Your long national nightmare is over. It’s time for the awards to commence!

As I mentioned yesterday, two awards will be given out each day for the next seven days, finishing up with the big kahuna (Best Blog) next Monday. The votes have been sent to the independent accounting firm and have been tabulated. Anyway, enough foreplay.

Best Theme
This was the 6th most active category, with 66 total votes spread over 31 voters. The winner took the trophy while receiving a vote from 48.4% of the voters, the second highest percentage from all categories.

3rd place: Final Girl (6 votes)

2nd place: 353 Haiku Movie Review (7 votes)

And the winner, with 15 votes is…

Soundtrack Geek

Your banner will be emailed to you after all the awards have been presented. Congratulations!

Editor’s note: Welcome to the thirteenth of a multi-part series dissecting the 2008 Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every weekday leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category (or more) of the Oscars (there are 24 in all). To read any other posts regarding this event, please just click on the tag following the post. Thank you, and enjoy!

By Jorn of Soundtrack Geek.

There was a lot of controversy over this year’s nominations as the news broke just a few days before the nominees were to be announced that Jonny Greenwood’s score for There Will Be Blood was told by the committee that There Will be no Academy Award (They should make it a movie actually, about the drama behind all this and Johnny Depp can play Jonny Greenwood). Anyway, the score was disqualified for using 25 or so minutes of previously used materials making it not “original” anymore. My theory is that they panicked, because they found out a couple of days before the nominations and just threw a name in there, a surprise name which I will go into later in this article.

3:10 to Yuma is an excellent movie, and if you haven’t seen it yet, do it now. The original score is composed by Marco Beltrami. He isn’t the first name you think of when it comes to awards, and this is his first Academy Award nominations. In 3:10 to Yuma he has tried to make a mix of the old spaghetti western scores and modern sounds. Bruno Nicolai, Francesco DeMasi and Ennio Morricone must have had an influence when Mr. Beltrami made this score. Has he succeded? Perhaps. I would define the score as original, it is unlike any western score I have heard before, and it feels skewed and distorted, almost as if you let Jonny Greenwood compose a western score.

No one can deny the success of Atonement, both the movie and score have done remarkably well in the current market. The score is the current best-selling score, and is being praised by almost everyone who hears it. Not surprisingly, it won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score. Will it repeat it at the Academy Awards? Recent history shows that someone else will win it. Only two times since 2000 has the Golden Globe and the Academy Award been won by the same score - Frida in 2002 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.

The biggest surprise in this year’s Academy Award nominations would have to be the inclusion of Michael Clayton. No one saw that one coming, and I can only imagine that is was put in there because There Will Be Blood was disqualified. The criticism of this score is that it’s too quiet, not dramatic enough, not enough variety, but when it all comes down to it, that doesn’t matter. What matters is if we like it, and yes, I love this score, it’s really great to listen to, it reminds me of Mark Isham’s exciting scores. What I can’t understand is how critics can say Mark Isham was the best composer of 2007, but blatantly dislike this score. You won’t find much in the way of “real” instruments in this score, but the ambient noises, the atmosphere of this score is just top notch.

The Kite Runner must be one of the best books ever made, and of course they made it into a movie and Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias got the honour of making the score. He has not spared on the instruments in this one, the variety is staggering and beautiful. The Spanish guitar can be heard throughout this score, but it still feels Iranian to me, in the way it is composed and put together. Alberto Iglesias was nominated for an Oscar in 2006 for The Constant Gardener and when you listen to that score you know why he was chosen for The Kite Runner and you can definitively compare the two scores.

Ratatouille - isn’t that something you just want to shout out? No? Must be just me then. I have never tasted ratatouille, but I’ve seen the movie and listened to the score by Michael Giacchino. The score goes perfectly with the movie, the French connection and the pace of it is almost perfection. Not since Alan Menken’s Pocahontas in 1995 has an animated movie won the award for Best Original Score. It’s about time I’d say, and this score might just do it. It’s a charmer, it’s French country charm and with a title like Ratatouille, how can it fail?

The Academy Award goes to… 3:10 To Yuma? Nah… too weird. Atonement? Nah, already won the Golden Globe. Michael Clayton? In my dreams! Actually this is my personal favourite and I want to see it win, just so I can see the critics faces. It will never win though. The Kite Runner? I don’t think so, but I think it is between this and Ratatouille. My prediction is that Ratatouille will win. It’s about time an animated movie score won the whole thing anyway. See you at the Academy Awards for laughs and tears (mostly tears)!

Editor’s note: Welcome to the eighth of a multi-part series dissecting the 2008 Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every weekday leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category (or more) of the Oscars (there are 24 in all). To read any other posts regarding this event, please just click on the tag following the post. Thank you, and enjoy!

By Jorn of Soundtrack Geek.

I guess there’s no secret that I love movies and I love music. What can be better than putting it all together in these nice neat little packages called movie scores and soundtracks? Not much! Without further ado, I present to you the first of my two categories: Best Original Song.

The first thing I noticed when I saw this year’s category is that one movie received three nominations. Why is that? What happened to share the love? Enchanted is good, but come on, three nominations in the same category, with two by the same artist? Right, let’s get on with Best Music from Ench… I mean Best Original Song. Yes, I repeat myself - get used to it!

Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova’s “Falling Slowly” from the movie Once is a nice folk type American rock song. It will please the indie crowds out there, and it pleased me as well. It’s pleasant to listen to, and it kind of reminds me of artists such as James Blunt. Marketa Irglova however is quite hard to hear sometimes, but I guess that’s part of the charm.

Jamia Simone Nash & Impact Repertory Theatre’s “Raise Up” from the movie August Rush is an R&B song that is annoyingly catchy. Once you listen to this, it will be in your head all day - be warned! The kid in there is great too, a very cool voice. The only thing is that when you are enjoying the song and is just about to start singing, it abruptly stops. You check the CD for scratches, blow off some dust and frantically try to play the rest of the song, but there isn’t any more. I know that the academy awards wants their songs short, but there’s no rule that says that if you can’t finish it in time you just have to stop is there?

Amy Adams’ “Happy Working Song” from Enchanted is a typical musical song, it could have been taken out of The Sound of Music or Cinderella, for that matter. It’s nice and chirpy, yes, that’s right, chirpy. There are actual birds in that song as well. It’s very catchy, and on the second listen I found myself nodding my head from side to side and almost singing along. Its evil I tell you!

Jon McLaughlin’ “So Close,” also from Enchanted, is a completely different song from the Happy Pappy Chirpy Working Song by Amy Adams. It’s a standard love song which we’ve heard a million times before, but it’s not too bad. It fits the movie quite well as it has rolling harps in there and I could even hear a bird or two as well.

Finally, Amy Adams’ “That’s How You Know” from Enchanted is a bossa nova reggae love song. It’s charming and asks the question how one knows if someone loves you. It’s a good question, and I don’t think listening to this song will help at all. It’s a fun little song, but I like the other Amy Adams song better, but I just know it will annoy me to death in the end.

So what does the predictometer say about all this? Who will win? Who will really care? I can tell you some facts though. There is a 60% chance of the winner being from the movie Enchanted and a 40% chance of Amy Adams winning the award. There is a 98.23% chance that you will find these facts as interesting as watching a Paris Hilton movie. So there you go! Facts! The facts don’t change the fact that I am procrastinating here, so let’s get on with it.

My favourite here would be Amy Adams’ “Happy Working Song.” It’s just too cute and catchy and happy. Will it win though? You know what, I think it will! It’s been a while since a song like this won, and I think the world is ready for this. Right, I’m off to the dungeon Fletch has me working 24/7. I call it the Fletch dungeon sweat shop. I have one more category to cover this year and that is Best Original Score. Yay! See you soon!

URL: http://www.soundtrackgeek.com

Site Name: Soundtrack Geek

What is the main focus of your site (reviews, editorials, news, lists, etc.)?
My focus is about the music in movies, the soundtracks and the scores.

What are your blogging goals, personally and/or professionally? In other words, what, if anything, are you trying to get out your blog?
I hope to get more people interested in the music, not just the movies themselves. People love movies and they love music, but why not combine it? I hope to reach as many people as possible.

Do you prefer an interactive ‘community’ for your blog or are you the teacher and your readers are the students?
I hope to get many people involved, not just reading my blog, but actually doing stuff as well, listening to scores, asking questions. In 2008 I am thinking about adding new features, more social features.

How long have you been movie blogging for, and how frequent do you post updates to your site?
This site is pretty new, it started December 23rd last year, but I have been blogging for a couple of years now. I post updates daily.

Name up to three of your favorite movies (and no more).
Star Trek, The Matrix, Lord Of The Rings.

How did you hear about the LAMB?
From blogcatalog.com.

Any additional comments.
Check out the Transformers score by Steve Jablonsky. Even if you don’t like score, you will after listening to it.