I can’t tell you how happy I am to see the Cinema Audio Society nominate The Social Network alongside Black Swan, Inception, Shutter Island and True Grit for most outstanding sound mixing of the year (via EW).
Along with the script and editing, the sound work on The Social Network stands out above everything else, namely the Facemash and Ruby Skye scenes. Sure, they are just scenes of a guy blogging and hacking and then two guys just having a conversation in a noisy nightclub, but they are two of the best technically constructed scenes of the year. I just wish the rest of the film had been as interesting as those two scenes were from a filmmaking aspect.
Otherwise, both Black Swan and Inception are obvious noms in this category while Shutter Island and True Grit pretty much fill the four and five slot, though Grit had some subtleties I can appreciate. Primarily one scene I remember where Mattie wakes in a fever and LaBeouf is in her room, but at first all you hear is the striking of a match as LaBeouf lights his pipe.
The other film I particularly thought stood out from a sound perspective was 127 Hours and I’m surprised to see either True Grit or Shutter Island get the nod here over that film.
As for my current Oscar predictions in the category, I had The Social Network in tenth with other omissions here such as TRON: Legacy and Unstoppable above it, thinking it would be overlooked. Happy to see I was wrong… I’ll have to now take another look at those picks. I wonder if the Motion Picture Sound Editors will follow suit.
