Composing Greatness: #4.The Freshman Class of the 2010's - "Life of Pi" (2012)

Scene from Life of Pi

Welcome to Composing Greatness: a column dedicated to exploring the work of film composers. This will specifically focus on the films that earned them Oscar nominations while exploring what makes it so special. This will be broken down into a look at the overall style, interesting moments within the composition, and what made the score worth nominating in the first place. This will also include various subcategories where I will rank the themes of each film along with any time that the composer actually wins. This is a column meant to explore a side of film that doesn't get enough credit while hopefully introducing audiences to an enriched view of more prolific composers' work. This will only cover scores/songs that are compiled in an easily accessible format (so no extended scores will be considered). Join me every Sunday as I cover these talents that if you don't know by name, you recognize by sound.

Birthday Take: Ang Lee in "Life of Pi" (2012)

Scene from Life of Pi

Welcome to The Birthday Take, a column dedicated to celebrating Oscar nominees and winners' birthdays by paying tribute to the work that got them noticed. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive retrospective, but more of a highlight of one nominated work that makes them noteworthy. The column will run whenever there is a birthday and will hopefully give a dense exploration of the finest performances and techniques applied to film. So please join me as we blow out the candles and dig into the delicious substance.

Review: Lose Yourself in the Breathtaking "Life of Pi"

Suraj Sharma

*NOTE: This review was originally published on CinemaBeach, a website dedicated to reviewing independent and independent-minded movies in the Southern California area. I review movies there every Thursday. Also, not covered in this article is the Oscar chances. I believe that this deserves many awards, including a Best Picture slot and I believe that Suraj Sharma deserves a Best Actor nomination over Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)

Social commentary has long been a component of great movies. However, commentary on spirituality is one of the least profitable, being reserved for smaller films like Red State and The Way. Religions may be practiced by over five billion people, but the box office receipts rarely reflect them as the big moneymakers. With this in mind, it is an interesting gamble to see director Ang Lee’s $100 million epic Life of Pi centered on a story that is referenced as being so incredible, it will make you believe in god. Is the CGI-heavy adaptation of Yann Martel’s best seller capable of transcending beyond believers, or is it just a beautiful piece of spiritual propaganda?

Can "Life of Pi" put Ang Lee back in the Best Picture Race?

Suraj Sharma

Update: I have written a review for the movie here.

Recently at the New York Film Festival, we saw the opening of director Ang Lee's Life of Pi. Critics like Jack Giroux have called it near perfect while Katey Rich was taken away by the visuals and believes that it will dominate the visual effects categories. Still, can this $100 production of Yann Martel's bestseller book bring Lee back to the forefront of the Oscar season, or is the idea of a man on a raft with a tiger not able to compete with Argo, The Master, and other high concept, zeitgeist-stemming movies?