W.E. is the last of our Golden Globe nominated scores, perfect timing as the show airs this Sunday, and by far the most unexpected. In fact before this nomination I didn’t even know this movie existed. The film is actually directed by Madonna, which is interesting but not all together important for a review of it’s score.

The composer is Abel Korzeniowski and I can see why his excellent work was recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press. The score is very well put together with an emphasis on large, sweeping strings in a few very choice places. Listening to the music gives me the sense that it probably dominates much of the movie. While I appreciate that sort of heavy handed musical touch, I can also see where it might have played a role in the films less than stellar critical reception.

I am happy to see it nominated though, as there has been a recent trend of nominating more subtle and subdued scores in the last few years. This is far from it, and it plays very nicely to my personal film musical tastes. Strong string work always has a tendency to grip me, and this score delivers that in spades.

Nothing like awards season to let you focus in on some fantastic film music! The Golden Globe nominations went out this week and in honor of that Film Score Friday is going to cover the nominated scores each of the next four weeks. I say four weeks because we already covered the excellent War Horse by John Williams. So let’s start off big with Hugo by Howard Shore.

Howard Shore is one of today’s leading composers, everyone and their mother knows his stuff from The Lord of the Rings, but Shore has had an impressive career beyond Middle-Earth. So it was an immediate pleasure to realize he was writing the music to Scorsese’s cinematic love letter to film.

Shore brings a fantastic French sound to the table. Much like Michael Giacchino’s Ratatouille score, Shore takes a the French style and makes it work beautifully within his own bag of tricks. The French influences are in almost every aspect of the score, yet at no time does it sound like wall to wall French music.

It is award season and one of the biggest award shows has just chimed in with it’s annual nomination list. The Golden Globes is often considered the biggest indicator for the Oscars, and even though that is not true, the show is usually fun. Especially when they get a host as fearless as Ricky Gervais.

One of the most interesting aspects of the show is that the Hollywood Foreign Press also salutes Television in their annual show, so it ends up being more of a celebration of entertainment and less about being a stodgy film industry banquet. Along with the TV nominees, the HFPA gives us the Best Comedy or Musical category, allowing for a larger variety of films to be showcased.

The nominations themselves are not overly surprising, but it is always good to see shows like Game of Thrones and movies like Hugo getting some love. We also see Moneyball getting a lot of attention, including Jonah Hill for supporting actor, he already picked up a SAG nomination yesterday, could the comedic actor be up for an Academy Award soon?

Check out the full list of nominations after the jump.

Last year, Ricky Gervais hosted the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards and was received with….mixed reviews. Gervais’ brass and care-free digs on the Hollywood system rocked the celebrity world and some were even “outraged” by some of the comments. Gervais’ response? He wants to do it again.

This time around, he won’t be restricted by the “tightwads” at HFPA or the network. Gervais is taking his jokes to the internet, in what some are calling a “re-dubbed livecast”. The British comedian’s plan is to do a live podcast the same night as the awards show, and have some of his friends stop by for the laughs. Here’s what Ricky had to say over at his blog.

What do you think of this?

A live 3 hour podcast during The Golden Globes. Me and a few chums (like Louis CK, Chris Rock, Karl Pilkington, John Stewart, Larry David popping in and out) doing our own alternative commentary.

People at home can have the telly on with the sound down listening to us online say things that no broadcaster could get away with. 

On the night of January 16th, Hollywood was split in twine after Ricky Gervais’ performance as the host of the evening’s events. One half felt that Gervais went over the line with his sardonic humor and felt that he was rude and crass, while the other half understood his sense of humor and realized he was doing his job as a “comedian.”

Now, continuing in his trend of bitterness, the original Office star has posted on his blog some suggestions to Oscar hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, in case they have time they need to fill.

Without further adieu, we present to you Ricky Gervais’ suggested script for this year’s Oscars. We’ve got what we think is a pretty good sample below, and check out the full script full of self-deprecating humor over at Gervais’ official blog.

JF
Thank you. I’m James Franco.

AH
…and I’m Anne Hathaway.

JF
You probably know me from 127 Hours where I play a man trapped in an enclosed space who decides he would rather cut his own arm off than stay where he was. Now that sounds “way out” but wait till half way through this fucking ceremony and you’ll start to identify with him.