Thursday Theoretical Oscar Category

Welcome to a new weekly feature here at Movies With Abe. In my love for everything Oscar, it’s always fun to speculate on who or what might have been included given different circumstances. Though there are twenty-four fields recognized on Oscar night, that still neglects a handful of key players. As a result, I’d like to take a look each week at imagined categories, and who or what might have benefited from their existence.

The category: Best Soundtrack

Why it should exist: Currently, two musical categories exist – Best Original Score and Best Original Song. The former was split up in the 1990s into drama and comedy/musical, but nothing exists to award songs and soundtracks that are not original in nature. Stringent rules have discounted some notable scores and original songs over the past few years, and this could be a great way to honor composers and songwriters whose work doesn’t fit into a box, and also a fun way to recognize musicals with great music and less impressive acting and writing.

Why it doesn’t exist: There’s a reason there are rules, and clearly efforts have been made in past years to expand the field to include more choices. Though they’re arguably more interesting to the casual viewer than some of the other technical categories, most of the names aren’t all that known, and honoring even more non-actors during the Oscar ceremony probably wouldn’t go over too well with the general populace. Also, the award for Best Adapted Screenplay represents original material based on a previous work, whereas this category might just reward putting together preexisting music.

Who might have been nominated the past five years: 2011: Drive, Hanna, Midnight in Paris, Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows, Super 8
2010: Blue Valentine, Easy A, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Somewhere, Tangled
2009: Away We Go, An Education, 500 Days of Summer, Nine, Watchmen
2008: The Dark Knight, My Blueberry Nights, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Wanted, The Wrestler
2007: Hairspray, Into the Wild, Once, Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood

Who do you think might have been nominated?