Tune in to ABC this Sunday night at 8 PM ET to catch the 80th annual Academy Awards. The Tim Burton-directed adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd has been nominated for three Academy Awards. Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood shares the distinction, with No Country for Old Men, of being the most nominated film this year.
Tune in to ABC this Sunday night at 8 PM ET to catch the 80th annual Academy Awards, red-carpet glitz and all. Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, will be hosting the ceremonies again this year.
The Tim Burton-directed adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Actor, Johnny Depp; Art Direction; and Costume Design.
Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood shares the distinction, with No Country for Old Men, of being the most nominated film this year, each in the running in eight categories. There Will Be Blood is nominated for Picture of the Year; Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Anderson; and Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis. The film is up for Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, and Editing, as well. Jonny Greenwood's score for the film, while among the most critically acclaimed soundtracks of the year, was deemed ineligible due to a Motion Picture Academy technicality.
NPR's Lars Gotrich calls the glitch "both unfortunate and unfair. The soundtrack perfectly exemplifies the main character, the cinematography, and the film's structure all at once." NPR has made the track "Henry Plainview," titled after the film's lead character, its Song of the Day and is streaming the piece on its site.
Gotrich says Greenwood was an "inspired choice" to compose the film's score, calling him "a modern-day John Cale, studying first in classical composition before moving into rock and then seamlessly commingling and alternating styles." He points in the selected track to "glissandos falling like angels from paradise" and concludes: "It's the stuff of what philosopher Edmund Burke called 'the sublime': art that has the power to destroy."
To read the article and listen to the track, visit npr.org.
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As perfectly suited to the film as Greenwood's score is, today's Houston Press reports that Greenwood's music works just as well on its own:
The album works marvelously well because it's a change of pace and Greenwood's writing is so strong ... It will leave you feeling exhausted---in a good way---and transported to another place, the very essence of a successful score ... However wary you might be of bringing soundtracks home and listening to them outside their original context, There Will Be Blood is worthy not because of Greenwood's status, but because of his compositional talents.
To read the full review, visit music.houstonpress.com.
For all the details on this Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, visit oscars.com.
