hans zimmer Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Like any film fan, I love soundtracks. When I was a young teen, I bought nothing but film soundtracks because I thought it was cooler than buying popular music. I wasn't discriminating, and bought soundtracks whenever I had enjoyed a film or a bit of flute music that played. This resulted in my owning a few appalling choices like The Man in the Iron Mask, but hey, we've all bought embarrassing albums.

But over the years, I have found that some really lovely pieces of music have been wasted on middling films. I thought I'd list a few of them here so they receive a small moment of recognition -- and in order that you'll share a few lost themes with me. Or you can just chide me for liking really obvious, sweeping pieces.

If there's a piece that defines what I'm talking about, it's probably that oft-used theme to DragonHeart -- the film wasn't great, the piece might even be a little cheesy, but it gets used for every trailer with mountains or a sword in it. I think they even played it at President Obama's Inauguration:

Good news! The Dark Knight is in the running for Best Soundtrack again. You might remember William Goss' story last month that reported it had been disqualified due to it having "too many composers."

According to the Patrick Goldstein on The Big Picture, the Academy reversed the decision last Friday. It's a surprising move, because mere days ago Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy, was still defending the decision. arguing that the music branch "sees this as an award, like cinematography or directing, where you want to award a single creator. This isn't like visual effects. Except for extraordinary circumstances, it's an award that should go to one person."

Well, you may want to, but that doesn't always mean you should. Shouldn't we honor collaborative effort? Isn't that where the whole "There's no I in team!" phrase comes from? Nothing about a film is created in a vacuum.

While it the decision has yet to be officially confirmed, it will certainly be a pretty nice victory for Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, since they were also disqualified in 2005 for Batman Begins. While it's a small step for The Dark Knight, let's hope it's a greater one for film in general. The Academy often gets so hung up on their rules and regulations that they forget the point of their existence is to recognize cinematic achievement.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in their continued efforts to avoid awarding Oscars to deserving efforts in film scores, has apparently disqualified Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's work on The Dark Knight. According to Variety (by way of In Contention), the same stipulation as to how many composers are technically listed on the cue sheet similarly screwed over their Batman Begins score -- the stipulation being that listing multiple names helps to award royalties to music editors and designers as well.

I'd argue that the film -- which is bound to crack a billion bucks worldwide any day now, and likely to rack up considerable awards nominations regardless -- owes a great deal of its sustained visceral thrills to this rousing score, and in an ideal world, the December 9th release of the DVD would be enough for the Academy to whip around and shape up their bureaucratic brouhaha. To them, I simply ask this: why so serious?