Titles

You’re probably expecting me to announce that I have received a title in the New Years honours and it was just delayed in the post. That I am now Mike Nevin MBE, or Sir Mike Nevin or perhaps Mike Nevin OBE. So long as you hadn’t expected them to make me a Dame.

Let’s be honest, it does seem a big oversight on the part of the Palace. Maybe it is lost in the post. After all, I’ve had my stationary produced and everything. But I guess it will last if I pack it away till next year.

But no, this blog is not about that rather unfortunate oversight. I am writing about Film titles. You are a clever bunch, so no doubt you have noticed something. Some recent film and series titles have become very long:

“Three billboards outside Ebbing Missouri.” I know that’s your favourite film.

“Star Wars, The book of Boba Fett.”

“The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.”

“(500) Days of Summer.”

“The woman in the house across the street from the girl in the window.” That’s my personal favourite title.

“Avengers.” Wait that doesn’t prove my point.

It got me thinking that perhaps film makers are trying to tell you the storyline in the title. Maybe they just think people today are too dumb to have ironic or misleading titles. It has to just say what it is. In ‘The old days,’ film title were mysterious. You had to guess what a film was about. Or they misled you:

“Rain man.” Obviously about the weather. No way was it about an autistic man.

“Dead poets society.” Who guessed it was about a teacher in a school?

“Gone with the wind.” Another weather movie? A film on digestive problems?

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Obviously a cooking show.

I miss those days, when film makers gave you some credit as having a brain. It’s not just titles that are obvious these days. The whole film industry has become a machine. They churn out movies that are homogenised. They contain exact proportions of racial, social, gender and age mixes. They are constructed to a formula. Oh well, perhaps if I sent them my film script titled:

“Yet another film script following all your rules and preconceptions.” It could be the next blockbuster.

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