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Oscar Nods: 'The Muppets,' 'Hugo' Get Music Noms

Posted 1/24/12 10:02 am EST by in Madonna, oscars


Sure, the movies are what count when it comes to the Oscar nominations, but there’s also some music news sprinkled in there. On Tuesday when names like Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill (yes, that Jonah Hill), George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Rooney Mara and many more were announced as nominees, there were a few musicians who also got some love.

In the Music (Original Song) category only two songs made the cut, “Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets” (music and lyrics by Bret McKenzie) and “Real in Rio” from “Rio” (music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown and lyrics by Siedah Garrett).

Surprisingly, will.i.am’s “Rio” track “Hot Wings” didn’t make the cut, nor did the Elton John/Lady Gaga track "Hello "Hello" from “Gnomeo & Juliet.” But, most surprisingly, Mary J. Blige’s “The Help” track, “The Living Proof,” was noticeably absent from the final list of nominees.

For all the Madge stans out there, Madonna's Golden Globe-winning track “Masterpiece” was ineligible due to Academy placement regulations, but her film, “W.E.,” did at least get one nod in the costume design category. At the NYC premiere of the film on Monday, the singer shared that all she wanted was some Academy love for the movie, so that should make the Queen of Pop happy. Read More...

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PS22 Chorus Score Their Biggest Gig Yet

Posted 2/28/11 12:40 pm EST by in Music


Anybody who stuck around to the bitter end of the Academy Awards broadcast on Sunday night (February 27) got a special treat during the show's last act. After the producers of "The King's Speech" thanked all of their supporters following that film's victory in the Best Picture category, hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco threw to the PS22 Chorus, a group of fourth and fifth graders who became a viral video hit for their beautiful, soulful takes on current pop songs (they have tackled everything from Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" to Katy Perry's "Firework"). They closed out the Oscars with a performance of the classic tune "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which was a perfect way to end a dreamy, magical night celebrating the movies.

MTV News first met the PS22 Chorus back in the summer of 2009, when Sway paid a visit to the Staten Island, New York school to chat with the kids and get some background from the group's founder and director Gregg Breinberg (who is known better in most circles as "Mr. B"). The kids treated Sway to some top-shelf performances and gave him a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most incredible musical phenomenons on the Internet.

At the time, the group was most excited to meet Rihanna and get endorsements from Perez Hilton. But since then, they have gotten co-signs from the likes of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, and now that they have performed in front of the huge television audience that the Oscars brings in every year, they're bound to have gained new fans. As you can see in the video, the kids always seem to be happy just singing the songs, but they don't mind the benefits either. "[Mr. B] motivates us, because after we do everything, all the work, we always get rewarded at the end," fifth-grader Justin Restrepo told Sway. "We met Rihanna. How many kids like us, our age, got to meet her?"

What did you think of PS22's show closing performance at the Oscars? Let us know in the comments!

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Spotted: Justin Bieber Rolls With Selena Gomez, Meets Mick Jagger At Vanity Fair Oscar Party

Posted 2/28/11 11:32 am EST by in Music


Every day a multitude of stars wander through the halls of MTV News to talk about their latest projects and goof around with our intrepid correspondents. But sometimes we catch stars elsewhere, and that's why we put together Spotted!, a daily compendium of stars in the wild.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Oscar night isn't the show itself (though that is certainly the reason why Hollywood's top stars descend on the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles) is the series of parties that follow the show. And among those parties, the most important one is the fete thrown every year by Vanity Fair, which welcomes only top tier stars into its bosom. So it was no surprise that Justin Bieber (who has sold millions of albums around the world and whose film "Never Say Never" continues to rake in big bucks) was one of the more celebrated names on the guest list on Sunday night (February 27). He grabbed more headlines when he walked into the party holding the hand of fellow teen star Selena Gomez, but the even more incredible photo snapped during the party was one of Bieber and legendary Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. The singer (who has also been extremely active in the film world for most of his career) was once a young heartthrob himself, which made for an interesting generational bridge between the two.

They weren't the only stars making the rounds at Oscar parties, as most of the night's big names ended up raising a glass in celebration of another successful Academy Awards. Click here for more photos from the Oscar afterparties, including Natalie Portman, Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent, Steven Tyler, Madonna and Christian Bale!

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The Oscar Nominations: Handicapping The Best Original Song Category

Posted 1/25/11 2:30 pm EST by in Music


Now that the nominations for the Academy Awards are out, it's time to start handicapping. But no matter what anybody predicts today (or for the next month), we won't know whose hand will be raised in victory and given a little statuette until the show airs on Sunday, February 27. Until then, you can stay tuned to MTV News for all the latest updates, analysis, interviews and predictions regarding the 83rd Academy Awards.

(Click here for photos of the 2011 Academy Award nominees, including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Jesse Eisenberg!)

Despite the eclecticism of the field and the surprise entries in the field, it seems like a lot of the categories are already wrapped up (people already seem to be handing Colin Firth the Best Actor prize for his performance in "The King's Speech," and it seems inevitable that Aaron Sorkin will be walking away with the Best Original Screenplay prize for "The Social Network"). One of those sure shots? Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who will almost certainly be taking home the award for Best Original Score for their soundtrack contributions to "The Social Network" (which would put Reznor half way to getting his EGOT). But who will win the other big music-based award — the one for Best Original Song?

Interestingly, none of the songs from "Burlesque" (one of which won a Golden Globe) were nominated for an Oscar. Instead, the nods went to "Coming Home" (from "Country Strong"), "I See the Light" (from "Tangled"), "If I Rise" (from "127 Hours") and "We Belong Together" (from "Toy Story 3"). Of those four, you can probably take out "If I Rise" (which we thought should get nominated for a Razzie yesterday). Either one of the remaining three could score a victory, though it seems like the songs from "Tangled" were especially loved by fans of the movie, so perhaps the money should be on that.

What should win the Oscar for Best Original Song? Let us know in the comments!

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Spotted: Miley Cyrus Spreads Oscar Fever

Posted 3/8/10 12:35 pm EST by in Music


Every day a multitude of stars wanders through the halls of MTV News to talk about their latest projects and goof around with our intrepid correspondents. But sometimes we catch stars elsewhere, and that's why we put together Spotted!, a daily compendium of stars in the wild.

On Sunday night (March 7), Hollywood took some time out from its busy schedule to wrap up the award season with the 82nd Academy Awards. The big show, hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, featured big victories for Kathryn Bigelow and "The Hurt Locker." The ceremony was also a big night for a handful of young stars making their mark on the Academy, including Taylor Lautner, Amanda Seyfried and Kristen Stewart. One of those stars that turned a lot of heads (and earned herself the title of "Best Dressed" care of Hollywood Crush) was Miley Cyrus. She hit the red carpet wearing a lovely strapless gold dress that was both stunning and simple. During the show, Cyrus and Sefried took the stage to present the award for Best Original Song (sadly, none of the tunes from "Hannah Montana: The Movie" were nominated), eventually handing the statuette off to T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham (who tag-teamed on "The Weary Kind" from "Crazy Heart").

Cyrus wasn't the only music star making her mark on the Hollywood establishment on Sunday night, as fellow crossover sensations Queen Latifah, Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon, Jennifer Lopez and Lenny Kravitz all joined the party as well. Click here for more highlights from the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, and click here for pics from the Oscar red carpet!

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The Oscars Video Playlist: Death Cab For Cutie, Tupac And Johnny Cash Take You To Tinseltown

Posted 3/5/10 11:30 am EST by in Music


The crown jewel of the awards season goes down this Sunday, March 7, when the Academy Awards are handed out in Hollywood. Though this year's show expects to be a little more predictable than in years past, there are still a number of contests that should have a number of people biting their nails in anticipation. Will "The Hurt Locker" top "Avatar" in the race for Best Picture? Will "The Cove" take home Best Documentary or will a dark horse like "The Most Dangerous Man in America" shoot to the front of the pack? Is this Jeff Bridges' year to walk away with Oscar gold or will he be undone by the performance of Jeremy Renner? These questions (and the rest of the Oscar-related intrigue) will be resolved on Sunday. Be sure to stay tuned to MTV News, MTV Movies Blog and Hollywood Crush for your complete Oscar coverage, from the red carpet to the after parties).

Like any big event, getting in the right head space to absorb the Academy Awards is a key to enjoying it. That's why we've put together a video playlist for the 2010 Oscars. Tupac shows us a little "California Love," Likeblood take us to the "Red Carpet," Jurassic 5 celebrate "What's Golden" and They Might Be Giants admit that "This Statue Got Me High" (that's the thrill of victory talking, boys). There are also entries from past Oscar winners like Eminem and Three Six Mafia, as well as tracks that pay tribute to some nominated films (including Depeche Mode's "Precious" and Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt").

Check out the playlist below, which kicks off with Death Cab for Cutie's "A Movie Script Ending," the best song ever written about wanting your life to be more cinematic.

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Three Six Mafia, Elliott Smith And The Best Performances From The Oscars

Posted 2/19/10 11:15 am EST by in Music, Television


After years of stasis followed by a few experiments and tweaks, the Academy Awards show — which airs Sunday, March 7 — has turned itself upside down this year. Not only have they expanded the Best Picture category to include 10 nominees (rather than the usual five), the producers of the telecast also announced that the nominees for Best Original Song won't be performing on the show. Rather than five staged performances, the music will be integrated into the show via montages and other video segments.

Considering how middling this year's Best Original Song nominees are, this decision isn't necessarily a crime. After all, do we really want to take time out of an already bloated block of programming to watch Randy Newman sing two songs from a kid's movie? Unlikely.

On the other hand, the Oscars have played host to a handful of absolutely stunning, bizarre and moving musical performances, especially in the past 10 or 15 years. By turning the musicians away at the door, the producers may be denying the world a great musical moment like one of the following.

Elliott Smith
Dressed in a suit that looked like it was made from the couch in a '70s bachelor apartment and looking profoundly uncomfortable in front of the cameras, singer-songwriter Elliott Smith still managed to create one of the most memorable Oscar moments in history at the 1998 show. His tenderly savage performance of his breakout hit "Miss Misery" (which was nominated for its inclusion in "Good Will Hunting") was gorgeous and sad, and it thrust Smith into fame, a major label deal and a rapidly-growing discomfort with fame.

Aimee Mann
Mann really should have been scored all five nominations for her contributions to the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson's sprawling "Magnolia." Read More...

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Oscar Nominations: The Tragedy Of The Best Original Song Category

Posted 2/2/10 10:10 am EST by in Movies, Music


The nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning, and there are already plenty of debates that will be argued all across MTV News properties (especially on the always-sharp MTV Movies Blog) today and every day up until the Oscars are actually handed out on March 7. Will "Avatar" run the table, or will it be spoiled by an upstart like "The Hurt Locker"?

Overall, it seems like a pretty even set of nominations, though there is one category that has everyone here in the MTV Newsroom scratching our heads. That category is, of course, the one for Best Original Song. The nominations run like this: Two Randy Newman songs from "The Princess and the Frog," a tune from "Nine," a song from the French film "Paris 36" and one of the T-Bone Burnett-produced tracks from "Crazy Heart."

To that we say: Huh?

Considering all the great tracks included on the shortlist, it's amazing that the songs they chose ended up so ... boring. Randy Newman is great, but those songs from "The Princess and the Frog" could have been written in his sleep. While "The Weary Kind (Theme from 'Crazy Heart')" is a totally reasonable rambling country tune, it doesn't even particularly stand out in the context of the movie. The other two are anonymous ditties from movies nobody saw.

The big problem is that none of these entries seem to help out the narrative very much. And outside of the song from "Crazy Heart," none of them do a particularly good job of reflecting the tone of the films they come from. But most importantly, these nominations will make for some extremely boring performances when the Oscar telecast comes around. Since nobody went to go see the movie, is anybody really itching to see a live version of "Take It All" from "Nine"?

With the shortlist in mind, here's what the lineup should have looked like.

» "All Is Love," by Karen O and the Kids ("Where the Wild Things Are")
» "Legendary," by Nas ("Tyson")
» "I See You," by Leona Lewis ("Avatar")
» "Possibility," by Lykke Li ("The Twilight Saga: New Moon")
» "Stu's Song," by Ed Helms ("The Hangover")

Doesn't that look like a much better reflection not only of the music presented in films this year but also a much more fun set of performances for Oscar night?

What do you think? What songs should have been nominated for Best Original Song? Or did the Academy get it right? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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The Good, The Bad And The Ugly From The Oscar Red Carpet

Posted 2/23/09 3:14 pm EST by in oscars


Check out behind-the-scenes photos from this year's Oscars here!By Josh Horowitz

I've got a pretty bizarre job. I know this, because my friends and family constantly tell me this whenever my Facebook updates casually mention encounters with the likes of Charlize Theron and Stephen Baldwin (in my mind, all celebrities are created equal).

Still, the crazy and surreal meter went into overdrive for me last night when I stepped onto my first Academy Awards red carpet. First of all, don't be too jealous; my feet barely touched the carpet before I was relegated to the press area that literally was behind a 4-foot shrub. I can't blame the Hollywood elite. If I were Sean Penn, I'd want a barrier between me and Nancy O'Dell at all times too.

(Check out behind-the-scenes photos from this year's Oscars here!)

It's kind of difficult to convey the truly bizarre nature of any red carpet, let alone the world's most famous one, but let me try. Here is the good, the bad and the ugly of what it's like to go toe to toe with the stars on Hollywood's biggest night. Billy Bush would kill me if he knew I was going to share these secrets, so this is just between us, all right?

Read More...

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Big Oscar Wins For 'Slumdog Millionaire' Have Our In-House Expert Yelling 'Jai Ho!'

Posted 2/23/09 12:16 pm EST by in oscars


Freida PintoBy Akshay Bhansali

As an Indian-American who saw "Slumdog Millionaire" win eight of the 10 Oscars for which it was nominated last night, I am practically screaming "Jai ho!"

For the first time since Sir Ben Kingsley brought the great Indian leader to life in 1982's "Gandhi" — which also won eight Oscars — we have a runaway hit, with a cast made up of Indian legends like Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan. But this film's success reaches far beyond that: I actually hear random people in Times Square singing the film's "O ... Saya" at the top of their lungs. When has anything like this ever happened before? Mira Nair's "The Namesake" and Deepa Mehta's "Water" came close, but never before have non-Indian folks come up to me and screamed "Jai ho!!" Read More...

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