The Best Original Song category has seen better days. While in the past such all-time classic songs as "Over the Rainbow" and "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" won the Oscar, recent winners haven't had the same cultural impact. In fact, three years ago the Academy couldn't even manage to scrounge up more than two nominees for the entire category. As Disney has let Pixar, which forgoes the traditional musical route of Disney's past, take the reigns of most of its animated output, and as films in general have increasingly relied on licensed soundtracks for their musical cues, the fact of the matter is there is simply a smaller pool of nominees to choose from. However, at least one film this year, Begin Again, is doing its best to change that. The film which is about two struggling musicians at the opposite ends of their careers, is packed with terrific original music that organically fits into the film's story. Conceivably, a number a songs from the film could make the grade, but if there is only to be one song nominated from Begin Again, it will most likely be "Lost Stars". The song plays an important emotional part in the film and is also the most stereotypical "Oscar song" on the soundtrack, so it will likely see the heaviest campaign from the studio. Begin Again is a fantastic film that deserves more than a nomination for Best Song, but if that's what it takes to be able to say it is an Oscar-nominated film, then that will be better than nothing.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
