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Academy Award Winners 2009

March 7, 2010 Leave a comment

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have announced the winners of the 82nd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film in 2009.

In the Best Original Score category, American composer Michael Giacchino won the Academy Award for his score for Pete Docter’s animated Pixar film Up. In his acceptance speech Giacchino said:

Thank you, guys. When I was… I was nine and I asked my dad, “Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8mm camera that was in your drawer?” And he goes, “Sure, take it.” And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, “What you’re doing is a waste of time.” Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you’re doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was okay to do that. I know there are kids out there that don’t have that support system, so if you’re out there and you’re listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it; it’s not a waste of time. Do it. Okay? Thank you. Thank you.

The other nominees for Best Original Score were James Horner for Avatar, Alexandre Desplat for Fantastic Mr. Fox, Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders for The Hurt Locker, and Hans Zimmer for Sherlock Holmes.

In the Best Original Song category, Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett won the Academy Award for “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart, about a washed-up country singer seeking redemption.

The other nominees for Best Original Song were Randy Newman for “Almost There” from The Princess and the Frog; Randy Newman again for “Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog; Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas for “Loin de Paname” from Paris 36; and Maury Yeston for “Take It All” from Nine.

UP – Michael Giacchino

May 29, 2009 1 comment

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

When we look back on his career, 2009 could well be seen as a watershed year for Michael Giacchino in terms of public awareness and his place in the film music hierarchy. Film music fans have known about Giacchino for a long time, of course, initially through his work on the Medal of Honor video game series and the TV shows Lost and Alias. This year alone he has already scored the rebooted Star Trek movie and a new big screen version of Land of the Lost. However, it is his new status as one of Pixar’s go-to guys (alongside Randy and Thomas Newman) that may cement his reputation. The Incredibles was a critical and commercial success, Ratatouille earned Giacchino his first Academy Award nomination, and now he has Up, which many writers have acclaimed as the best Pixar movie to date. Read more…