All in all, a fairly eclectic list for this year.

The best of the rest (or, my next favorite ten scores of the year):
King Arthur – Hans Zimmer
SpiderMan 2 – Danny Elfman
Van Helsing – Alan Silvestri
Hidalgo – James Newton Howard
The Punisher – Carlo Siliotto
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – John Williams
The Alamo – Carter Burwell
Alien vs. Predator – Harold Kloser
The Village – James Newton Howard
Hero – Tan Dun
with a special acknowledgement to The Phantom of the Opera by Lloyd Webber

quote:

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Originally posted by BMikeJ:
I would add Mark Isham's knockout effort on Miracle to any such list for this year.

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And here I thought you had a fondness for Isham's score for "Spartan."

I had forgotten about "Miracle." It was a very good score and the DVD features some great insights into the scoring of the film.

- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Edward Shearmur)
- Hellboy (Marco Beltrami)
- Being Julia (Mychael Danna)
- Birth (Alexandre Desplat)
- Starsky and Hutch (Theodore Shapiro)

1. King Arthur (although once I saw it with the movie I was very dissapointed)
2. Man on Fire (The Lisa Gerrard stuff is great)
3. Van Helsing (Great epic fun)
4. Passion of the Christ (Very dramatic and depressing at some points, slow and uninvolving at others)
5. I, Robot (Great percussion cues by Beltrami)

quote:

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Originally posted by BMikeJ:
Spartan was terrific. But I'm not sure if it qualifies for this year as I think it came out in 2003.

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imdb lists it as a 2004 release.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360009/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9c3BhcnRhbnxodG1sPTF8bm09b24_;fc=1;ft=20;fm=1

1. Birth (Alexandre Desplat)
2. The Machinist (Roque Banos)
3. Bad Education (Alberto Iglesias)
4. A Very Long Engagement (Angelo Badalamenti)
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Jon Brion)

quote:

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Originally posted by zimmerito:
My top score of the year:
1.King arthur(Hans,Nick and rupert)
2-Passion of Christ(John"clone" debney)
3-Prisioner of Azkaban (John "the last mohican" Williams)
4-Van Helsing(Alan Zemeckies)
5-Troy (James "Remember when.." Horner)
6-bourne Supremacy (john "strings" powell)
7-the Village (james "my dear friend hans.."newton howard)

Best composer of the year and next maestro of film music is.....Harry "I'm more than additional" gregson williams.
Merry christmas!!!!
(marselus i'm waiting for your post)

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OK, let´s make some additional arrangements to your post.

1.King Arthur(Hans,Nick and Rupert)..you mean: "Nick, you write the main theme...Rupert, you write the choral stuff"
2-Passion of Christ(John"clone" debney) you mean...John "I spent all my talent with Cutthroat Island in 1995" Debney).
3-Prisioner of Azkaban (John "the last mohican" Williams)...I agree with that.
4-Van Helsing(Alan Zemeckies)....or how to make the head audience explode.
5-Troy (James "Remember when.." Horner)...so many things to write about James "three note motif" Horner...
6-Bourne Supremacy (John "strings" Powell)...I´d say John "STRINGS!!!" Powell
7-The Village (James "my dear friend hans.."Newton Howard)...James "What the hell the Special Thanks in the credits of The Rock mean?" Newton Howard.

Best composer of the year....Harry "Media what?" Gregson-Williams.

Merry Christmas to everybody!

NP Bourne Supremacy

Angels in America (Newman)
Deep Blue (Fenton)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo (Coulais)
Les Choristes (Coulais)
The Village (Howard)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Williams)
Big Fish (Elfman)
The Weeping Meadow (Karaindrou)
Cold Mountain (Yared)
Troy (Yared)
Hero (Tan Dun)
The Terminal (Williams)
The Missing (Horner)

The Village, Angels and Hero would take my top honours. Favorite cues outright would be:
* ’Paris and Helen’ and ’Achilles and Briseis’ from Yared’s Troy,
* ’The Tale of Viktor Navorski’ from Williams Terminal,
* ’A Window to the Past’ and ’Secrets of the Castle’ from Williams Harry Potter III,
* ’Gone with Leaves’ from Tan’s Hero,
* ’End Title’ from Big Fish,
* ’Gravel Road’ and ’The Vote’ from The Village,
* ’The Great Work Begins’ from Angels in America,
* ’The Blue Whale’ from Deep Blue.

Composer of the year: Gabriel Yared, John Williams and James Newton Howard share. The former as much for Cold Mountain as for his Troy score - though I can see why the latter was dumped - I can’t see a lot of that action music working for modern audiences. Honorary mention to James Horner for the five new scores I bought and the two others I didn’t.

Favorite old releases obtained in 2004:
Chris Young’s The Tower.
Chris Young’s Murder in the First.
Goldenthal’s Cobb.
Mark Isham’s The Education of Little Tree.
Bruce Broughton’s True Women.
Bruce Broughton’s Homeward Bound.
Bruce Broughton’s Young Sherlock Holmes.
Jerry Goldsmith’s Under Fire.
Jerry Goldsmith’s Papillon.
Jerry Goldsmith’s Wild Rovers.
Jerry Goldsmith’s Tora Tora Tora.
Jerry Goldsmith’s Hour of the Gun.
John Williams’ Jane Eyre.
Trevor Jones’ Cleopatra.
Trevor Jones’ Dinotopia.
Trevor Jones’ Merlin.
Basil Poledouris’ Conan the Barbarian.
Poledouris’ Farewell to the King.
Poledouris’ War at Home.
Newman’s A Man Called Peter.
Newman’s The Robe.
Newman’s The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Waxman’s Taras Bulba.
Waxman’s Demetrius and the Gladiators.
Waxman’s Prince Valiant.
Rosza’s El Cid.
Sainton's Moby Dick.
Korngold's Adventures of Robin Hood.
North's Shoes of the Fisherman.
Walton's Battle of Britain.
Goodwin's Battle of Britain.
Goldsmith's Logan's Run.
Rosza's Sodom and Gomorrah.
Herrmann's Vertigo.
Steiner's King Kong.
Steiner's Adventures of Mark Twain.
Steiner's Treasure of Sierra Grande.
.... actually, this list is going to go forever. Maybe I should rethink my approach.

Honorable mentions to TEAM AMERICA (Harry Gregson-Williams), SIDEWAYS and MEAN GIRLS (Rolfe Kent), PAPARAZZI (Brian Tyler), VAN HELSING (Alan Silvestri), HELLBOY and I, ROBOT (Marco Beltrami).

* - Sweet Jebus, how could I have left this one out?!

The man obviously has talent, and while he has scored enough comedies--mostly bad--to last him the rest of his career, he meets these projects with obvious enthusiasm that shows in his music. "Elf," I think, displays a knack for creating an inventive atmosphere, cleverly using Christmas cliches from whistling, 'La-La'ing wordless vocals, and sleigh bells to comic effect. Even in "Christmas with the Kranks," he scores a brief string scherzo utilizing fingers typing on an accountant-calculator, not to mention he composed a gorgeous finale for the score.

quote:

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Originally posted by Al:
I think the negativity toward John Debney and his Passion score is a little unwarranted. Granted, the score as a whole becomes grating--I've only listened all the way through the album once--but I think his "Mary Runs to Jesus" cue is probably the most effective piece of film music written this year. To me, that and the crucifixion scene are the strongest parts of Gibson's film, and it's due mostly to Debney.

The man obviously has talent, and while he has scored enough comedies--mostly bad--to last him the rest of his career, he meets these projects with obvious enthusiasm that shows in his music. "Elf," I think, displays a knack for creating an inventive atmosphere, cleverly using Christmas cliches from whistling, 'La-La'ing wordless vocals, and sleigh bells to comic effect. Even in "Christmas with the Kranks," he scores a brief string scherzo utilizing fingers typing on an accountant-calculator, not to mention he composed a gorgeous finale for the score.

Just because Debney hasn't done another over-the-top swashbuckling score in a decade doesn't mean the man is losing talent. If nothing else, he's constantly gaining more experience by continuing to work on even the tackiest of films, and the fact that he gets many projects a year doesn't exactly reflect badly upon him.

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no particular order

National Treasure, Hidalgo, Passion of the Christ, The Alamo and a few others.

I did not like Horners Troy much, but would like to hear the Yared score.

The Machinist (Roque Banos)
Sideways (Rolfe Kent)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Edward Shearmur)
Troy -rejected- (Gabriel Yared)
Undertow (Philip Glass)

Others I enjoyed very much:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Jon Brion)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (John Williams)
Hellboy (Marco Beltrami)
The Incredibles (Michael Giacchino)
Napoleon Dynamite (John Swihart)
The Punisher (Carlo Siliotto)
The Terminal (John Williams)

Scores that I suspect will make the cut once I hear them in full:

Bad Education (Alberto Iglesias)
A Very Long Engagement (Angelo Badalamenti)
The Village (James Newton Howard)

Scores I'm still excited about but haven't yet heard a note of:

The Aviator (Howard Shore)
The Life Aquatic (Mark Mothersbaugh)

Kirk
NP - Il Sole Anche Di Notte (Nicola Piovani)

Whassup widdat?