THE TOP FORTY COUNTDOWN 2006, PART THREE

In Parts One and Two of this series, these twenty composers were cruelly reminded that unlike the Number One man, they do not have five Oscars (they actually have three Oscars among them):

21. Gustavo Santaolalla
22. Christopher Young
23. Rachel Portman
24. Craig Armstrong
25. Christophe Beck
26. George Fenton
27. Trevor Rabin
28. David Arnold
29. David Newman
30. Graeme Revell
31. Edward Shearmur
32. Theodore Shapiro
33. Dario Marianelli
34. Alberto Iglesias
35. Elliot Goldenthal
36. Klaus Badelt
37. Carter Burwell
38. Mark Mothersbaugh
39. Teddy Castellucci
40. Aaron Zigman

This week we spotlight ten composers whom those great arbiters of musical worth, the producers, directors and studio execs of the American movie industry, currently find even worthier (even though these ten have no Oscars yet, which shows how little Oscars ultimately matter in arbitrary film composer rankings):

2005 RANKING: 21
AGE: Unavailable
BIRTHPLACE: Riverside, New Jersey
REPRESENTATION: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 EMMY, 2 NOMINATIONS
2 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: J.J. Abrams
BACKGROUND: Julliard, UCLA, game composer, TV composer (Alias, Lost)
TYPECAST IN: Superhero adventure
FAN FAVORITE: The Incredibles
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Incredibles--261 (U.S. gross in millions)
2. Sky High--63
3. Family Stone--59

The Incredibles proved to be a dazzling feature breakthrough for Giacchino, the first studio film composer to emerge from the video game world, but his big screen output for 2005 was less memorable. Sky High was a cleverly scripted sleeper hit and Giacchino's score was fine but nowhere near as memorable as his Incredibles work, while his Family Stone music was pleasant but too often reinforced the film's frequently cloying sentimentality. His small screen output, however, was much more impressive, as his episodic scoring for the smash hit Lost was arguably the most popular TV music of the year, and earned him his first Emmy. Albert Brooks' underrated Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World gave him all too little to do (Brooks' Lost in America and Defending Your Life had been much better scoring opportunities, for Arthur B. Rubinstein and Michael Gore respectively), but coming up he has not only another Disney animated feature, Ratatouille, but also one of the summer's potential blockbusters, the megabudget Mission: Impossible 3.

WHAT'S NEXT: Mission: Impossible 3, Ratatouille

2005 RANKING: 33
AGE: 43
BIRTHPLACE: Paris, France
REP: Kraft-Engel
BACKGROUND: European cinema
FAN FAVORITE: Birth
TYPECAST IN: Thrillers
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Syriana--50 (as of 4/2/2006)
2. Firewall--48 (4/2/2006)
3. Hostage--34
4. The Upside of Anger--18
5. Girl with a Pearl Earring--11
6. Casanova--11
7. Birth--5
8. Read My Lips--1
9. The Luzhin Defense--1
10. The Beat That My Heat Skipped--1

Desplat had an especially prolific 2005, and though none of his projects was a blockbuster, his four Hollywood films and one French film (which itself earned over a million at the U.S. boxoffice as well as the Cesar for best score), showed his range impressively. His score for the surprisingly entertaining Hostage was enjoyably grand and over-the-top, while his mandolin-inflected music for The Upside of Anger demonstrated the composer's lighter side, though at times to the detriment of the film. His restrained, varied music for the Oscar-winning Syriana helped provide emotional and narrative cohesion for that deliberately disorienting film, and his low-key score for The Beat That My Heart Skipped, the French remake of James Toback's Fingers, featured the kind of subtle scoring that works almost unconsciously on an audience. Unfortunately, director Lasse Hallstrom is apparently starting to see himself as Stanley Kubrick and used pre-existing baroque music for most of his uneven farce Casanova, with Desplat brought in to score only a few scenes. One of Desplat's most striking qualities is the variety of styles he works in, and his peppy Firewall score sounds nothing like his music for the similarly plotted Hostage. Next up is Curtis Hanson's gambling drama Lucky You, a project once announced for Christopher Young.

WHAT'S NEXT: Lucky You

2005 RANKING: 14
AGE: 36
BIRTHPLACE: Fornero, Italy
REP: Greenspan Artist Management
2 EMMY NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Wes Craven, Bob Weinstein, Guillermo Del Toro, John Moore
BACKGROUND: Yale School of Music, USC (under Jerry Goldsmith)
FAN FAVORITE: I, Robot
TYPECAST IN: Horror, Action
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines--150
2. I, Robot--144
3. Scream--103
4. Scream 2--101
5. Scream 3--89
6. Blade 2--81
7. Underworld: Evolution--62
8. Hellboy--59
9. Red Eye--57
10. The Faculty--40

Beltrami was particularly prolific in 2005, but had no hits on the scale of Terminator 3 or I, Robot. He scored two films for his most frequent collaborator, Wes Craven, and neither Cursed nor Red Eye proved to be among his more distinctive works, but at least Red Eye was a modest hit and one of the director's most enjoyable efforts. The inane XXX sequel was a boxoffice disaster but Beltrami's score was lively and showed what he could do if given a shot at the James Bond franchise. His best score (and film) for the year was Tommy Lee Jones' award-winning The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and his edgy, evocative music showed the welcome influence of Jerry Fielding's classic The Wild Bunch. So far this year he's had the modest hit Underworld: Evolution, and returns for yet more horror with The Invisible and, most intriguingly, a remake of The Omen, which gives him shoes to fill almost as daunting as those John Ottman faces on Superman Returns.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Omen, The Invisible

2005 RANKING: 22
AGE: 46
BIRTHPLACE: Winnipeg, Canada
REP: First Artists Management
BEST PICTURE NOMINEE: Capote
RELATIONSHIPS: Atom Egoyan, Mira Nair
BACKGROUND: University of Toronto, Canadian cinema
FAN FAVORITE: Ride with the Devil
TYPECAST IN: Period drama, Indian stories
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. 8mm--36
2. Bounce--36
3. Girl, Interrupted--28
4. Capote--28 (4/2/2006)
5. Hearts in Atlantis--24
6. Antwone Fisher--21
7. Vanity Fair--16
8. Monsoon Wedding--13
9. The Ice Storm--8
10. Being Julia--7

Having departed from the high grossing Hulk at the last minute, Danna has yet to score a genuine boxoffice smash, but with 2005's Capote, he scored his most acclaimed project yet, the Best Picture nominee (which deserved to win) benefiting from his discreet sense of musical drama, working in a low-key style reminiscent of Thomas Newman. His pastiche score for Atom Egoyan's guilty pleasure Where the Truth Lies took the opposite approach, self-consciously evoking the musical tradition of Hollywood thrillers (especially noir and Hitchcock). His highest profile upcoming project is the indie comedy Little Miss Sunshine (the biggest purchase at the latest Sundance Film Festival) starring Greg Kinnear and Steve Carell , and he also has Deepa Mehta's Water (featuring songs by Bollywood master A.R. Rahman) and Terry Gilliam's Tideland (on which Danna collaborated with his brother Jeff) coming up.

WHAT'S NEXT: Little Miss Sunshine, Water, Tideland

2005 RANKING: 27
AGE: 52
BIRTHPLACE: Uddingston, Scotland
REP: Air-Edel
2 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Sense and Sensibility, Gosford Park
RELATIONSHIPS: Kenneth Branagh, Regis Wargnier, Mike Newell, Emma Thompson
BACKGROUND: Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, actor, stage composer
FAN FAVORITES: Henry V, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
TYPECAST IN: Youthful fantasy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--289 (4/2/2006)
2. Bridget Jones's Diary--71
3. Nanny McPhee--46 (4/2/2006)
4. Sense and Sensibility--43
5. Gosford Park--41
6. Secondhand Lions--41
7. Donnie Brasco--41
8. Dead Again--38
9. Carlito's Way--36
10. Calendar Girls--30

It shouldn't be a surprise that Doyle had the biggest boxoffice hit of his career with the overrated fourth Harry Potter film, but the fact that Goblet of Fire earned over four times as much as his previous top grosser, Bridget Jones's Diary, reinforces how Doyle, despite his acclaim and two Oscar nominations, had never before quite been a top Hollywood player. Even this winter's Nanny McPhee, only a modest success (with a Doyle score that runs the gamut from charming to annoying) outgrossed his entire output except for Harry and Bridget. His Potter score retained his own distinctive voice while proving a worthy follow-up to Williams' popular scores for the series, and his upcoming projects are an eclectic batch, including the first Branagh/Shakespeare film since 1999's Love's Labour's Lost.

WHAT'S NEXT: Man to Man, Wah-Wah, Jekyll & Hyde, As You Like It, Aragon

2005 RANKING: 9
AGE: 55
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
2 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
3 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Forrest Gump
RELATIONSHIPS: Robert Zemeckis, Stephen Sommers
BACKGROUND: Berklee College of Music, pop arranger, TV composer (CHiPs)
FAN FAVORITES: Predator, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Mummy Returns
TYPECAST IN: Adventure, comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Forrest Gump--329
2. Cast Away--233
3. Back to the Future--208
4. The Mummy Returns--202
5. What Women Want--182
6. The Polar Expressó173
7. What Lies Beneath--155
8. Who Framed Roger Rabbit--154
9. Lilo & Stitch--145
10. Stuart Little--140

Silvestri has been all too little heard from of late, though, intriguingly, The Polar Express earned an additional 11 million in the last year, thanks to the re-release of its superior IMAX-3D version (it's still not a very good film, but it's a better one in IMAX-3D). After experiences like his departures from Pirates of the Caribbean and Something's Gotta Give, it's plausible that he's finding winemaking a much more satisfying activity than film scoring. Fortunately, he'll be back very soon with Disney's animated The Wild (you know, the one that looks just like Madagascar), and he has an especially musically promising project lined up with Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture animated film of Beowulf.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Wild, Beowulf

2005 RANKING: 13
AGE: 41
BIRTHPLACE: Scotland
REP: First Artists Management
BEST PICTURE NOMINEE: Sideways
RELATIONSHIPS: Alexander Payne, Mark Waters, Richard Shepard
BACKGROUND: Self-taught musician, stage composer
FAN FAVORITE: Election
TYPECAST IN: Comedy, comedy, and more comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Wedding Crashers--209
2. Freaky Friday--110
3. Legally Blonde--90
4. Legally Blonde 2: Red White & Blonde--89
5. Mean Girls--86
6. Failure to Launch--73 (4/2/2006)
7. Sideways--71
8. About Schmidt--64
9. Just Like Heaven--48
10. Kate & Leopold--46

The prestige and critical acclaim earned by Sideways has yet to pay off for Kent, as he continues to be employed largely in less ambitious comedies. Though Kent isn't at his best in projects like Failure to Launch, his distinctive style is a welcome alternative to the blander, more syrupy style of much contemporary comedy scoring, and a two hundred million dollar smash like Wedding Crashers looks good on any composer's resume -- and even resulted (eventually) in a score album. Just Like Heaven, though largely a romantic comedy, allowed him the chance to work in the fantasy genre, The Matador gave him the opportunity for some James Bond-ian pastiche, and he's probably one of the few composers who could find the right tone for a dark (but surprisingly good) comedy like Thank You For Smoking.

2005 RANKING: 16
AGE: 40
BIRTHPLACE: San Diego, California
REP: Kraft-Engel
RELATIONSHIPS: Bryan Singer, Joel Silver
BACKGROUND: USC, film editor
FAN FAVORITE: The Usual Suspects
TYPECAST IN: Superheroes, horror
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. X2--214
2. Fantastic Four--154
3. The Cable Guy--60
4. Gothika--59
5. Halloween H20--55
6. Hide and Seek--50
7. Cellular--32
8. House of Wax--32
9. Lake Placid--31
10. The Usual Suspects--23

Ottman had only one blockbuster hit in 2005, but his lively music for Fantastic Four was much better than that movie deserved, and was a more purely enjoyable score than his X2. He scored two derivative but entertaining horror films, Hide and Seek and House of Wax, and distinctive sensibility was welcome as always. His best film of the year was the least seen, Shane Black's witty directorial debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and Ottman's score found the proper, exceptionally difficult balance between thriller and comedy. This summer he has the most daunting assignment of his career, as the restarting of the Superman franchise gives him the lucrative but unenviable task of providing a worthy successor to John Williams' classic and deservedly beloved score.

WHAT'S NEXT: Superman Returns

2005 RANKING: 23
AGE: 53
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
REP: First Artists Management
1 OSCAR NOMINATION
1 EMMY, 4 NOMINATIONS
2 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Quiz Show, Crash
RELATIONSHIPS: Jodie Foster, Irwin Winkler, Paul Haggis, Wayne Kramer
BACKGROUND: Jazz & classical trumpeter (for San Francisco Opera Orchestra, bands), Windham Hill recording artist
FAN FAVORITE: Fly Away Home
TYPECAST IN: Drama
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Save the Last Dance--91
2. Eight Below--79 (4/2/2006)
3. Blade--70
4. Miracle--64
5. Rules of Engagement--61
6. Kiss the Girls--60
7. Don't Say a Word--54
8. Crash--54 (4/2/2006)
9. Kicking & Screaming--52
10. Varsity Blues--52

For a musician who rarely writes the kind of large scale, boldly melodic scores that tend to make careers for Hollywood composers, Isham has done remarkably well while demonstrating an impressive amount of stylistic range. Though I personally didn't care for his Crash music it has many fans, particularly among other film composers, and scoring the 2005 Best Picture winner would be a coup for any composer. Eight Below has proved to be one of his biggest hits, and it's a pity his rousing orchestral score is only available as an Internet download (despite newspaper ads and even the film credits which proclaim "Soundtrack Available on Walt Disney Records"). He's also scored recent projects as varied as the kids soccer comedy Kicking & Screaming, Curtis Hanson's femme dramedy In Her Shoes and the "edgy" thriller Running Scared, and coming up he has one of his most promising projects yet -- Brian DePalma's film of James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Black Dahlia, Invincible

2005 RANKING: 10
AGE: 43
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
BACKGROUND: Child choir singer, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, orchestrator for Stanley Myers, Media Ventures
RELATIONSHIPS: Tony Scott, Joel Schumacher, Andrew Adamson, Dreamworks, Dan Ireland
FAN FAVORITE: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
TYPECAST IN: Animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Shrek 2--436
2. The Chronicles of Narnia--291 (4/2/2006)
3. Shrek--263
4. Enemy of the State--111
5. Spy Kids--111
6. Chicken Run--106
7. Antz--90
8. Man on Fire--77
9. Spy Game--60
10. The Rundown--47

Last year Gregson-Williams wrote what may be his finest score yet and had his biggest solo boxoffice hit (not counting Shrek 2, which was technically a solo score but featured themes from his Shrek collaborator John Powell), though they were not the same film. His restrained, melodic music for Ridley Scott's underrated Kingdom of Heaven surprisingly avoided most of the Gladiator/Media Ventures cliches; more surprisingly, it actually evoked the music of James Horner. Though the outstanding expanded "Director's Cut" of the film, due this May on DVD, didn't add much in the way of original score (and unfortunately kept in the tracked cues from The 13th Warrior and The Crow), it showed the music off to even better advantage -- after all, nothing helps a score like a good film. He worked with Ridley's brother Tony on the dreadful Domino, and the score was not one of his more memorable efforts (and even featured a tracked in piece from the previous Harry/Tony collaboration, Man on Fire). However, he managed to recover from Domino's richly deserved failure with the biggest hit of the Christmas season, the first in the Chronicles of Narnia series, and his music worked an interesting balancing act between modern and traditional stylings. This year he returns to animation with Flushed Away, and to Tony Scott with Deja Vu.

WHAT'S NEXT: Deja Vu, Flushed Away

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