I haven't heard any of these songs. Theoretically I've heard "Wunderkind," since I saw Chronicles, but if I did, I don't remember it. Still, I give it to Alanis on principle.
Really, though, we all know what should win.
OPV: 62%. This is a very predictive category, though you wouldn't know it last year.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - MOTION PICTURE
ALEXANDRE DESPLAT
SYRIANA
HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
JAMES NEWTON HOWARD
KING KONG
GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
JOHN WILLIAMS
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
Will Win: John Williams
Should Win: Gustavo Santaolalla
This is a very tough category to pick, because the winner usually seems pretty random. Howard Shore won for the second time in a row last year, and that almost never happens. Anyway, they seem to intersperse heavy hitters like Williams pretty regularly, so the safest bet is with him. He's been nominated a whopping 21 times and won a seventh of those, the last time in 1983 for E.T. so he's, um, due?
I don't really remember the music from any of these films, so I'm picking Gustavo 'cause he has the coolest name.
OPV: Can't be calculated for reasons too boring to comprehend.
BEST SCREENPLAY - MOTION PICTURE
WOODY ALLEN
MATCH POINT
GEORGE CLOONEY & GRANT HESLOV
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
PAUL HAGGIS & BOBBY MORESCO
CRASH
TONY KUSHNER & ERIC ROTH
MUNICH
LARRY McMURTRY & DIANA OSSANA
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Will Win: Crash
Should Win: Munich
Paul Haggis didn't even get nominated by the HFP for his Oscar-nodded Million Dollar Baby screenplay. But revenge will be sweet when he grabs this his first time out. Though they love Woody (to the tune of 5 screenplay nods) he's only won once which tells me they like nominating him more than awarding him.
Good Night is probably the closest competition nominated, but with 7 critics circle awards (including a BFCA) to Good Night's 3, the prevailing wind is blowing in Haggis' favor. Brokeback might steal it on momentum alone, but so far that momentum has only garnered 4 CCs. Crash's real screenplay nemesis, The Squid and the Whale, wasn't even nominated.
Don't get me wrong. Crash is a great screenplay. It's a challenge to tie that many stories together and give them any sense of theme without hitting the audience over the head (though that's exactly what many critics complained about). And in a sense, Munich has a similar challenge in that it has to tell a story with a point of view that is a commentary on a modern socio-political ill. But Munich's challenge is greater in my mind because (a) the subject matter is more sensitive (going by the grim metric of body count) and (b) you have to keep a smaller number of characters more interesting for a longer period of time.
Article comments
1 - Trish
I loved your subhead! The tables make all the difference, don't they?
Actually, I think it's the alcohol that makes the difference. Everyone's looser. Thank God.