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No Time to Die won the best song Oscar Sunday night.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell received Oscars for writing the title song to the 25th James Bond film. It was the third straight best song Oscar for the Bond film series, following 2012’s Skyfall and Writing’s on the Wall from 2015’s SPECTRE.
No Time to Die also had been nominated in the sound and visual effects categories. Dune won those Oscars.
The show’s in memoriam segment also included Leslie Bricusse, who co-wrote the lyrics for Goldfinger’s title song and who wrote the lyrics for the title song of You Only Live Twice.
The Oscars telecast also included a tribute to the Bond series via film clips while the title song for Live And Let Die played.
No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film, received three Oscar nominations, the Academy of Motion PIcture Arts and Sciences announced today.
The Bond film was nominated for best song, visual effects, and sound.
Hans Zimmer, the lead composer for No Time to Die, was nominated for Dune instead.
No Time to Die is only the third Bond film to receive multiple Oscar nominations. The others were The Spy Who Loved Me (three nominations, no wins) and Skyfall (five nominations, two wins). The 2021 film is the third consecutive Bond movie to be nominated for best song. Both Skyfall and SPECTRE won in that category.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Bond’s home studio, had conducted a blitz seeking nominations. There had been speculation that genre movies such as No Time to Die and Spider-Man No Way Home might be included in the 10 best picture nominees.
It was not to be. Neither film was nominated. Here is the list of the 10 nominees:
This is intended as a very quick review of No Time to Die. No spoilers here but I’m preparing a post that deals with the No. 1 spoiler.
After all this time, was it worth it? Yes, very much so. I am going back and forth whether it’s a B-Plus or A-Minus.
If you’re a fan of Daniel Craig/Bond, you’ll love it. If you don’t care for Craig/Bond, it won’t change your mind.
No Time to Die was in a position to take liberties knowing it would be the last movie featuring Craig, who is adored by Eon boss Barbara Broccoli. Knowing that, you can take more chances. That’s all I will say until later.
The movie is mostly executed extremely well. The score by Hans Zimmer (and Steve Mazzaro) is better than I thought it would be. They even found a way to get Mazzaro into the main titles.
It weaves bits from the title song by Billie Eilish and Finneas throughout. We haven’t experienced that so much since 2006’s Casino Royale, where David Arnold did the score and co-wrote the title song.
As I get older, I tend to appreciate the more talkative scenes more. One of my favorite scenes is when Bond, gone from MI6 for years, goes to M’s office. It’s quite good, with both sides of the conversation getting in their points.
And, for those who were concerned Bond was emasculated in this movie? Well, it didn’t happen. The trailers didn’t give away everything.
The movie mostly moved faster than a film running 163 minutes. It could have tightened some action scenes. But, these days, you can say that about most movies.
Hours after I saw the movie, I began to think about plot holes, questions, etc. But it’s a success when you don’t ponder that during the movie.
My main concern, if you want to call it that, is the movie is too self-referential. To examine that in more detail requires spoilers.
The song was performed by Billie Eilish and written by her and her brother, Finneas O’Connell. It won in the category of “Best Song Written For Visual Media.”
The song has been out for a long time. The title song debuted while the movie itself has been delayed multiple times. Fans have had ample chances to listen to the song. Eilish and her brother have commented in multiple interviews how the movie influenced the song.
No Time to Die is scheduled to come out on Sept. 30 in the U.K. and other countries. It will reach the U.S. and North America about a week later.
Here’s the tweet that the Grammys sent out on Sunday afterenoon:
Congrats Best Song Written For Visual Media winner – 'NO TIME TO DIE [FROM NO TIME TO DIE]' @billieeilish and @finneas ✨ #GRAMMYs
The title song for No Time to Die will get even more exposure before the 25th James Bond film goes into theaters.
Performer Billie Eilish scored a Grammy nomination for the movie’s title song in the category of Best Song Written for Visual Media. The award show is at the end of January.
Eilish’s involvement with the song has been a buzz among Bond fans for almost a year. The MI6 James Bond website said Jan. 12 of this year that Eilish would become the youngest performer of a Bond song.
Eon Productions confirmed the news on Jan. 14. The song itself bowed on Feb. 13. This was when No Time to Die was scheduled to be released in April.
Then, No Time to Die was postponed to November. The song’s music video came out on Oct. 1.
On Oct. 2, the film’s release date was pushed back to April 2021. Nevertheless, Eilish performed the song on Oct. 5 on The Tonight Show in the U.S. The movie’s star, Daniel Craig, appeared on the same telecast.
The April-November-April delays stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic. But, with the Emmys telecast, the song No Time to Die will be one of the most exposed Bond title songs in the history of the film series.
No Time to Die was featured on the Oct. 5 installment of The Tonight Show before being put back on the shelf until its new April 2021 release date.
The main new aspect was a brief clip. It’s from the Matera sequence and a bit more could be viewed of the scene where where Daniel Craig’s Bond jumps off a bridge. There was a brief chance to sample the Steve Mazzaro-Hans Zimmer score. (Remember, Zimmer told Variety that Mazzaro should get top billing. I am merely following his wishes.)
Phil Nobile Jr., editor of Fangoria magazine, posted the clip on Twitter. I am not embedding it, particularly if it gets yanked.
(UPDATE: Well, The Tonight Show posted it on YouTube. So no reason to be coy.)
In an interview with host Jimmy Fallon, Craig said the delay was so the 25th James Bond film could be shown worldwide. Now, Craig said, was not the time. The comment was a variation on the Oct. 2 announcement that the movie was being pushed back.
Craig also said he returned for a fifth outing as Bond because there was a story left to tell. This was similar to previous interviews.
The Tonight Show interview also had a 15-year-old anecdote about how Craig had never had a martini until just before the announcement he was taking over the Bond role.
Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas conducted what Fallon hyped as “the first U.S. performance” of the movie’s title song. It sounded pretty similar to all those other performances from months ago when the song first debuted. But the camera work was more interesting than the music video that came out last week.
Tonight also carried a new No Time to Die spot (now saying “in theaters 2021”) as well as Bond-themed Omega and Heineken commercials.
No Time to Die’s music video debuted today. It includes some additional shots from the movie, mostly of Daniel Craig and Lea Seydoux as James Bond and Madeline Swann.
The song itself came out months ago. Performer Billie Eilish is photographed in black and white.
I could add more but the spoiler adverse would dislike it even with the usual advisory. So you can view it for yourself below if you wish.
Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell did interviews on morning shows in the U.K. and the U.S. and provided a few additional details about the No Time to Die title song they co-wrote with Eilish performing.
BBC Breakfast: O’Connell said “we did go to re-listen to everything,” referring to past Bond songs to make sure they weren’t copying “other great songs.”
Eilish said she and her brother had a meeting Eon chief Barbara Broccoli in Ireland in early September.
“She basically gave us a little hint of what the first scene, what’s happening.” Broccoli later sent the first part of the script. “We had what the audience will have watched before they hear the song…It was really, really helpful. It really wrote the song for us.”
The siblings also said they had writer’s block initially. It was after that they wrote the song in three days.
Each also said star Daniel Craig had a big say in the song. “If Daniel doesn’t like it, you don’t get the job,” O’Connell said.
Toward the end, Eilish said she was scared about performing at the BRITS later in the day because “I have to hit a note I’ve never hit before.”
Good Morning America: O’Connell said the duo had “essentially total creative freedom in the writing process.”
Finneas O’Connell, older brother and collaborator of Billie Eilish
Finneas O’Connell, co-writer of the No Time to Die title song with his sister Billie Eilish, described the creative process in an interview with GQ.
“We wrote No Time to Die on a tour bus. Specifically, in the bunks of our tour bus,” told the magazine.
“We were given the first 20 pages of the script. I guess that’s up to the point when the song comes in during the movie, right? That’s how all the Bond films open up.
“So we were able to read the first 20 pages, which was obviously incredible. It gave us such a good steer and such insight into where the song would fall, and the tone. It makes it easier than having to write the whole song based on the entire movie; or in fact none of the movie.”
That sounds like the duo read the script’s pre-titles sequence. The general rule of thumb is that one page of script equals about one minute of screen time.
That suggests the pre-titles sequence may run about 20 minutes, although no one will know for sure until editing of the movie is complete.
O’Connell described what happened next.
“So Billie and I wrote the song, recorded the demo, sent it to them and then we finished it in London with Hans Zimmer doing the orchestral arrangements and also Johnny Marr from The Smiths,” he said. “I mean, James Bond? Hans Zimmer? Johnny Marr? Mind blowing.”
The interview covers other subjects. You can read the interview by CLICKING HERE.
The release of No Time to Die’s title song generated debate among Bond fans. But the Billie Eilish number, which she performed and co-wrote, generated rave reviews from some established outlets.
What follows is a sampling.
BRENNA EHRLICH, ROLLING STONE: “Is this a soundtrack for exploding cars and sharks with lasers on their heads? Hell no. It’s a soundtrack befitting a Bond for our times, played by a worn-out Daniel Craig facing down his fifth and final outing as 007. Bond always gets the girl, but it never ends well. As such, Eilish’s acceptance of a lonely life is really kind of fitting.”
CHRIS WILLMAN, VARIETY: “‘No Time to Die’ is one of the better Bond songs of the last 25 or 30 years, coming in ahead of a lot of entries that seemed promising and didn’t really work: besides Garbage’s and (Sheryl) Crow’s, there were underwhelming efforts from Chris Cornell and the team of Jack White and Alicia Keys, worthy artists that tried to contemporize the idea of what a Bond theme should be, at their mortal peril. (The less remembered about Madonna turning Bond techno, the better.)”
MARK SAVAGE, BBC: Billie Eilish “is known for her intimate, designed-for-headphone vocal style, but she rises to the challenge of the song’s soaring climax, with her early vulnerability transforming into strength and resolve. It’s easily the most audacious and atmospheric take on the Bond theme in recent memory.”
ALEXIS PETRIDRIS, THE GUARDIAN: “Yet Eilish has stamped her own identity on the song. The tendency for vocalists tackling a Bond theme is to belt it out, as if in homage to the most famous Bond singer of the lot: Shirley Bassey is known for many things, but subtle understatement isn’t among them. Eilish, however, opts for her standard close-mic approach in which surliness does battle with vulnerability.”
Your mileage may vary. Among fans, the ones who liked the song really, really liked it while among fans who didn’t care it, they really, really didn’t like it.
The Spy Command 