Random Factoid #303

27 05 2010

What’s in a name?  (And no, the answer is not “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” all you Shakespearean scholars.)

I was browsing the web as usual and reading some interesting articles.  One particularly grabbed me from the New York Times website, an article by Brooks Barnes called “Invasion of the Big, Scary, Long Film Titles.”  Here are some interesting excerpts:

Pity the high school students whose summer jobs involve changing movie theater marquees. Hollywood has come down with a serious case of title elongation. That is, if you can figure out the title at all.

Consider the latest “Shrek” movie, which DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures released on Friday. Just what is its title, anyway?  “Shrek Forever After.” But billboards and newspaper ads seem to use another name: “Shrek: The Final Chapter.” More than a few theaters have just listed it as “Shrek 4,” perhaps running low on patience, or just colons … add in simultaneous 3-D offerings, and splice that into subcategories — “Shrek Forever After 3-D,” “Shrek Forever After: An Imax 3-D Experience” — and the listings become even more confusing.

Elaborate titles can bring danger. “The more a title describes the story, the less effective it generally is,” said Dennis Rice, a marketing consultant who has held top positions at Miramax, United Artists and Disney. “You want people to know what they’re getting. But you also want to leave them wanting to learn more.”

And in a very practical sense, wordy titles take up a lot of time in a 15-second television ad and a lot of space on a poster … none of these titles are selected without debate by studio executives and, in some cases, they are determined by focus group testing. With sequels, the strategy is generally to avoid adding a numeral, and to come up with a subtitle that makes the movie seem less of a rehash and more worthy of standing on its own … in some instances, long titles result from an eagerness of studios to piggyback on a brand that already has currency in the marketplace.

I can’t stand long titles, and if a movie has a long title, I try to find a way around saying the whole thing.  “Shrek Forever After” is “Shrek 4” in my jargon.  “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” is just plain old “Prince of Persia” to me.  And you won’t ever catch me even writing the unwieldy post-colon addition to “Precious.”


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What To Look Forward To in … May 2010

6 04 2010

YES! It’s time to preview May! That means it’s time for big-time summer blockbusters. Hopefully, this summer has less to make critics moan (a la “Transformers”) and more to make everyone reach for the popcorn (a la “The Dark Knight”). But I’ll let you make that decision for yourself. Three big sequels open in the banner month of summer,

May 7

“Iron Man 2” kicks off the summer movie season with a bang.  After its predecessor was the surprise hit of summer 2008, the sequel is opening to very high expectations.  Throwing in such tremendous new cast members as Mickey Rourke as villainous Whiplash, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, and Don Cheadle (as a replacement for the role last played by Terrence Howard) has only served to heighten them.  But do you really need to be sold?  If this movie doesn’t fall in the range of $350-$400 million, it’s a disappointment.

We’ve got a double dose of baby-themed movies opening in limited release on this day. “Babies” is for all you documentary people; the movie follows the first year of four different infants.  For the art house lovers, Sony Pictures Classics has you covered with “Mother and Child,” a movie which can be referred to as “hyperlink cinema.”  Like “Crash” and “Traffic,” “Mother and Child” follows several different stories all tying into a common theme – here, it is motherhood.  Starring Oscar nominees Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, and Samuel L. Jackson, it has played at a few film festivals and may be the only big indie movie of the month.  I guess even the specialty studios want you to see “Iron Man 2.”

May 14

“Robin Hood” is the second big release, and it boasts a pair of Oscar-winning actors, Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, on the marquee.  And no, this isn’t the “Robin Hood” with the foxes and the other forest animals.  It’s a gritty, intense action movie directed by Ridley Scott (“Gladiator”).  I have plenty more to say about this movie, so keep your eyes peeled in the next week or so.

“Just Wright” and “Letters to Juliet” dare to go up against the two blockbusters packing the screens.  The former is a Queen Latifah vehicle where she stars as a physical therapist helping to rehabilitate an NBA star; the latter, an Amanda Seyfried mushy-gushy love story where she helps an older woman find her long-lost love in the city where “Romeo & Juliet” was set.

May 21

I really hope the trailer doesn’t ruin “Shrek Forever After” like it did for “Shrek the Third.”  Well, to be honest, the threequel tanked because the script was awful.  The first two were amazing, so I’m praying that the magic returns for the final chapter.

“MacGruber” strangely decided to move itself out of comfy April into May against one of the biggest franchises of the past decade.  Interesting move on Rogue’s part, but if the movie is going to make any money, it has to be hilarious.  To be honest, I have my doubts.  There hasn’t been a good “SNL” sketch-based movie since “Wayne’s World” nearly 20 years ago.  Often times, I don’t think the “MacGruber” sketches are funny for their 30 second runtimes … why would I want to watch them for an hour and a half or so?  Good news: it has Kristen Wiig.  Let’s pray for a lot of Kristen Wiig.

May 28

Technically, “Sex and the City 2” comes out on Thursday, May 27. Why they did that, I don’t know. But I do know this: women, get your outfits ready. According to my mother, a rabid fan of the series, all the girls got decked out like they were going to a charity gala.

“Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” is my pick for the big bust of May, although I could easily be eating my hat in two months’ time.  I really like Jake Gyllenhaal, but I’m not sure how much I buy him as an action hero.  Based on a video game, it seems to me that Disney is marketing it like the new “Pirates of the Caribbean.”  But I’m not a big gamer, so I don’t really know what to expect.

Excited much for this amazing month of movies?  Or will it live up to its promise?  Take the poll and let me know what you are thinking!


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