PERFECT SWEEP FOR LA LA LAND MUSIC

Congratulations to Justin Hurwitz on his music sweep at the 2017 Oscars, taking home best score and best song prizes! Justin, along with co-writers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, won Best Song - Feature Film at the 2016 Hollywood Music In Media Awards (HMMA) held on Nov. 17, 2016 (three months ago!) for "City of Stars" from La La Land. Nice to see the Academy and the Golden Globes following our lead...again!

The Hollywood Reporter got it right when it wrote in 2015: The annual celebration of music in film, TV, video games, commercials and trailers is one of the better predictors of the best original score and best original song Golden Globe and Oscar categories.

The winner of Best Score - Dramatic Feature at the 2016 HMMAs was Nicholas Britell for his incredibly moving score to Moonlight, the Academy Award winner for Best Picture. Of course, everyone is aware of the crazy snafu that took place in the closing minutes of the Oscar telecast, but it was sort of cathartic in the end. All the hoopla probably brought more awareness to this "little engine that could" film. And that's a GOOD thing!

Also, it's a bit comforting to know that even a multi-million dollar production like the Academy Awards is not immune to production stumbles. Live productions are hard to pull off perfectly. So the next time the HMMA raises the curtain off cue, everyone should have a little more empathy, hopefully.