“The Man Comes Around” just came up on my iTunes shuffle, and it reminded me of what the freakin’ masterpiece that is the opening credits of Dawn of the Dead. There’s a long run in to it. We follow one of main characters through the Evening Before the Dead, the Nookie Before the Dead, and the Cuddling After the Nookie Before the Dead, then the peaceful slumber before Night Before the Dead. And then, Dawn comes. The main character wakes up to the new zombie reality, and gets the everliving crap scared out of her, then flees like any reasonable person would, only to find that the whole world has gone made.
Cue the music. It’s a plucky, upbeat tune about the Apocalypse by Johnny Cash. What’s not to love? The opening credits roll over a montage of terrifying zombie mayhem. Not the usual shambling, brain-eating zombie mayhem, mind you, but a new breed of fast-moving, hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners chaotic zombie mayhem. All the while, Johnny’s tellin’ us about the father hen who calls his chickens home, and the wise men bowing down before the throne.
Brilliant.
What movies make you feel like you’ve already gotten your money’s worth before you even know the name of the casting director?
I’m not sure if it counts, but I love theopening credits to School of Rock. There’s no scroll, just a few signs on the wall a poster or a bit of graffitti. Very memorable. The closing credits were equally good.
No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse
with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given
her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and
star of many Norwegian møvies: “The Høt Hands of an Oslo
Dentist”, “Fillings of Passion”, “The Huge Mølars of Horst
Nordfink”…
I gotta admit that my favorite opening credits are the ones for the American “Ring” movie, “Pirates of the Carribean” and “The Incredibles.” I’m sure there’s more.
In other words, I love the recent trend of not having opening credits and getting straight into the movie. Then, if I liked the movie I can stay around after and see who made it!
This is one of the things that’s kind of cool about the Royal Tenenbaums…the credits show up after the backstory has been explained. They’re so perfectly woven into the movie that you don’t notice you’re…well…watching the credits.
I’m pretty sure my favorite opening title sequence was designed by Saul Bass for Hitchcock. I don’t remember if it was Vertigo or North by Northwest. I do remember it was in color.
Here’s a list of Saul Bass’ opening title sequences Just about any of these could be on my favorite list of opening sequences. Some of them were actually far more entertaining than the movie itself.
Agree about Napoleon Dynamite, though it sort of reminded me of MTV.
I thought that the credits for Catch Me If You Can had a real nice retro look to them.
I always thought the opening credits of Green Acres were pretty funny. They’d be printed on shirts, hanging laundry, and so forth. Oliver seemed to be oblivious to these, of course.