On Dec. 17, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences released its “shortlists” of movie songs and scores that will be eligible for nomination for this year’s Oscars. It’s the first time since 1979 that they’ve used this process — narrowing voters’ choices from the 156 qualified scores and 90 qualifying songs down to a more manageable 15 scores and 15 songs from which to make their final five choices in each category. Here is my instant analysis for Variety, written in just an hour or two after the lists were revealed. And, interestingly enough, most of the scores were included in my top-10 list written weeks earlier but published that day in Variety‘s Ultimate Awards Guide publication (click on the image to the left). My later, somewhat more detailed, look at the shortlists — and their shortcomings — is here.