The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has unveiled this year’s 75 eligible tunes that could be nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Song. Among those are 13 tracks from 9 documentaries, including Dave Grohl‘s Sound City and the sorta concert film Spark: A Burning Man Story.
One of the former’s contenders is probably the most interesting of this bunch in that it’s the track featuring Paul McCartney and the former members of Nirvana. I can imagine the Academy hoping for that to move forward because it’d make for a great performance at the ceremony (just as it was a draw for the 12-12-12 Sandy Relief concert last year).
Otherwise few of these tracks seem like strong possibilities, whether because they’re not from major releases or because they’re not nearly as exciting for Hollywood to get behind as stuff from Frozen, The Great Gatsby and 12 Years a Slave. There are no songs from global warming docs, either, which has helped in the past (see nominees from Chasing Ice and An Inconvenient Truth, the latter a winner). Meanwhile, it would seem to me that the All American Rejects selection isn’t that original since it’s on an album from 2012.
Check out info on all 13 of the documentary soundtrack contenders below, with clips of the tunes where available.
“Bones” from For No Good Reason
Written by Thom Crawford and Joanne Perica
Performed by Thom Crawford
“The Courage to Believe” from Free China: The Courage to Believe
Written by Tony Chen (music) and Kean Wong and Michael Perlman (lyrics)
Performed by Q’orianka Kilcher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3r8OpeaMblE
“Forgiveness” from Brave Miss World
Written by Linor Abargil, Ben Harper and Natalie Maines
Performed by Ben Harper and Natalie Maines
“Going Nowhere” from For No Good Reason
Written by Lucinda Belle
Performed by Lucinda Belle Orchestra
“Gonzo” from For No Good Reason
Written by Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler
Performed by All American Rejects
“Let It Go” from Spark: A Burning Man Story
Written by Michael Franti
Performed by Michael Franti and Spearhead Featuring Ethan Tucker
“Make It Love” from Two: The Story of Roman & Nyro
Written by Levi Hummon, Marcus Hummon and Andrew Dorff
Performed by The Hummons
https://soundcloud.com/stevemarkland/make-it-love-levi-hummond
“The Muslims Are Coming” from The Muslims Are Coming!
Written and performed by Negin Farsad and Tory Dahlhoff
“Sacrifice (I Am Here)” from Murph: The Protector
Written by Jeff Widenhofer and Chris Irwin
Performed by Chris Irwin Band
“We Ride” from Spark: A Burning Man Story
Written and performed by Missy Higgins
“You Can’t Fix This” from Sound City
Written and performed by Dave Grohl, Stevie Nicks, Taylor Hawkins and Rami Jaffee
Christopher Campbell / Nonfics / Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Christopher Campbell is the managing editor of Nonfics and a freelance writer and editor for Film School Rejects, Movies.com, Fandango, RogerEbert.com and Moviefone. In the past he has contributed to Indiewire, MTV News, Movieline, Fandango, Spout, Documentary Magazine, Cinematical, Screen Crush, Pajiba, First Showing and The Documentary Channel Blog. He began writing film criticism and covering film festivals for a zine called Read, back when a zine could actually get you Sundance press credentials. Since then he has received a Master’s degree in Cinema Studies from NYU, where he concentrated on nonfiction film.
