Andy Trudeau handicaps the original score contenders

One of the best parts of Oscar season is NPR’s rundown of the Best Original Score nominees by music critic Andy Trudeau.  The copy is live now, but the audio won’t be up until noon (EST) tomorrow.  He says there’s not a real standout this year, and goes with Hans Zimmer and “Sherlock Holmes” for his prediction.  Last year he picked went with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” but his “predictions” have increasingly become more about personal preference as of late.

He has this to say on Zimmer’s compositions:

The scoring assignment for director Guy Richie’s reimagining of Sherlock Holmes went to Hans Zimmer, a composer whose trademarks are loud and hard. Here, it was the director who urged the composer to change his persona. Zimmer obliged — sort of. Early cuts of Sherlock Holmes were temporarily tracked with Zimmer’s music for The Dark Knight. Rather than trying to match the continuous, pounding energy of that score, Zimmer often went the other way. But this is an action film after all, and the action sequences are where Zimmer is most effective. At one point, with the hero in harm’s way, he has fun with the Westminster Chimes melody — you’ll hear it in the low strings.

Check out the rest at NPR.