1. John Williams (The Phantom Menace)
2. Jerry Goldsmith (The Mummy)
3. Mark Mancina (Tarzan)

1. TPM was the movie on everybody's mind this year.

2. TPM will be the biggest money earner of the year.

3. The score from the movie will win.

Jeron

I say: TIME FOR DANNY ELFMAN TO WIN!!!

Or at least Goldsmith....but not for The 13th Warrior.

SFT

The fact that I don't listen to the cd may be in part because of the music on Sony's release. I've heard the unreleased music, and it's brilliant - but until I can hear it all together (or at least have a Disc 2), I'm not sure that I'll be completely convinced.

On to the Goldsmith topic... I think he deserves an Oscar. The stooopid Academy, well - they *are* narrow minded if you ask me. I still question the decisions made last year... and the year before that.

SFT - As much as I would like Goldsmith to win, if Elfman walked away with an Oscar, I'd be delighted. It would be entertaining to see Danny say all of two words to the audience! (I'm sure he'd say more).

Peter - When will weekly online chats be back?

If any of you know, The Phantom Menace revived my movie music interest. Prior to the score, I had randomly picked up soundtracks and didn't expose myself to the wider world of film music. But after seeing the movie and hearing the score, I began my "John Williams" surge and eventually went on to enjoy other great scores by other great composers. If I were a judge, I would give the Oscar nod to TPM just for redeeming my interest in this genre of music. Aside from its effects, I honestly believe it contains the most entertaining and the most varied 74 minutes of film music I have heard all year. Hey, it's the only score this year to which I can follow along perfectly (There has only been two before TPM, The Rock and Braveheart)!

I do agree to the extent that the Academy does tend to favor the "Golden Boy" like SFT had mentioned....but it is also unfortunate that great scores like Good Will Hunting by Elfman and Goldsmith's LA Confidential gets snubbed by this obligatory 'we must vote Titanic in every category!' fever. What I am saying is, the Academy shouldn't feel "obligated" to give an Oscar to The Phantom Menace only because it's Star Wars....but judge it for its own merit.

To conclude, here are my guesses for the nominations:

The Phantom Menace
The Mummy
Tarzan
The Matrix (a BIG maybe)
Sleepy Hollow or 13th Warrior

How can you predict what will win Best Score at the Oscars? Take the most popular one and there you go. It doesn't matter if it was good or bad... if it is popular, or it came from a very popular film, that one's the winner. The Oscars is a popularity contest.

Now, I will reply to the "GOLDEN BOY" comment and popularity contest. Oscars are not a popularity contest. Last year we had two people that I would not consider popular win for their scores. The year before, it was James Horner and his score was decent and fit the movie well. It was his first oscar. I do not see how John Williams is the "GOLDEN BOY" He has not won the oscar this whole decade except for Schindlers List and that was totally deserved. if anyone is the "GOLDEN BOY", it would be Alan Menken and if you think the Academy favors John Williams scores, it's because they are darn good.

So far I do not believe any of Jerry Goldsmiths scores are going to be nominated. It's not because the movies they are scored for. Yes they are huge and adrenaline pumping. But, do they fit the movie as well as other scores do. In every cue of The 13th Warrior, one of the main themes is playing. In Phantom Menace however, John Williams writes material that fits right with the movie. He gives hints of the themes and then at the right moment in a film, he unleashes them to full capacity. The Phantom Menace is a powerful score and every cue fits perfect to what is on the screen. It is definitely Oscar worthy and is not just because it is the highest grossing movie of the summer.

Other nominations could be: Red Violin, Sixth Sense, Tarzan, The Iron Giant, and many more movies that are coming out soon.

Nevertheless John Williams deserves this Oscar for what a great job he has done!

Aaron

Goldsmith, (who I think should be a 7-time winner by now: Planet of the Apes, Patton, Chinatown, The Omen, Star Trek: TMP, Under Fire, Basic Instinct,) will be overlooked again. His movies are not the type that fits the Academy profile. Maybe Reindeer Games will give him something to break through with.

I don't see any clear choices for the nominees at this stage. But I'd love to see Message in a Bottle get a notice as well as 13th Warrior. As for Tarzan, since they've combined the musicals with the scores again this year anything is possible. Ask me again in December.

And, I agree that Williams work is darn good, but certainly not to the extent that he deserves to get a nomination every year...if The Acadamy Awards isīnt a populariry contest, then Danny Elfman should have won a LOOOOONG time ago. I hope he does for Sleepy Hollow, but I am afraid it will take a miracle. Letīs face it....The Acadamy doesīnt really like him all that much, dispite the fact that he is the best composer ever (!)

SFT

But, once the nominations are selected, the ballots with the nominations get mailed out to EVERY member of the Academy. Thus, we have music awards getting voted on by amateurs (or worse), most of whom wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an Elfman score and a Goldsmith score if their lives depended on it.

So, they revert to the same behavior we all use when we are voting on Election Day and we get down to categories like Tax Assessor, Comptroller, Probate Judge, etc. If we recognize a name we've heard before, we choose it -- if not, we guess.

That is why I predict that every one of those 4,000 or so Academy members will look at their ballots and think "Hmmm, best score? Oh, there's John Williams and STAR WARS . . . I'll vote for that!"

But to think of it now, it's not really that John Williams is Mr. Popular, but rather because he makes great scores to great movies. It's simple as that. Bad movies with terrific scores NEVER get nominated.

It's really not Elfman's fault that he doesn't win any Oscars, but he definitely should have for Good Will Hunting....one of the only movies that he composed that was so critically acclaimed. Edward Scisscorhands, Batman, A Civil Action....these movies just don't have the same kind of caliber like Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, or E.T. Think of it this way, most Academy members remember great movies, but not necessarily great scores. Now I am not too sure about how the Academy works (because they may actually have a specific board of members who only pay attention to the music, anyone feel free to inform me of otherwise), but the category for Best Original Score isn't the top category that everyone tunes in for....and Jonathan was saying something along those lines....but it's not exactly a popularity contest, but more like a recognition contest. Jonathan's voting ballot analogy was pretty good.

I can definitely think of some great scores to movies that were absolutely horrendous. Dragonheart, Broken Arrow comes to mind. Not having seen Toys, I still believe the score is the best score ever to a movie that I have never seen or refuse to see. The point is, these great scores weren't nominated (but then again, action scores, perhaps with comedy scores, NEVER get nominated. There's that word again.)

In conclusion, to win the Oscars this year, the winning composer's movie better be darn good that people praise about the movie, and eventually the score (similar to Horner with Titanic, how else would anyone explain the gargantuan sales of the soundtrack?), and in the end maybe the composer will finally achieve the fame that he deserves (again Horner comes to mind, seeing how Deep Impact actually advertised his name during commericals to try to hook Titanic-like audiences).

Like I said before, the whole thing is really ridiculous and the most comical and ill imagined category is ususally the score category. Remember Debbie Allen's dufus dance numbers that represented the best scores at last years program?

If there was any merit to the thing the whole history of the awards would be radically revised. I'd like to pose a new question. Which score award do you think really means anything? And, to put the Oscars in perspective, I'll say that I think the Globes are marginally better than the Oscar and that the Grammy is absolutely worthless as a measure of artistic achievement.

NP- First Knight (80 minute complete score) *****

SFT

The Green Mile (Thomas Newman)

The Hurricane [formerly The Hurricane & Lazarus] (Chris Young)...I visited the scoring session and it will blow people away with its power and Oscar buzz is brewing ((BIG TIME!!)) on Denzel Washington & the picture.

Tarzan (Mark Mancina) [I think Iron Giant derseves the nod more]

Sleepy Hollow (Danny Elfman)

Phantom Menace (John Williams)

My prediction is that Thomas Newman will win for Green Mile and the picture will take away the top prize. Pretty bold predicting, I know but the word on the film is very HOT at the moment.

I also this Gabriel Yared has a chance with The Talented Mr Ripley as he is reteaming with fellow winner Anthony Mingella (English Patient)

Sadly, I think this may not be a Goldsmith nominated year

Who knows????

Williams will probaly gain a nomination for TPM, but as I said, he will not win.

And as for Tarzan, being a Disney score it will probably get nominated and it certainly has a pretty good chance of winning in my opinion.

Green Mile...I donīt know. I havenīt heard it yet....is it good???

In any case, there is a long time until The Acadamy Awards are handed out. So letīs not give up hope.
Elfman still has "Anywhere But Here" in the works.
And there are plenty of other scores on the way.

SFT

NP: The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (Graeme Revell)

I could swear Il Postino also won that year, was it when they had more than one cateorgy though?

But nevertheless, I feel that Forrest Gump by Alan Silvestri was the one that got snubbed. Sure, Newman's Shawshank was awesome (too bad the soundtrack itself was out of order and the classic songs inserted didn't' sound as good as they did in the movie), but it didn't have as much variety as Gump and the Lion King score was rather repetitive. I have not heard the score to Il Postino, but I did hear clips of it during the Academy Promos and it sounded pretty promising.

If you listen carefully, the "If I didn't care" song appeared in the very beginning of the movie, but it's not the first song of the soundtrack. That's one of the most obvious examples that comes to my head, haven't exactly listen to the score or watch the movie lately, but I am positive that there were other out-of-order sequences.