NOT EVEN NOMINATED, PART NINETEEN

By Scott Bettencourt

ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE

ELIZABETH - David Hirschfelder
LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL - Nicola Piovani (the winner)
PLEASANTVILLE - Randy Newman
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN - John Williams
THE THIN RED LINE - Hans Zimmer

ORIGINAL MUSICAL OR COMEDY SCORE

A BUG'S LIFE - Randy Newman
MULAN - Jerry Goldsmith, Matthew Wilder, David Zippel
PATCH ADAMS - Marc Shaiman
THE PRINCE OF EGYPT - Hans Zimmer, Stephen Schwartz
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE - Stephen Warbeck (the winner)

ORIGINAL DRAMATIC SCORE

BELOVED - Rachel Portman

It may have been the female oriented subject matter (or her recent Oscar for Emma) that inspired director Jonathan Demme to hire Rachel Portman instead of Howard Shore (who had done Demme's previous two films, both Oscar-winners - The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia) for his film adaptation of Toni Morrison's acclaimed novel, starring and produced by Oprah Winfrey, who had become a world famous personality since her Oscar-nominated film debut in The Color Purple 13 years earlier. Demme's film was an extremely respectful adaptation but ultimately not very well received -- some literature simply does not translate readily to film, and Thandie Newton was stuck in an essentially unplayable role as the title character, an infantile woman who is apparently the incarnation of Winfrey's long dead baby. While Portman is most known for her warm, melodic scores, in Beloved she took a dramatically different approach, choosing atmosphere over melody and using orchestrations appropriate to the characters' African heritage. The result was a bold and effective change-of-pace for the composer, but the lengthy soundtrack album is far from easy listening. The collaboration between composer and director was satisfying enough that Demme hired Portman for his next two films, his disastrous Charade remake The Truth About Charlie, and his respectable update of The Manchurian Candidate (whose brooding score is reminiscent, ironically enough, of Howard Shore). (Beloved received 1 Oscar nomination)

THE HORSE WHISPERER - Thomas Newman

John Barry was the first composer hired for Robert Redford's film of Nicholas Evans' bestselling romance, the only one of Redford's films as a director for which he gave himself an acting role, but Redford and Barry failed to see eye-to-eye on the approach to the score, so Barry left the project and was rumored to have used some of his Horse Whisperer music for his album The Beyondness of Things. Redford's film was one of his weakest works as a director, beautifully shot by Robert Richardson (who gained attention with less scenic work like Platoon and his Oscar-winning JFK) but needlessly long and emotionally unengaging. Thomas Newman's replacement score, however, was first-rate, mixing his usual offbeat, ambient style with genuinely stirring melodic passages. (1 Oscar nomination)

THE MASK OF ZORRO - James Horner

Director Martin Campbell's first film following his outstanding work on GoldenEye was this lavish re-working of the Johnston McCulley character (adding substantial elements of Sweeney Todd), with Anthony Hopkins (everyone's favorite Hispanic actor) as the masked hero, Antonio Banderas as his protege/successor, and Catherine Zeta-Jones in her breakthrough role as the imperiled heroine. Since his delightful 1992 score for Sneakers, James Horner's work had become distressingly same sounding, but his Zorro score was a welcome change of pace, bringing the proper swashbuckling energy and Latino flavor, with a fresh use of flamenco stomps as percussion. Though it was not an entirely original work -- his love theme (also heard as a song, "I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You") bears strong echoes of Miklos Rozsa's El Cid love theme, is his liveliest work in over a decade, and it is hoped he's able to expand on it in the recently filmed sequel The Legend of Zorro, reuniting Campbell, Banderas and Zeta-Jones. (2 Oscar nominations)

MEET JOE BLACK - Thomas Newman

Director Martin Brest spent years developing this updating of the classic Death Takes a Holiday, and unfortunately the end result felt like it took years to watch, a mystifying 178 minute slog through lavish sets (I formally gave up all interest in the characters when I realized that Anthony Hopkins' immense indoor pool was not in his country home but in his Manhattan apartment) in which we are mysteriously expected to care about the fate of an obscenely wealthy tycoon (you'd think Rupert Murdoch bankrolled this one) and his relationship with the embodiment of Death (who is, depending on the scene, mystical and wise or a Gump-like innocent eating peanut butter). Thomas Newman had scored Brest's previous film, the similarly overlong (157 minutes) Scent of a Woman, and his graceful and lyrical touch was extremely welcome here, providing some few moments of genuine romance and emotion involving Hopkins, Brad Pitt (as Death) and Claire Forlani (as Hopkins' daughter). The finale cue was, however, a rare bit of musical overstatement for Newman -- one suspects the director encouraged him to pump up the emotion to make up for an otherwise flat ending. The film's boxoffice failure cost the job of the studio head who let Brest get away with the film's endless running time, but fortunately, Brest made an impressive comeback with 2003's Gigli -- oops, oh well.

STEPMOM - John Williams

The history of Stepmom's score is a strange one. Chris Columbus directed this serio-comic story of a young career woman (Julia Roberts) who learns to be a mother for her stepkids with the help of her husband's ex-wife (Susan Sarandon), who is dying of cancer. The original composer on the project was Patrick Doyle, who was at the time recovering from leukemia and even worked on the film from his hospital bed. However, after writing his score, Doyle was replaced on the project by John Williams, who had already scored the Home Alone films for Columbus and would later score the first two Harry Potters for the director. The film itself turned out to be an unsatisfying mess, neither especially humorous nor moving, with little in the way of engrossing conflict -- Roberts seems to be a perfectly decent mother for the kids from the beginning, so she doesn't really have much to learn from Sarandon -- and more in the way of creepy sexual politics -- Roberts and Sarandon battle over who's the better mom, and while Roberts has to give up her successful photography career for motherhood, it's never suggested that husband Ed Harris should have to make any sacrifices for childrearing; after all, he's a lawyer and a man. (I was rather shocked when a female friend of mine, a divorced mother, reacted so positively to the film, as the underlying message seemed to be that the ex-wife should just hurry up and die so the man can get on with his happy new life) Williams' score, featuring guitar solos by Christopher Parkening, was professional and thorough as always but lacked inspiration, and most crucially lacked the sense of life and emotion he brought to the similarly seriocomic (but infinitely superior) The Accidental Tourist. I can't help wonder if Williams' cue titles were a subtle reaction to the film's dullness -- "Always and Always," "Days Between," "Time Spins Its Web."

ORIGINAL MUSICAL OR COMEDY SCORE

ANTZ - Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell

DreamWorks' entry into the computer animated feature field, which Pixar/Disney had pioneered three years earlier with the megahit Toy Story, was based on a story by the Weitz brothers (About a Boy) and featured the kind of all-star voice cast that would become a staple of DreamWorks' CG features -- Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Gene Hackman -- as well as subject matter suspiciously similar to Pixar/Disney's own Toy Story follow-up, A Bug's Life, which came out mere months later. DreamWorks' music department head Hans Zimmer hired two of his Media Ventures proteges to collaborate on the music, rising composers Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell, and they did an impressive job, writing a fresh and lively score very different from Randy Newman's contributions to the Pixar features. The two composers reunited for two more animated films for DreamWorks, Chicken Run and Shrek, but have since scored animated films on their own -- Gregson-Williams with Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and  Shrek 2 and Powell with Robots.

HOPE FLOATS - Dave Grusin

Surprisingly, this small-scale comedy-drama reached the screen because of a much larger film -- Speed 2: Cruise Control. Actress Sandra Bullock got 20th Century Fox to agree to film Steve Rogers' script in exchange for her agreeing to star in the inevitable Speed sequel (her clout increasing when Speed star Keanu Reeves turned the sequel down, to be replaced by Jason Patric), and Hope Floats turned out to be not only more profitable than the much-derided Cruise Control but actually had higher grosses in the U.S. The film (directed by actor Forest Whitaker, who has demonstrated with his other features Waiting to Exhale and First Daughter that his filmmaking abilities are in no way comparable to his acting talent) was a pleasant time-filler, despite its implied message that the only thing a publicly jilted woman needs to turn her life around is a new man (so much for empowerment), and Dave Grusin's gentle score, along with the relaxed performances of Bullock and love interest Harry Connick Jr. and an outstanding performance by Mae Whitman, in a rare, well written child role, as Bullock's daughter, helped make it a soothingly innocuous evening at the movies.

THE PARENT TRAP - Alan Silvestri

After years of working as a writer and/or producer partnered with husband Charles Shyer on such projects as Private Benjamin, Baby Boom and the Father of the Bride films, Nancy Meyers showed that she wasn't exactly eager to bust out into more edgy fare when she made her directorial debut with this slick remake of the Disney classic, featuring Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson as the divorced parents and providing Lindsay Lohan with her first major role(s) as the reunited twins who try to reunite Mom and Dad. The film was a Chris Columbus-style entertainment where the characters' wealth is taken as a matter of course -- at one point the girls treat their parents to an evening on a yacht -- and the pleasant but overlong (127 minutes, though the '60s version was even longer) film was a big hit. Silvestri had scored the Father of the Bride films for Shyer-Meyers and provided a similarly warm and sleek score for Parent Trap, which, shockingly enough, received its own score album not long after the song album's release.

RUSH HOUR - Lalo Schifrin

Director Brett Ratner's love of Schifrin's Enter the Dragon score earned the composer the job of scoring Ratner's first feature, the buddy comedy Money Talks, so he was the inevitable choice to score Jackie Chan's first Hollywood-megahit for the director. Schifrin had scored Chan's first attempt at a Hollywood project, The Big Brawl, for Dragon director Robert Clouse 18 years earlier, and his playful, Asian-inflected funky action score for Rush Hour helped the film become the composer's biggest boxoffice success -- at least, until the sequel came along.

YOU'VE GOT MAIL - George Fenton

This third teaming of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (and the second to be directed by Nora Ephron, following the smash hit Sleepless in Seattle) was an ill-advised reworking of one of the masterpieces of Hollywood romantic comedy, Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner. Updating the story of two squabbling department store co-workers, who are unaware that they are each other's secret pen pal love interests, to the e-mail era was a potentially good idea, but turning the working class leads into competing book store owners (one the head of a Borders-style mega-chain) helped destroy the charm and delicate balance of the original, though predictably the film was a big hit. Fenton had scored Ephron's 1994 Mixed Nuts, giving it an atypically intrusive score, but his You've Got Mail music was much more effective, though hampered by the prominent use (presumably at the director's insistence) of "Over the Rainbow." Fenton and Ephron have since reunited for her two successive films, the flop black comedy Lucky Numbers and the current Bewitched.

THE HI-LO COUNTRY - Carter Burwell

Walon Green's adaptation of the Max Evans novel, a post World War II Western, was once planned as a Sam Peckinpah film (Green co-wrote Peckinpah's masterpiece, The Wild Bunch), but finally reached the screen in 1998 as a Stephen Frears film, pairing Woody Harrelson and Billy Crudup. The film was a solid, literate entertainment which has yet to find an audience (and received only the most cursory of theatrical releases), helped greatly by Oliver Stapleton's cinematography and Carter Burwell's score, which manages to fit nicely into the great tradition of Western film music while still staying true to Burwell's distinctive style and featuring two strong main themes. The TVT soundtrack album was dominated by songs but also featured a respectable 24 minutes of Burwell's score, and is one of the most satisfying of his output.

LES MISERABLES - Basil Poledouris

This skillfully compressed, engrossing adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel came in the wake of the internationally successful stage musical as well as a superior Claude Lelouch 1995 French version which moved the story to a World War II setting. Despite a stellar cast (Liam Neeson, Uma Thurman, Claire Danes and an excellent Geoffrey Rush as Javert), this Bille August-directed film came and went with little attention, and Gabriel Yared's score was tossed, closely following his rejected score for The Wings of the Dove. Basil Poledouris proved an able replacement, writing a solid, serious, large scale score which might have gained him some much needed career momentum if the film had received more notice (it's just about the only Poledouris project that one could consider "Oscar bait"), but it proved to be one of the composer's last major studio features (for now, anyway). The score CD (on Hollywood) sequences his music into lengthy suites rather than individual cues, and is an excellent way to hear one of his most underappreciated works.

LOST IN SPACE - Bruce Broughton

Stephen Hopkins was the director of this expensive, inevitable feature remake of the popular '60s TV series, and originally he'd hired his Ghost and the Darkness composer Jerry Goldsmith for the job (the film's trailers even featured Goldsmith's Judge Dredd trailer music), but scheduling conflicts kept Goldsmith away and Bruce Broughton got the gig instead. The film benefited from attractive cinematography and designs as well as a cast far better than the derivative material deserved (including William Hurt, Jared Harris, Gary Oldman as Dr. Smith, and a surprisingly effective Matt LeBlanc), and one of its greatest assets was Broughton's spectacular score, his only effort in the space opera genre since his first, awful studio film, The Ice Pirates. Broughton's music was as melodic and energetic as you'd expect, with an especially rousing cue for the launch sequence, and though the original TVT Records soundtrack featured only a modest amount of score (plus songs, of course), Intrada later released a greatly expanded and highly welcome score CD which is one of the best albums in the Broughton collection.

A SIMPLE PLAN - Danny Elfman

Scott Smith's adaptation of his own bestselling novel, about three ordinary men whose lives fall apart after they find a crashed plane containing stolen money, formed the basis of Sam Raimi's first "serious" film, earning particular raves and an Oscar nomination for Billy Bob Thornton's supporting performance, though Bill Paxton's acting as the ambivalent lead was even subtler and more surprising. Even though the novelist adapted his own work, the stunningly bleak ending of the book was toned down for the film, which was still unusually dark for a Hollywood product. Danny Elfman's score was one of his finest and most effective, using a mistuned piano sound reminiscent of Henry Mancini's bleak score for The Night Visitor, and featuring two principal motifs which subtly reinforce the growing sense of betrayal and dread.

STAR TREK: INSURRECTION - Jerry Goldsmith

The third of the four Star Trek: The Next Generation features suffered from the lack of a strong (and commercial) narrative hook: Generations had the first meeting of Kirk and Picard while First Contact had time travel and the first feature appearance of ST:TNG's most fearsome villains, the Borg. Insurrection had a bland, Lost Horizon-inspired storyline which, despite the presence of actors of the caliber of F. Murray Abraham and Donna Murphy, seemed like a forgettable TV two-parter rather than a stand-alone feature. Unlike on First Contact, Goldsmith's schedule allowed him enough time to complete the score on his own (despite some conflicts with producer Rick Berman, who was rumored to have termed one of Goldsmith's cues "moustache-twirling music"), and while the score was not in the class of his spectacular Star Trek: The Motion Picture or The Final Frontier, suffering from a slightly cloying main theme, it featured energetic action music and an appealingly low-key love theme.

David Arnold's score for the (relative) boxoffice disappointment GODZILLA featured strong action cues, but, like his other scores for director Roland Emmerich, tended to play everything as a big moment rather than allow for a needed variety of tone and scale. Despite the film's $136 millon gross, the score album was canceled and the music was only available as a For Your Consideration Oscar promo.

Luis Bacalov's score for the dreadful comedy-drama POLISH WEDDING had some charm on its own but in the context of the movie was frequently maddening.

THE NEWTON BOYS was the rare Richard Linklater film to feature an original score, and Edward D. Barnes' (of the Texas group Bad Livers) provided an especially pleasing theme for the train robbery sequence.

John Barry wrote his last (to date) James Bond-ian score for the failed high concept thriller MERCURY RISING, though an uncredited Carter Burwell contributed cues for major action sequences. Barry provided light jazz and orchestral emotion for the all-star ensemble PLAYING BY HEART, but the powers-that-be at Miramax removed much of his score and replaced it with atypically anonymous cues by Christopher Young. His music for the Joseph Conrad adaptation SWEPT FROM THE SEA was suitably romantic and lush, with a strong main theme which he turned into a song, "To Love and Be Loved" (one of the film's alternate titles).

One of Christophe Beck's earliest feature scores was a suitably quirky and off-beat work for the indie black comedy THE ALARMIST.

Marco Beltrami's relationship with Miramax led to a rare non-horror project when he provided a restrained guitar score for the troubled '70s film 54, but he returned to the studio, and his usual genre, for THE FACULTY.

Elmer Bernstein wrote a pleasingly sinuous noir score for Robert Benton's underrated mystery TWILIGHT, the old-fashioned quality of his style matching the film perfectly.

Bruce Broughton's contribution to the unconvincing police docudrama ONE TOUGH COP was an atypically forgettable synth based score.

While Carter Burwell was the inevitable choice to score the Coen Brothers' cult classic THE BIG LEBOWSKI, there was remarkably little scoring in the film, a trend that would continue for the next few Coen/Burwell projects. His score for the Oscar winning GODS AND MONSTERS was a disappointment, sounding too much his other work without a distinctive character of its own, and hampered by too small an orchestra. He contributed a few score cues to Todd Haynes' elaborate but unengaging homage to glam rock, VELVET GOLDMINE, and wrote a suitably ironic score for David Mamet's con game thriller THE SPANISH PRISONER.

John Carpenter brought a rock edge to one of his last and least satisfying films, VAMPIRES.

George S. Clinton wrote a wry, Southern-flavored score for the droll noir WILD THINGS, with echoes of Bernard Herrrmann, and also scored the Patrick Swayze action vehicle BLACK DOG, though the soundtrack CD featured only songs.

When Jerry Goldsmith had to depart John Frankenheimer's stylish spy thriller RONIN due to a scheduling conflict, Argentinian composer Elia Cmiral got the job, mixing percussive, relentless action music with a mournful theme performed on the duduk.

Michael Convertino scored his fourth film for director Randa Haines, the romance DANCE WITH ME, though inevitably the score was overshadowed by the songs, and the film is the composer's last big studio project to date.

Stewart Copeland scored the failed dark comedy VERY BAD THINGS, John Waters' raucous PECKER, and the terrific Best Foreign Language Film nominee FOUR DAYS IN SEPTEMBER.

In one of the more surprising scoring choices of the year, director Spike Lee used the orchestral music of Aaron Copland for his basketball drama HE GOT GAME.

When Carly Simon backed out of scoring PRIMARY COLORS (either because of illness or due to the film's portrayal of the fictionalized Clintons), Ry Cooder replaced her and wrote a lively score based on traditional American melodies.

Burkhard Dallwitz provided rather dull cues for the acclaimed THE TRUMAN SHOW, replacing Philip Glass who provided some cues and even appears onscreen performing his own music in one scene.

Mychael Danna wrote a more traditional than usual score for the adaptation of Pat Barker's acclaimed novel REGENERATION, providing emotional orchestral music for this fact-based World War I drama.

Mason Daring wrote a Latino-flavored score for one of John Sayles' strongest films, MEN WITH GUNS, and scored a rare comedy, the witty THE OPPOSITE OF SEX.

Shaun Davey provided pleasant if obvious Irish music for the small comedy WAKING NED DEVINE.

John Debney wrote a charming score for the underrated children's film PAULIE.

Patrick Doyle's score for the pretty modernization of GREAT EXPECTATIONS at times awkwardly mixed classical and modern elements, while certain sequences had a satisfyingly soaring romanticism. He provided the incidental music for the animated QUEST FOR CAMELOT, which had the unfortunate distinction of being the first Doyle project without a score CD.

Anne Dudley's brooding symphonic score for AMERICAN HISTORY X was effective on its own but too showy for the film, overwhelming the drama about white supremacists.

Randy Edelman's SIX DAYS SEVEN NIGHTS featured a romantic main theme benefiting from lush orchestrations in the John Barry style.

Cliff Eidelman wrote a moving and restrained score for the Oscar-nominated ONE TRUE THING, which unfortunately didn't lead to any similarly prestigious assignments (The Lizzie McGuire Movie doesn't count).

Danny Elfman wrote an interesting but not entirely successful score for Steven Zaillian's underrated film of A CIVIL ACTION, often sounding surprisingly like Thomas Newman (coincidentally, Newman himself scored the very similar Erin Brockovich less than two years later). Elfman and Steve Bartek adapted Bernard Herrmann's superlative PSYCHO score for Gus Van Sant's needless remake, remaining impressively faithful to Herrmann's original score while adding a clever, Elfmanesque adaptation of the Herrmann motifs for the opening studio logos.

Stephen Endelman provided a lush orchestral score for the long-on-the-shelf period drama THE PROPOSITION, but distractingly overused his main theme.

George Fenton wrote lushly orchestrated scores for two period romances EVER AFTER (at one point a John Barry project) and DANGEROUS BEAUTY (replacing Rachel Portman). He also wrote a pop-ish romantic comedy score for THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION, and took a light pop-jazz approach for writer Richard LaGravanese's directorial debut, LIVING OUT LOUD.

John Frizzell scored the needless and awkwardly titled horror sequel I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, and had himself credited as "Gianni Frizzelli" for the gangster spoof JANE AUSTEN'S MAFIA.

Richard Gibbs scored one of the year's biggest comedies, the modernized DR. DOLITTLE, and one of its feeblest, the Norm McDonald vehicle DIRTY WORK.

Braveheart writer Randal Wallace's directorial debut, a remake of Dumas' THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, featured an outstanding cast and impressive production values, but Nick Glennie-Smith's score was unsuitably modern and lacked the proper classical spirit, though the director was satisfied enough to hire him for his second film, We Were Soldiers.

Elliot Goldenthal's score for Neil Jordan's THE BUTCHER BOY, his third project for the director, was much like the film itself -- a stylish attempt to portray mental illness artistically which was also at times distractingly off-putting. He was an exciting choice to score Barry Levinson's enjoyable but wildly uneven film of Michael Crichton's SPHERE, and his music showed his usual imagination though one major theme sounded a little Edward Scissorhands-ish.

U.S. MARSHALS was a sequel to The Fugitive focusing on Tommy Lee Jones' Marshal Gerard, and while Jerry Goldsmith's action material was as effective as ever his main theme was disappointingly forgettable, a problem shared by all three of Goldsmith's scores for editor-turned-director Stuart Baird (Executive Decision, Star Trek: Nemesis). His score for Stephen Sommers' shamefully entertaining DEEP RISING was a big disappointment, enjoyable on its own but feeling like the composer was just going through the motions (not surprisingly, since he'd scored virtually the same film 9 years earlier as Leviathan). Much better was his score for Joe Dante's SMALL SOLDIERS, a satisfying comedy-adventure pastiche featuring impressive variety and strong main themes.

Harry Gregson-Williams provided eminently forgettable scores for the generic action movie THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS and the would-be twisty thriller DECEIVER. He wrote a charming score for the feature remake of THE BORROWERS, which foreshadowed his later animation scores.

Steven Soderbergh moved away from his usual composer, Cliff Martinez, for once and hired David Holmes to give the marvelous OUT OF SIGHT an effective and genuinely hip score, featuring the modern sound Holmes would use on Soderbergh's Ocean movies.

One of two competing disaster-from-space movies, the appealingly earnest DEEP IMPACT was the first film James Horner scored following his remarkably successful Titanic, and his music was effectively sweeping and melodic but all too familiar. He emphasized African sounds for the remake of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, also contributing an original song, "Windsong."

James Newton Howard scored A PERFECT MURDER, the Dial M For Murder remake which was his third film for Fugitive director Andrew Davis, and his mixture of melody and percussive suspense was a fitting successor to that Oscar-nominated score.

Alberto Iglesias scored his second film for Pedro Almodovar, writing a lush score for the unfaithful Ruth Rendell-adaptation LIVE FLESH.

Following Short Cuts, THE GINGERBREAD MAN was Mark Isham's second score for director Robert Altman, and like its predecessor Isham's music was harsh and unsettling. He was a surprising choice to score the stylish action-horror film BLADE, and his music was effective in context but ultimately unmemorable.

Trevor Jones' score for Alex Proyas' elaborate sci-fi noir, DARK CITY (a predecessor to The Matrix) was one of his most enjoyable symphonic efforts, with a driving action motif which was later used prominently in trailers, and wrote a similarly brooding but less varied score for the derivative thriller DESPERATE MEASURES. He incorporated Celtic elements into his score for the adolescent drama THE MIGHTY, and scored John Duigan's arthouse drama LAWN DOGS.

Michael Kamen was hired at the last minute to re-score the romantic afterlife fantasy WHAT DREAMS MAY COME (an Oscar winner for Visual Effects) when Ennio Morricone's music was rejected, and he wrote a warm, emotional score based partly on a song, "Beside You," he had co-written with Mark Snow during his days in the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble. He collaborated with Eric Clapton and David Sanborn for the final time on the inevitable LETHAL WEAPON 4, but though the film was a predictable success the studio didn't bother to release any kind of soundtrack album.

Rolfe Kent's score for the failed romantic comedy-drama THE THEORY OF FLIGHT (whose director shockingly went on to make the first rate Bloody Sunday and The Bourne Supremacy) featured a main theme distractingly (if appropriately) reminiscent of "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines." His score for the underrated SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS strangely sounded like Bernstein's The Grifters as reorchestrated by Ennio Morricone.

Mark Mancina took a welcome break from action thrillers with RETURN TO PARADISE, writing a warm, Thomas Newman-ish score.

Clint Mansell provided intriguing synth sounds for his first major project, Darren Aronofksy's acclaimed indie PI.

Joel McNeely was a last minute replacement for Michael Kamen on the well-designed but dreadful feature version of THE AVENGERS, and his lively score was much better than the film deserved, with an especially striking main theme. His contribution to the Shane-in-space adventure film SOLDIER was a large scale orchestral score which owed a distracting debt to Jerry Goldsmith's U.S. Marshals.

Randy Miller provided some effective incidental music for Robert Towne's Steve Prefontaine biopic WITHOUT LIMITS, though overall the music was a hodgepodge of songs and pre-existing cues.

Even given his long-running working relationship with director-star Warren Beatty, Ennio Morricone was an odd choice to score Beatty's political comedy BULWORTH, and in the final film his score is barely present and frequently mixed with rap music. He was a much more suitable choice for the faithful but uneven remake of LOLITA, giving the skillfully crafted film his usual memorable yet offbeat lyricism.

Mark Mothersbaugh's quirky, classically tinged music for Wes Anderson's RUSHMORE helped define the tone of that director's distinctive output; he scored a much less ambitious comedy, DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS, and had his biggest hit to date with the inevitable THE RUGRATS MOVIE.

Ira Newborn scored two films whose creative ambition put them at opposite ends of the spectrum -- the arthouse comedy-drama BAD MANNERS and the low sports comedy BASEKETBALL.

John Ottman and director Bryan Singer followed the success of The Usual Suspects with an impressively grim adaptation of Stephen King's APT PUPIL (which had been the basis for a never completed film in the late 1980s with Ricky Schroder and Nicol Williamson), and Ottman's symphonic score was largely effective though his main title cue was distractingly grandiose. He adapted John Carpenter's famous Halloween synthesizer theme from Halloween for an orchestra for the high-profile sequel HALLOWEEN H20: TWENTY YEARS LATER, but the score was substantially replaced with new and tracked in Marco Beltrami cues, and Ottman's score can only be heard in its original version on a Varese CD, Portrait of Terror.

Barrington Pheloung wrote a moving, emotionally restrained score for the Oscar-nominated HILARY AND JACKIE, though befitting the subject matter the classical music dominated.

Rachel Portman wrote a lively score for the failed black comedy HOME FRIES, one of her few scores of the period not to receive a soundtrack release.

Hans Zimmer had to leave Tony Scott's conspiracy thriller ENEMY OF THE STATE for scheduling reasons, so the final score was composed by two of Zimmer's protégés, Trevor Rabin and Harry Gregson-Williams. Rabin had his biggest boxoffice success to date with his classically Bruckheimerian score for ARMAGEDDON, to which Gregson-Williams contributed. Not yet completely typecast in megabudget action films, Rabin also scored the failed fantasy JACK FROST and the offbeat pot-growing comedy thriller HOMEGROWN.

Graeme Revell took a rare venture into arthouse fare with Wayne Wang's Hong Kong-set romantic drama, CHINESE BOX. He emphasized percussive suspense in his only project for director Edward Zwick, the all-star martial law thriller THE SIEGE, took an energetic approach to the underrated thriller THE NEGOTIATOR, provided rock-oriented action for THE BIG HIT, scored the unconvincingly twisty SUICIDE KINGS, and became the only composer to score two "Chucky" movies with his contribution to the cult classic BRIDE OF CHUCKY.

Richard Robbins provided his usual minimalism-tinged classicism for Merchant-Ivory's A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES, along with some pleasing light jazz.

For SNAKE EYES, his first project for director Brian DePalma, Ryuichi Sakamoto provided a score that sounded disappointingly like watered down Ennio Morricone.

Ilona Sekacz scored two very different, female-centered British dramas -- the disappointing adaptation of Virginia Woolf's classic MRS. DALLOWAY, and the psychological drama UNDER THE SKIN, which introduced Samantha Morton to (very small) American audiences.

Marc Shaiman took over when Jerry Goldsmith departed the John Irving-adaptation SIMON BIRCH, but his music unfortunately indulged his tendency toward unfiltered sentiment. He wrote a more effective score for his friend Billy Crystal's pleasant comedy MY GIANT.

Edward Shearmur wrote an effective if familiar orchestral sci-fi horror score for SPECIES II, and scored the period drama THE GOVERNESS in a much fresher style, relying heavily on vocals.

Though in his later years he largely stayed away from disposable comedy, Alan Silvestri wrote a sparse and forgettable score for the Eddie Murphy flop HOLY MAN, his only collaboration with director Stephen Herek (who usually used David Newman and Michael Kamen). He reused Neal Hefti's famous theme for the dreadful THE ODD COUPLE II, but his original contribution was less memorable. His pleasant, last-minute score for PRACTICAL MAGIC tried to find a tonal consistency that the film lacked. Original pressings of the song CD featured two cues from Michael Nyman's rejected score; later pressings featured two Silvestri cues instead.

Mark Snow scored the feature version of THE X-FILES, incorporating his own classic theme for the TV series as well as expanding his synth palette with exciting orchestral cues. He also wrote a synth dominated score for the teen-Stepford Wives thriller DISTURBING BEHAVIOR with a striking main title cue.

Mark Suozzo wrote some charming cues for Whit Stillman's disappointing but still enjoyable THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, though unsurprisingly it was the '70s songs which received all the attention.

Two years before his Oscar-winning score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Tan Dun wrote a non-melodic score for the supernatural thriller FALLEN.

Nigel Westlake reworked his Babe score for the uneven but frequently amazing sequel, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY, but this time the soundtrack CD featured even less of his contribution.

Riverdance composer Bill Whelan wrote a satisfying orchestral score for the play adaptation DANCING AT LUGHNASA, with an especially lovely main theme.

Debbie Wiseman provided a lush but bland orchestral score for the biopic WILDE, while the opening faux-Western cue was a highlight.

The success of The English Patient caused Gabriel Yared to become typecast in Hollywood as a composer of tragic romances, beginning with his ethereal score for the hit Wings of Desire remake, CITY OF ANGELS.

Christopher Young's score for the elaborate disaster/heist film HARD RAIN balanced full bodied orchestral action cues with a main theme performed on the harmonica. His score for the predictable, queasy thriller HUSH was, like the film's cast (Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow), way overqualified. He wrote a low-key jazz score for John Dahl's poker drama ROUNDERS, and while his score went through changes during the scoring period, the Varese score CD reflected both versions of his music. His music for the slick but pointless post-Scream slasher film URBAN LEGEND was far more elegant than the film deserved.

DANGEROUS BEAUTY - Rachel Portman
GOODBYE, LOVER - John Barry
THE HORSE WHISPERER - John Barry
LES MISERABLES - Gabriel Yared
PRACTICAL MAGIC - Michael Nyman
STEPMOM - Patrick Doyle
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME - Ennio Morricone

Affliction, American History X, Antz, Apt Pupil, Armageddon, Artemisia, The Avengers, Beloved, Blade, The Borrowers, A Bug's Life, Bulworth, The Butcher Boy, Central Station, Chinese Box, City of Angels, A Civil Action, Cousin Bette, Dancing at Lughnasa, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, Deceiver, Deep Impact, Deep Rising, Desperate Measures, Disturbing Behavior, Elizabeth, Enemy of the State, Ever After, Firelight, Four Days in September, The General, Gods and Monsters, The Governess, Great Expectations, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, Hard Rain, The Hi-Lo Country, Hope Floats, The Horse Whisperer, Hurlyburly, Kissing a Fool, The Land Girls, Les Miserables, Life is Beautiful, Live Flesh, Lolita, Lost in Space, Love and Death on Long Island, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Mask of Zorro, Meet Joe Black, Men With Guns, Mercury Rising, The Mighty, Mighty Joe Young, Mrs. Dalloway, Mulan, The Negotiator, The Object of My Affection, The Odd Couple II, One Tough Cop, One True Thing, The Opposite of Sex, Out of Sight, The Parent Trap, Patch Adams, Paulie, A Perfect Murder, Playing by Heart, Pleasantville, Polish Wedding, A Price Above Rubies, Primary Colors, The Prince of Egypt, The Proposition, Psycho, Regeneration, The Replacement Killers, Return to Paradise, Ronin, Rounders, The Rugrats Movie, Rush Hour, Saving Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love, The Siege, Simon Birch, A Simple Plan, Six Days Seven Nights, Small Soldiers, Snake Eyes, Soldier, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, Species II, Sphere, Star Trek: Insurrection, Stepmom, Swept From the Sea, The Theory of Flight, The Thin Red Line, The Truman Show, The Turkish Bath, Twilight, U.S. Marshals, Urban Legend, Vampires, Waking Ned Devine, What Dreams May Come, Wild Things, Wilde, The X-Files, You've Got Mail

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