# Good and Bad Movies Titles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 11, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226 "2013-07-11T14:30:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/41 "2013-07-11T20:40:32Z")
_Vanilla Sky_. Seriously, what the hell is that? A winter movie? The name of a stripper? A film set in an ice-cream parlor? Romantic comedy? Courtroom drama? I got nothing. ---
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/42 "2013-07-11T20:41:05Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Marin County, actually…and based on a non-fictional (think Fast Times at Ridgemont High) book. Very funny. Is that the movie with the wedding vows that begin with “I am an asshole…”? ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/43 "2013-07-11T20:44:02Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > Is that the movie with the wedding vows that begin with “I am an asshole…”? Quoting: Martha and Bill from the movie, Serial Reverend: Fellow members of the human community, this is the wedding of two separatenesses. Martha: You-ness, One-ness, Us-ness, We-ness. Yours-ness, My-ness, Our-ness, Happiness. Now, I want to know where your head is at. Bill: Thank you Martha for pushing my button. Thank you for wanting me to participate in your life for I am an asshole and being an asshole is neither good nor bad, it just is. Reverend: I think that says it all. I now announce you pair-bonded for as long as your relationship continues. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/44 "2013-07-11T20:55:56Z")
> [@lost4life](#): > > **John Dies in the End** > > You decide. This one still bothers me. I still haven’t decided whether I like it or not. My vote is \* The Truman Show \* . I thought it was a sort of documentary on a talk show named _The Truman Show_, like The Howard Stern Show. I thought i would get a boring commentary on how Truman fought his way from obscurity to be the great talk show host. Instead I got one of my favorite movies of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/45 "2013-07-11T21:00:18Z")
> [@mcgato](#): > > [Unknown](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401152/) – I’m amazed someone thought that this was a good idea for a movie title. Must have been a phase that Liam Neeson was going through, because [Taken](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/)was similarly badly named. I couldn’t help notice all the characters constantly say “she was taken”, “they took her”, to make the word seem commonly used for this situation. They seem to avoid using the word kidnapped at all costs ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/46 "2013-07-11T21:17:56Z")
\*The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Frankenhooker\* ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/47 "2013-07-11T21:59:20Z")
**Firewalker**. A truly horrible movie, with a great [Ebert review](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/firewalker-1986) with a fantastic last sentence: > [@](#): > > Consumer note: Nobody walks on fire in this movie. And the absolute worst of all time: **Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Saffire** Bad puns almost always ruin it for me too, like **Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel** ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Cake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/48 "2013-07-11T22:25:43Z")
I love the movie _Ronin_, but you could be excused for thinking it was a film about rogue samurai. _It’s Not About the Fucking Suitcase, Dammit_ might have been more descriptive, but probably not a great marketing choice either. _Gladiator_, on the other hand, tells you right up front what is in the box. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/49 "2013-07-11T22:29:27Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > **Firewalker**. A truly horrible movie, with a great [Ebert review](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/firewalker-1986) with a fantastic last sentence: > > And the absolute worst of all time: **Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Saffire** > > Bad puns almost always ruin it for me too, like **Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel** On, but **Firewalker** is another fabulously Bad Movie. It’s Chuck Norris and Louis Gosset Junior trying to be Buddies and Trying to be Funny, and failing miserably. It’s far better entertainment than if they’d succeeded. But the title doesn’t make a lick o’ sense. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/50 "2013-07-11T22:37:42Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Bad puns almost always ruin it for me too, like **Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel** Agreed. However, in the household discussion of tonight’s blockbuster _Sharknado_, we decided that a scarier version for our area would be… …_Squirrelwind_. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/51 "2013-07-12T00:26:48Z")
> [@Batistuta](#): > > K-Pax is one of the worst movie titles I can remember - and yet it was named after the original book. It’s a film starring Kevin Spacey about an alien who stays at a mental asylum (or a crazy guy at a mental asylum who’s very good at pretending to be an alien). “K-Pax” is the planet where this guy supposedly comes from, but it makes for a really crappy title. It always sounded like the name of a feminine hygiene product to me-“K-Pax: for that difficult time of the month…” ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/52 "2013-07-12T02:48:02Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Disney’s putting more thought to this than they used to: they released _Tangled_, not _Rapunzel_, and, coming this winter, _Frozen_, not _The Snow Queen_. In both cases the idea is supposedly to attract boys who might not be interested in a “Disney princess” movie. Along the same lines, I know plenty of guys (myself included) who balked at seeing a movie called “The Princess Bride”, which turned out to be all kinds of awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/53 "2013-07-12T03:42:11Z")
I’m rather partial to _A Boy and His Dog_. Simultaneously perfectly descriptive and not at all what one might expect ;). ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/54 "2013-07-12T04:26:50Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > _Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever_ is just about as bad as a title can get - opaque, meaningless, awkward, ugly and confusing. Oh yes. But I’ll offer up the immortal [Rat Pfink a Boo Boo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Pfink_a_Boo_Boo). A movie named after a spelling mistake -\* that they thought was so brilliant they decided to keep\*. Not only does it give you no idea of the movie whatsoever, it doesn’t even look like a movie title. Or English. Or anything much really, except maybe a spellchecker test string. For me good ones include The Ladykillers, A Fish Called Wanda, 12 Angry Men, and The Intouchables. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/55 "2013-07-12T04:57:32Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > Nope. It’s because they can’t copyright (or is it trademark?) the title to a public domain story. It’s about branding. You can’t copyright a title in any case. ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/56 "2013-07-12T06:17:52Z")
The truly awful title that immediately came to mind was so bad they had to change it before release - **Dancing About Architecture** , which eventually became the not-much-better **Playing by Heart**. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/57 "2013-07-12T06:38:38Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > Must have been a phase that Liam Neeson was going through, because [Taken](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/)was similarly badly named. > > I couldn’t help notice all the characters constantly say “she was taken”, “they took her”, to make the word seem commonly used for this situation. They seem to avoid using the word kidnapped at all costs Bad title for a bad movie. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/58 "2013-07-12T06:55:17Z")
Star Trek Into Darkness. Removing the : did not do the title any favors. Nobody actually Star Treks in Star Trek, except for that clunker of a line in First Contact when Zephram Cochrane asks them if they’re “astronauts… on somekinda Star Trek?” Sounded dumb then, sounds dumb now. Star Trekkin’ across the universe… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/59 "2013-07-12T07:39:54Z")
> [@tullsterx](#): > > I just hate titles that contain a characters name with a twist. . . but, dang I can’t think of a good example. . . Like the movie will be called “Take it to Hart” and it’s about a guy named Jimmy Hart that’s searching for love. Stuff like that. You might have been thinking of _Good Will Hunting_. Agreed. Indeed, I’d go as far as to say that the title is the only bad thing about that movie. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226/60 "2013-07-12T07:55:16Z")
**Serenity** –great movie with a bad name. **Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things** –Bad movie with a great title **Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx** –What were they thinking? “If we build it, they will come”? I hear it was a great film, but I’ll never know for sure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-and-bad-movies-titles/663226.md?page=4)