NOT EVEN NOMINATED, PART EIGHTEEN

By Scott Bettencourt

BEST ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE

AMISTAD - John Williams
GOOD WILL HUNTING - Danny Elfman
KUNDUN - Philip Glass
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL - Jerry Goldsmith
TITANIC - James Horner (the winner)

BEST ORIGINAL COMEDY OR MUSICAL SCORE

ANASTASIA - David Newman, Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens
AS GOOD AS IT GETS - Hans Zimmer
THE FULL MONTY - Anne Dudley (the winner)
MEN IN BLACK - Danny Elfman
MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING - James Newton Howard

BEST ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE

DONNIE BRASCO - Patrick Doyle

This fact-based Mike Newell-directed crime drama about a Federal agent (Johnny Depp) going undercover with the Mob covered terrain familiar from TV's Wiseguy but was memorable on its own terms, thanks to Paul Attanasio's terrific script and Al Pacino's superb, non-hammy performance as a sort of gangland Willy Loman. Patrick Doyle's somber score is reminiscent of his main theme for Carlito's Way, his previous Pacino gangster project, but here the seriousness of the score seems genuinely earned, as the film builds to a stunning scene where Pacino prepares himself for a final rendezvous. Newell has hired Doyle for his newest film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which should prove a markedly different project for both filmmakers. (Donnie Brasco received 1 Oscar nomination)

THE ICE STORM - Mychael Danna

This literate adaptation of Rick Moody's novel was Ang Lee's first film after his Oscar winning Sense and Sensibility, with an impressive cast - Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen (as yet another unhappy wife, her prototypical 90s role), Elijah Wood, Christina Ricci and Tobey Maguire (plus a teen Katie Holmes) as two unhappy Connecticut families in the early 70s, and in some ways the film is a period forerunner to American Beauty, equally dark but with a more moralistic tone. Mychael Danna's first score for a Hollywood film was a distinctly un-Hollywood-ish work, daringly using gamelan music (a la Maurice Jarre's The Year of Living Dangerously) with surprisingly strong effect, avoiding the dreaded Sensitive Piano Syndrome and proving a forerunner to Thomas Newman's percussively quirky American Beauty. The soundtrack CD featured songs plus 11 minutes of Danna's score, while the For Your Consideration Oscar CD added 10 more minutes of Danna.

THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK - John Williams

This follow-up to 1993's Jurassic Park was probably the most inevitable sequel of the decade, and Steven Spielberg helmed a loose adaptation of Michael Crichton's own sequel novel. Spielberg apparently decided that since this was the only Jurassic sequel he would be likely to direct himself, he should cram as much into it as possible, so the film is a breathless yet unsatisfying mixture of Jurassic Park-style set pieces plus a lengthy dinosaur roping sequence (a la The Valley of Gwangi) plus a dinosaur-in-civilization third act. The effects are expert as always and the first act ends with a classic (and literal) cliffhanger sequence, with love interest Julianne Moore suspended on a slowly cracking trailer window over a precipice as dinosaurs menace from above, but overall it feels like Spielberg's just going through the motions - Janusz Kaminski's cinematography is unattractively murky, and at least one scene was actually directed on-set by writer David Koepp, with Spielberg supervising on video from across the country. While Williams' original Jurassic Park score took a surprisingly warm and fuzzy treatment to the material, emphasizing the wonder-of-nature over the dinosaur menace, his Lost World score took a more satisfyingly pulpy approach. Along with the expected reappearances of the Jurassic main themes and lively action material, he gave Lost World its own distinctive main theme, stalking-through-the-jungle music with some of the feeling of Steiner's classic King Kong. Neither Spielberg nor Williams returned for the surprisingly sharp Jurassic Park III, a huge improvement over Lost World, with Joe Johnston directing (in an impressive aping of Spielberg's style) and Don Davis adapting Williams and providing new material. (1 Oscar nomination)

OSCAR AND LUCINDA - Thomas Newman

Newman and Little Women director Gilliam Armstrong reunited for this adaptation of Peter Carey's acclaimed Australian period novel about the odd relationship between two compulsive gamblers, played by Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett (in her first high-profile lead). The film was skillful and beautifully mounted, with gorgeous widescreen photography by Geoffrey Simpson, but oddly unengaging, one of those literary adaptations where the point seemed to have been left somewhere between the pages. Newman's score was one of the finest of the decade, his shimmering orchestral textures evoking the film's two principal visual motifs, glass and water, with a soaring main theme and thrilling stand-alone cues like "Six Rivers to Cross." Unfortunately, Newman and Armstrong have not worked together since - it would have been wonderful to hear what he would have done with her 2001 World War II romance, Charlotte Gray. (1 Oscar nomination)

SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET - John Williams

Even though he'd talked of retiring in the mid-1990s, Williams was remarkably prolific in 1997, turning out scores for four films including this biographical drama about a young Austrian climber's friendship with the Dalai Lama - amazingly, one of two competing Dalai Lama films released in 1997 (the other was Martin Scorsese's Kundun, nominated for Philip Glass's original score). In his only film for director Jean-Jacques Annaud (who has worked on multiple occasions with James Horner, Philippe Sarde and Gabriel Yared), Williams provided a somber, classically tinged score, which features a sweeping main theme as well as restrained cues evoking the Tibetan setting. The score is sparsely spotted over the film's 139 minute running time, and features cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma.

BEST ORIGINAL COMEDY OR MUSICAL SCORE

AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY - George S. Clinton

Though Austin Powers was the first film from director Jay Roach, it was clearly a labor of love for its writer-star Mike Myers, an authentically detailed homage to the glamorous spy thrillers of the 1960s, especially James Bond, Flint and The Avengers. Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova," picked by music supervisor Chris Douridas for the elaborate opening title sequence, quickly became the piece of music most associated with the series, but George S. Clinton's delightful pastiche score was the musical glue that held the film (and its sequels) together. Clinton deftly imitates John Barry's distinctively elegant sound while adding an extra layer of 60s pop, and his music always reinforces the humor without stepping on it, a rare feat for a contemporary comedy score. The original soundtrack CD only featured a suite from the score, but over a year after the release of the enormously successful sequel, The Spy Who Shagged Me, RCA released a CD which paired a skillfully chosen selection of cues from each film (though, unfortunately, the Austin Powers in Goldmember score CD was inexplicably cancelled at the last minute, despite the film's $200 million U.S. gross, and a too brief suite from the score was released on a Clinton composer promo).

CATS DON'T DANCE - Randy Newman, Steve Goldstein

This animated musical from the short-lived Turner Pictures feature films division (which also produced Michael and Fallen, which may explain why it was short-lived) and is arguably the most underappreciated animated film of the decade, a clever, old-fashioned 30s Hollywood musical comedy with Scott Bakula as the voice of a cat who tries to break into the movie business. Randy Newman provided the songs, which were typically professional yet atypically bland and forgettable, while Steve Goldstein arranged the songs and provided the incidental music, his lavishly produced score featuring impressive variety and enjoyable pastiche.

FLUBBER - Danny Elfman

This remake of 1961's The Absent Minded Professor was the third of writer-producer John Hughes' remakes of classic family films, following 101 Dalmatians and Miracle on 34th Street, and one can only assume that Robin Williams, who was trying to break out of the comedy mode (with parts like his Oscar winning supporting role in Good Will Hunting), was offered an unspeakable amount of money by the studio for such a creatively unambitious project, where he spends much of the film interacting with puppet robots and computer animated goop. The film, directed by Miracle helmer Les Mayfield, was slickly made with an overqualified cast - Marcia Gay Harden, Chris McDonald, Clancy Brown, Ted Levine and Wil Wheaton (who had aged to look remarkably like Tommy Kirk, whose role he was playing), but Hughes' additions to the original story were nonsensical - the flubber itself has personality enough to perform an elaborate dance number yet Williams still grinds it into powder to put on athletic shoes, and Williams' character is desperate to raise money to save the school yet he's already invented a flying robot companion which would make him a multimillionaire. Despite the film's huge problems, Elfman's score is terrifically deft and clever (though, like Williams, it's hard to know why he took the assignment), with terrific energy and scoring the "emotional" scenes (such as when Williams' flying robot Weebo "dies") with impressive taste and discretion. Apart from his score credit, Elfman received a separate main title credit for composing the "Mambo de Flubber." One can only assume that the separate credit was a contractual requirement in case he didn't end up doing the final score.

HERCULES - Alan Menken

John Musker & Ron Clements had made some of the best of Disney's new wave of animated films - The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin - but this musical version of the Greek myth was a huge disappointment, essentially turning the story into a sports movie and making Pegasus perhaps the least endearing animal sidekick in the history of Disney animation. James Woods was fairly amusing as the villainous Hades, conceived as a parody of a Hollywood agent, but unlike Aladdin the jokes were flat and the story unengaging. Menken's score evoked the style of Little Shop of Horrors but the approach seemed imposed on the material, and the film's Oscar nominated song, "Go the Distance," was as uninspired as its title. This was the first of Menken's Disney scores not to receive a nomination, and his last feature for the studio until 2004's underrated Home on the Range. (1 Oscar nomination)

IN & OUT - Marc Shaiman

The inspiration for this farce, written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Frank Oz, came from Tom Hanks' acceptance speech for his Philadephia Oscar, where thanked a gay high school drama teacher who had been an early inspiration to him. In In & Out, Kevin Kline plays a teacher who is similarly thanked in a star (Matt Dillon)'s award acceptance speech, only the teacher himself has not realized his own homosexuality. As with any film written by Rudnick, there are witty moments aplenty and the cast, including Bob Newhart, Tom Selleck and an Oscar-nominated Joan Cusack, is terrific, but like Philadelphia it suffers from the studio system's inevitable blanding of gay themed stories, and the central character's plight is a little too improbable even for farce (it's hard to believe a character of Kline's years would still be unaware of his own sexuality). Marc Shaiman managed to pay homage to his own Few Good Men score in the film-within-a-film Protect and Serve (with Dillon as a gay soldier), but overall his score is a bit too predictably sprightly and bland, so warm and energetic it's almost exhausting. (1 Oscar nomination)

CONSPIRACY THEORY - Carter Burwell

This romantic comedy thriller was the (so far) only screen teaming of Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts, and with a screenplay by Brian Helgeland (whose L.A. Confidential would win him an Oscar months later) and direction by Richard Donner, it was expected to be one of the year's blockbusters, so its $75 million U.S. gross was considered a great disappointment. Roberts was at her most charming, Gibson's manic performance was one of his most daring, and Patrick Stewart made a properly elegant villain, but the mixture of tones, ranging from comedy to grueling torture scenes, was unsettling, and the complicated storyline was hard to follow and equally hard to parse in retrospect, full of credibility straining moments like government helicopters landing in the middle of Manhattan streets (the passersby barely seem to bat an eye) and the agency villains using sales of Catcher in the Rye to track their programmed assassins (wouldn't they pick a less widely selling book?). Carter Burwell was hot from his acclaimed Fargo score, and his Conspiracy Theory score is one of his liveliest works, including a jazzy main title (over a superbly executed sequence of credits reflected on Gibson's taxicab), a touching love theme, and energetic action cues.

THE EDGE - Jerry Goldsmith

This adventure drama marooned billionaire Anthony Hopkins and fashion photographer Alec Baldwin in the Alaska wilderness, pitting them against the elements, a grizzly bear, and potentially each other. Though the film did only modest boxoffice, it is one of the most satisfying Hollywood films of the decade, with strong performances by the leads, a clever script by David Mamet and expert direction by Lee Tamahori - his work on this film is so assured and effortless that it's surprising how routine Along Came a Spider and Die Another Day were. Goldsmith's score is an important asset, featuring one of his finest melodies of the 90s (recently used in the trailers for A Very Long Engagement) and deft use of a slurring horn motif for the bear (he later used a similar effect for Deep Rising and The Mummy).

GATTACA - Michael Nyman

Andrew Niccol was best known in Hollywood as the author of the then-unmade screenplay The Truman Show, but before that film reached the screen under the direction of Peter Weir, Niccol made his directorial debut with his own science-fiction screenplay set in a DNA-obsessed near future, with Ethan Hawke as a young man who assumes the identity of genetically perfect paraplegic Jude Law to join the "Gattaca Corporation" and achieve his dream of traveling into outer space. Though the film is hampered by a perfunctory romantic subplot with Hawke's future wife Uma Thurman (Hawke's relationships with Law and Loren Dean have much more dramatic weight), it is a surprisingly assured work for a first time director and a rare modern attempt to do an intelligent sci-fi drama rather than the usual robots-and-lasers thriller (The use of the futuristic Marin County Civic Center as a location appealingly harkens back to its appearance in THX-1138 26 years earlier). Michael Nyman proved to be an inspired choice in his first Hollywood assignment, as his minimalist stylings seemed perfectly suited to the setting and his more-melodic-than-usual music gave the film satisfying emotional weight.

ROSEWOOD - John Williams

Following his debut feature Boys N the Hood, which earned the 24-year-old John Singleton Oscar nominations for writing and directing, his career seemed to be on the decline, with two critical and commercial failures, Poetic Justice and Higher Learning following. Though it has yet to find its deserved audience, his followup, Rosewood, is still his finest feature. Telling the true story of a Florida town whose black population was massacred in 1923 after a false accusation from a white woman, Rosewood featured an outstanding cast including Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle (who recently received an Oscar nomination for a similar project, Hotel Rwanda), Esther Rolle, Loren Dean, and Jon Voight as the white shopkeeper who helps save his black neighbors. The film is not without his flaws - Rhames plays a fictional, distractingly action hero-ish lead, coming across at times like Indiana Jones dropped into the middle of Schindler's List (Singleton unconvincingly claimed that critics who objected simply weren't willing to accept a black action hero) and lacked the remarkable charisma he would show in his later performances, but the destruction of the town and its people is played with convincing horror. Wynton Marsalis wrote the original score for the film but it was rejected (in 1999 he released the score on CD as Reeltime), and it is still surprising that no controversy erupted when one of America's top black composers was replaced by Hollywood's most famous (white) composer, John Williams. Despite the score being a replacement, and for an (undeservedly) forgotten film, Williams' Rosewood score was his finest score of the year, with an authentic Southern flavor (reminiscent of Conrack) and his typically expert sense of drama.

STARSHIP TROOPERS - Basil Poledouris

Paul Verhoven's megabudget adaptation of Robert Heinlein's novel about a future war between humans and insect aliens was expected to be one of the year's biggest hits but despite dazzling action setpieces and Oscar nominated visual effects (courtesy of Phil Tippett) the film was a major boxoffice disappointment. Whether it was the typically Verhoeven-esque intense gore, the deliberately bland leads (Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards) or Verhoeven's subversive subtext (the film is designed to feel like a futuristic pro-war propaganda film, and good guy Neil Patrick Harris even shows up in one scene wearing what is unmistakably a Nazi uniform) but the film never found the audience needed to repay its investment. This was Poledouris' third film for Verhoeven, following his outstanding work on Flesh + Blood and RoboCop, and though his music was not quite in the league of those two great scores, his stirring, militaristic music was a droll reinforcement of Verhoeven's satire, playing everything properly straight while providing thrilling action music.

David Arnold wrote his first James Bond score for TOMORROW NEVER DIES, with the first act making conspicuous use of the James Bond theme, the second act featuring techno action music and the third act dominated by music depicting the Asian setting. The score was very popular with film music fans (much more so than Eric Serra's much-derided GoldenEye, and his song "Surrender" (performed by kd lang) was an exciting homage to the great Barry Bond songs, but was relegated to the end title as an inferior Sheryl Crow title song was featured in the opening credits. His score for Danny Boyle's flop fantasy comedy A LIFE LESS ORDINARY was so severely truncated that the composer's credit was buried in the middle of the end titles.

Mark Ayres, best known for his Dr. Who TV scores, wrote an impressively orchestral score for the British thriller THE INNOCENT SLEEP, with a memorable operatic main theme.

Marco Beltrami returned to familiar territory for SCREAM 2 and provided fresh orchestral horror music for MIMIC, with an especially strong main title.

Elmer Bernstein's score for Francis Ford Coppola's film of JOHN GRISHAM'S THE RAINMAKER featured a lovely romantic theme for Claire Danes' character, but much of the score seemed distractingly old-fashioned and out of place. He brought his brassy, jazz-tinged style to his third feature for director Bill Duke, the gangster drama HOODLUM, and wrote a warm, melodic score for the period family film BUDDY.

Terence Blanchard completed his late friend Miles Goodman's final score, for the romantic comedy 'TIL THERE WAS YOU.

Bruce Broughton reunited with Tombstone director George Cosmatos for the generic political thriller SHADOW CONSPIRACY, giving it a strong score with exciting, percussion laden action cues and a terrific, Poledouris-esque main theme. He wrote a typically charming and inventive score for the kids' fantasy A SIMPLE WISH.

Carter Burwell wrote a discreet romantic comedy score for the Jennifer Aniston vehicle PICTURE PERFECT, and was understandably displeased when director Glen Gordon Caron tracked cues from James Newton Howard's Dave into major scenes. In a change of pace, he provided an effective if forgettable thriller score for the homogenized remake of The Day of the Jackal (itself scored by George Delerue), simply retitled THE JACKAL, and scored the rural drama THE LOCUSTS.

George S. Clinton reworked his original Mortal Kombat music for MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION, and scored the Chris Farley vehicle BEVERLY HILLS NINJA.

Michael Convertino reunited with the Santa Clause team of star Tim Allen and director John Pasquin for JUNGLE 2 JUNGLE, one of his last major studio projects for several years.

Stewart Copland scored two very different looks at the African-American experience with the Tupac vehicle GRIDLOCK'D and the youth comedy GOOD BURGER.

Mychael Danna wrote an entirely choral score for the Canadian gay drama LILIES, and provided authentic sounding Indian music for KAMA SUTRA, his first of three (so far) films for director Mara Nair. His moody, restrained score for Atom Egoyan's Oscar nominated THE SWEET HEREAFTER also featured vocals by the film's star, Sarah Polley.

As a change of pace, Mason Daring scored two films not directed by John Sayles: the biopic PREFONTAINE and the romantic noir COLD AROUND THE HEART.

Don Davis contributed a pleasant orchestral adventure score for WARRIORS OF VIRTUE, much more conventional than his career-making Matrix score two years later.

John Debney wrote an effective if impersonal brooding horror score for his second film for director Peter Hyams, the guilty pleasure monster movie THE RELIC. His score for the Jim Carrey hit LIAR, LIAR incorporated a James Newton Howard theme, but hit the film's sentimental moments with a too heavy hand. Before becoming typecast in comedy, he scored another thriller, the slasher hit I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.

Anne Dudley wrote an elegant dark comedy score for the horribly titled GENTLEMEN DON'T EAT POETS, though the score CD was burdened with dialogue excerpts.

Randy Edelman took a brief break from comedy with the guilty pleasure ANACONDA, giving it a dour, typically synth-and-orchestral score. His score for the film version for LEAVE IT TO BEAVER featured a pleasingly delicate theme for Wally, but he was able to do nothing for the Tim Allen comedy FOR RICHER OR POORER or GONE FISHIN'.

The Fran Drescher vehicle THE BEAUTICIAN AND THE BEAST was graced with a charming score by Cliff Eidelman, who played up the romantic fairytale aspects of the Sound of Music/King and I ripoff without overplaying the comedy. His score for FREE WILLY 3: THE RESCUE, the only film in the series not scored by Basil Poledouris, incorporated Poledouris melodies as well as Eidelman's own original theme.

Stephen Endelman scored five indie films, including, the quirky comedy KICKED IN THE HEAD, the noir KEYS TO TULSA, the Australian comedy COSI, the underrated heist thriller CITY OF INDUSTRY, and the U.S. cut of the Jackie Chan action comedy OPERATION CONDOR.

Mike Figgis wrote his own moody jazz score ONE NIGHT STAND, his first directorial effort following the Oscar-winning Leaving Las Vegas.

John Frizzell's score for ALIEN RESURRECTION was poorly received by fans but showed welcome energy and skill, and featured a main theme which paid homage to Goldsmith's original Alien theme. His score for DANTE'S PEAK incorporated a lovely theme by James Newton Howard, but overall the score hit the melodrama too hard, especially in a drastically overscored early scene involving a rescue from the volcano's edge.

Macaulay Culkin was not the only major player missing from the sequel/remake HOME ALONE 3; Nick Glennie-Smith took the scoring duties, and his youth-pop oriented approach was quite different from John Williams' popular orchestral scores in the series. He also scored one of Steven Seagal's final big studio vehicles, the mining thriller FIRE DOWN BELOW.

Elliot Goldenthal's score for BATMAN AND ROBIN was largely a rehash of his inventive work for Batman Forever (and didn't receive a CD release), though he provided some new, emotionally restrained material for the dying Alfred subplot.

Jerry Goldsmith was a last-minute replacement when Randy Newman's AIR FORCE ONE score was thrown out, and Goldsmith managed to find the right straight-faced tone for the solemnly improbable thriller, though the tight schedule necessitated that Joel McNeely write additional cues based on Goldsmith's themes. Goldsmith wrote a pleasantly low-key comedy score to FIERCE CREATURES, John Cleese's troubled follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda (Fred Schepisi directed the substantial reshoots and shared the directing credit, explaining Goldsmith's participation), taking its main theme from his rejected score to 2 Days in the Valley.

Joel Goldsmith wrote an enjoyable, large scale adventure score for the underrated KULL THE CONQUEROR, though its impact was hampered by the filmmakers insistence that the composer incorporate rock guitar in his score. He also wrote a pleasingly gentle score for the family film SHILOH.

Dave Grusin wrote a restrained orchestral score, one of his last works for the big screen, for the biopic SELENA.

Richard Hartley wrote an effectively restrained, orchestral drama score for the literary adaptation A THOUSAND ACRES, and provided edgier, more modern music for the thriller PLAYING GOD.

Following in the footsteps of Patriot Games, James Horner scored yet another IRA thriller, THE DEVIL'S OWN, and gave it yet another Celtic themed score.

Kevin Costner's not-as-bad-as-its-reputation THE POSTMAN featured a rousing score from James Newton Howard with an especially catchy main theme. There seemed to be little room for Howard's music in Ivan Reitman's dreadful FATHER'S DAY, a remake of the French hit Les Comperes, and it was the final film Howard scored for Reitman. He wrote an elegant orchestral horror score for the shamefully entertaining THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE.

Mark Isham wrote another of his fine, folk-based scores for the period drama THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE, while providing romantic jazz for Alan Rudolph's AFTERGLOW and low-key urban jazz for Sidney Lumet's NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN, and replaced Carter Burwell on the thriller KISS THE GIRLS.

Adrian Johnston wrote an effectively understated score for the powerful drama WELCOME TO SARAJEVO.

Trevor Jones' militaristic score for G.I. JANE had strong echoes of Hans Zimmer, while he gave FOR ROSEANNA a romantic, Italianate score in the Il Postino vein. He also scored the comedy-drama BRASSED OFF, which was a huge success in England but received little notice in the U.S.

Jan A.P. Kaczmarek's score for the earnest yet unintentionally funny erotic drama BLISS (originally to be scored by John Barry) was classier than the film deserved, with an especially lovely main title. He wrote a classically styled score for WASHINGTON SQUARE, the underrated remake of The Heiress.

Michael Kamen wrote a pleasantly old-fashioned score for the period family drama INVENTING THE ABBOTTS, incorporating folk melodies into his music, and wrote a solo piano score for Alan Rickman's directorial debut, THE WINTER GUEST. He composed a brooding score for an atypical assignment, the space horror film EVENT HORIZON, augmented by techno music from the group Orbital.

Rolfe Kent scored THE HOUSE OF YES, the black comedy which was the directorial debut of Mark Waters, for whom he would later score Freaky Friday and Mean Girls.

Mark Mancina reworked his original Speed music and gave it a tropical flavor for the much maligned sequel, SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL; one mainstream critic compared Mancina's variations on his theme to Elmer Bernstein's deliberately off-key chorus at the end of Airplane. He and Trevor Rabin collaborated on an almost self-parodistically over the top score for the Bruckheimer production CON AIR.

Joel McNeely wrote a pleasant youthful adventure score for WILD AMERICA and a forgettable comedy score for VEGAS VACATION.

Ennio Morricone contributed a typically striking and idiosyncratic score for Oliver Stone's Texas-noir U-TURN, and the unnerving music was one of the few tolerable elements of that film.

David Newman wrote an exhaustingly energetic comedy score for the Matthau-Lemmon team-up OUT TO SEA.

Thomas Newman scored his fourth film for director Jon Avnet, the China-set thriller RED CORNER, providing distinctive action music, suspense cues reminiscent of his score for The Rapture, and an especially lovely theme for the female lead. His score for MAD CITY was in his harsh, urban, American Buffalo vein, but director Costa-Gavras had a few cues replaced with pieces by Philippe Sarde.

Lennie Niehaus incorporated one of director Clint Eastwood's themes for ABSOLUTE POWER, while his use of synths in the suspense scenes felt out of date.

Basil Poledouris scored two cross-country thillers, writing orchestral suspense-action scores for SWITCHBACK and BREAKDOWN (though the latter's director had Richard Marvin rescore many scenes).

Rachel Portman wrote a typically charming and repetitive score for the romantic comedy ADDICTED TO LOVE.

John Powell received his breakthrough assignment with John Woo's FACE/OFF, his over-the-top synth-orchestral-choral score fitting in with the rest of Woo's Hollywood scores.

Graeme Revell's enjoyable, techno-infused score for THE SAINT sounded like what the composer would likely provide if hired for a Bond film, especially with its love theme reminiscent of John Barry's Midnight Cowboy. He wrote a deliberately non-melodic, textural score for the disappointing comic book movie SPAWN.

Pete Rugolo wrote a wild jazz score for the disappointing film of Jim Thompson's unfinished story THIS WORLD, THEN THE FIREWORKS.

Lalo Schifrin got a welcome chance to revive his funky 70s sound when fan Brett Ratner hired Schifrin to score his first film as a director, the urban comedy MONEY TALKS.

Eric Serra brought his distinctively modern, European style to futuristic action with Luc Besson's lavish and inane THE FIFTH ELEMENT.

Marc Shaiman's energetic, percussive comedy score for GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE was better than the mysteriously successful film deserved.

Edward Shearmur wrote an evocative score for the Oscar nominated Henry James adaptation THE WINGS OF THE DOVE, incorporating period and more modern styles.

After scoring such mainstream films as Big and Mrs. Doubtfire, Howard Shore indulged his taste for experimentation with his three 1997 scores: David Cronenberg's CRASH was dominated by the harsh sound of electric guitars, COP LAND featured dark, brooding music, while his score for David Fincher's THE GAME was more diffuse, with unsettlingly abstract piano-based cues.

Alan Silvestri wrote a clever comedy score for Gore Verbinski's feature directorial debut, MOUSE HUNT, with an especially catchy main theme. His score for VOLCANO hit all the obvious notes in an enjoyable way and featured a growling brass "March of the Lava." His music for Robert Zemeckis' CONTACT was one of his most ambitious efforts, carefully spotted but with a wide variety of music, though his gentle main theme was a little too Forrest Gump-ish. He also scored one of his least remembered projects of the decade, the Matthew Perry-Salma Hayek romantic comedy FOOLS RUSH IN, whose director Andy Tennant went on to make such hits as Sweet Home Alabama and Hitch.

Tindersticks provided an evocative light jazz score for Claire Denis' offbeat French drama NENETTE AND BONI.

Shirley Walker's score for the silly airplane thriller TURBULENCE was dominated by a wry use of "Carol of the Bells" as its main theme.

Stephen Warbeck provided a mixture of classicism and minimalism for the Oscar-nominated MRS. BROWN, and a more overtly modern score for the transsexual romantic comedy DIFFERENT FOR GIRLS.

Mervyn Warren's score for the Shaquille O'Neal vehicle STEEL managed to pleasingly evoke RoboCop and Remo Williams while featuring a funky urban sound.

Acclaimed Broadway orchestrator Harold Wheeler scored the film version of the play LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!, but his overly sentimental music was too gooey for the film.

While largely concentrating on TV projects in his later career, Patrick Williams had two features released - the Bette Midler comedy THAT OLD FEELING (Carl Reiner's last film to date as a director) and the indie drama JULIAN PO.

Christopher Young had a rare chance to score comedy with the underrated Bill Murray vehicle THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE, and his sly pastiche score showed he was surprisingly well suited to lighthearted fare. He wrote an elegant suspense action score for MURDER AT 1600, one of the year's seemingly ubiquitous President-themed thrillers. He wrote an especially quirky score for the little seen dark comedy HEAD ABOVE WATER, starring Harvey Keitel and Cameron Diaz.

Hans Zimmer was Dreamworks' first Music Department head, and helped inaugurate the studio by providing his typical mix of synth and orchestral action music for the studio's first production, the underrated adventure thriller THE PEACEMAKER. He collaborated with Harry Gregson-Williams on the film version of the bestseller SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW, and the score featured a strong main theme but overall had more mood than tension.

AIR FORCE ONE (Randy Newman)
KISS THE GIRLS (Carter Burwell)
MOUSE HUNT (Bruce Fowler)
ROSEWOOD (Wynton Marsalis)
THE SIXTH MAN (Randy Edelman)
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE (Gabriel Yared)

Absolute Power, Addicted to Love, Afterglow, Air Force One, Albino Alligator, Alien Resurrection, Amistad, Anaconda, Anastasia, Anna Karenina, As Good As It Gets, BAPS, The Beautician and the Beast, Bliss, Blood and Wine, The Boxer, Buddy, Cats Don't Dance, Con Air, Conspiracy Theory, Contact, Cop Land, Crash, Dante's Peak, The Devil's Advocate, The Devil's Own, Donnie Brasco, The Edge, The Education of Little Tree, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, The End of Violence, Event Horizon, Eve's Bayou, Excess Baggage, Face/Off, Fairy Tale: A True Story, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, Fierce Creatures, The Fifth Element, Flubber, For Richer or Poorer, For Roseanna, Free Willy 3: The Rescue, G.I. Jane, The Game, Gattaca, Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets, Gone Fishin', Gravesend, Hercules, Hollow Reed, Hoodlum, In & Out, The Innocent Sleep, Inventing the Abbotts, Jackie Chan's First Strike, John Grisham's The Rainmaker, Johns, Kama Sutra, Kiss the Girls, Kull the Conqueror, Kundun, L.A. Confidential, Leave It To Beaver, Liar Liar, Lilies, Lost Highway, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Mad City, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Men in Black, Mimic, Most Wanted, Mouse Hunt, Mrs. Brown, Nenette and Boni, One Night Stand, Oscar & Lucinda, Out to Sea, The Peacemaker, The Postman, Red Corner, Rosewood, The Saint,Selena, Seven Years in Tibet, Shadow Conspiracy, Shiloh, Smilla's Sense of Snow, Spawn, Starship Troopers, The Sweet Hereafter, That Darn Cat, This World, Then the Fireworks, A Thousand Acres, Titanic, Tomorrow Never Dies, Touch, U-Turn, Ulee's Gold, Volcano, Wag the Dog, Warriors of Virtue, Washington Square, The Wings of the Dove, The Winter Guest, Wishmaster.

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