This news from The Envelope also reported by Red Carpet District will enrage many music enthusiasts who think that Jonny Greenwood deserved not only an Oscar nomination but the gold statue itself for There Will Be Blood's memorable score. It was disqualified due to a rule they have about "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music."Other scores deemed ineligible at this, the last minute: Zodiac, Enchanted and Into the Wild
Someone really ought to inform the Academy that 35 minutes of original (and brilliant) recordings shouldn't be disqualified unless they are also planning on taking back that Oscar they gave to Babel just last February. Didn't it have even less original music than that? How was Babel's music (which I was a fan of) not "diluted" by pre-existing music? It most certainly was. Gustavo Santaolalla was cribbing liberally from his own work and including the work of other great composers including Ryuichi Sakamoto (whose pieces within that Oscar winning score seem to be everyone's favorites). And that was just 11 months ago.
Why don't the same rules apply for all? The Oscar foreign film branch catches a lot of flak for their sometimes outdated rules but at least they're 90% consistent in their rulings, give or take a Lust, Caution disqualification.
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