Notes of dejection

STRAP: Taylor Swift out of Best Original Song Oscar race

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Grammy-Award winning Taylor Swift and Andrew Lloyd Webber are not in the Oscar race for their collaboration “Beautiful ghosts” in the upcoming movie “Cats”. The Academy on Monday revealed the Oscars shortlist, sharing the remaining contenders in nine categories, including Best Original Song and Score.

The biggest surprise was the omission of “Beautiful ghosts”, the much-talked-about collaboration between Swift and Lloyd Webber.

The shortlisted contenders for Best Original Song and Score features five songs from Disney movies and three from documentaries. The 300-member music branch picked 15 songs from 75 entered this year, and 15 scores from an eligibility list of 170. The lists will be shortlisted further to five each when voting for the nominations begins on January 2. Nominees will be announced on January 13.

Those who got through

Elton John made it to the song list twice: once with lyricist Bernie Taupin for “(I’m gonna) love me again” from “Rocketman” and once with Tim Rice for “Never too late” the end title song from “The Lion King”. Beyonce’s “Spirit”, also from “The Lion King”, also made the cut. Other major pop figures represented in the list include Pharrell Williams for “Letter to my godfather” which accompanied the end titles of “The Black Godfather” and Thom Yorke for “Daily Battles” in Edward Norton’s period drama “Motherless Brooklyn”.

The list also mentions Charles Fox-Paul Williams’ “Da bronx”, Kathryn Bostic’s song “High above the water” from the documentary “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” and “A glass of soju” from the foreign-language hit “Parasite” by Jung Jae-il.

There’s also “Into the unknown” from box-office hit “Frozen 2” by two-time Oscar winners Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez; “Speechless” from the “Aladdin” remake by eight-time winner Alan Menken and “La La Land” winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul; and two-time winner Randy Newman’s “I can’t let you throw yourself” from “Toy Story 4”. The other animated film to get in the list was “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” for its “Catchy song”.

Diane Warren also made the cut for her song “I’m standing with you” from “Breakthrough”. Another one to sneak in the list was film “Wild Rose” with its song “Glasgow”. Song “Stand up” also made the cut. – IANS