BestOriginalSong Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Well, it's November, which means the awards contenders are steadily coming out of the woodwork, and just as we have the Academy Awards to look forward to, we also have their fine print to tolerate. The first of this year's disqualifications naturally come from the music end of things, the same category that didn't see fit to honor the tremendous original scores composed for The Dark Knight last year and There Will Be Blood the year before that.

According to Kris Tapley over at In Contention, both "Up in the Air" and "Help Yourself" from Jason Reitman's Up in the Air have been pulled out of the Best Original Song race. The former was written by Kevin Renick before he met Reitman (the song is presented in the film as it was presented to the filmmaker, with homemade introduction and all), not to mention that it comes halfway into the credits when only the first song over them can qualify. (Really, AMPAS?)

And a portion of the latter had existed earlier in Sad Brad Smith's career and thus means the song itself was not created in full for the film. It's an earnest and catchy tune, used prominently in the trailers and well in the film (and now available on iTunes, cough), but it now looks like those are two more slots left to be dominated by Disney's latest...

Like every red-blooded American, I dread the interminable Best Original Song presentations during the Oscars. More often than not, the songs suck, the presentation is elaborate and boring, and the insistence on playing the songs in full drags out an already too-long evening. But this year there's one song I'll actually be excited to see -- assuming it actually gets nominated. Thankfully, none of the Academy's arcane rules disqualified it.

Variety has the just-announced list of 49 eligible Original Songs from 2008. It features the entire soundtrack to High School Musical 3, the memorable "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire, the worst Bond song of all time, and -- the one I'm rooting for -- Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" from, uh, The Wrestler. If you haven't heard it yet, you can do so here. You'll probably want to bookmark that until the official soundtrack is released on a date to be determined.

Needless to say, a Dark Knight snub's got nothing on the possibility of the Boss not getting to perform this amazing song at this year's ceremony. I might boycott the damn thing. Though, if Steve Coogan gets to perform "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" instead, I could be persuaded to reconsider.

What are your favorites from 2008? Any of them not on this list? (Ahem, Pineapple Express, anyone?)