Marion Cotillard won't sing Maury Yeston's "Take It All" fromNine, Jeff Bridges won't perform Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett's "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart, Randy Newman won't do a rendition of "Almost There" and "Down in New Orleans" from The Princess and the Frog, and Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas won't stage "Loin de Paname" from Paris 36 at the 2010 Academy Awards ceremony next March 7.
Why not? Simply because this year's Best Original Song nominees will be presented via clips from the films in which they are sung, "which is how most nominated achievements are featured within the show," Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spokeswoman Leslie Unger explained Wednesday.
Why this year? Well, since the Academy must have each Best Picture nominee introduced individually throughout the show — and since there are now ten Best Picture nominees — something apparently had to go. Mindnumbingly boring speeches will surely remain and so will unfunny jokes and repartees. As show co-producer and choreographer Adam Shankman has announced, musical numbers will be part of the Oscar ceremony as well (whether or not they're related to the nominated films is anyone's guess). But the nominated songs have been kicked off the stage.
There have been times in the past when the nominated songs were sung as a medley onstage — another time-saving measure. Shows went on forever regardless, thanks to long-winded presentations of nominees, long-winded presentations of presenters, long-winded repartees, long-winded speeches about the Magic of Movies, and other long-winded to-dos. Don't expect things to be very different this year.
Photo: Crazy Heart (Lorey Sebastian / 20th Century Fox)
Utterly ridiculous! We know studios would love to get rid of actors and just move to animation; they've already run off all the best writers. Now they're suggesting that the best songs should not be sung by those who brought the songs to notice? Who's next — the composers, for the scores of movies? All to get people to watch someone walk up to the microphone, read someone's name, and go away? The songs were part of the entertainment of the evening. I am truly disgusted by this one.
Some of those musical numbers are really bad. Im kinda glad they're gone.