Muriel Award: Best Music (Original, Adapted or Compiled)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (original score by Alexandre Desplat; Randall Poster, music supervisor) [102 points/17 votes]
“I can’t say I’m a huge Wes Anderson fan. But even though most of his films have left me cold, I’ll give the guy credit for one thing - he has a extraordinary talent for mating music with images. (Anything I remember from The Royal Tenenbaums, at this point, is due entirely to Paul Simon, The Ramones and Elliot Smith.) As it was, so it is: Fantastic Mr. Fox makes excellent use of a couple of Beach Boys deep tracks and a whole bunch of Burl Ives. No, really - if you don’t know Burl from anything other than a couple of Christmas perennials, the soundtrack is like having your consciousness squeegeed while Burl punches you in the temporal lobe for being such an ig’nant moron. (And let’s not discount the single most perfect occurrence of the Bobby Fuller Four ever in the history of time.) But while anyone can piggy-back on the irresistible sinuous kick of the opening to “Street Fighting Man,” sometimes you need a little something more, especially if you’re making what is ostensibly a kiddie flick. Enter Alexandre Desplat. If Anderson’s compiled choices enhance, Desplat’s score elevates - the gorgeous, propulsive and terrifically sprightly score is a perfect complement for Anderson’s family-friendly purposes. Yet there’s still enough angst behind the bombast and bounce that the emotional core doesn’t get muted or overwhelmed. Despite the deliberate nature of the enterprise (stop-motion is the most obviously arduous of animations) Fantastic Mr. Fox has ten times the life and verve of Anderson’s live-action films, and while a lot of that can be chalked up to Wes finally finding a genre in which his micromanaging tendencies are not just justified but absolutely necessary, Desplat’s score is the film’s John Stockton - the clutch player who makes all the right shots at all the right times.
Also, think about this: Listen to “Bean’s Secret Cider Cellar” and “Just Another Dead Rat in a Garbage Pail.” This film could get kids started on Sergio Leone just from the music alone. How fucking awesome is that?” - Steve Carlson
Runners-up:
Inglourious Basterds [84/13]
Up [67/11]
The Informant! [59/10]
A Serious Man [45/8]
