Thursday Token Themes

Welcome a weekly feature here at Movies With Abe. I’m a hugely enthusiastic fan of film scores, and music is far too often an element of cinema that goes unrecognized. Therefore I present a platform for a look – or rather, a listen – to some fantastic film scores. I’ll be selecting a composer and one or more of their film scores for your listening pleasure, embedded from YouTube.

This week’s featured composer is John Ottman, an American who has never been nominated for an Oscar but really should have for the first chronological piece featured in this post. Before we get to that, of course, it’s worth highlighting two of Ottman’s most recent accomplishments. First, we have the very playful, stylized credits theme for “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Next up, we have the thrilling suite for “X2: X-Men United,” one of the better superhero sequels out there. And then we have “The Usual Suspects,” which may well be the greatest mystery thriller out there. I’ve included two pieces of the soundtrack. The first is the main theme, a more pensive, eerie introduction to the five main characters and this peculiar situation that has arisen at the docks. The second is “Payback,” a more action-oriented score that takes my mind immediately back to the image of a stone-faced Stephen Baldwin brandishing a gun while standing in an elevator.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)



X2: X-Men United (2003)



The Usual Suspects (1995)