NOT EVEN NOMINATED, PART TWELVE

By Scott Bettencourt

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - Alan Menken (the winner)
BUGSY - Ennio Morricone
THE FISHER KING - George Fenton
JFK - John Williams
THE PRINCE OF TIDES - James Newton Howard

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES - Thomas Newman

This offbeat Southern comedy drama was a surprise Christmas hit, with a structure that moved back and forth between two eras and a plot encompassing spousal abuse, amputation, (implied) lesbianism and even cannibalism. Newman's score was his true breakthrough, his mix of Southern elements and modern rhythms evoking Hans Zimmer's Driving Miss Daisy but with much greater musical and dramatic skill, and an emotional potency that topped all his previous scores and paved the way for him to become the A-list, Oscar bait composer he is today. MCA originally released a song album with a few Newman cues, but months later released a score-only album, which, though now out of print, is one of the absolute must-haves in the Newman canon. (Fried Green Tomatoes received 2 Oscar nominations)

HOOK - John Williams

Hook was an especially surprising omission from the Best Score category, but despite some striking visuals and the inevitably outstanding (if overblown) production values, Hook was one of Spielberg's least satisfying films (it's debatable whether this or The Lost World is his worst -- Hook is often harder to watch, but less slapdash than Lost World -- but for me Hook's grueling Lost Boys scenes give it the edge). Though in context, the Williams score has some atypically misjudged moments -- the Grusin-style light jazz cue for Peter's suburban life is a brave but unsuccessful stylistic choice, and the music for Tinkerbell's early scenes is distractingly busy -- but overall the Hook score is lush, melodic, and impressively varied, with the stirring "You Are the Pan" a particular highlight. Even if Spielberg may have lost interest in the project by the end, Williams clearly hadn't, and lengthy as the score CD is, an expanded edition would be greatly welcome. (5 Oscar nominations)

RAMBLING ROSE - Elmer Bernstein

One of Elmer Bernstein's specialties in the early years of his career was the intimate period drama, which inspired some of his most moving scores -- Summer and Smoke, Desire Under the Elms, and especially his masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird -- but by the early 90s, he was mostly specializing in comedy, thanks to a string of blockbusters including Animal House, Airplane!, Stripes and Ghostbusters, and the small scale "people movie" assignments were going to everyone from Hans Zimmer to Thomas Newman. Rambling Rose got made largely thanks to the clout of its producer, Renny Harlin (who had just directed the smash Die Hard 2), who got the film set up with his then-girlfriend Laura Dern and her mother Diane Ladd to star. The film, based on Calder Willingham's autobiographical novel, also starred Robert Duvall and Lukas Haas, and was a critical smash yet never received the audience it deserved, though both mother and daughter were nominated for their outstanding performances. Bernstein's score was delicate, lovely and even heartbreaking, showing that he had not lost one bit of his ability to score human scaled drama. (2 Oscar nominations)

ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES - Michael Kamen

It was presumably Kamen's successful string of Joel Silver action movies (including the first two Lethal Weapons and Die Hards) that won him the assignment of scoring this revisionist Robin Hood epic, encouraging him to compose on a larger scale than ever (the closest in the Kamen canon would be Baron Munchausen, arguably his finest score). Kamen and director Kevin Reynolds originally wanted to use authentic medieval instruments but the studio insisted on a more Hollywood approach, and the resulting score, while unsurprisingly not quite in the league of Korngold's masterful treatment of the same subject matter, was an enjoyable and melodic work which helped to gloss over the film's deficiencies (especially Kevin Costner's uncommitted performance). The main title theme became the logo music for the film's production company, Morgan Creek, and the soundtrack sold surprisingly well for a score album, helped no doubt by the Kamen co-written Oscar nominated love song, "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You," sung by Bryan Adams. (1 Oscar nomination)

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - Howard Shore

Howard Shore may have felt especially snubbed that year by the lack of a score nomination for Silence, since it was the only one of the five Best Picture nominees not to receive a score nod -- The Fisher King filled its slot. With rare exceptions (The Omen, Amityville Horror, Interview With the Vampire), horror films almost never get noticed by the Academy's Music Branch, and overall Silence did much better in the "prestige" categories -- being the third film to win Picture, Actor, Actress, Screenplay and Director, following It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (now THERE'S a double feature) -- than in the technical categories. Shore's dark, brooding music managed to help build and sustain the film's powerful aura of dread, and caused him to be typecast for years in that genre, scoring films such as Single White Female and Sliver as well as his most chilling work, Seven. (7 Oscar nominations)

BARTON FINK - Carter Burwell

In this, his fourth film for the Coen brothers, Burwell displayed that rare ability to write music that truly gets under the skin of a film without calling attention to itself. Barton Fink is a beautifully crafted, superbly cast dark comedy about a Clifford Odets-like 40s playwright (John Turturro) struggling to write a wrestling film for a crass studio exec (Michael Lerner, in a hysterical, Oscar nominated performance). The film may not be one of the Coens' most thematically coherent -- the analogies to the international situation of the era seem out of place -- but it's one of their most purely entertaining, with dazzling design and cinematography and a remarkable cast, including John Mahoney, Judy Davis, Jon Polito, Tony Shalhoub, Steve Buscemi and John Goodman as Turturro's mysterious fellow tenant at the "Hotel Earle." It was no surprise that the sparse, brief score failed to receive a soundtrack release when the film opened, so it was an even greater thrill when it appeared on CD in 1996, paired with Burwell's Fargo.

CAPE FEAR - Elmer Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann

One of the year's most memorable works of film music was a posthumous collaboration between two of the all-time greats. Bernard Herrmann had scored his final film, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, in 1975 and died in his sleep hours after the final recording session. When Scorsese decided to direct the Wesley Strick scripted remake of Cape Fear (the 1962 adaptation of John D. MacDonald's novel The Executioners, scored by Herrmann), he apparently felt that no current composer could improve on Herrmann's original. Bernstein was the ideal choice to adapt and conduct Herrmann's music - a younger contemporary of Herrmann, he had conducted marvelous re-recordings of Herrmann's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Torn Curtain for his Elmer Bernstein Film Music Collection LP series in the 70s. Scorsese's remake, though impeccably crafted, was less satisfying than the simpler original. While Nick Nolte was excellent as the conflicted hero, Robert DeNiro's loud, busy (and Oscar nominated) performance lacked the effortless menace of Robert Mitchum in the original, and the climax seemed to go on forever. Bernstein's adaptation of Herrmann's music was wonderfully true to the original while omitting the original score's warmer passages, and he managed to work in some of the rejected Torn Curtain score for the finale. It was a thrill to hear Herrmann's music blaring forth from Dolby speakers in a brand new recording, and even mainstream critics were unanimous in their approval.

THE MAN IN THE MOON - James Newton Howard

Howard's score for The Prince of Tides, directed by Barbra Streisand (whom he was romantically involved with at the time) was his breakthrough work in the eyes of Hollywood, a Best Picture nominee which earned him his first Best Score nomination, but his score for Robert Mulligan's too little seen The Man in the Moon was far superior, a melodic and understated work which is still one of Howard's most emotionally satisfying scores. Having directed To Kill a Mockingbird and The Other, it should be no surprise that Mulligan would be the right choice for this small town coming of age story -- about two sisters who fall for the same neighbor boy, leading to heartbreak, tragedy and reconciliation -- but the star player was Reese Witherspoon, whose performance as the younger sister was so natural and unaffected that one critic remarked that it made the film seem like a documentary. While both Howard and Witherspoon have moved onto bigger scale, broader work (which is no criticism of her dazzling performance in Election), this modest, beautifully made film was a milestone in both careers, and is highly recommended.

STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERD COUNTRY - Cliff Eidelman

Similar to the way that sequels are often essentially remakes of the original film, the history of The Undiscovered Country is in many ways a remake of the genesis of The Wrath of Khan -- a big budget Star Trek film (The Motion Picture, The Final Frontier), scored by Jerry Goldsmith, proved to be a creative disappointment (if not musically), leading the producers to hire Nicholas Meyer to direct a more tightly budgeted follow-up and to hire a younger (and cheaper) composer (in fact, Meyer actually wanted to call Wrath of Khan "The Undiscovered Country"). Horner's score for Khan proved to be his breakthrough work, a rousing and vigorous score that may be the most accessible of the entire series. Eidelman took a more somber approach, as befitting the "swan song" nature of the film. His Kirk theme speaks more to the character's coming to terms with his life than with his love of adventure, and the main title is a brooding, slowly building cue paying homage to Holst's Mars, evoking the film's interplanetary conspiracy plot. Eidelman also composed a theme for Spock which is a nice complement to Horner's theme for the Vulcan, but though the score was well regarded it unfortunately failed to do for its composer what Khan's did for Horner, and sadly Eidelman has had little chance since then (except for Christopher Columbus: The Discovery) to work on such a grand and adventurous scale.

WARLOCK - Jerry Goldsmith

Warlock was originally set for a U.S. release in 1989 but its distributor, New World Pictures, self-destructed and it was finally released by Trimark in 1991. The film -- directed by Steve Miner and written by David Twohy, who would later co-write The Fugitive and Waterworld and direct the Riddick films -- is essentially a supernatural reworking of The Terminator, with witch-hunter Richard E. Grant time traveling to the present in pursuit of demonic Julian Sands. The film is clumsy and not especially scary but both Grant and Sands play their roles with surprising conviction, and Goldsmith's score, though not one of his classics, has an unexpected somberness that suggests he responded to the film more than most audiences did, giving the warlock a sinister six-note motif and Grant's hero a dignified main theme. The smaller than usual orchestra and the heavy use of synths may disappoint some collectors but help give the score its own sound distinctive from Goldsmith's other horror works, and the Intrada CD, released in 1989, has a generous 54 minutes of the score and is well worth hunting down.

Angelo Badalamenti's score for the arthouse thriller THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS was exotic if a little monotonous.

Elmer Bernstein adapted opera music for the period farce OSCAR, and gave RAGE IN HARLEM a brassy score pleasingly reminiscent of his early jazz scores.

Bruce Broughton continued to be typecast as a family movie composer with ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS, Paramount's failed attempt to make a feature film on a TV-style schedule.

Carter Burwell wrote a pleasant if forgettable score for one of his few mainstream hits, the Michael J. Fox comedy DOC HOLLYWOOD.

Bill Conti returned to sports films with the comedy NECESSARY ROUGHNESS, and wrote a disappointingly dull score for John Frankenheimer's YEAR OF THE GUN.

Michael Convertino gave the unjustly forgotten drama THE DOCTOR a restrained and appealingly uncliched score.

Georges Delerue gave CURLY SUE (which is so far the last film to be directed by 80s staple John Hughes) much lovelier music than it deserved. He scored two films for Bruce Beresford, the African-set MISTER JOHNSON and the Brian Moore adaptation BLACK ROBE, a gripping drama whose impressive score never overpowered the action.

Loek Dikker's symphonic score for the slick thriller BODY PARTS was one of the year's great unheralded pleasures, reminiscent of such brooding works as Shore's The Fly and Young's Hellraiser.

Patrick Doyle's second score for director Kenneth Branagh, DEAD AGAIN, begins with a pleasingly robust main title but stays at the same energy level for too much of the score, giving the already uneven thriller an unneeded touch of silliness. His melodic adventure score for the Disney film SHIPWRECKED became a collector's item when the label cut the CD's release short after the movie came and went.

Cliff Eidelman's comedy score for the John Candy soap spoof DELIRIOUS was overly busy and a rare creative misstep in this composer's career.

Brad Fiedel reused his distinctive Terminator theme for the lavish, hugely successful TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, and his synth dominated action score was effective but featured no new themes as memorable as the original.

Robert Folk wrote an energetic adventure score for BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME, not using any of Lee Holdridge's themes from the original film. He scored yet another fantasy adventure sequel, THE NEVER ENDING STORY II: THE NEXT CHAPTER, and wrote a rousing adventure score for the teen thriller TOY SOLDIERS.

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY was one of Jerry Goldsmith's biggest boxoffice hits of his decade, but his score, marked by a Jagged Edge-ish main theme, was effective but not especially inspired, and his music for NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER was even more forgettable.

Miles Goodman tried to emulate the classic Hollywood sound for HE SAID, SHE SAID but never found quite the right tone.

The normally less-than-prolific Michael Gore had two films out that year, giving the Albert Brooks comedy DEFENDING YOUR LIFE a charming and tuneful comedy score (aided by orchestrator-conductor Shirley Walker), and a less memorable score for the Demi Moore vehicle THE BUTCHER'S WIFE.

Dave Grusin's contribution to the enjoyably old-fashioned showbiz drama FOR THE BOYS was overshadowed by Bette Midler's songs, though Midler did perform an original Grusin composition, "Dreamland."

Marvin Hamlisch made a rare return to features with an unmemorable score for the boxoffice disappointment FRANKIE AND JOHNNY.

James Horner's score for THE ROCKETEER gave the film exactly the kind of symphonic, comic book energy it needed, though the opening of the score had an oddly modern sound, as if the filmmakers were afraid the '30s setting would alienate young moviegoers. Horner mixed his popular American Tail themes with lively Western pastiche music (and a rather too close homage to Bernstein's West Side Story) for AN AMERICAN TAIL: FIEVEL GOES WEST, which featured fewer weak songs (like "There Are No Cats in America") than the original and included a new song, "Dreams to Dream," whose title was later used for the James Horner fan magazine. The courtroom story CIVIL ACTION was one of director Michael Apted's most underrated films, but Horner's dull synth based score added little to the drama, and his synth score for MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS is one of his most obscure works of the era. His score for ONCE AROUND was unusually sparse, but the few cues were lovely and moving.

GRAND CANYON was the first of five (so far) films James Newton Howard has scored for director Lawrence Kasdan, and his score seemed a bit rushed and obvious though the climactic "Grand Canyon Fanfare" was one of the first big scale orchestral pieces in his oeuvre. He reunited with Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts for the uncertain romantic tragedy DYING YOUNG, while his score for the hit MY GIRL lacked the deftness and delicacy of his Man in the Moon score. He scored Irwin Winkler's directorial debut, GUILTY BY SUSPICION, giving the McCarthy era drama a pleasingly noirish sound, while one of his more forgettable assignments was the John Goodman vehicle KING RALPH.

Mark Isham wrote one of his most melodic and satisfying scores for Robert Benton's film of E.L. Doctorow's BILLY BATHGATE, but the lavish, engrossing film was an expensive, star-studded flop. He worked in a more typical jazz mode for Jodie Foster's directorial debut, LITTLE MAN TATE, and provided moody accompaniment for Alan Rudolph's MORTAL THOUGHTS. His score for the silly POINT BLANK better reflected the villain's Zen philosophy than the director's frenetic visual style.

Maurice Jarre wrote a warm, tuneful score for Chris Columbus' clumsy comedy-drama ONLY THE LONELY.

Michael Kamen gave Nicholas Meyer's spy thriller COMPANY BUSINESS his usual energy and craft but the score could have benefited from a stronger melodic spine. He collaborated with Robert Kraft on the notorious flop HUDSON HAWK, writing some genuinely charming cues. He wrote pleasingly frenetic music for another comedy flop, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, and gave THE LAST BOY SCOUT tension and a somber mood.

Sylvester Levay's score for the Top Gun parody HOT SHOTS! was, fittingly enough, virtually indistinguishable from a serious score of the genre.

Henry Mancini scored one of his final films for Blake Edwards, giving SWITCH a nicely wry main theme.

Steven Soderbergh's KAFKA had a more traditional score than you'd expect from the filmmaker, thanks to his regular composer Cliff Martinez who seemed to be paying homage to Anton Karas' The Third Man.

Brian May became the sixth composer for the Elm Street franchise, giving FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE his energetic (if familiar) sound.

Ennio Morricone scored one of his few British films, giving the boxing drama CROSSING THE LINE his usual bold and distinctive style.

John Morris scored his final film for Mel Brooks, LIFE STINKS, which was the director's first attempt at a non-parody comedy in decades but was not a memorable effort from either talent.

David Newman's effectively emotional score for PARADISE was unfairly panned by mainstream critics, and like so much of Newman's work has never seen a CD release. Newman topped his clever Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure score with the underrated sequel, BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY, featuring especially fine scoring for the Heaven sequence. He also reunited with director Stephen Herek for the teen comedy DON'T TELL MOM THE BABYSITTER'S DEAD, and his other comedy scores of the year include the Baldwin-Basinger vehicle THE MARRYING MAN and the failed sci-fi comedy MEET THE APPLEGATES. His score for OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY (apparently a last minute replacement) never found the right tone for this disappointing adaptation of the stage smash. The remarkably prolific composer also scored two little seen films, the animated ROVER DANGERFIELD and the baseball story TALENT FOR THE GAME.

Thomas Newman wrote one of his few thriller scores for DECEIVED, with a main theme reminiscent of the music of his brother David. Newman turned out one of his weakest efforts for CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, but it's hard to imagine what music would have been right for this dismal, long-on-the-shelf John Hughes production. He also scored Leonard Schrader's little seen directorial debut NAKED TANGO, and wrote an effectively spooky score for THE RAPTURE, whose quietly sinister piano motif would become a staple of Newman suspense music.

Michael Nyman had two of his Peter Greenaway films released in the U.S. in 1991: the smug DROWNING BY NUMBERS and the visually striking but largely impenetrable PROSPERO'S BOOKS.

Don Peake wrote the replacement score for Wes Craven's THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, and in a rare move Bay Cities released it on CD with Graeme Revell's rejected score.

Basil Poledouris gave the final (so far) John Milius film, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER a suitably stirring symphonic score, but his synth based score for HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN was a big disappointment. He returned to familiar territory with RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON, and his lovely score referenced his original Blue Lagoon music without overusing it. His first rate score for WHITE FANG was originally replaced by a new Hans Zimmer score, but the studio ended up playing mix-and-match with the two scores, ultimately using the majority of Poledouris' work.

Zbigniew Preisner scored the little seen John Irvin drama EMIMENT DOMAIN, while his lyrical score for the Kieslowski film THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE is still probably his most popular work, and he also scored the Oscar nominated EUROPA, EUROPA. These arthouse hits probably led to his first American film, AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD, but he was disappointed when not only when some of his music was replaced with cues by the film's music editor, Robert Randles, but also when the score album freely mixed the his cues with Randles'.

Arthur B. Rubinstein wrote a deft urban action comedy score for THE HARD WAY, with especially enjoyable cues for the finale.

Ryuichi Sakamoto provided his usual lushly melodramatic sound for Pedro Almodovar's HIGH HEELS.

Philippe Sarde's score for the dreadful sci-fi thriller EVE OF DESTRUCTION was enjoyably odd, though his main theme was a retread of his music for Ennemis Intimes.

Lalo Schifrin's score for F/X 2 was a huge disappointment, lacking both the distinctiveness of his classic work and the impressively symphonic sound of Bill Conti's original F/X score.

John Scott's LIONHEART (the Van Damme vehicle, not the Franklin J. Schaffner adventure) was a lively mix of traditional orchestral scoring and more pop oriented elements.

Eric Serra's percussive, offbeat score for the French smash LA FEMME NIKITA is probably still his most popular score over a decade later.

Marc Shaiman wrote his finest score for THE ADDAMS FAMILY, deftly providing the lavish dark comedy with a lush new theme, an original song "Mamushka" (lyrics by the great Comden & Green) and the inevitable use of Vic Mizzy's classic TV theme. Shaiman mixed Western pastiche and even gospel elements for the smash hit CITY SLICKERS, and also provided music adaptation for the Paul Mazursky comedy SCENES FROM A MALL.

Jonathan Sheffer wrote a disappointing comedy score for PURE LUCK, featuring an unmemorable main theme by Danny Elfman.

Howard Shore gave the flat remake of A KISS BEFORE DYING a fittingly brooding and tense score, while his jazzy, unsettling music for NAKED LUNCH featured a collaboration with saxophonist Ornette Coleman.

Alan Silvestri scored the John-Hughes-production-of-the-week DUTCH, which teamed Ed O'Neill and Ethan Embry (then Ethan Randall) years before they starred in the modern version of Dragnet, and wrote in a warm, Williams-ish vein for the hit remake of FATHER OF THE BRIDE. His SOAPDISH score seemed a little too temp-track derived, while his RICOCHET music was largely generic Silvestri action but no less enjoyable for it, and his replacement score for SHATTERED had a pleasant Euro-thriller sound.

Christopher Young wrote an evocative if aimless score for the frustrating Richard Ford adaptation BRIGHT ANGEL.

Hans Zimmer was hired early enough on BACKDRAFT to score the film's trailer, and his score is a favorite among his fans though one of his themes is distractingly reminiscent of George Fenton's Memphis Belle. He wrote a fittingly restrained and twangy score for THELMA & LOUISE, which helped cement his working relationship with director Ridley Scott, while his replacement score for REGARDING HENRY sounded better on the CD than in the film, where it only made a dull film duller.

THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS (Graeme Revell)
THE PRINCE OF TIDES (John Barry)*
REGARDING HENRY (Georges Delerue)
SHATTERED (Angelo Badalamenti)
WHITE FANG (Hans Zimmer)

*I don't know how much or little Barry wrote for the film before he left the project, but he turned one theme into a piece called "Moviola" and later used it in his Across the Sea of Time score.

The Addams Family, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, At Play In the Fields of the Lord, Backdraft, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time, Billy Bathgate, Bingo, Black Robe, Body Parts, Bright Angel, Cape Fear, City Slickers, Class Action, Company Business, Crossing the Line, Curly Sue, Dark Obsession, Dead Again, Defending Your Life, Doc Hollywood, The Double Life of Veronique, Drowning By Numbers, Dying Young, Eve of Destruction, Father of the Bride, Freddy's Dead: The final Nightmare, Fried Green Tomatoes, Grand Canyon, Guilty By Suspicion, The Hard Way, High Heels, Hook, Hot Shots!, Hudson Hawk, The Indian Runner, The Inner Circle, Kafka, La Femme Nikita, Lionheart, Little Man Tate, The Man in the Moon, The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear, Naked Lunch, The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter, Not Without My Daughter, Once Around, Only the Lonely, Oscar, Pastime, The People Under the Stairs, Prospero's Books, Pure Luck, Rage in Harlem, Rambling Rose, The Rapture, Regarding Henry, Ricochet, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Rocketeer, Rush, Shattered, Shipwrecked, Showdown in Little Tokyo, The Silence of the Lambs, Sleeping With the Enemy, Soapdish, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Switch, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Toy Soldiers, Warlock, Year of the Gun.

SUBJECT: Not Even Nominated: 1990
 
Michael Small broke out of his usual suspense film typecasting with two projects -- MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON was a big scale historical adventure and though he tried hard he didn't seem quite suited to the milieu...

Stirring, evocative main theme though -- a thinking person's adventure movie music!

SUBJECT: Spoilers...
 
You write about Presumed Innocent: "For those who haven't seen the film, definitely don't read the cue titles on the CD, which features one of the worst spoilers in the history of Williams soundtracks."
 
Yes, that's right, concerning Williams' soundtracks... But as my concern, I still have a great contempt toward the jerk -- even if it's J. N. Howard himself -- who wrote that infamous title to The Sixth Sense's 11th track...
 
Great topics anyway, these "Not even nominated" articles!

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