We saw Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” earlier this week and were pleasantly surprised with how entertaining and pleasurable it was.
It’s not a life-changer or anything and a small little film, with minor ambitions, but it’s enjoyable, charming and amusing for the most part. More notably, as a whole, it’s probably a more consistent film than the spotty and uneven, ‘Darjeeling Limited,’ and ‘Life Aquatic.’ We think we even liked it a bit more than our reviewer in London did (read his full review).
The film is so amiable (if a slight, minor work in his oeuvre), we might even have to take Anderson off our disappointed director’s list.
We digress. Today the entire soundtrack album, which comes out next week (November 3) via ABCKO records, is available to stream in its entirety.
Our favorite uses of music in the film were generally not the well-known pop songs (though the Beach Boys’ “Ol Man River” is probably the best-utilized “classic rock” song in the picture), and highlights for us included what becomes Willem Dafoe’s hilarious Rat character’s theme (a dead-ringer Ennio Morricone-esque score track called, ” Bean’s Secret Cider Cellar”), the Bobby Fuller Four’s “Let Her Dance” (there you go Wes! this is a classic gem you use perfectly), Georges Delerue’s “Le Grand Choral” (splendid use) and Alexander Desplat’s excellent score, including the climactic track, “Stunt Expo 2004” (if the Mark Mothersbaugh connection is over, Wes might have found his new go-to composer, though in many ways the music is verrrry Mothersbaugh).
Check out all the songs in the soundtrack, this one is rather great (use the scroll bar to listen and see all 25-tracks). Maybe the film is a minor return to form, but we welcome that regardless.
