The whole branch is reaching a level of farce that is unbelievable. Reports Steve Pond:
Although Randy Newman’s score to Disney’s animated film “The Princess and the Frog” was originally deemed to be eligible in the original score category at the Oscars, the Music Branch Executive Committee met on Monday and disqualified Newman’s music from consideration.
The score, the committee determined, runs afoul of an AMPAS rule disallowing “scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other preexisting music,
diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs, or assembled from the music of more than one composer.”
Sounds familiar.
Comments
26 responses to “‘Princess and the Frog’ score DQ’d”
Agreed. It’s absolutely ridiculous. To be frank, in a perfect world, The Princess and the Frog would have an excellent shot at Best Picture.
Farce is a good word for this. Disrespectful of artistic choices at best, as well.
Ok. That’s the Rule. Now, some one explains to me why Babel (assembled from the music of more than one composer/scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other preexisting music) and Slumdog Millionaire (scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other preexisting music), were nominated and won the award…
This is getting sickening. The music branch knows no logic, taste nor consistency.
“Sounds familiar.”
That was my first thought before I even finished reading. Then I read Ángel’s comment and now I want some answers.
Who’s with me in thinking that the music branch should be discontinued?
Don’t get me wrong: I LOVE music, specifically that which relates to film, but when the Academy plays favorites like this (i.e. “Falling Slowly” won when the song had been featured on an album the year before Once came out. You can even check iTunes for validation), it just makes me wonder…
Again, as much as I love music and film-related music, between this and Where the Wild Things Are and “Help Yourself,” I’m seriously thinking that the Academy’s music branch should exist no longer
I’m going to go ahead and guess that “diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs” is what got this score “DQ’d”.
I’m willing to bet that even if you took away all the songs, ‘Princess and the Frog’ (why? music is music) would still have comparable amount of actual scoring to something like ‘Brokeback Mountain’.
I second what Robert Hamer said.
If scores like Princess and the Frog and There Will Be Blood are to be disqualified, why has nobody questioned what makes Slumdog Millionaire or Babel’s score eligible?
If somebody actually asked the music branch this question and got an answer, maybe they would finally consider rewriting their rules since they obviously can’t judge fairly and abide by their own absurd rules.
Wait what? So what was it disqualified for? That rule is quite general. Was there preexisting music? Too many songs? Tracked themes? More than one composer?
What about Avatar? An instrumental version of “I See You” plays during every love scene and then some.
Is this establishing a precedent that original musicals can’t be nominated for Best Score? And if so, how do you explain Alan Menken’s four nominations in this category for Disney animated musicals (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas)?
That they use the words “diluted” and “diminished” only make them look more foolish.
I’ll bet that such memorable and important Oscar-winning/nominated scores as the ones for Barry Lyndon and Days of Heaven would be disqualified today, since they lean so heavily on classical pieces. That would be a travesty, of course, but a pertinent question to ask is: Do these new, ridiculously stringent rules diminish the impact and achievement of those older scores?
@Aiden: I think ever since Menken’s continuous win in the category (along with Hans Zimmer for The Lion King), the Academy’s music branch keeps trying to stop Disney animations from getting nominated with ridiculous rules.
Let’s be honest here: The Academy does have somewhat of a bias against animation and it peeves them off whenever anything animated wins outside of the best animated feature and short categories.
I’m with Julian. The music branch just keeps embarrassing itself year after year.
The Documentary Feature and Foreign Language Film categories are equally laughable.
Bring me their heads.
This is just stupid, and i totally agree with
the guy up there that said that the academy has some sort of bias against animation, thats why
im not sure of UP geting a BP nom and winning Original Score
Besides everything mentioned above, the fact that they had a special meeting and threw out a decision already made and published–grrrrrrrrrh.
This really sucks. The music branch is so frustrating.
I knew it! I knew this would happen months ago!
Forget the Oscar-predicting game; bloggers should start playing the “which scores will be disqualified by the Academy this year?” game.
If the music branch of AMPAS had ever been at least adequate, Ennio Morricone would’ve won at least 5 Oscars by now instead of 0.
This is ridiculous. Again, I’m going to agree with everyone and ask “WHY?” could things like Slumdog Millionaire WIN? Not only was it barely a score, but it used Beethoven and songs the entire time! I love it and the movie but it didn’t deserve to win.
Anyway, this is ridiculous and the music branch is so frustrating…let’s hope they pick some decent scores in place, maybe another worthy animated film like “Fantastic Mr. Fox” or “Ponyo” will be able to slide in.
Julian, Falling Slowly was written for Once. The film took a while to be released and that’s why the song was on The Swell Season album which may have been released before the film–though I bought The Swell Season after Once came out in the US.
Aah, but how do they determine that Newman’s score was based around the songs and not the songs being based around the score? How did they determine that the songs weren’t borrowing the themes of the score?
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I’m still pissed of at them for giving the Oscar to Santaolalla for Brokeback Mounting when it definitly was plagiarism.
Daveylow is right — “Falling Slowly” was a completely legit nominee. Frankly, it’s a miracle the music branch had enough sense not to disqualify it.
Of all the DQs and baked off folks, this one is the most shocking. Randy Newman is an Academy favorite if ever there was one. This was not only a lock for a nomination, it could have easily won.