Oscar® Show Participants Announced

The 80th Academy Awards® telecast is definitely a "go" for Sunday, 24 February, with the customary glitz and glam. Everyone at the Academy continued to prepare, knowing that everything had to be ready today, Valentine's Day, if the curtain was to go up as scheduled. Hats-off to them all, because today they were ready to officially "greenlight" the Oscar® Gala.

Producer Gil Cates and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis announced the presenters and performers who will participate in the Oscar telecast at a press conference held at the Academy’s headquarters.

Cates and Ganis announced the presenters scheduled to date, including all four of last year’s winners in the acting categories, Alan Arkin, Jennifer Hudson, Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker, as well as: Amy Adams, Jessica Alba, Cate Blanchett, Josh Brolin, Steve Carell, George Clooney, Penelope Cruz, Miley Cyrus, Patrick Dempsey, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Garner, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway, Katherine Heigl, Jonah Hill, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Kidman, James McAvoy, Queen Latifah, Seth Rogen, Martin Scorsese, Hilary Swank, John Travolta, Denzel Washington and Renee Zellweger.

They also announced the performers of the nominated songs, three of them from ENCHANTED, and all of them with music by Alan Menken and lyric by Stephen Schwartz. The three songs are: "Happy Working Song," sung by Amy Adams; “That’s How You Know,” sung by Kristin Chenoweth and Marlon Saunders; and “So Close,” to be performed by Jon McLaughlin.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova will perform their nominated song, “Falling Slowly,” from the motion picture ONCE. From AUGUST RUSH, Jamia Simone Nash will sing "Raise it Up" with the IMPACT Repertory Theatre of Harlem, headed by Jamal Joseph, who shares the song’s music and lyric credit with Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas.

Second-time Oscar show host Jon Stewart is bringing several writers to work on the telecast. Also, scheduled to return to the Oscar telecast team will be writers Hal Kanter, Buz Kohan, Jon Macks and Bruce Vilanch.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2007 will be presented at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Songs, Scores, Performers for Tonight's Oscar® Gala

SONGS and PERFORMERS

Beyoncé, Melissa Etheridge, Jennifer Hudson, Randy Newman, Keith Robinson, Anika Noni Rose, and James Taylor are set to perform this year’s Oscar®-nominated songs on the 79th Academy Awards® show tonight, telecast producer Laura Ziskin announced late last week. In case you haven't heard, the host is Ellen DeGeneres. To read my post about DeGeneres, click my Archive for September 2006 on the right sidebar.

Three nominated songs from DREAMGIRLS will be sung. Beyoncé will sing “Listen” (music by Henry Krieger and Scott Cutler, lyric by Anne Preven). “Love You I Do” (music by Henry Krieger and lyric by Siedah Garrett) will be song by Jennifer Hudson. “Patience” (music by Henry Krieger and lyric by Willie Reale) will be sung and performed by Anika Noni Rose, Keith Robinson, and other cast mates.

“I Need to Wake Up” from the documentary feature AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH will be sung by Melissa Etheridge, who also wrote the music and lyric for the nominated song.

Randy Newman wrote both the music and lyric for "Our Town," nominated from the animated feature CARS, and he will perform with singer-guitarist James Taylor. Newman also composed the score for CARS.

NOMINATED SCORES

First of all, you can read about, and listen to, excerpts from all five nominated scores from the features BABEL, THE GOOD GERMAN, NOTES ON A SCANDAL, PAN'S LABYRINTH, and THE QUEEN at NPR.org. There you can also read excellent evaluations by NPR's movie-music expert Andy Trudeau. So, go there first, but please come back.

When I attended film school, two things about film scores were drummed into our heads:

1. The score should not overpower the visuals, dialog, and story. If the viewer keeps noticing it, then it is not a good score.
2. The score should stand alone as a unique musical composition, allowing it to be performed in concerts.

Based the second criteria, Gustavo Santaolalla's score for BABEL should be disqualified. I noticed it more than a few times, too. Second strike. It is unique, so that may give it some extra points.

Thomas Newman's score for THE GOOD GERMAN captures the big orchestrations in the Hollywood scores of the golden age with enough variations to ward off the copycat label. It can definitely stand alone as a composition but since I haven't seen the film, I must wonder about it being intrusive. Yes, he is the son of Alfred, the famous film-score composer, but Thomas has his own track record, including the score for AMERICAN BEAUTY.

Composer Philip Glass's score for NOTES ON A SCANDAL? Well, Philip Glass is Philip Glass, is Philip Glass, is Philip Glass. Even a rank amateur listener can discern a Glass composition. To me his music gets monotonous but Trudeau says that in NOTES Glass actually reaches moments of crescendo when there should be a crescendo to match the action of the movie. I did notice more contrast. I'm not sure I would go all the way with Trudeau's statement, "The result is a soundtrack brimming with melodic writing and a moody oboe theme." With those crescendos and melodic moments, the score is not as boring as his earlier works. Nonetheless, it is still somewhat sedate.

As to Alexandre Desplat's score for THE QUEEN, Trudeau says it is a score with many levels, which manages the movie's transitions between pomp and lightheartedness. Since I haven't seen the film, or heard much of the score, there it rests.

Trudeau says that Javier Navarette's score for PAN'S LABYRINTH, is a "rich, intimate score that walks the delicate line between fantasy and horror." Navarette has been composing in Spain for 20 years. His work is well known there and in Europe, but this is his first exposure in the U.S.

Since I have some knowledge of Spanish music and scores for Spanish movies, I've listened to some of this score, and I think the musical references in the score are excellent, especially the overarching theme of the lullaby, a rich tradition in Spanish music. I may have a bias here, but I'm going to choose this score as my favorite. I think it has an excellent chance of winning.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006 will be presented tonight, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®. The Oscars® will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m. EST), beginning with a half-hour red carpet arrivals segment, “The Road to the Oscars.”