“I want to know what love is” by Foreigner was used extremely well in the movie Fucking Åmål. Two teenage girls were getting ready to hitchhike out of the city of Åmål. While they were sitting in the back seat of the car, the song was playing softly in the background. Then as they share their first kiss the chorus flares up.
“You Light Up My Life” Performed by Anatoly Aleshin in Happiness. A russian guy, that some girl has no business being with, sings this song to seduce the girl into sleeping with him. The cheesiness of the song compliments the cheesy way she falls for him.
“California Dreamin” by The Mamas And The Papas in Chungking Express. A girl plays this song wherever she goes. I don’t know how, but it worked well.
Just about every silly love song in Moulin Rouge! I went into the movie hating most of them (not knowing they were in the movie, but if you’d asked me on the way in “what do you think of these songs?” and had given me a long list, I would have said “UGH!” to 90% of them) but came out of the movie, not loving the songs anymore outside the context of the movie, but loving the hell out of them inside the context of the movie. If I hear the songs outside the context of the movie, I don’t sing along or anything, but I smile a bit to myself remembering the film.
I always thought the use of Gary Wright’s Dream Weaver in Wayne’s World was pretty hilarious and, therefore, brilliant. But it’s a pretty cheesey song.
Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow is so wistful and darling that I have loved it in everything it’s been used in, including Meet Joe Black, 50 First Dates and Scrubs.
Cheese certainly met cheese to good effect in one the Naked Gun movies, where Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley had a high-spirited night on the town to the tune of “Something Tells Me I’m Into Something Good” by Herman’s Hermits.
And nearly every non-original song in Almost Famous qualifies as “The Best of the Worst,” from the Chipmunks’ “Christmas, Christmas” to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.”
Oh, and “Oobie Doobie” in First Contact! Orbison was a’rockin’ in his grave for that one!
No, it’s cheesy. Infectiously toe-tappin’, but cheesy. When the real rock bands were singing about protest and revolution, these studio hacks (The Foundations, who also performed “Baby Now That I’ve Found You”) were whoring themselves out to AM radio.
Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” in Monster. It played during Aileen and Selby’s couple skate. All of my current fondness from Journey comes from the use of that song in this movie.
