A lot of people were okay with Interstellar‘s sound mix, but a lot of others weren’t — let’s be honest. People were tweeting from sea to shining sea when Chris Nolan‘s film opened in early November, complaining that much of the dialogue was buried by Hans Zimmer‘s score. It was enough of an issue that Nolan felt obliged to address it in an 11.15 Hollywood Reporter interview with Carolyn Guardiana. In the piece Nolan more or less said, “Yeah, it’s a little bit different and so you can’t hear every single line of dialogue, but that’s how I decided to design the sound….deal with it.”

I was therefore surprised — the actual word is stunned — to see Interstellar‘s sound mix as one of Gold Derby‘s Oscar contenders for Best Sound Mix. An explanation from GD editor Tom O’Neil: “There’s no question that Interstellar had the most widely criticized sound design of all the 2014 films, but the Oscars are never about deciding the best of anything. We’re not suggesting that Academy members are going to vote for it for quality, but they do often vote for the loudest. It should probably not be nominated for sound mix, but there’s this classic Oscar bias for loudness so that’s why it’s listed.”