Worst Titles For Good Movies

Roger Ebert's current movie answer man (to which I can't link because the link will soon expire. Go to rogerebert.com and find the one dated closest to this entry in the archives) contains a letter that asks why the wheelchair-polo documentary Murderball has played so poorly. Ebert has an answer from the movies's co-director:

'David Alan Shapiro, "Murderball's" co-director, tells me: "It is indeed odd, as I reckon we're one of the best-reviewed films of the year, if not the decade. The press has been so kind, and as mainstream as it gets. Maybe people just don't like wheelchairs. Maybe we alienated our base by trying to gloss it up and go mainstream: big theaters, no festival laurels, no 'documentary.' Maybe the title paired with Zupan's goateed mug scare off half the audience. For better or worse, people are hearing 'sports film.' Maybe the sportos don't want to see a wheelchair doc, and the doc-heads don't want to see a sports flick. Maybe everybody thinks it's one of those cue-the-violins 'inspirational' weepies. Who knows?"'

Mr. Shapiro, I don't think that's what anyone's hearing with Murderball, which sounds less like a sports movie than it does a 1960s Roger Corman exploitation flick. Titles are so desperately important with movies. The good ones--Star Wars, Goodfellas, The Silence of the Lambs, or The Lion King--not only have a certain magical rhythm to them, but also give you a hint of the style and tone of the movie you're about to spend money on. When I hear that Murderball is doing poorly at the box office, I don't think "Oh, that poor documentary. I need to head down there, buy a ticket and give it a fighting chance." I think "You mean that piece of crap with Ice Cube in it? Good. Maybe the executroids will finally learn." I have to remind myself that a) it's a documentary and b) it's about wheelchair athletes. Any title that doesn't give you a hint about the subject of the movie is bad, but a title that gives the potential viewer the wrong impression is disasterous.

It got me thinking about good movies with bad titles. It's too easy to think of bad movies with bad titles, but try a good movie. It's hard. Here's what I came up with:

1. Murderball
2. About Last Night...(originally Sexual Perversity in Chicago
3. Playing By Heart...
4. The Exorcist III (originally Legion, and if they'd kept it that way they wouldn't have needed to add the superfluous exorcism scenes to the movie.)

I Meant Take Him Out To Dinner and A Show

It warms the cockles of my heart to see Pat Robertson take a pummeling for calling for the murder of Hugo Chavez. Now he says he was "misinterpreted" when he said that covert operators should "take him out". Just for history's sake, Media Matters reminds us of what he said:

ROBERTSON: You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

Apparently he wants us to forget that he employed the word "assassination" earlier in the paragraph where he said "take him out". And he hopes we'll ignore that after he said "assassination" he added "we really ought to go ahead and do it". What else could this be but a call for assassination? Will he next argue that when he said assassination he didn't mean "high profile political murder" but instead meant "kidnapping" or "an afternoon of tennis followed by a seven course dinner at The Tavern on the Green, and brandy, cigars and hints of indiscretion at 21"? This goes way beyond Bill Clinton's "definition of 'is'", occupying the same territory as those David Irving books that claim that all statements by Hitler, Himmler, and the crew about "ausrotten" the Jews meant anything but what "ausrotten" means--to exterminate. Next we'll talk to Pat Buchanan and Christopher Hitchens, who'll explain why there's nothing wrong with that.

This country would be much more fun to watch from a safe distance. Unfortunately, I don't know any place that far.

Are Peace Movements Known For Hurling Spears?

AP Headline: 'Peace Mom': Spearhead of Peace Movement?

I hope this was AP's moment of headline irony for the day.

Seven Deadly Sins

Bitterspice tagged me, so here we go.

The Seven Deadly Sins

Anger

1. Who did you last get angry with? There must have been several thousand on the 405 today who learned how I felt about them.
2. What is your weapon of choice? A devastating insult, especially one involving yiddish words.
3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex? If I suspected physical danger, yes.
4. How about of the same sex? Yes, and I would also cut off their faces and use them for masks during my escapes.
5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you? Bitterspice was upset with me a while back. I'm sure there have been others, but only her anger is in any way significant to me.
6. What is your pet peeve? Like George Carlin, I don't have pet peeves. I have major psychotic hatreds. Let's see. I hate weakness, racism, sexism, stupidity, willful ignorance, George Bush, Ann Coulter, the entire religious right, religion in general, salespeople, publicists, the questions Charlie Rose asks authors, Michael Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Brady, the New England Patriots, Seattle traffic, whiny Seattle neighborhood activists who fuck up any attempt to alleviate Seattle traffic, Dick Cheney, anyone associated with George W. Bush in any way (including dog groomers and other minor functionaries), marketing people, cops, that BTK guy, terrorists, fundamentalists, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Southwest Airlines (11 hours from Seattle to Chicago, you miserable fucks?), and anyone who started a letter writing campaign for Enterprise.
7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily? Tom-fucking-tuck-rule-Brady. I'll hate him three years after he dies.

Sloth

1. What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you haven't done in a while? I've slacked off a little on pilates.
2. What is the latest you've ever woken up? Three in the afternoon.
3. Name a person you've been meaning to contact, but haven't? I can't think of any.
4. What is the last lame excuse you made? Can't remember. (That's one, isn't it?)
5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through (one of the long ones?) Yes. Tony Robbins can be hypnotic sometimes.
6. When was the last time you got a good workout in? Monday.
7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today? Twice.

Gluttony

1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice? I like vanilla lattes, but I don't buy them more than once or twice a month.
2. Meat eaters: white meat or dark meat? I like anything dead. Hell, I like sushi, so I'll even eat anything unconscious.
3. What is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one sitting/outing/event? A few years ago I drank a bottle of wine during a Raiders-Broncos Monday night game. It was very necessary.
4. Have you ever used a professional diet company? No.
5. Do you have an issue with your weight? I'd like to lose a bit, but I'm okay.
6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods? Spicy.
7. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought "LUNCH"? Mmmm...other people's children...Sorry, I was channeling Albert Fish.

Lust

1. How many people have you seen naked (not counting movies/family)? Fifty or so.
2. How many people have seen YOU naked (not counting physicians/family)? If you subscribe to my webcam, you could be one of them.
3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of your gender of choice during a normal conversation? Yes.
4. Have you "done it?" Yes.
5. What is your favorite body part on a person of your gender of choice? It's all good.
6. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute? Yes. In Kenya.
7. Have you ever had to get tested for an STD or pregnancy? Nope.

Greed

1. How many credit cards do you own? Ask me again in two weeks.
2. What's your guilty pleasure store? I've never felt guilt about any place that I've shopped.
3. If you had 1 million dollars, what would you do with it? A million doesn't go very far. I'd probably invest it so that I could keep the career going.
4. Would you rather be rich, or famous? Wealth would be nice, but fame is more likely, given my career choice.
5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks? No. I wouldn't be very good at it and would lose it quickly.
6. Have you ever stolen anything? I once jacked the Lawrence University student store for a can of soup. I was damn poor then.
7. How many MP3's are on your hard drive? Plenty, and I paid for all but maybe a dozen of them.

Pride

1. What's one thing you have done that you're most proud of? Wrote a novel that won an award.
2. What's one thing you have done that your parents are most proud of? The same, I'd imagine.
3. What's one thing you would like to accomplish in your life? To live well off my fiction earnings.
4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place? It depends one who I lost to and what the stakes were, but generally no.
5. Have you ever entered a contest of skill knowing you were of much higher skill than the other competitors? Sure
6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score? Yes, and I got caught. (It involved a metal shop toolbox in 8th grade.) I learned then and there that I have no talent for crime, forcing me to give up my dream of becoming a sophisticated international jewel thief.
7. What did you do today that you're proud of? Managed to survive three-and-a-half hours of traffic without slaughtering my fellow motorists.

Envy

1. What item (or person) of your friend's would you most want to have for your own? Nothing. I'm trying to limit my assets these days.
2. Who would you want to go on "Trading Spaces" with? Famed set designer Ken Adam.
3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be? Brad Bird.
4. Have you ever been cheated on? I doubt it.
5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own? Roger Moore's hair.
6. What inborn trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself? The ability to tolerate stupidity.
7. Do you wish you'd come up with this survey? No.

And finally, what is your favorite deadly sin? Lust. Especially as played by Raquel Welch in the original Bedazzled

I'd pass this on to someone else if I knew anyone. So at least as far as I'm concerned, the chain stops here.

Einer Kleiner Nachmittag Debunking

One of my students recently asserted, in response to my expressed hatred of spiders, that human beings swallow an average of eight spiders per year. Having heard this one before and with my own spider sense (or bullshit detector) tingling, I took it upon myself to check it out.

Find the answer here. Hint: don't you think natural selection would have taken care of predators dumb enough to crawl inside the mouths of larger predators? Spiders have infested the planet for millions of years, and show tremendous survival skills. I mean, yes, there could be the odd Inspector Clouseau spider, but his clumsiness and stupidity would injure other spiders, and predators who were trying to kill him, rather than himself. (Inspector Clouseau spider taps lightly at a human's lips: "Kato?") This would drive the Inspector Dreyfus spider crazy and he'd try to kill the Inspector Clouseau spider and this would inevitably lead to me extending this joke too far.

Also, if this were true don't you think that would mean waking up with an unswallowed spider in your mouth at least once? Men, have you ever had this happen to you? Man at water cooler: "I'm having the worst day. I was brushing my teeth and hooked this" (Picture of Spider). Well BILLY MAYS HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE SPID-Y-B-GONE MOUTH GUARD IN A VOICE SO LOUD THEY CAN HEAR ME ON NEPTUNE! WOW!!!!

Yes, but then, what about the nose?

And Here I'd Just Assumed It Was A Remake

Apparently, the producers of Michael Bay's megaflop The Island didn't pay the producers of Parts: The Clonus Horror for the rights to their story, despite the films being so close to one another in theme and plot that even a cursory glance at plot summary for The Island made anyone who'd seen PTCH say, "My God, why would you want to remake that piece of shit? Oh, yeah, it's Michael Bay we're talking about." Indeed, months before the movie came out, the Internet Movie Database had it listed in its "Movie Connections" segment as a remake of PTCH, and no one bothered to demand a correction or issue a denial.

You can read about the suit here. It's kind of fun. I guess if the PTCH producer wins his suit (and it seems to me he has Bay and Dreamworks by the balls), he can finally quit his job. Maybe I shouldn't root for him too hard though. He might use the proceeds from the judgement to make a sequel.

Response to Raiders' First Preseason Series

I only heard it on radio, but everyone seemed pretty sharp. Lamont Jordan caught passes and ran well. Collins was sharp. The offensive line blocked well, and the defense held the 49ers to a three-and-out. Nice.

Friday's Movie Challenge

Via Majikthise:

"Amanda sets Friday's movie challenge: list your favorite well-drawn female characters in movies. I found this exercise much more difficult than I expected."

Me too. In some ways, and this is pretty sad, television has been kinder to women than film has. (Roseanne, Maude, The Sopranos, and Mary Tyler Moore leap to mind.) Still, I can think of some, and here they are:

Scarlett Johansson as Charlotte in Lost In Translation.

Halle Berry as Leticia Musgrove in Monster's Ball

Pam Grier as Jackie Brown in Jackie Brown

Nicole Kidman as Alice Harford in Eyes Wide Shut

Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze in Lolita (1962)

Jessica Lange as Julie Nichols in Tootsie

Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill in Goodfellas

Margot Kidder as Lois Lane in Superman II

Every woman (Monroe included) who appears in All About Eve

Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

Janet Leigh as Marion Crane in Psycho

Susan Sarandon as Annie Savoy in Bull Durham

Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen in Network

Beatrice Straight as Louise Schumacher in Network

Piper Laurie as Sarah Packard in The Hustler

Diana Rigg as Teresa D'Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service

I think I'll stop here. I found quite a few, didn't I?