Every day until the Oscars ceremony we’ll be highlighting a different category or movie here on the LAMB! Here’s a link to all the posts written so far: https://largeassmovieblogs.com/2017/01/the-lamb-devours-the-oscars-2017-roster.html
Today, The Vern from ScreenTrax is here to look at the nominees for Best Original Song.
Here at ScreenTrax, I was thrilled to hear we were chosen to write about the 5 best Oscar nominated songs of 2017. So let’s take a look and have us pick a winner.
“How Far I’ll Go” from Moana
Basically it’s this year’s “Let It Go”, just without any of the drive and passion that made that one worthy of 2015’s win. You could have replaced this with that one “Fight Song”, and you would have beat for beat almost the same exact song. The vocals by Alessia Cara are good, but the lyrics and the music are not as memorable as other Disney songs.
“The Empty Chair” from Jim: The James Foley Story
Have you heard of this movie before? No. I’m mostly well versed when it comes to independent cinema and I never saw anything about this at all. Jim: The James Foley Story is a documentary about a famed journalist who was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda. Sting provides what looks like the ending song. I’m sure in the context of the movie it paints a great picture about the many lives lost, and it will be nice political statement. However it will never beat Lady Gaga’s track “Til it Happens to You” From The Hunting Ground last year.
“Can’t Stop The Feeling” from Trolls
Yup, Trolls failed to get a nom for best animated feature. Yet they can still put Oscar Nominated on all their posters for having this lame ass song featured here. In Lego Batman, there was a joke about studios using a safe song to please both parents and children. I can’t think of anything pleasurable about this song unless you enjoy causing pain to those you love. This sounds like the kind of stuff Justin Timberlake was doing with N-Sync and we know he’s much better than this.
“Audition (Fools Who Dream)” from La La Land
The way this song begins makes it stand out from all the others. It doesn’t start with any music, just Emma Stone talking. Slowly the music along with the lyrics build and build until we get a very strong emotional center of the track., even if you have never seen this movie. It’s really tough to find a song with this much weight and soul to it.
“City of Stars” from La La Land
It’s a good song, but there were others that could have been used. I would rather see “Someone In The Crowd” featured here if I had to see another track from the soundtrack. Nothing wrong with Ryan Gosling’s voice or the music. In fact it was this song used in the trailer that made me want to see this movie. It just doesn’t stand out like the others do.
If there is one category La La Land will for sure dominate, it’s best song. My pick is for “Audition” and I hope Emma Stone sings this at The Oscar ceremony. I still think they should remove that song from Trolls and Jim: The James Foley Story and pick these two songs from Sing Street instead. I may have to boycott the Oscars for not giving this one nomination. You could pick any song from this movie, but these are my two favorites.
Tags: ScreenTrax