THE TOP FORTY COUNTDOWN 2004: PART FIVE

By Scott Bettencourt

AGE: Unavailable
REPRESENTATION: First Artists Management
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: Stephen Kay
BACKGROUND: Rock musician
FAN FAVORITE: Dawn of the Dead
TYPECAST IN: African-American cinema
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Dawn of the Dead--56 (as of 4/18/04)
2. You Got Served--40
3. Kingdom Come--23
4. Half Past Dead--15
5. Get Carter--14

Bates first received notice from the industry and film music fans for his score to the Stallone version of Get Carter, but while he provided that over-directed and unnecessary remake with some efficient techno-action music, the film was a flop and the most memorable music in the score was the use of Roy Budd's theme from the original film. After a few years of scoring films which garnered little attention, his year Bates has resurfaced with two modest hits -- the breakdance vehicle You Got Served (I'm guessing his score has much less prominence than the songs -- have any of our readers actually seen this film?), and the snappy, stylish remake of Dawn of the Dead.

WHAT'S NEXT: Baadassss!

AGE: Unavailable
REP: Kraft-Engel
RELATIONSHIPS: Paul Thomas Anderson
BACKGROUND: Rock singer-songwriter, music producer (for Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple)
FAN FAVORITE: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
TYPECAST IN: Offbeat comedy-drama
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--28 (as of 4/18/04)
2. Magnolia--22
3. Punch-Drunk Love--17

Brion's career as a music producer for such popular artists as Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple made him an inevitable choice to score writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's films -- Anderson is a devotee of Mann and a one-time paramour of Apple. Brion co-scored Anderson's first film, Hard Eight, with Michael Penn (Mannís husband), and was the solo composer on his third, Magnolia, where his orchestral score was given surprising prominence. His truly off-beat score for Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love received excellent reviews from mainstream critics, and this year he follows up with his best score yet, for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and with director David O. Russell's first film since Three Kings, the all-star "existential detective" comedy I Heart Huckabee's.

WHAT'S NEXT: I Heart Huckabee's

AGE: 42
REP: UTA
BACKGROUND: European cinema
FAN FAVORITE: Girl With a Pearl Earring
TYPECAST IN: Period drama
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Girl With a Pearl Earring--11
2. Read My Lips--1
3. The Luzhin Defense--1

This French composer has been highly prolific in Europe and has had several soundtracks released, but it's taken a while for him to get any attention in the U.S. His first project with likely cross-Atlantic appeal was The Revengers' Comedies, an Alan Aykbourn adaptation with a name cast (Sam Neill, Helena-Bonham Carter, Kirstin Scott Thomas, Rupert Graves), but Miramax left it on the shelf for years before releasing it directly to cable as Sweet Revenge. The Nabokov adaptation The Luzhin Defense and the clever French thriller Read My Lips each received a modest U.S. release, but Desplat's big American breakthrough finally came with Girl With a Pearl Earring. His lush, minimalism tinged score was one of 2003's best, and even received a Golden Globe nomination (admittedly, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association tends to be fairly Eurocentric in their score choices).

WHAT'S NEXT: Hostage

AGE: 42
REP: First Artists Management
RELATIONSHIPS: Michael Mann
BACKGROUND: Founded band Dead Can Dance
FAN FAVORITE: Gladiator
TYPECAST IN: Oscar bait
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Gladiator--187
2. Ali--58
3. The Insider--28
4. Whale Rider--20

Gerrard was best known for founding the Australian band Dead Can Dance and her album collaborations with Pieter Bourke when she and Bourke were hired to write the unusual score for Michael Mann's Oscar nominated drama The Insider (which also featured cues by Graeme Revell). Soon after, Hans Zimmer hired her as a vocal soloist for his Gladiator score, but her contribution became so integral that he gave her a co-composer credit (the Academy's Music Branch, however, felt her contribution was not as significant in quantity and nominated Zimmer alone for the Gladiator score). She and Bourke reunited with Mann for Ali, and last year her nontraditional score for the sleeper hit Whale Rider added to the film's patina of authenticity. Coming up she has two more overtly commercial projects, the comic book thriller Constantine and the TV remake of Salem's Lot.

WHAT'S NEXT: Constantine

AGE: Unavailable
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
BACKGROUND: Julliard, UCLA, game composer, TV composer (Alias)
FAN FAVORITE: Medal of Honor (game)

Giacchino is probably the first film composer to develop a strong fan following from his game scores, though it helps that his orchestral scores for the Lost World and Medal of Honor games were released on CD, allowing non-gamers to discover his talents. He gained further attention for scoring the acclaimed spy drama Alias, one of the rare contemporary TV shows where the score is allowed its proper priority (whatever one may think of today's feature scoring, the Golden and Silver Ages of TV music ended decades ago). When John Barry left Pixar's upcoming superhero spoof The Incredibles, Giacchino received the assignment, a remarkably high-profile project for a feature novice, especially considering that all five of Pixar's previous features were blockbuster hits and Oscar nominees for their music.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Incredibles

AGE: 41
REP: First Artists Management
RELATIONSHIPS: John Stockwell
BACKGROUND: Academy of Music (Vienna), Tangerine Dream (1985-1990), arranger for Graeme Revell
FAN FAVORITE: Underworld
TYPECAST IN: Teen movies
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Underworld--51
2. Blue Crush--40
3. Crazy/Beautiful--16
4. The Girl Next Door--11 (as of 4/18/04)

Haslinger was a member of Tangerine Dream in the late eighties, the period covering such scores as Near Dark and Miracle Mile, but as a solo artist it was actor turned director John Stockwell who brought him wider attention, first with the cable movie Cheaters and then with his features Crazy/Beautiful and Blue Crush. Underworld has proven to be his biggest boxoffice hit so far, and its stark, non-melodic approach is a far cry from the classic vampire scores of the past. The surprisingly charming teen sex comedy The Girl Next Door is an overt homage (or ripoff, if you prefer) to Risky Business, and Haslinger was probably hired for his Tangerine Dream past, his score openly evoking their Risky Business music in its early cues. His regular collaborator Stockwell is a talented, underrated director likely to have some strong films ahead of him, Haslinger will presumably hired for the upcoming Underworld sequel.

AGE: 33
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
BACKGROUND: U.C. Berkeley, Media Ventures
FAN FAVORITE: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
TYPECAST IN: Too early to say
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre--80

Jablonsky toiled for years on the Media Ventures staff, contributing additional music to such major productions as Chicken Run, Hannibal, and Pearl Harbor before receiving his first high profile solo scoring assignment, the slick but grueling remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Jablonsky's brooding score demonstrated skill and talent, and the only real problem with his contribution that the film was over-spotted, the music constantly reminding the audience they're watching a movie, unlike the original film which felt disturbingly real. Still, the film was a surprisingly high grosser, making more money than this year's hugely superior Dawn of the Dead remake, and few composers have such a big hit their first time out of the gate.

AGE: 46
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
RELATIONSHIPS: Roland Emmerich, Josef Rusnak, 20th Century Fox
BACKGROUND: TV composer in Europe and U.S.
TYPECAST IN: Science-fiction
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Thirteenth Floor--11

This Austrian-born composer scored his first big U.S. film in 1999, the Roland Emmerich-produced virtual reality thriller The Thirteenth Floor. Since then he's scored TV movies like RFK, but since Emmerich split from his regular composer David Arnold, Kloser received the plum assignment of Emmerich's latest sci-fi effects spectacle, the modern Ice Age drama The Day After Tomorrow. The powers that be at 20th Century Fox must be pleased with his work, since they've hired him for another summer sci-fi thriller, Alien vs. Predator, where he'll follow in the daunting footsteps of such popular composers as Goldsmith, Horner, Silvestri and Goldenthal.

WHATíS NEXT: The Day After Tomorrow, Alien vs. Predator

AGE: Unavailable
REP: Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann
BACKGROUND: Rock musician, stage composer (Hedwig)
TYPECAST IN: Indie comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Station Agent--5
2. Hedwig and the Angry Inch--3
3. Camp--1

Trask wrote the score for John Cameron Mitchell's acclaimed rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and was an integral part of its translation to the screen. Though the film was not a boxoffice smash it's become a cult favorite, and last year Trask scored two high profile indie films. While Camp's score was subservient to the film's onscreen songs, The Station Agent benefited from the composer's deft, offbeat work. Coming up is his first mainstream assignment, writer-director Paul Weitz's comedy Synergy, starring Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Scarlett Johanssen.

WHAT'S NEXT: Synergy

AGE: Unavailable
REP: Kraft-Engel
RELATIONSHIPS: Kevin Smith, Bob Weinstein
BACKGROUND: CSU Long Beach, TV animation
FAN FAVORITE: The Powerpuff Girls
TYPECAST IN: Youth comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Scary Movie 3--110
2. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back--30
3. Jersey Girl--23 (as of 4/18/04)
4. Eurotrip--17
5. Iron Monkey--14
6. The Powerpuff Girls--11

Apart from his compositional skills, James Venable must be a master diplomat, for he's written several scores for Miramax/Dimension, a company famous for its difficult relations with composers (as well as their many score Oscars). Venable first broke onto the scene with his TV cartoon music, especially his catchy work for The Powerpuff Girls, and he has become the only composer Kevin Smith has used twice, scoring both the relentlessly self-referential Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and the more Hollywood-ish sentiment of Jersey Girl. His biggest hit so far has been Scary Movie 3, his music cleverly evoking the film's influences while supporting the humor.

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