It’s the name of a Monet painting which is a minor plot-point in the film.
Yeah, “The Clone Wars” would have made more sense, since it was supposed to have come from a throw-away line in Ep. IV where Obi-Wan said something about, “During the Clone Wars…”
And as a matter of fact “North by Northwest” is a nonsense, not merely an “improbable” direction. “Northwest by North” (11.5 degrees to the North of Northwest) exists as as compass point, and so does “North by West” (11.5 degrees to the West of North), but not “North by Northwest” - no need to call anything “North by Northwest” when “North by West” conveys the same information using only the cardinal points.
I always knew there was a point (!) to having learned to box the compass as a boy. (But don’t ask for it in quarter points. Life is too short.)
What, nobody said Resevoir Dogs yet ?
I didn’t see the American version, but in the Spanish original (called “Open your eyes”), the movie ends with a view of the sky that can very well be called “vanilla”: it certainly has that color. You get that often-ish in Madrid at dawn, during hot periods. Probably in LA as well. “Open your eyes” is the final line of the movie’s dialogue.
A vanilla sky also happens to be something that sounds unreal but which is perfectly real. And, like I said, is (or should be) shown in the final shot of the movie.
Speaking of that idiot Mamet, why does he seem to revel in having his crapfests released with titles that would have the average viewer think the films were about subjects that they were not really about? **Spartan ** for example, I know, the title is explained a couple of times in the film, but why release a political/kidnapping/pursuit whatever type film with a title that would make you think it is a(n) historical epic? Same for Glengarry Glen Ross- would you think for a moment a film with this formal historical sounding title was actually about modern day potty-mouthed time-share salesmen? American Buffalo- coin stealing scam film, or drama based on the plight of the Native Americans? I think he really costs himself some box office by “misrepresenting” what these films are about. I know, he’s probably trying to be “clever” or “intelligent”- I find it pompous, but I guess I should not expect too much from the only director in the world to have recognized the genius acting of Rebecca Pidgeon. 
Not to mention The Spanish Prisoner, which has neither a prisoner nor anyone from Spain…
“*Nobody[/i expects The Spanish Prisoner!”
Gone With the Wind, anyone?
I was travelling in Germany when Any Given Sunday was released there. I saw the posters and thought nobody there was likely to understand the title.
And in one of his books, doesn’t Douglas Hofstedter talk about the difficulty of translating just the title of All the President’s Men?
That one’s explained in the title cards at the beginning of the movie, and makes perfect sense:
In the book, it’s from a thought of Scarlett’s: “Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?”
Evidently, Mamet’s target audience consists of people smarter than you.
Me, I always like a title that only becomes clear once you see the film. Something like They Shoot Horses, Don’t They or Glengarry Glen Ross is just plain brilliant.
Time to earn my Star Wars fanboy card punch… The Phantom Menace is the Trade Federation, and their attack on Naboo. They appear to be “the bad guys” and they Menace the peaceful… Nabooians? Nabooese? Nabooish? (“funny, she doesn’t look Nabooish…”) But it’s all just smoke and mirrors, a “phantom” created by Palpatine to further his own polictical power-grab. As Darth Sidious, he’s the true menace through the whole trilogy (both trilogies, actually) but the visible one is only a phantom.
And as for Attack of the Clones… They attack the seperatists. Who said they had to attack the good guys? It’s not Attack-on-the-good-guys of the Clones. (that comes in the next movie…) They couldn’t call it The Clone Wars, when it’s at best an opening skirmish of the wars. (as shown in the Clone Wars cartoon).
I came to this thread with just that in mind.
The extreme opposite of thread titles that are not easily understood:
Coffee and Cigarettes
RealityChuck, you are missing the point of my post, which is probably due to my unclear wording. I have no problem with titles that are thought provoking or understandable only after watching the film- your mention of They Shoot Horses Don’t They? is a great example. This title, though, like maybe Silence of the Lambs as well, make you unsure what the movie is about- I don’t think the average viewer, having never heard of these two films, would really think they are about horses or lambs. This is totally different than someone titling a movie to make you think it would about something it is not about at all. Mamet’s titles are like releasing **Fun with Dick and Jane ** as “The Maiden and the Chivalrous Knight”- it misrepresents what the movie is about. This doesn’t offend me, I just find it pompous, like Mamet is trying to class up his little crapfests. I actually liked Glengarry Glen Ross, more for the acting then the atrociously faux-insightful dialogue (and the fact Mamet didn’t direct, so even though we get the dumb writing, we are sort of spared the cornball deliveries), and loved Homicide, where the hip dialogue does not call attention to itself. My point being, even though Glengarry Glen Ross is explained in the film, the wording itself is laughable- are we to expect time share salesman refer to good leads using such ridiculous names as the Glengarry leads?
As for Mamet’s target audience being smarter than me, that may also be Mamet’s rationale, but it is again sort of pompous for him to sit around and think he makes movies for intellectuals, when all the intellectuals I know watch his films solely to laugh to at his pseudo-hip dialogue and the phony way he makes the actors say his stupid lines. I mean, in Heist the Danny Devito character refers to a woman as a “doxie” for Chrissakes. If that is “too smart” for me, then I am glad I’m not the taget audience. I have never even seen a 40’s noir use the tem “doxie”. Ebert and all those other genius critics enraptured by the “masterful way Mamet captures the speech of the average lowlife” or other bullshit have no idea how these people talk, and thus have no way of knowing that no one on earth talks the way his characters do.
Although **Blade Runner ** is definitely a cooler title for a movie than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I’m still not sure what it means. Harrison Ford’s character is referred to as a “blade runner” once in the film, but his job of hunting androids involves no apparent blades and only brief running. As far as I remember, the term “blade runner” does not appear in the original novel either.
Umm…there was a “menace” that was a “phantom” - meaning an illusionary “menace” - like the Trade Federation.
There’s also a “menace” - Darth Sidious - who is a “phantom” - meaning ghost-like.
As for “Attack of the Clones”…umm…they attacked. And they were clones.
-Joe
I reckon it all boils down to Lucas’s burning desire to subtitle the Star Wars movies as “BLANK of the BLANK”. He did it to three out of the six, which to me says OCD. And unimaginative OCD at that.
Here’s where we disagree. A title is title. It is not a description. If people think otherwise, that’s not the fault of the author.
So why is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? good and Glengarry Glen Ross (which is a reference to the faux-classy names given to housing developments in the play/movie and in real life: Glengarry Acres, Glen Ross Farms, etc.), bad? Neither gives a description of the film. Both can confuse people (the general impression of Horses to the uninitiated is that it’s a western).
It ultimately boils down to the fact you just don’t like Mamet, so just you look for more reasons to dislike him.
I made that comment, not David Mamet. I am not David Mamet, so why are you ascribing my comment to him?
OTOH, those I know tend to like his films.
That what’s known as “style.” I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t comment on the specifics, but the point was not to be “accurate,” but, instead, to be truthful. The two are quite different, and the use of non-“accurate” language is merely a way of getting to the truth of the matter. People didn’t talk like they do in Damon Runyon books; do you object to the language in Guys and Dolls? There is no recorded instance of a person being shot in a Marathon dance contest, either.
Well, [g]Glengarry Glen Ross** certainly portrays how the people involved talk. It’s exaggerating a bit, but that’s a concept known as “art” – which is not required to be “accurate.”
“It ultimately boils down to the fact you just don’t like Mamet, so just you look for more reasons to dislike him.”
touche
It makes no sense at all. I think they just liked the title more than Dick’s, having seen Alan E. Nourse’s novel (or, more likely, the weird Burroughs screenplay “treatment” of it). In the Nourse novel, a “bladerunner” is a supplier of clandestine medical supplies, especially surgical supplies. Hence “Bladerunner”, which in that case makes sense (and evokes images of freedom fighters smuggling swords). They thank both Nourse and Burroughs in the closing credits of the film, for use of the title. You have to work really hard to make “Bladerunner” refer to an “android killer”.