The other day I saw an article on this on msn.com which I can’t find now which was pretty generic, but rightly chose Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium as worst ever- I assume they excluded grade-Z films with purposefully moronic titles. But they omitted my first choice, the 1991 Kathleen Turner shitfest V.I. Warshawski. Yes, movies have been named after the protagonist since day one, but others usually have the sense to not choose a name that 90% of the public can’t pronounce, unless they grew up in Chicago or Warsaw.
Q
AKA Q: The Winged Serpent
Lately I’ve been laughing at the title of P2, which is named for the parking garage in which it’s set. It’s funny because: a) it’s so nondescript, b) it’s the same name as a famous banking/Vatican scandal, which would probably be a much more interesting movie, and c) it sounds like it should be the sequel to a movie called P.
But the biggest reason P2 is funny is because it reminds of probably the funniest movie title ever: Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Snakes on a Plane should probably get a mention as well. And if I can mention Z-grade movies, I’d add The Incredibly Strange Creates Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Granted, they weren’t really trying with that one.
There’s always the clunky **To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar ** which wasn’t cute or clever and clearly didn’t entice many people to actually go and see the movie.
Mods, you may now perform that thread-locking thingy as this question has now been definitively answered.
Seconded. On both counts.
I’m not a big fan of long titles, no matter how good the movie or play. They invariably end up shortened:
the aforementioned **The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped living and Became Mixed-up Zombies
Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mom’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Bad
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the Inmates of Clarendon under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade**
(Invariably shortened to Marat/Sade)
But the titles I really hate are those that don’t really tell you what it’s about, or give you any sense of what the film is. Sorceror is a good example of this. Even when you saw tthe trailer, with its South American settings, you get the impression that it’s maybe some Carlos Castaneda-type quasimystical film. It was YEARS before I learned what the title really meant. (It’s the name of one of the trucks. I’ll betcha didn’t know that, unless someone told you. It’s not as if it’s even ever clearly shown in the film.)
I disagree. Sure it was a crappy movie, but the title was spot on. There were snakes; they were on a plane. It doesn’t get much better than that.
I hate it when movie titles don’t describe the movie. For lack of a better example - Steel Magnolias - that movie was NOT about metallic flowers! What a rip!
On that note: Primer. You mean it’s not about watching paint dry?
The title was stupid, which is basically what drew people to the movie in the first place. It was so stupid that it was greatly amusing, don’t get me wrong - I saw the thing opening night. But if “Snakes on a Plane” was a good title, Titanic should have been “Girl on a Boat,” Speed should have been “Guy on a Bus,” and Schindler’s List should have been “Jews on a Train.”
Yeah, I hate titles that are meaningless - they are easy to forget and don’t tell you anything about the movie. My personal worst is Primal Fear - an excellent Richard Gere/Ed Norton courtroom drama/mystery from 1996. But they could not have come up with a more uninspired, misleading title. It sounds like it should be a shock horror film.
There can be only one: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
(Badly and/or half-translated anime titles doesn’t count, right? We’d be here all day.)
The Long Kiss Goodnight—Overly poetic, and yet underdescriptive.
Ssssss—Or however many "s"es are supposed to be in it. Forget trying to pronounce it (not that you’d ever need to).
Slow down with the whoosh, pard. I understood exactly what you were saying.
One that gets trotted out a lot is: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
Perhaps if there had been a long series of fantastic movies about Ecks and another series of fantastic movies about Sever, then finally they came together in Ecks vs. Sever, then maybe maybe it would have been reasonable. But even then the Ballistic is so meaningless and superfluous. Nope, there’s just no saving it. (the title nor the movie for that matter.)
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
or
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
True, true. And too bad, because it was a great movie.
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain was an intriguing title, but a bit offputting. But, as it turns out, it was exactly descriptive. And it turned out to be a pretty good movie.
In the mid to late eighties, there was a disturbing trend where movies had one-word titles that were completely unmemorable. I’d list a few, but I can’t remember any. OK, there was Stakeout. Whatever.
I also have to agree with Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. Who? Why should I care? Am I supposed to know who these people are?
This gives me the opportunity to rant about the trend (now seeming to come to an end) that was prevalent in the mid-90s. That is, the “impressive” one-word title. I think it plunged to its nadir with HOFFA.
A few in this genre, are CASINO, TITANIC, PRIEST, NIXON, CONGO (yes, a book first, I know), CRASH, Michael, EVITA, the aforementioned SPEED.
A non-one-word title of the same ilk: QUIZ SHOW.
Please think of something clever, or at least descriptive. It does not make your movie more impressive or important to have a one-word title of the main character.
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn may have been a B (or F or Z) movie, but I have no reason to believe the title was intentionally stupid, not on a movie that takes itself pretty seriously. And not only is the title cheesy, it’s vague! Is it about destruction wrought by Jared-Syn? Is it about destruction visited upon Jared-Syn? And precisely who or what the fuck is Jared-Syn? A person? A place? The title raises far more questions than it answers.
Gotta disagree with you on this one. It drew me right in, and I went to the theatre to see it.