Hello, everybody! This is the third day in a row that you get to hear the Oscar-eligible songs - so that, when the nominations are announced at the 23d January, you'll get to have an opinion. Here we go!
As we did yesterday and the day before, we begin with a favorite. Beauty and the Beast, the 1991 version, is one of the best Disney animated features ever. It was the first animated feature to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (out of 6 nominations in total). It was that year's Best Song winner with the delectable title song. So, this year a gamble was taken. Beauty and the Beast was remade with actual actors. The gamble paid off: The movie was a worldwide hit. All the songs from the old film were used and a few new ones were written especially for this film by the same composer, Alan Menken, and lyricist Tim Rice, in place of the late Howard Ashman. Two of these are eligible, with Evermore being among the favorites. This is the film's version by Dan Stevens:
This is the credits' version by Josh Groban:
We continue with two songs whose chances for a nomination are quite good. Fifty Shades Of Grey, although badly-reviewed, made tons of money and had an Oscar-nominated song. The sequel, Fifty Shades Darker, was also badly-reviewed, made slightly less money, and contains an eligible song. The said song, I Don’t Wanna Live Forever, has already been a worldwide smash hit and is performed by two of the hottest pop stars today, ex One-Directioner, ZAYN, and the Pop Diva Taylor Swift. Will the song's high visibility help its chances - and will the fact that it comes from a badly-reviewed movie affect them negatively? We'll see. For the moment, listen to it:
The next song is my favorite one for today. It is a jazz-infused number by Elvis Costello called You Shouldn’t Look At Me That Way, from the film Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, in which Annette Bening appears as Gloria Grahame, a famous actress of the 40s and 50s who had quite a tumultuous life. Early on, Bening was seriously considered as a Best Actress nominee. Right now, it seems that the best bet for an Oscar nomination for the film is Elvis Costello:
This Is How You Walk On, an earnest ballad from a 'small movie', Gifted, doesn't really stand a chance. It is performed by Gary Lightbody & Johnny McDaid:
My second favorite song for today comes from the well-reviewed Safdie Brothers heist movie, Good Time. Unfortunately, The Pure And The Damned, by Oneohtrix Point Never and featuring the majestic Iggy Pop, is probably not exactly the Academy voters' cup of tea; its chances are slim.
The Hero is a movie that showcases the talent of veteran Sam Elliott. The Hero (the song), performed by Keegan DeWitt, is eligible but the chances are less than slim. It is geo-blocked for me, hope it's OK for you:
You can also listen to it on Deezer: The Hero
Ryan Bingham sings How Shall A Sparrow Fly in the violent Western called Hostiles and starring Christian Bale. I could only find it on Deezer: How Shall A Sparrow Fly
By the way, you can have a free account on Deezer. You just need to give them your email.
Two Oscar veterans, Alan Bergman & Dave Grusin, perform Just Getting Started from the documentary If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast. Alas, it is nowhere to be found...
Truth To Power, performed by OneRepublic, is from yet another documentary, the sequel to Best Song Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, called An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Will it make it?
Kepler’s Dream is a movie hardly anyone saw. Next Stop, The Stars, a conventional ballad by Patrick Neil Doyle, featuring Ana Richardson & Oliver Kenzie, doesn't stand a chance. I only found it on Deezer: Next Stop, The Stars
Lake of Fire hasn't even been released yet, still, three songs that appear in it were deemed eligible. These are, Have You Ever Wondered (catch it on Deezer): Have You Ever Wondered
... Then there's We Party All Night, performed by Alisha Thomas. If it's not geo-blocked for you, listen to it here:
If it is, you can catch it on Deezer: We Party All Night
The third song is supposed to be I'll Be Gone, but I think there's been a mistake: I'll Be Gone is a song by the group Lake of Fire which was released in 2016. Also, it doesn't appear on the soundtrack of the Lake of Fire film. Anyway, not one of these three songs stand a chance, so, moving on...
Like the first day, I will bookend this presentation with the other eligible song from Beauty and the Beast, How Does a Moment Last Forever; it's not a favorite, but receiving a nomination is not impossible. If both Beauty and the Beast songs receive nominations, then we'll have the extraordinary phenomenon of the two versions of the same film producing five nominated songs, since the 1991 original had three song nominations out of a total of six. Anyway, back to How Does a Moment Last Forever; this is the 'Montmartre' version:
This is Céline Dion from the end credits:
Remember the Facebook groups that I thanked yesterday for allowing me to post the links to my stories there? There's one more: Gay Sensibility & Culture is exactly what the title says, a group efficiently and discreetly run by Bob. You can find it here:
That's all for today. Until tomorrow...
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