Movies that overuse their title score

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Last of the Mohicans - it's an absolute belter, a classic of its kind but by the end you feel like someone chained it on a jukebox for 2 hours.

American Beauty - plenty to like about the film, including the low key persistence of the music at first. Then whenever there's a moment of contemplation - and there are several dozen - bing bong bong bong bong. Drove me to misery by the end and genuinely spoils what is a otherwise good film.

Someone slag off Jerry Goldsmith too, I can't wait to get stuck into the bastard.

[grassbath]

In The Mood for Love. If that theme had been deployed at one or two pivotal moments it would have been great. Instead it's whacked out so often that it honestly feels like a serious production error, or a cover-up for someone not having bothered to write more score.

[madhair60]

can't think of any.

[neveragain]

Cloud Atlas, but it was sort of the point.

Well, one of the points.

I think. Who knows?

[Alberon]

Dr No - I seem to remember the Bond theme popping up every ten minutes or so. I suppose it's made worse by the overuse of the theme over the next half century.

[alan nagsworth]

Is that absolute song for cunts in Requiem For A Dream overused in the film or is it just fucking overused everywhere else? Can't be fucked to watch the film again to find out because it's a massive heap of shit

[Blumf]

Dr No - I seem to remember the Bond theme popping up every ten minutes or so. I suppose it's made worse by the overuse of the theme over the next half century.

It's made worse by it being used so inappropriately. Using it for stuff like Bond checking in to a hotel.

[chveik]

Is that absolute song for cunts in Requiem For A Dream overused in the film or is it just fucking overused everywhere else? Can't be fucked to watch the film again to find out because it's a massive heap of shit

both I think

[alan nagsworth]

What a travesty

[greenman]

I can mostly think of those that use it a lot but get away with it like Aguirre or Paris Texas.

[Puce Moment]

In The Mood for Love. If that theme had been deployed at one or two pivotal moments it would have been great. Instead it's whacked out so often that it honestly feels like a serious production error, or a cover-up for someone not having bothered to write more score.

My first thought as well. Wong Kar Wai has said it is deliberate - making their lives repetitive, and is the short simple score to their very pure growing love for one another. That helps me a great deal when I rewatch it because for some time I felt it was the only weakness in an otherwise perfect film.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Mind you, surely if it's annoyingly repetitive it stays annoying even after learning the directorial intentions.

[Mantle Retractor]

James Horner's score to Commando springs to mind here, superb 1980s steel drum / sax combo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REb3vFSkQEg

[Gonk]

True Romance. Hans Zimmer's beanie baby advert guff whistling through the film at least every 15 minutes, like sitting next to a twee earworm sprinkler.

[Puce Moment]

Mind you, surely if it's annoyingly repetitive it stays annoying even after learning the directorial intentions.

Not really - I think it was down to my own lack of insight. I probably would have felt the same about Under the Skin for precisely the same wrong-headed reasons.

[Peru]

My first thought as well. Wong Kar Wai has said it is deliberate - making their lives repetitive, and is the short simple score to their very pure growing love for one another. That helps me a great deal when I rewatch it because for some time I felt it was the only weakness in an otherwise perfect film.

He does this in Chungking Express with California Dreaming and it annoyed me to the point of madness.

[Dex Sawash]

Twenty to One*


*Which doesn't work because it refers to odds not a score, postanyway

[greenman]

True Romance. Hans Zimmer's beanie baby advert guff whistling through the film at least every 15 minutes, like sitting next to a twee earworm sprinkler.

It works much better in Badlands anyway...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tEgzGnzojc

You can see why it was reused/nicked I spose as there's some basic similarity in plot but I don't think theres really the same innocence to True Romance which it plays up in Malicks film contrasting with the violence.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

James Horner's score to Commando springs to mind here, superb 1980s steel drum / sax combo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REb3vFSkQEg

Ah yes, wasn't there something similar in Beverly Hills Cop II? That sort of 'plans are afoot' sense of the film's chess pieces moving into position.

[George White]

The Shaw movie Swordsman and Enchantress- particularly as the theme is the theme from Crown Court.

The Badlands/True Romance theme always reminds me of the theme from the Love Bug.

[madhair60]

Jungle Book 2 has Bear Necessities four or five times

[VelourSpirit]

I can mostly think of those that use it a lot but get away with it like Aguirre or Paris Texas.

Suspiria, it annoyed the shit out of me but maybe it works for the film
Oh yeah Hausu as well

[Gonk]

It works much better in Badlands anyway...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tEgzGnzojc

You can see why it was reused/nicked I spose as there's some basic similarity in plot but I don't think theres really the same innocence to True Romance which it plays up in Malicks film contrasting with the violence.

Ah, yet to see it - it's a theme that makes far more sense for coming of age sinister goings on than the glorified LA fantasy gunplay.

[Brundle-Fly]

Someone slag off Jerry Goldsmith too, I can't wait to get stuck into the bastard.

Goldsmith could bang a saucepan on the side of a fridge for an hour and a half for a film score as far as I'm concerned.  He's given us some of the finest OSTs ever: The Sand Pebbles, Planet Of The Apes, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, The Satan Bug, the Flint movies, Logan's Run, The Omen, Psycho 2, Gremlins, the Star Trek movies, Magic, Outland, L.A. Confidential, The Mummy... etc

But I'll concede he was overused in the industry and you got the impression there may have been a bit of bottom drawer recycling going on to keep up the pace,

But how can you call JG a bastard after he gave us his finest moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8bv0QDLI7M

[Larry Heliotrope]

Definitely not fair to say overuse in this instance, but one of the many fun things about Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye is the way that (if I'm remembering this correctly) all the music is a version of John Williams' title theme (e.g. singer in nightclub, supermarket muzak,  Mexican street band,  even a door chime I think...)

[Noodle Lizard]

The notoriously dreadful Travolta/Tomlin romance flick "Moment By Moment" has a sequence so long that you can actually hear the score end and begin again with minimal effort to disguise the looping.

[Armin Meiwes]

One of the most repetitively used pieces of music must be in Midnight Cowboy right, but works perfectly for me.

[Sheffield Wednesday]

He does this in Chungking Express with California Dreaming and it annoyed me to the point of madness.

Bad luck. One of the best romances ever made.