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Academy Award Winners 2016
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the winners of the 89th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2016.
In the Best Original Score category composer Justin Hurwitz won the award for his score for director Damian Chazelle’s film La La Land, a modern day musical which celebrates the style of classic Hollywood updated to a contemporary setting. Hurwitz accepted the award by saying:
“Ok, wow! Thank you so much to the Academy. Thank you to my very, very good friend, Damian [Chazelle], I’m so glad I met you! Thank you to Marc Platt, Jordan Horowitz, Fred Berger. Thank you to everybody at Lionsgate. Thank you to all the LA musicians who played on this score. I just put notes on a page and they’re the ones who made it beautiful and sound the way it does. If I start going through names I could make, at most, twenty to thirty people happy but, I’ll make about a hundred – a couple of hundred million people really bored, so I’ll just leave it at everybody who’s work is on-screen in any way in this movie, I was looking at your work when I was scoring the picture, I was looking at what you did when I was scoring the picture, and that’s what inspired me, so thank you to everybody who worked on this movie. Thank you.”
The other nominees were Nicholas Britell for Moonlight, Mica Levi for Jackie, Dustin O’Halloran and Volker “Hauschka” Bertelmann for Lion, and Thomas Newman for Passengers.
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Justin Hurwitz, Justin Paul, and Benj Pasek, for their song “City of Stars” from La La Land.
The other nominees were Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul for “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” from La La Land, Lin-Manuel Miranda for “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana, Joshua Ralph and Gordon Sumner (Sting) for “The Empty Chair” from Jim: The James Foley Story, and Justin Timberlake, Max Martin, and Karl Johan Schuster (Shellback) for “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” from Trolls.
Golden Globe Winners 2016
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) have announced the winners of the 74th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2016.
In the Best Original Score category composer Justin Hurwitz won the award for his score for the original musical La La Land. In his acceptance speech, Hurwitz said:
“Thank you, thank you. HFPA, everybody who worked on the movie, everybody at Lionsgate, all the LA musicians. I could start going through names, but I would have to pick and choose and leave so many names out, and then I would feel bad and then I would also start imagining that people were angry at me for not saying their names, so, just kind of across the board everyone who worked on the movie. I feel like it was the kind of movie where … well, first of all I was lucky to get to work, because it was a musical, I got to work with or at least know, pretty much all the departments, and there was just this spirit across the movie where people kind of worked harder than I think they’re used to working, and went to bed later than they’re used to going to bed, and wore more hats than they’re used to, and because I think we were all … we didn’t believe that this movie was getting made, and we didn’t believe that Damien had created something so unique that allowed us to put so much of ourselves into it, so, we didn’t want to take it for granted, and everybody worked so hard, and so passionately, so thank you to everybody, and this is very much appreciated.”
The other nominees were Nicholas Britell for Moonlight, Jóhann Jóhannsson for Arrival, Dustin O’Halloran and Volker “Hauschka” Bertelmann for Lion, and Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams, and Benjamin Wallfisch for Hidden Figures.
In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul for their song “City of Stars” from La La Land.
The other nominees were Lin-Manuel Miranda for “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana, James Osterberg (Iggy Pop), Daniel Pemberton, Stephen Gaghan, and Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) for “Gold” from Gold, Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Schuster (Shellback) for “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from Trolls, and Stevie Wonder, Ryan Tedder, and Francis Farewell Starlite for “Faith” from Sing.
LA LA LAND – Justin Hurwitz, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
There has been so much cynicism and negativity in the news in 2016, that a film like La La Land is not so much a breath of fresh air, but a necessary antidote to the political and social upheaval that has swept across far too much of the world. It’s a sincere, optimistic love letter to the power of dreams and the joy of romance, an homage to classic Hollywood musicals, and a celebration of art and dance and music that wears its heart on its sleeve and looks you straight in the eye as it does so. Directed by Damien Chazelle, it stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as Sebastian and Mia, two struggling artists trying to make it in contemporary Los Angeles. Sebastian is a jazz pianist frustrated by his lack of opportunities and the fact that no one seems to love the music he loves any more; Mia is an aspiring actress working in a coffee shop on a studio lot whose dreams are continually crushed by an endless parade of failed auditions. A series of chance meetings between the two slowly leads to a romantic relationship, and together the pair seeks to find a way through the perils and pitfalls of being young and creative in the City of Angels. Read more…
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