Score for Black Swan and True Grit Deemed Ineligible for an Oscar [AV Club]
Another year, another Best Picture contender whose score is deemed ineligible for recognition by the Academy—and this year the list of original music compositions that have been preemptively denied includes Black Swan, True Grit, The Kids Are All Right, and The Fighter. In the case of The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter, it’s a refrain familiar from past denials of films like Where The Wild Things Are and Crazy Heart: Each score was deemed as “diminished” for making predominant use of songs, which are vulgar, vulgar abominations.
Sasha Frere Jones on Captain Beefheart [New Yorker]
I’ve never loved Captain Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica.” Or, rather, I have never loved the album the way my betters did. John Peel, the late BBC d.j. and father figure to thousands, said that “if there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in the way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then ‘Trout Mask Replica’ is probably that work.” “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening called “Trout Mask” the “greatest album ever made.”
