It’s been a rough year or so for fans of great genre movie and TV music. Iconic composers of classic adventure, sci-fi and horror themes have mournfully passed on, causing many to look and listen back to what was. But, it’s important to recognize their accomplishments — along with the ongoing contributions of composing giants still with us.

The following is a list of the all-time great genre orchestral composers, living or dead, and their landmark music. It’s not a ranking. It’s not a competition. If you feel someone was left off the list, please kick me in the backside via the comments section and include them for Wired.com posterity

(Wired)

For years, the soundtrack business was a sleepy corner of the industry.

Apart from the occasional standout hit — think “Titanic” — most compilation soundtracks seemed irrelevant. But of late, a reawakening has occurred, and Robert Kraft, as president of Fox Music, has been on the front lines. Three of Fox’s soundtracks reside in the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Soundtracks chart: “Alvin and the Chipmunks” at No. 1, “Juno” at No. 2 and “Once” at No. 7.

Kraft, who released two albums as a solo artist and two as part of a band, Robert Kraft & the Ivory Coast, was nominated for the 1993 Academy Award for best song alongside Arne Glimcher for “Beautiful Maria of My Soul” from “The Mambo Kings.”

(Reuters)

It’s been 12 years since his last American Top 40 hit — and a decade since he began making headlines for his increasingly troubled personal life — but George Michael is making a quietly endearing comeback stateside thanks to his offbeat appearances on ABC’s legal dramedy Eli Stone. Since popping up as a singing vision to Stone’s titular lawyer-prophet in the pilot, Michael has become the show’s patron saint of sorts, lending his best-known hits (”Faith,” ”Freedom 90”) to the series’ trademark production numbers. ”He’s the muse,” says Stone co-creator Marc Guggenheim. ”George was part of the show from the very inception. No one else had the combination of name recognition, association with the ’80s, and songs that fit the tone and the spirit of the show. We never thought that George would be interested in appearing more than once. We got really lucky.”

So lucky, in fact, that the pop star is now set to take on a rare speaking role in an episode — although the part wasn’t too demanding: Michael (who has skewered his image before on shows like Extras) plays himself when he testifies on behalf of a local high school girl who is punished for playing ”I Want Your Sex” over the loudspeaker during an abstinence-education rally. And this won’t be Michael’s last time on the show. ”I don’t want to spoil anything,” says Guggenheim, ”but I will tell you that in the final episode, Eli asks him if he’s God.” (Funny, we used to wonder the same thing back in high school.) Michael called EW from his home in England to chat about his work on the show.

(EW)

It’s a collaboration of two of the most galvanizing voices in the history of film and music.

In the fall of 2006, legendary director Martin Scorsese decided to film iconic rockers The Rolling Stones over a two-day period at the intimate Beacon Theater in New York City. The two-day event was a benefit for the Clinton Foundation’s climate change efforts, and the former president, accompanied by wife/current presidential hopeful Hillary, opened for the greatest rock and roll band in the world.

Flanked by a host of cameras operated by some of the medium’s finest cinematographers, including Oscar-nominated Gimme Shelter lensman Albert Maysles, Scorsese shot the Stones from every conceivable angle, capturing the aging rockers in all their glory.

Mr. Scorsese’s film career has always been tied to that of the Stones, since their music can be heard playing in the background of some of the most iconic moments of his films.

The Stones documentary Shine a Light continues the tradition. Combining rare archival footage with live concert footage at the Beacon, Scorsese provides us with a career-spanning film that only amplifies the legend of filmmaker and band.

This past weekend, Scorsese and the four surviving members of the Rolling Stones – vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, and drummer Charlie Watts – reunited in the Big Apple for a much-anticipated press conference at the New York Palace Hotel.

(Manhattan Movie Magazine)

Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is knee-deep in his new film, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s thriller “Shutter Island” starring Leonard DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley, among others. And he’s stumped. Just a little.

“This new movie is set in 1954,” he says in comic exasperation. “No Rolling Stones!”

Fans of the filmmaker will understand his consternation. Long before directing the new Rolling Stones concert      documentary, “Shine a Light,” which opens April 4, Martin Scorsese was associated with their music.

(Pop Matters)

Most film music written today is terrible, with few scores lingering in the memory like the underwater menace of Jaws or the whimsical Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, top composers have told The Times.

Hans Zimmer, who wrote the music for the Hollywood box-office hits Gladiator and The Lion King, dismissed the majority of contemporary screen compositions as unmemorable. “They drift around like cows grazing. So many scores sound like nobody really thought about them.”

Anne Dudley, whose music in The Full Monty won an Oscar, and Christopher Gunning, whose score for La Vie en Rose picked up a Bafta this year, attacked the “blandness” of soundtracks.

(Source: The Times UK)

Randall Poster has one of the best jobs in Hollywood, compiling soundtracks for some of the coolest movies for over a decade. Renowned for his work with director Wes Anderson, with whom he has collaborated since Bottle Rocket in 1996, Poster came up with the really, really good-sounding piano-key-necktie soundtrack to Ben Stiller’s Zoolander (2001), has recorded Portuguese samba versions of Bowie songs for The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004), and put together a stellar music cast to pay tribute to Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ upcoming homage I’m Not There.

Currently, his work is showcased in Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, about three squabbling American brothers trying to find themselves in India. Here, Poster talks about the highlights of his career so far…

(Source: The Guardian UK)

In 1976, when he was 19, Daniel Day-Lewis, who is British and was trained in the grand theatrical tradition of Shakespeare and the classics, saw “Taxi Driver” and, despite the considerable weight and seeming obligation of his heritage, realized that what he longed to be was an American actor. “It was a real illumination,” Day-Lewis told me late in August as he sat at the rough wood dining table of a duplex apartment in downtown Manhattan, where he and his wife,

It was raining hard outside, and Day-Lewis, who has the look of an elegant vagabond, was wearing clothes seemingly chosen many years ago for their utility and subtle details. His loose denim jeans were worn soft and white by use and the once-vibrant red plaid of his shirt had aged into a warm maroon. Day-Lewis is tall and lean and has tattoos circling his lower arms and the permanently inked handprints of his and Miller’s two sons climbing up his body to his shoulders. There were gold loops in each earlobe, and although he had left his sturdy, beat-up leather work boots outside the front door and was padding around in his socks, Day-Lewis still had a kind-of-jaunty porkpie hat on his head. The hat covered his long black hair and set off the contours of his face, which is dominated by his noble, bashed nose.

In his latest film, “There Will Be Blood,” which opens next month and was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Day-Lewis portrays a man who is searching for his fortune in oil in turn-of-the-century California. The character is loosely based on Edward Doheny, who started out as an itinerant prospector looking for gold and silver and became the millionaire who headed the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company.

(Source: New York Times)

There was a time around 1997 when no matter where you were — in the car, on the StairMaster, at the dentist’s office — you couldn’t help but hear “My Heart Will Go On,” the soaring Celine Dion ballad from “Titanic.”

Resistance was futile. It did go on, and on, and on — an example not just of great marketing, but of the kind of movie theme song that no longer exists.

These extinct songs were big and poignant on their own, but also used skillfully within their films. They became “a souvenir” of the theatrical experience, as six-time Oscar-nominated songwriter Diane Warren puts it.

(Source: Houston Chronicle)