I hate vague, meaningless movie titles. Inception, Defiance, Out of Sight, Conviction. I don’t want a movie title that makes me ask, “Is that the one about….or is it the other, similarly-titled one about something else?”
A great title is specific and particular and probably can’t get past focus groups. A great title identifies the movie; for good or ill, you won’t be mistaking it for another movie (except for that time I went to the video store for Edward Scissorhands and came home with Ed Wood).
Proper nouns really work in movie titles. Saving Private Ryan. Schindler’s List. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? The Outlaw Josey Wales. Erin Brockovich is a great title because you definitely don’t mix it up with anything else, but of course, Hollywood thinks women are icky, so Betty Anne Waters gets renamed Conviction. Which might be the movie about dreams with Leonardo DiCaprio, or it might be the movie about adultery with Diane Lane. Or some other movie.
I would much rather see a marquee with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford than Life As We Know It, or You Again, or As Good As Dead. With the first one, I see a filmmaker and production company with the courage to stand behind their film. With the others, I see producers afraid of nouns. If you’re afraid of nouns, you probably aren’t making a very ballsy movie.
But abstract movie titles are so chic! 😉
Seriously, “The Town”. Sounds like it could be anything. My guess from the title was an M. Night Shyamalan type of movie. 🙂
Sometimes I like to just go to the movie theatre and see what’s playing, but it’s so difficult to figure out even what genre a movie is by the title anymore. Thank goodness for imdb.
I know just what you mean. “Conviction” may very well be a good movie (I’ve yet to see it…), but it’s a terrible title.