CONTENDERS
Oscar voters inexplicably passed over Lennox’s first new song in eight years,“requiem From a Private War,” a memorial to slain journalist Marie Colvin as powerfully played by Rosamund Pike in “A Private War.”
The score to “Annihilation” was perhaps the biggest surprise of the score shortlist. A sci-fihorror film starring Natalie Portman, it was only in theaters for eight weeks and earned low marks in moviegoers’ surveys. Yet its mostly atonal combination of synthesizers, acoustic guitar and eerie voices created by Ben Salisbury (of BBC documentaries) and Geoff Barrow (of trip-hop trio Portishead) clearly impressed voters.
“The Hate U Give” and “On the Basis of Sex” are powerful films about needed change in America: the former, a ripped-from-the-headlines story about a white cop who kills an unarmed black youth; the latter, about crusading lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s landmark sex-discrimination case before the Supreme Court. Kesha’s “Here Comes the Change” from “On the Basis of Sex” missed the cut, but British newcomer Arlissa made the list with her “We Won’t Move” from “The Hate U Give.”