Best of 2011: Original Score

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Drive (CLIFF MARTINEZ)
... for yet another score that slinks its way fully inside a shadowy, scintillating sound design, while sustaining the film's slick 80s-pop bent;

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (ALEXANDRE DESPLAT)
... for a typically melodic, large-orchestra composition that balances the city's dynamic breadth with the jangling solitude of the protagonist;;

Hanna (THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS)
... for gale forces of electronica, infusing action set-pieces with humor and excitement but alert, too, to Hanna's confusions and introspection;

Rango (HANS ZIMMER)
... for calling up Zimmer's often-mislaid sense of humor, in zesty cahoots with the film's crooked shapes, loopy dialogue, and goofball oddities;

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (ALBERTO IGLESIAS)
... for exploiting Iglesias' gifts for beauty and menace, using un-British musical idioms that cast global shadows inside this English labyrinth;

Runners-Up: In a weak year for this category, especially since I couldn't muster full enthusiasm for Ludovic Bource's peppy melodies for The Artist, Dario Marianelli sounding a shade too much like he's "doing Dario Marianelli" in Jane Eyre, and Howard Shore's low broods beneath A Dangerous Method, I'm cutting off the runners-up at three: one more hat-tip to Alberto Iglesias, paired again with frequent collaborator Pedro Almodóvar on his spindly, sidewinding, darkly translucent mystery-thriller The Skin I Live In; a salute to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who do not equal their triumph with The Social Network in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but are certainly crucial to the film's rough, sleek, if slightly uneven textures; and a round of applause to Michael Giacchino for proving himself once again as a key participant in the Bad Robot repertory, giving Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol vim, vigor, humor, and bounce, without seeming intimidated at all by Lalo Schifrin.

Films I Hated to Skip Before Posting: Cold Weather