No Time To Die - 3 nominations

 

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) Billie Eilish (music and lyric by) Finneas O'Connell (music and lyric by) For song "No Time to Die"

Best Achievement in Visual Effects Charlie Noble Joel Green Jonathan Fawkner Chris Corbould

Best Sound Simon Hayes Oliver Tarney James Harrison Paul Massey Mark Taylor

James Bond has retired from her Majesty's service, but every time he gets out, they pull him back in.  Not just any they from MI6, but the newly dubbed 007 finds him and begs him to return to help with their latest case, sure to end the world.  It is the latest bioweapon which targets an individual's DNA (and that of the person's family) but is harmless to those standing nearby.  As Bond is hunting down his prey, he finds refuge with his former lover and discovers that she also has a child (spoiler alert... the child is Bond's), and he becomes entangled with this family.  As you'd expect, there is a grand confrontation with the big baddie, and while the attack goes as any Bond fan would expect, there is also one final twist that nobody will see coming.

No Time to Die is truly one of the best Bond films I've seen, and Daniel Craig's run as the character ends spectacularly.  Billie Eilish will continue a grand tradition of Bond songs that win the Oscar, 7 so far by my calculation, and the song is pretty great.  In fact, as it opened the film, I turned to the friend I was with and said, "well, that's the Original Song Oscar right there..." (see below to see a video and hear the song). I loved the film, and that's coming from a person who was getting a little bit tired of Bond films.  It helps if you've seen the other Daniel Craig films, but is not terribly necessary.  Totally worth your time.

You're not going to want to miss our Oscars reactions episode on 2 Movie Jews.  Here's that link!

Spectre - 1 nomination

Original Song - "The Writing's On The Wall"- Music and Lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

Spectre is the latest in the James Bond saga, and The Writing's on the Wall is not the first Bond song to be nominated for an Oscar, most recently won by Adele for Skyfall, and is in fact, the 5th Bond song to be nominated.  As always, the song has lots of strings and orchestration, and has suitable drama to do Bond justice.  I must admit that it took my listening to the song a couple of times before I really connected to its appeal.  Now, I can't really get enough of it, especially those amazing Sam Smith falsetto notes.  

At the same time, Spectre was an excellent Bond film.  The next in the Daniel Craig as Bond series, we follow James as he tries to identify and root out the global organization up to no good known as SPECTRE.  The film is a tribute to the early Bond years that were less reliant on gadgets and more compelling because of the stories.  Bond keeps pace with the current world as this evil plot centers around cyber-security and global terrorism.  For a great popcorn film, Spectre has it all.