'Sinners,' 'KPop Demon Hunters,' and 'Wicked' — movie musicals at the GRAMMYs

As I promised three times, I'm examining the visual media GRAMMY nominees for a late Sunday entertainment feature. Here are the nominees!

Best Song Written For Visual Media

A Songwriter(s) award. For a song (melody & lyrics) written specifically for a motion picture, television, video games or other visual media, and released for the first time during the Eligibility Year. (Artist names appear in parentheses.) Singles or Tracks only.

As Alive As You Need Me To Be — From TRON: Ares
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, songwriters (Nine Inch Nails)

Golden — From KPop Demon Hunters
EJAE & Mark Sonnenblick, songwriters (HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI)

I Lied to You — From Sinners
Ludwig Göransson & Raphael Saadiq, songwriters (Miles Caton)

Never Too Late — From Elton John: Never Too Late
Brandi Carlile, Elton John, Bernie Taupin & Andrew Watt, songwriters (Elton John, Brandi Carlile)

Pale, Pale Moon — From Sinners
Ludwig Göransson & Brittany Howard, songwriters (Jayme Lawson)

Sinners — From Sinners
Leonard Denisenko, Rodarius Green, Travis Harrington, Tarkan Kozluklu, Kyris Mingo & Darius Poviliunas, songwriters (Rod Wave)

I'm thrilled to see speculative fiction so well represented — animation, horror, and science fiction! Add Wicked in categories below the jump, and fantasy appears in these awards as well. Superheroes? They should be so lucky; they're having a down year.

While Sinners has one more nomination than KPop Demon Hunters, none of the individual nominees has a second nomination. In contrast, "Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters has four, two of which the Recording Academy mentioned in Feats & Firsts From The 2026 GRAMMYS Nominations: 'KPop Demon Hunters,' Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar, ROSÉ And More.

K-pop joins the history-making fun thanks to ROSÉ and KPop Demon Hunters. ROSÉ's hit collaboration with Bruno Mars, "APT.," and HUNTR/X's chart-topping KPop Demon Hunters smash, "Golden," are the first songs by K-pop artists to be nominated for Song Of The Year, with "APT." also becoming the first song by a K-pop artist to be nominated for Record Of The Year. Both songs are also up for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, marking another milestone: the first time two songs by K-pop artists have been nominated in that Category in the same year.

"Golden" is also nominated for Best Remixed Recording and the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack is nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media. Because it beats all the other nominated songs in total nominations, I'm embedding “Golden” Official Lyric Video | KPop Demon Hunters | Sony Animation first.

We’re going up, up, up. Watch the official lyric video for “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. KPop Demon Hunters is now on Netflix.
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About KPop Demon Hunters:
When they aren't selling out stadiums, KPop superstars Rumi, Mira and Zoey use their secret identities as badass demon hunters to protect their fans from an ever-present supernatural threat. Together, they must face their biggest enemy yet – an irresistible rival boy band of demons in disguise.

Directed by: Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans
Produced by: Michelle Wong
Co-Produced by: Scott Berri, Jacky Priddle
Cast: Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo, Yunjin Kim, Joel Kim Booster, Liza Koshy, with Daniel Dae Kim, Ken Jeong and Byung Hun Lee.

Based on the number of nominations, especially for Song of the Year, "Golden" is my pick to win Best Song Written For Visual Media. It's also Gold Derby's, where every expert, 83.3% of editors, and 86.7% of users have picked it to win. "Golden" should also be a lock to be nominated for Best Original Song or its equivalent at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and Oscars, although Gold Derby doesn't include that category in any of it movie nominations predictions, so I can't rely on them for backup. Speaking of awards, I no longer have Flow penciled in for Best Animated Film at the Saturn Awards, as I wrote in The 2025 Environmental Media Association (EMA) Awards nominees. My vote will be for KPop Demon Hunters, which leads Gold Derby's predictions at all three movie awards shows.

The other songs with support are "Never Too Late" from Elton John: Never Too Late with 16.7% of editors and 5.4% of users picking it, "I Lied to You" from Sinners with 6.1% of users choosing it, and "As Alive As You Need Me To Be" from TRON: Ares with the remaining 0.8% of users supporting it. I'm embedding the videos of these nominees. Sorry, "Pale, Pale Moon" and "Sinners"; Gold Derby doesn't give either of you a chance, so I'm skipping you for now.

I begin the likely runners-up with Elton John, Brandi Carlile - Never Too Late (From The Film “Elton John: Never Too Late”).

‘Never Too Late’ with Brandi Carlile - a new original song taken from the Disney+ documentary, ‘Elton John: Never Too Late’. You can listen to it everywhere now here: https://eltonjohn.lnk.to/nevertoolateID

The official music video includes unseen footage from the documentary 'Elton John: Never Too Late', along with Elton and Brandi recording the track in the studio. After watching an early cut of the work-in-progress documentary, Brandi was inspired to write an original song, taking influence and guidance from Bernie Taupin’s style. Brandi brought the lyrics and concept to Elton to continue co-writing together, with Andrew Watt adding additional writing and production.

I didn't mention it in my Oscar prediction post, but "Never Too Late" earned an Oscar nomination last year, so it's not eligible this year. That's good news for the rest of the field when the Motion Picture Academy announces its nominees.

One of those might be Tron: Ares | Nine Inch Nails | “As Alive As You Need Me To Be”.

The Tron: Ares soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails is out now featuring the song "As Alive As You Need Me To Be".

This song is also nominated for Best Rock Song, an award I think it has a better chance of winning. While this song might earn an Oscar nomination, the movie itself is more likely to earn at least two Razzies, Worst Remake/Ripoff/Sequel and Worst Actor for Jared Leto. On a more positive note, it might still garner some Saturn Award nominations. I doubt I'll vote for it. I predicted "a match between Lilo & Stitch and Jurassic World: Rebirth" in 'Dune: Part Two' at the Critics Choice Super Awards, which I would resolve in favor of the dinosaurs.

Now Sinners | I Lied To You Song | Movie Clip | Warner Bros. Entertainment.

Sinners song "I Lied To You,” performed live by Miles Caton as Sammie. The Sinners Movie Clip shows the raw, emotional blues track that channels the character’s longing, defiance, and dream of escape. Look for the horror adventure movie on digital.

Written by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Göransson, two award-winning multi-hyphenates, “I Lied To You” was filmed and recorded over several days on set, capturing the energy of a live juke joint crowd. It marks Sammie’s breakout as an artist and reflects on the film’s deep connection to the cultural roots and legacy of the blues.

From Ryan Coogler—director of “Black Panther” and “Creed”—and starring Michael B. Jordan comes a new vision of fear: “Sinners.” Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back. “You keep dancing with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home.”

I had no idea the music in Sinners was so good until the nominations were announced. I just thought of it as a horror movie, one that, as I mentioned in 'Sinners' leads Best Horror Movie nominees at the Critics Choice Super Awards, is my current choice for Best Horror Movie at the Saturn Awards.

Follow over the jump for the rest of the nominations for KPop Demon Hunters, Sinners, and Wicked.

The luck of the Irish was with Cillian Murphy at the Oscars for St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I telegraphed the subject of today's post at the end of yesterday's entry.

Stay tuned for the Sunday entertainment feature on St. Patrick's Day. The luck of the Irish for Cillian Murphy at the Oscars, anyone?

Without any further ado, I present Cillian Murphy Wins Best Actor for 'Oppenheimer' | 96th Oscars (2024).

Cillian Murphy wins the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in 'Oppenheimer'.

That's quite the all-star line-up of presenters! Also, Murphy is right to be a very proud Irishman. Thanks to him for dedicating his Oscar to all the peacemakers. The world needs it!

I continue the celebration with Cillian Murphy | Best Actor in a Leading Role | Oscars 2024 Press Room Speech.

Best Actor in a Leading Role 'Oppenheimer' winner Cillian Murphy speaking to acclaimed press moments after Oscar win.

Not only is Murphy a proud Irishman, the Irish are proud of him, as evidenced by the first and last questions from Irish media. This includes Irish-American me. Congratulations to Murphy, Christopher Nolan, Robert Downey, Jr., and all the behind-the-scenes winners of Oscars for Oppenheimer!

Follow over the jump for three Irish-American Oscar winners in two categories.

The story of Loving vs. Virginia on Loving Day

Happy Loving Day!

Each year, National Loving Day on June 12th commemorates the anniversary of the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision Loving vs. Virginia. This decision struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in sixteen U.S. states. The ruling cited, “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause.” In the United States, anti-miscegenation laws were U.S. state laws banning interracial marriage.
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Childhood friends, Mildred and Richard, met when she was 11, and he was 17. Over the years, they began courting. In 1958, when Mildred turned 18, the couple married in Washington and returned to their hometown north of Richmond. However, two weeks later, authorities arrested the couple. Mildred and Richard did not realize the state of Virginia viewed interracial marriage as illegal. The Lovings pleaded guilty, and to avoid jail time, they agreed to leave Virginia.

While living in Washington D.C., the Lovings started legal action by writing to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy referred the case to the American Civil Liberties Union. The Warren Court unanimously ruled in their favor, and the Lovings returned to their Virginia home, where they resided with their three children.

The History Channel tells this story in How Loving v. Virginia Led to Legalized Interracial Marriage.

Learn about the landmark Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which legalized interracial marriage in the United States.

This is the second consecutive day I've featured the 14th Amendment, Section 3 of which I quoted in Noah, Kimmel, and Maher on January 6th hearings yesterday.

The inspiring and aptly named story of the Lovings inspired several films listed on the case's Wikipedia page.

• The first, Mr. and Mrs. Loving (1996), was written and directed by Richard Friedenberg and starred Lela Rochon, Timothy Hutton, and Ruby Dee.[68] According to Mildred Loving, "not much of it was very true. The only part of it right was I had three children."[69][70]
• Nancy Buirski's documentary The Loving Story, premiered on HBO in February 2012[71][72] and won a Peabody Award that year.[73]
• Loving, a dramatized telling of the story based on Buirski's documentary, was released in 2016. It was directed by Jeff Nichols and starred Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as the Lovings. Negga received an Academy Award nomination for her performance.

PBS NewsHour interviewed the director and stars of the most recent film In 'Loving,' an American story about a marriage worth fighting for five-and-one-half years ago.

A new movie, "Loving," tells the real-life story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a Virginia couple who were arrested because interracial marriage was illegal in their home state. They appealed their case and won a landmark civil rights ruling at the Supreme Court. Jeffrey Brown speaks with director Jeff Nichols and others about how they brought the love story to the screen.

As I wrote, inspiring and aptly named, and it happened only 55 years ago. Just the same, the case remains timely, as U.S. Senator from Indiana Mike Braun answered "yes" to being asked “You would be okay with the Supreme Court leaving the issue of interracial marriage to the states?” This was while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearings were going on. At least Senator Braun walked his response back, telling NBC News “There is no question the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind based on race, that is not something that is even up for debate, and I condemn racism in any form...” At least he realized his mistake and tried to correct it. I hope he remembers his second statement for future reference.

That's it for today's Sunday entertainment feature that is also a history lesson. I hope my readers learned something. I know I did.

Insane Clown Posse's lawsuit against the FBI will proceed

Three years ago, I wrote FBI declares ICP and Juggalos a gang; ICP sues.  It turned out that headline was premature.  The scary musical clowns from Detroit were just preparing for a suit.  They didn't actually file until January 2014, as this WXYZ video shows.


The case went to court in June 2014.  The ACLU of Michigan reported their side of the procedding in I'm a Juggalo, Not A Gang Member: Update on the Case.

The ACLU of Michigan was in court on Monday, June 23 where a federal judge heard arguments in our lawsuit with the Insane Clown Posse. The lawsuit challenges the FBI's erroneous and arbitrary designation of all fans of ICP, known as Juggalos, as a "hybrid" criminal gang.

The judge dismissed the suit on the grounds that the plaintiffs did not show any damages.  ICP and the ACLU of Michigan appealed the decision.  Two weeks ago, they got good news.  NBC reported Insane Clown Posse Lawsuit Wins Appeal in Suit Against FBI for 'Gang' Designation.

A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of the Insane Clown Posse in their bid to get the FBI to remove the Detroit hip-hop duo's followers — known as "Juggalos" — from a gang list.
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 The lawsuit, filed in January 2014 with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, was later tossed out by a district court in Michigan after it found the plaintiffs had failed to show they suffered any injuries.

But the federal appeals court on Thursday reversed that district court's decision and ordered that the case be considered.

ICP saw this as a major victory, as seen in Rolling Stone's quote from the band's statement.

“We're thankful that the Juggalo family will finally get their day in court," the duo said in a statement on their official site following Thursday's ruling. "Discrimination against someone based solely upon the type of music they listen to is just flat out wrong and it’s time that the legal system acknowledges that. The FBI's labeling of Juggalos as a gang has wreaked havoc on thousands of lives, resulting in job losses, dismissal from military service, eviction, lost child custody and constant harassment and profiling from law enforcement organizations all across the country."

This could still take a while, as no court date has been set.  Stock up on popcorn, as the suit may be even more entertaining than an ICP concert.

Hot: Puerto Rico and Florida need to prepare for climate change

I began Hot: assisting species in coping with climate change and other recovery stories with a hopeful comment.

Not all stories about climate change are alarms.  Some are about actually doing something.

Too bad more stories aren't like those.  Here are more alarms about people not doing anything.

Associated Press via News Daily: Scientists warn Puerto Rico not prepared for climate change effects

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Environmental officials and scientists warned Friday that Puerto Rico is dangerously vulnerable to the effects of global climate change and urged it to prepare by better-regulated coastal development, and perhaps even by building artificial reefs.

The storm-caused floods and erosion that have always affected the U.S. Caribbean territory are expected to grow worse as temperatures and seas rise, perhaps by 22 inches (57 centimeters) by 2060, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study.

That's not all.  Rolling Stone has a great expose of the effects of climate change just a little bit farther north in Goodbye, Miami.

By century's end, rising sea levels will turn the nation's urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin.

That's an article I've recommended my students read.  It's accompanied by The 10 Dumbest Things Ever Said About Global Warming.

The most egregious myths, misconceptions and flat-out lies about the future of the planet.

I hope people read those and actually do something.  Otherwise, they'll be like the families in the public service announcements that CNN FEMA portrays in Humorous disaster preparedness campaign.*

Does your family have a plan in the event of an emergency? Do you know who will pack supplies and how you'll contact each other if you aren't all at home? No? Neither does the family in this humorous video by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "We couldn't be any less prepared — I'm proud of you guys," says the father. September is FEMA's National Preparedness month and this year's effort to get the message across is choosing humor over high drama. Through a partnership with the Ad Council, the 30-second video is part of a series to help families be better prepared for emergency situations. "Winging it is not an emergency plan," it says. True enough. Watch the video, and if the spirit moves you, make a plan of your own.

May we not be these people.

*The caption for the CNN video I originally had here read "Kelly Wallace explores a poignant and funny new ad campaign that encourages families to prepare for disasters." I like this one better. Besides, CNN took down the original.

Matt Taibbi on KB Toys

I concluded Matt Taibbi and Mike Lofgren are on the same page about the global rich with this programming note.

Taibbi has more to say about Romney and his wealth. In particular, he has a very succinct take-down of what Bain Capital did to KB Toys. I plan on excerpting that in a future entry.

Since the election will be over in a few hours, making this story much less newsworthy, and Bain's mismanagement of KB Toys has been a pet peeve of mine, it's time to post this before it turns into a pumpkin. Follow over the jump for the relevant excerpt from Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.

Matt Taibbi and Mike Lofgren are on the same page about the global rich

Both authors see the main conflict of the near future as one between a global plutocracy and the rest of us. This is remarkable because they are from opposite ends of the political spectrum. First, Matt Taibbi, who concluded Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital with this prediction.

Romney, on the other hand, is a perfect representative of one side of the ominous cultural divide that will define the next generation, not just here in America but all over the world. Forget about the Southern strategy, blue versus red, swing states and swing voters – all of those political clichés are quaint relics of a less threatening era that is now part of our past, or soon will be. The next conflict defining us all is much more unnerving.

That conflict will be between people who live somewhere, and people who live nowhere. It will be between people who consider themselves citizens of actual countries, to which they have patriotic allegiance, and people to whom nations are meaningless, who live in a stateless global archipelago of privilege – a collection of private schools, tax havens and gated residential communities with little or no connection to the outside world.

Thanks to author Robert Frank, I have a name for this archipelago--Richistan. Bloomfield Hills is a island in the archipelago. So is Park City, Utah, and parts of the west side of Los Angeles. I'm familiar with all of them, but those are stories for another time.

Back to Taibbi.

Mitt Romney isn't blue or red. He's an archipelago man. That's a big reason that voters have been slow to warm up to him. From LBJ to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Sarah Palin, Americans like their politicians to sound like they're from somewhere, to be human symbols of our love affair with small towns, the girl next door, the little pink houses of Mellencamp myth. Most of those mythical American towns grew up around factories – think chocolate bars from Hershey, baseball bats from Louisville, cereals from Battle Creek. Deep down, what scares voters in both parties the most is the thought that these unique and vital places are vanishing or eroding – overrun by immigrants or the forces of globalism or both, with giant Walmarts descending like spaceships to replace the corner grocer, the family barber and the local hardware store, and 1,000 cable channels replacing the school dance and the gossip at the local diner.

Obama ran on "change" in 2008, but Mitt Romney represents a far more real and seismic shift in the American landscape. Romney is the frontman and apostle of an economic revolution, in which transactions are manufactured instead of products, wealth is generated without accompanying prosperity, and Cayman Islands partnerships are lovingly erected and nurtured while American communities fall apart. The entire purpose of the business model that Romney helped pioneer is to move money into the archipelago from the places outside it, using massive amounts of taxpayer-subsidized debt to enrich a handful of billionaires. It's a vision of society that's crazy, vicious and almost unbelievably selfish, yet it's running for president, and it has a chance of winning. Perhaps that change is coming whether we like it or not. Perhaps Mitt Romney is the best man to manage the transition. But it seems a little early to vote for that kind of wholesale surrender.

That Taibbi would write this should come as no surprise; the man has been muckraking the rich and powerful for years from a decidedly left-leaning perspective.*

What is a surprise is that Mike Lofgren, a former Republican congressional staffer with impeccable conservative credentials, says very much the same thing and got it published in The American Conservative as The Revolt of the Rich. He opens his piece with this retrospective.

At the end of the Cold War many writers predicted the decline of the traditional nation-state. Some looked at the demise of the Soviet Union and foresaw the territorial state breaking up into statelets of different ethnic, religious, or economic compositions. This happened in the Balkans, the former Czechoslovakia, and Sudan. Others predicted a weakening of the state due to the rise of Fourth Generation warfare and the inability of national armies to adapt to it. The quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan lend credence to that theory. There have been numerous books about globalization and how it would eliminate borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.

I do not mean secession by physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens from time to time—for example, Erik Prince, who was born into a fortune, is related to the even bigger Amway fortune, and made yet another fortune as CEO of the mercenary-for-hire firm Blackwater, moved his company (renamed Xe) to the United Arab Emirates in 2011. What I mean by secession is a withdrawal into enclaves, an internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot.

There may not have been well-developed theories in the social sciences to that effect in 1993, but science fiction was already on the case. Snow Crash, published in 1992, described just such a society in the early 21st Century. From the Wikipedia entry.

The story begins and ends in Los Angeles, which is no longer part of what is left of the United States. The time is not clearly specified but internal references are consistent with a date in the early 21st century. In this hypothetical reality, the federal government of the United States has ceded most of its power to private organizations and entrepreneurs. Franchising, individual sovereignty and private vehicles reign (along with drug trafficking, violent crime, and traffic congestion). Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts while private security guards preserve the peace in gated, sovereign housing developments. Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads rather than the competitors', and all mail delivery is by hired courier. The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds where they transact tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the dynamic society around them.

Much of the territory ceded by the government has been carved up into sovereign enclaves, each run by its own big business franchise (such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong") or the various residential burbclaves (suburban enclaves). This arrangement resembles anarcho-capitalism, a theme Stephenson carries over to his next novel The Diamond Age.

Welcome to the cyberpunk future.

Back to Lofgren, who should have been reading science fiction for an idea of the post-Cold-War future.

Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension—and viable public transportation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?

Being in the country but not of it is what gives the contemporary American super-rich their quality of being abstracted and clueless. Perhaps that explains why Mitt Romney’s regular-guy anecdotes always seem a bit strained.

Ah, yes, Mitt Romney. His presence seems to be the catalyst for these analyses, as he embodies the global rich.

Lofgren sounds a more dire warning than Taibbi, who sees this as the conflict of the future. Lofgren thinks that the future is now.

But in globalized postmodern America, what if this whole vision about where order, stability, and a tolerable framework for governance come from, and who threatens those values, is inverted? What if Christopher Lasch came closer to the truth in The Revolt of the Elites, wherein he wrote, “In our time, the chief threat seems to come from those at the top of the social hierarchy, not the masses”? Lasch held that the elites—by which he meant not just the super-wealthy but also their managerial coat holders and professional apologists—were undermining the country’s promise as a constitutional republic with their prehensile greed, their asocial cultural values, and their absence of civic responsibility.

Lasch wrote that in 1995. Now, almost two decades later, the super-rich have achieved escape velocity from the gravitational pull of the very society they rule over. They have seceded from America.

Welcome to Richistan.


*Taibbi has more to say about Romney and his wealth. In particular, he has a very succinct take-down of what Bain Capital did to KB Toys.  I plan on excerpting that in a future entry.