The Film Industry Calls Out The Music Industry For Its General Suckiness

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences already announced one major change this week: they are doubling the amount of films nominated for Best Picture from five to 10. When I heard the news, my first thought was that instead of feeling confounded as to why three of the five movies were nominated, I would now scratch my head over at least seven or eight of them. Does this mean that The Hangover will get an Oscar nod? One can only hope. I can't help but feel cynical and think that it's merely the Academy's attempt to appeal to more viewers when it comes to televising the Oscars. Instead of being able to acknowledge the work of more filmmakers and better quality films, I have a feeling that a larger Best Picture category is merely going to reveal a depressing thinness to the category and to the industry itself.

And today we got another announcement from the Academy. Whereas they are hedging their bets that there will be at least 10 award-worthy movies next year, apparently they have very little confidence in the music being made for films. That's right: if no films' original songs are good enough, there won't even be a Best Song category. You can read all about the new rating system here.

Sure, we can all acknowledge that there hasn't been a "Singin' in the Rain" since, well, 1952's Singin' in the Rain (which didn't even win the Oscar, by the way). Not even anything from The Sound of Music won an award, and most of us have that entire soundtrack memorized. I guess back in the day there was too much great film music from which to choose.

And you might wonder, who has won a Best Song Oscar in the past? Here are some examples:

1961 - "Moon River" (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
1962 - "Days of Wine and Roses" (Days of Wine and Roses)
1964 - "Chim Chim Cher-ee" (Mary Poppins)
1969 - "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
1971 - "Theme from Shaft" (Shaft)
1972 - "The Morning After" (The Poseidon Adventure)
1973 - "The Way We Were" (The Way We Were)
1975 - "I'm Easy" (Nashville)
1977 - "You Light Up My Life" (You Light Up My Life)
1980 - "Fame" (Fame)
1981 - "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Arthur)
1983 - "Flashdance...What A Feeling" (Flashdance)
1984 - "I Just Called to Say I Love You" (The Woman In Red)

Hmm ... maybe the Academy does have a point. Many of us could probably sing along to or are at least familiar with all of the above tunes. Below is a sampling of more recent winners. How many of these do you know?

2000 - "Things Have Changed" (Wonder Boys)
2001 - "If I Don't Have You" (Monsters, Inc.)
2002 - "Lose Yourself" (8 Mile)
2003 - "Into the West" (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
2004 - "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" (The Motorcycle Diaries)
2005 - "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" (Hustle and Flow)
2006 - "I Need to Wake Up" (An Inconvenient Truth)
2007 - "Falling Slowly" (Once)
2008 - "Jai Ho" (Slumdog Millionaire)

I'll admit: except for the two hip hop songs and the tunes from Slumdog and Once, I couldn't hum a single note.

So have movie theme songs gotten bad, or are they just no longer memorable? And whose fault is that? And why is one industry punishing another when there is a mutual increase of mediocrity on both sides? Lastly, do you have any favorite movie theme songs? As always, feel free to share.

I know: I'll just listen to "Flashdance (What A Feeling)" while I mull this over. I know all the lyrics.

6:02 PM ET | 06-26-2009 | permalink

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