original score Tagged Articles at Cinematical

They claim that Seppuku Paradigm did the score for the harsh-as-hell horror flick, Martyrs (now on DVD -- beware the Blockbuster cut!), but I don't remember hearing any music... just Scott Weinberg screaming and squealing and squirming about when we saw it at Fantastic Fest last year. It was pretty much like watching The Love Guru with him all over again.

Well, those handy-dandy fellas over at Twitch say that the film's composers, Alex and Willie Cortés, have made their score for the film freely available online. In fact, their only other score -- for the unseen-by-me sci-fi mystery Eden Log -- has ALSO been made available to all. It's a veritable festivus for soundtrack junkies!

And why? Hell if I can tell, though tempted as one may be to throw around the phrase 'economic generosity' these days, I won't. Maybe these are just two cool guys who made two cool scores that they'd rather have people to listen to than pay for. It's a downright hippie stance, if you ask me, but we'll let it slide this time -- but only because, y'know, it has something to do with movies.

When I saw Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, I was mesmerized by the musical score. In the opening, dialogue-free scenes, the dissonant, rhythmic, disturbing music and the raw imagery draws you into a very different world. Even people who didn't like the movie as a whole were impressed by Jonny Greenwood's remarkably effective original musical score.

Everybody, that is, except the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which evidently feels that Greenwood's score is not sufficiently original and ruled it ineligible last week. In his Red Carpet District blog for Variety, Kristopher Tapley reports: "The disqualification has been attributed to a designation within Rule 16 of the Academy's Special Rules for Music Awards (5d under 'Eligibility'), which excludes 'scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music.'" Tapley says that Greenwood's score includes "35 minutes of original recordings and roughly 46 minutes of pre-existing work," as well as "peripheral augmentation" from a piece Greenwood composed for the BBC in 2006.

Tapley indicates that the Academy was aware of all these "inclusions" since early December -- it had already ruled out Into the Wild and Enchanted for having too many songs -- but did not make a final determination on Blood until it notified Greenwood last Thursday, January 17. (Academy nominating ballots were due on Saturday, January 12.) Sources at distributor Paramount Vantage are "baffled," though respectful of the Academy's decision, telling Tapley they only wished they had known sooner so they could appeal the ruling.

There Will Be Blood ended up with eight Academy Award nominations (including one for Best Sound Editing), which is one short in my opinion. The films that did get nominated? Atonement, The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton, Ratatouille, 3:10 to Yuma. I haven't seen most of those: anything memorable from their original scores stick in your mind?