- This topic is empty.
- Posts
If he gets nominated for anything this year, I’d guess it would be SPIDER-MAN. MIB 2 is a sequel — which greatly will hurt it’s chances, I believe — in addition to the fact that the movie itself is fairly unremarkable: not as good as the first, not as profitable. RED DRAGON — well, it’s a sequel too, and one that follows two other highly successful scores. I like what Elfman did much more than what Zimmer came up with, and although I have respect for Shore’s score, I don’t really like listening to it all that often. Still, I can’t imagine that this one would get nominted — at least, not for an Oscar — unless the film itself garners a number of nominations along with it.
SPIDER-MAN was a good score for a hugely successful movie. The layman may complain (and indeed, he has) that the music sounds an awful lot like BATMAN. Many people also think, however, that he should have been nominated for that score back when it came out.
Because Elfman did three big scores this year, _and_ because he was honored with that BMI Award in June, _and_ because he was kind of the hot composer of the summer, I’d guess that this year is as good as any for him to get another nomination.
Yes, the old guard didn’t like him much when he started, but I don’t necessarily think that’s true anymore. Elfman still comes off as a little resentful toward his peers in interviews, but I think he’s seen as being a bit more respectable than he used to be. The younger generation — guys like John Debney, Marco Beltrami, Anne Dudley and Rachel Portman — have all said very positive things about him in interviews. Some of those people help select the Oscar nominations each year along with those who are of different opininons.
Those against Elfman gripe that he doesn’t conduct: a more common thing now anyway among guys like JNH, Marc Shaiman, and Christopher Young who all, in fact, use the same conductor that Danny does most of the time: Pete Anthony. Also, however, there are complaints that he doesn’t orchestrate. Again, not many have the time to now, but the feeling for a long time was that if he had to, he couldn’t. I can see why this might sully people’s opinion of Elfman when compared to say, David Newman, who is known to be a masterful conductor and can orchestrate his own scores up there with the best of them.
All this aside, though, Elfman doesn’t seem to be a part of the big fraternal order of film composers in LA. I think that that, more than anything, is why he’s only been nominated twice and may be unlikely to be nominated again. Randy Newman is part of the Newman dynasty of musicans. He conducts his own music, orchestrates when he has time, and gets along with most everyone: he’s known for being very witty and a generous guy. You could argue that Elfman has written better music at times, but Newman is a team player in Hollywood, and his friends — especially those he’s worked with in the past; JNH, Don Davis, and Mark Knopfler, to name a few — would probably rather put him up for a nomination than someone they don’t know that well or don’t especially care for. Hans Zimmer loves Newman and speaks highly of him. Elfman’s made subtle jabs at Zimmer and co. (again, team players) over the years. Why would they ever nominate him for anything?
If everyone picked the nominations, I think Elfman would get them more often. That, unfortuantely, is not how it works. None the less, we got three good CDs this year and those give me more gratification than some silly, self-congratulatory award would anyway.
Yeah…………….
He’ll probably be over-looked, as usual. Besides, the statue isn’t all that great. Now, if it looked more skeleton-ish….perhaps like Jack, then I’d understand what all the fuss was about.
I mean, come on! Who wouldn’t want a Jack Skellington statue? And I’m sure Danny would be a definate for one of those! All nice and twisted and demented-like. Why can’t the rest of the world revolve around us? Would it be so hard? Honestly….
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.