There’s. Something. About. This. Fall’s. Movie. Titles. We. Can’t. Quite. Put. Our. Finger. On.
On second thought, we can. They’re really short — and they offer about as much helpful information as an MTA booth clerk.
Here are just a few of the films heading to the cinema in the next few months. A shiny cupcake to anyone who can discern a glimmer of plot detail:
“The Walk.”
“Room.”
“Truth.”
“Legend.”
“Life.”
“Brooklyn.”
“Youth.”
“Sisters.”
“Joy.”
“Concussion.”
Even the season’s James Bond entry is called simply “Spectre.” Clearly, one-word monikers are in. That’s probably due in part to fashion and in part to marketing — after all, long titles take up too many characters on Twitter. Although most of those characters are now probably going to be used to explain what the movie is.
“Just saw #Truth. You know, movie about Dan Rather where — hang on. Gonna need 2nd tweet. Hell, gonna need Facebook.”
Imagine how happy the studio will be when #Life starts trending. Then again, maybe that will be about the magazine, the 1999 Martin Lawrence movie, some sort of anti-abortion thing — or maybe even just, you know, life.
You can’t help but wonder what some classic films would have been called had they been subject to this trend: “Gone With the Wind” would get changed to “The South.” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” would become something like “Treasure.” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” would become “Punch!” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” would turn into “Partners.”
We need better movie titles — social media be damned.
After all, who wants to live in a world where, instead of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” we get “#Alex”?