Title Round-Up

Inspired by the comment by Monikerr on last week's post, here's a post that's been brewing awhile. Titles: the good, the bad, and the inexplicable.

1. Titles With Colons.

Saw a preview the other day for Rise: Blood Hunter. But... why? Why the colon? This doesn't appear to be a sequel, or a game franchise, or anything else that would require differentiation between the "Rise" and the "Blood Hunter". And then there's the problem of the whole thing not quite coming together linguistically... is Rise the name of a Blood Hunter? Is this a command being given to a Blood Hunter? Do the folks involved in this film not realize colons are walking a very cheesy line to begin with, given their association with movies-of-the-week (e.g. Against Their Will: Women in Prison, or its alternate title, Caged Seduction: The Shocking True Story... I'm not even kidding, here)?

On the other hand, there is such a thing as a well-played colon. All of the Pirates of the Caribbean titles (Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End) make the colon work. There's something dramatic, fun, and old-fashioned about them, and they imply the serialization aspect-- like a Hardy Boys book might. Or Sherlock Holmes. Plus, how cheeky were they to have the colon and sub-phrase on that first one, without even knowing if the franchise would be serialized?

2. Titles that are Inappropriate to the Movie and Therefore Hard to Remember.

Another preview I saw the other day: The Kingdom. It's not a fantasy film. Nor a medieval action flick. It is, in fact, a big-budget action-thriller set in contemporary Middle East. It's got a killer cast and was directed by Peter Berg, for whom I wish nothing but happiness and success, but what are the odds I will remember the title of this movie? Maybe by September, 2007 the title will finally be branded into my brain courtesy of over-promotion.

3. Titles that are Actually Song Titles, and More Specifically, Song Titles by The Cure.

I get it, I guess. Song titles already exist. They're already taking up space in our brains. Why not just grab a song title and slap it on your movie? I'm not for it, but I do get it. And some have worked really well-- Boys Don't Cry is a great title for that movie. The words themselves work well, even if you don't know the song. The movie takes the original meaning of the song and adds an extra layer. Our boy, in this case, has a lot to prove, and really, really doesn't want to cry...

And then there's Just Like Heaven. The movie weakly purports to maybe have something to do with heaven 'n' ghosts 'n' stuff. It's a super-saccharine phrase when used in such a literal way.

4. The Blanking Blank Title.

My personal pet peeve. I understand that an active verb implies something active. And Chasing Amy was a great title. Especially because you had to watch the movie to figure out who Amy was, and who was Chasing her, and when you have seen it, you realize "Chasing Amy" is completely metaphorical-- a kind of state of mind. Some people are forever Chasing Amy.

But this title structure is frakking everywhere, and I don't think I can take much more of it. There's Educating Rita and Saving Silverman and Courting Courtney and Losing Isaiah (and Toby, and Julia, and Jerry, and Lois... seriously, people, go IMDb "Losing"!).

5. The Character's Name Title.

From Donnie Brasco to Donnie Darko, this is easily one of the biggest titling cop-outs ever. Unless you’ve got a made-up word like “Darko” as part of the character's name, there’s pretty much no way to ensure the tone of this title will be right for your movie – or that anyone will have a clue what your movie’s about. Remember Vera Drake? Charlotte Gray? Exactly.

So there you go, a few title dos and don'ts and tread-lightlys.

Next time on title talk: The Vaguely Literary Title (Matchstick Men), The Prosaic Title (World Trade Centre), The Stock Phrase Title (It Could Happen To You), The Impossibly Generic Title (Next), and The Double Entendre Title (Adaptation). Yep – all can be defined via Nic Cage movies.