, if not for those films, the West Memphis 3 would still be sitting in prison. Every year, during the Academy Awards ceremony, we have to sit through some pompous speech about how documentaries can change the course of history. Well, the Paradise Lost films actually did and, again taking into consideration that I haven’t seen the actual film yet, it seems like that deserves to be honored, no?

(And before any of you excitable types start bitching and whining — and you know who you are — Undefeated is a documentary about a high school football team and should not be mistaken for The Undefeated, the documentary about Sarah Palin that also came out this year.)