I watched most of the Academy Awards last night. At around 11pm I bailed, but I caught all five musical performances. This entry is about the five songs I saw performed last night.
Three of the five songs were just awful. Not average or mediocre but awful. "Happy Working Song", "So Close" and "That's How You Know" from Enchanted were so unappealing, I don't know how they got nominated.
A little better was "Raise It Up" from August Rush. It wasn't anything special, but it didn't suck. Buried in the rubble, however, was a wonderful gem of a song by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. "Falling Slowly", from Once, was a stunning little composition that completely stole the show. If you missed it, here's the performance from last night.
Very nice. I love the fact that he's playing on a beat-up, play-worn guitar (prop or not, though I suspect not).
I hated the brassy orchestral cue right at the end though. It seemed like 'The is the OSCARS, we have to end BIG', and was really out of place. A melodic piano with gentle strings would have been far more appropriate to go out with I think...