Continuity mistake: When Marcia Gay Harden is doing the final preparations for the party that night, she and Anthony Hopkins have a dialogue where they talk about favorites and children. Towards the end of the dialogue, she hugs him and the watch on her wrist says something like 10am. A minute later she hugs him again and the watch now says 12:25.
Continuity mistake: When Brad and Claire leave the cafe at the beginning of the film, and part company. Brad walks to the corner and turns around to look at Claire from a distance. Notice that an extra wearing a pink shirt walks behind Brad once and then again 2 shots later.
Continuity mistake: In the beginning where Claire and Anthony are waiting for "Drew" to arrive they are talking. She says to him while putting her hand on his tummy "Get some food in that flat tummy of yours". On the first shot of this Anthony's arm is out with his hand resting on his hip. In the next shot (as she's pulling her hand away) his arm and hand are down by his side with her arm over his. Not possible.
Continuity mistake: During the birthday party Pitt tells Hopkins that he is in love with his daughter and wants to take her with him. In the beginning of the conversation Hopkins is sitting at the table. Then he removes his glasses and stands up. Next shot he is shown from the back, he stands up and only then removes his glasses.
Other mistake: When Brad gets hit by a car, the car passes by a window, but there's no reflection of the car in the window.
Continuity mistake: When Quince and Joe are at the venue of the party while the preparations are still going on, Quince has two glasses filled with wine - one with red and one with white. He drinks quite a lot of the white wine until the glass is half full. A bit later in the conversations he raises the same glass to drink some more, but now it is full again, and he did not pour any more wine into it in the meantime. (02:01:40)
Continuity mistake: When Joe is eating lunch at Bill's desk and asks Bill about how it was when he first met his wife, he sits back while there is still quite a lot of his cold lamb sandwich left on his plate. As Drew enters the room, there is less food on the plate, and a tomato is visible which we didn't see at all in the first shot. (01:06:10)
Continuity mistake: When Claire Forlani arrives for the party her dress straps are crooked and her hair is turned up. Later she's talking and her hair is turned down. When she's dancing with her father or talking to Joe, her hair changes several times.
Continuity mistake: In the same scene as the mistake where Brad and Claire first meet over breakfast in the diner, but in addition to Claire pouring sugar in her coffee 5 times, watch Brad's hands as the camera changes from front to back view and the various combinations of toast/fork/salt/sugar/coffee in his right hand.
Continuity mistake: At the dinner table at Parrish's, the two staff members provide Joe Black with a place setting, but in the next shot focusing on Joe Black only a very few seconds later, there is all of a sudden a plate of food in front of him, and no staff member is visible.
Continuity mistake: When Marcia Gay Harden is doing the final preparations for the party that night, she and Anthony Hopkins have a dialogue where they talk about favorites and children. Towards the end of the dialogue, she hugs him and hold a silver object in her right hand, that object changes hands and even disappears, while the book stays in the same hand. (02:13:00)
Continuity mistake: When Joe gets a taste of peanut butter in the kitchen in Parrish's NY apartment, he puts the whole spoon in his mouth and coughs afterwards, yet most of the peanut butter, if not all of it, is still left on the spoon when he asks for more.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning, Bill is drinking a cup of coffee on the balcony. He raises it to his mouth and drinks, but when the shot changes to behind him, his hand is down by his side.
Continuity mistake: When Bill and Joe are walking to Bill's office, Bill has to pull Joe back to prevent him from being hit by a car. Right after, there is a close-up of the two, but the extras around them are not the same as in the moment before. A little later a car passes them in front of the camera, and one of the extras who was walking faster than the two before the car came, is at a further distance after the car passed.
Continuity mistake: During the party, you will see Anthony Hopkins switch from having a vest underneath his tuxedo and a cumberband while seated and talking to Joe Black in his office and back to a vest again during his birthday speech.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Bill is having a drink on the couch before dinner (just a few minutes before he meets "Death"), he's holding a highball glass while talking to his daughter Alison. When he gets up and heads toward the dining room, the glass has disappeared.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Drew and Susan are exchanging harsh words in the foyer, Susan's hair changes in almost every shot - one minute it looks wavy and slightly disheveled, the next minute it's perfectly smooth and tucked behind her ear. This inconsistency spills over into the conversation she has with Joe at the foot of the staircase right after Drew leaves.
Continuity mistake: When Joe encounters Susan in the pool area while she's swimming and he's eating peanut butter, the bed in the background is on the right. Later, in the scene where they encounter each other again and end up making love, the bed is on the left.
Chosen answer: The music played is just another part of the original score composed by Thomas Newman. His music, like many composers', sounds similar in different movies on which he has worked. You may be recognizing similarities to other scores such as The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, etc.