Caught in the Carousel

Letter from the Editor - April 2009

Academy Fight Song

I accepted long ago that when it comes to the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards, the shockingly bad reign supreme. You don't believe me? Consider these recent winners and nominees and tell me if this is the list you want to stock your iPod with for tomorrow's visit to the gym:
"When You Believe"—Stephen Schwartz (from The Prince Of Egypt)
"How Do I Live?"—Diane Warren (from Con Air)
"You'll Be In My Heart"—Phil Collins (from Tarzan)
"Believe"—Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri (from The Polar Express)
"Under The Sea"—Alan Menken (from The Little Mermaid)

Yuck.

I'm fine with sweeping, orchestral pop ballads, but that they're so uniformly terrible, year after year, makes me wonder if only schmaltz can fare well in this venue. Of course, to be fair, it's not all schmaltz—I remember a lonely Elliott Smith's anguished reading of "Miss Misery" minutes away from being crushed by Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On)" and I'll never forget Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová's underdog triumph in 2007 for "Falling Slowly."

Some make it through. Fair enough.

But for the most part, for every Elliott Smith there's a phalanx of fluff to mine through and even when someone like Bob Dylan or U2 slip into the category, it's their least compelling work. Don't remember "Things Have Changed" or "The Hands That Built America"?

Didn't think so. I don't either.

The most disturbing Oscar trend in recent years is nominating multiple songs from the same movie. In 2007 Enchanted landed three of the five; 2006 saw Dreamgirls snaring three of the five; 2003 found Cold Mountain with two of the five and this year Slumdog Millionaire landed two of the three. I find it hard to believe that there's such a paucity of good songs in movies that any film with a faint musical pulse can corner the market. In the mid-nineties, indie soundtracks were better than ever and could have yielded a series of winning numbers. Doesn't anyone remember Heavy? Clay Pigeons? Niagara Niagara? I'm not convinced soundtracks like these don't exist anymore, but I am convinced that the members of the Academy are too lazy to try to find them, so they end up nominating Enchanted's "Happy Working Song" just because somebody put it on their desk.

As a result, soundtracks like Garden State, Mr. Jealousy, Stranger Than Paradise, Pieces Of April, The Anniversary Party, and Memento have been criminally overlooked.

But what was most galling this year was not the fact that the Academy decided that there were only three deserving nominees, but the exclusion of Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" from the Best Original Song category. Even with Golden Globe and Critics' Choice wins under his belt, for some reason Springsteen was unable to secure a nomination for his affecting acoustic ballad. Slumdog Millionaire's A.R. Rahman was nominated twice in the category with eventual winner "Jai Ho" and "O.Saya," while Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman's "Down To Earth" from Wall-E rounded out the field.

To deny Springsteen a nod here was absurd—it's not like there wasn't any room and frankly, to not save a place for The Boss at the table is unconscionable.

CITC staff writer Yvonne Prinz suggested that perhaps the reluctance to nominate Springsteen stemmed from the plain fact that "The Wrestler" couldn't be accompanied by a snappy dance routine. Although I wouldn't have objected to a well-choreographed Hugh Jackman-led number with Jackman as Randy The Ram flanked by the short-skirted Ram-ettes, I would have loved to have seen Springsteen sitting on a stool with an acoustic guitar.

So what happened?

"Rules about nominating songs are rather hazy," wrote MSNBC's Michael Ventre. "The Academy," he continued, "would not return phone calls seeking explanation about their selection process for best song." Leah Greenblatt, who writes music criticism for Entertainment Weekly, told Ventre that the nomination process was prone to "weird technicalities" and that "they have some sort of ratings system that they use." She went on to say, "These are not necessarily music people at all. When it comes to songs, I think a lot of it comes down to the lobbying that the studios do."

"This marks the third time that the Academy has only seen fit to nominate three songs; it happened previously in 1988 and 2005," wrote Melinda Newman for Hitfix. "Last year," she wrote, "the rules were changed so no more than three songs could be nominated from any one picture, as had occurred four times previously, including with 2007's Enchanted. Maybe Oscar voters misunderstood the rule and thought only three songs total could be nominated now."

There could be a myriad of reasons for Springsteen's song being excluded, but I'm more than certain not one of them would be a room clearing trump card that would offer a satisfying explanation. Political, personal, or just abject laziness, this was one of the most egregious errors in Academy history.

Because "The Wrester" was sure to win, maybe the voting members employed a literary approach to the whole thing and figured that because The Wrestler is all about tragedy, any kind of triumph would be anathema to its message.

Or maybe they just fucked up. It's happened before.
Exhibit A. Gwyneth Paltrow winning Best Actress for Shakespeare In Love, 1988.
Exhibit B. A Beautiful Mind winning Best Picture, 2001.
Exhibit C. Forrest Gump winning Best Picture, 1994.

Shall I go on?

Look, Springsteen's got an Oscar, so it's not like he's gazing at an empty place in his trophy case wondering when the tide will turn and his career will finally feel complete. He's probably over it already, so what's my problem?

See Exhibit A.
And B.
And C.

It's a strange kind of emptiness the Academy Awards brings out in me. And I'm not alone. "I have no regard for that kind of ceremony. I just don't think they know what they're doing," Woody Allen once said of The Academy Awards. "When you see who wins those things—or who doesn't win them," he continued, "you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is."

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Love and Rockets,
Alex Green
Editor, Caught In The Carousel
Alex670@earthlink.net