Dear Hollywood,

I understand, if nothing else, that you are a land of complicated accountancy. Rolling points, breaking points, percentages, creative budgeting that lets a $400 million movie fail, succeed or just break even. The people with the spread sheets seem to be the hands that rock the cradle.

In that spirit, would you please let your accountants find for you a small--I think it could even be very small--and regular piece of your budgets for the music to be used in movie trailers? I know it could be found somewhere, maybe in line items for hookers or trailers or re-insurance premiums.

As it is, we have only three movie trailer Moods:

HILARIOUS! IT'S A COMEDY!

• Indicated by five seconds of The Commitments' cover of "Treat Her Right" (as far as I can tell--certainly not Otis Redding's)--also known as the "HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY!" song. Hey. Oh hey hey hey hey.

AWWW! IT'S ROMANCE FROM A NOMINALLY NON-MALE POV!

• "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" by Natalie Cole.
  

SOMETHING MEANINGFUL!! NOT A COMEDY! PEOPLE WILL DIE! FOR REASONS!

• Usually Carmina Burana. Sometimes Ennio Morricone's score from The Mission. Maybe Samuel Barber. Usually Carmina Burana.

There are other regular offenders, but these are the ones I hear most often. Surely you can find a little money to shovel out for rights to music besides these? Y'all are looking way stingy. And tired.

In fact, the music choices back up on themselves. I hear "hey-hey-hey-hey," and I immediately assume the movie in question is one the studio knows is sucky but needs to sell as subversive fun anyhow. Hence cheap pavlovian music cues. Hey hey hey hey. Wacky fun. Better than Porky's. Come see it this weekend. Bleah. And Natalie Cole sounds so perky and repetitive you are already rooting against KateHudsonJenniferGarnerwhoever finding Luv. And the Carmina Burana thing...that deserves a separate essay, the way its turgid overuse creates the opposite effect from what you'd like.

Anyhow, it seems an odd place to be cheap to me, unless there's something I'm missing. Can't we cut the vegetarian options in the set catering budget or something?

Yours sincerely,
Movie fan who's actually a big sucker for a well-placed music choice