What’s In A Movie Name?

Not much creativity, it seems to me.

A couple of years ago, the breakout movie of the summer was The Hangover. Fast forward to this year and Hollywood’s summer of sequels and regurgitated ideas, and what does Warner Brothers deliver but the amazingly drab named “The Hangover: Part II“.

I mean, really? That’s the best name for the sequel to the “largest grossing R Rated movie ever” that they could come up with? For the audience they are trying to target – young men in college through their late 20’s/early 30’s (and maybe men in their late 30’s through mid 40’s who WISH they were back in their 20’s :) – they couldn’t figure out a catchy phrase to represent the sequel? Really?

Without much thought, here are a few exceedingly average, but better than “Part II” names, that I thought of.

The Hangover: Another Round?
The Hangover: Come on, one more.
The Hanover: Back For More
The Hangover: Relapse
The Hangover: Full As A Monkey (Since a monkey is part of the story line)
The Hangover: Double Fisting
The Hangover: Another Bender
The Hangover: Overserved
The Hangover: Served Again
The Hangover: Thai One On (Since this one is based in Thailand)
Another Hangover

Its no wonder Hollywood can’t make a decent movie to save their lives and don’t know when to leave a classic alone. Here’s a stretch – The Hangover: Part II is probably going to be terrible; it will probably try to play off of the same unpredictability that made the original so, well, original. And when the movie is done, we’ll probably walk out of it saying “I liked the first one more.” And maybe then, we will appreciate how funny, original, and unpredictable “The Hangover” was.

UPDATE: I rest my case

Impossible?

So the hype has started over the new Mission: Impossible III movie starring super scientologist Tom Cruise. And it got me to thinking, if they were able to complete the missions during the first two movies, weren’t then the missions really possible?

Personally, I am very much looking forward to The DaVinci Code. If you have not started playing the Google-DaVinci Code game on Google, start playing…it’s pretty fun.

Top Movie Quotes

Here is an amazing and pretty comprehensive list of the top movie quotes of all time. I think what is even more interesting is to skim the full list of 400 quotes (NOTE: this is a PDF file) that the judges had to choose from. Its really amazing to see how many of these classic quotes have become ingrained into our society and vernacular. And the true power of this brilliant writing is how you can visualize the scene in your mind or attempt to replicate the actor’s presence in your mind (i.e.: busting out your pathetic British accent when you say “Yeah, Baby!”). Makes me want to go to Netflix and rent a ton of DVD’s.

Oscars

Well, its that time of year for all you movie buffs out there. The Oscars are today and ahead of the big event, I am going to bust out my picks for this year. This year is different than previous with the ceremony a few weeks earlier than usual. The Academy felt its big night was getting overlooked. February sweeps on network TV were also an influence. I think Lord of the Rings:Return of the King will have a very good night, and it should take home Best Picture and Best Director, if for nothing else than an acknowledgement of the superior work done across the full LOTR trilogy of films, which IMHO is the finest series of movies ever made. In any case, here are my picks for the big categories:

Best Actor: Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean
Best Actress: Charlize Theron, Monster
Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Best Supporting Actress: Renee Zellwegger, Cold Mountain
Best Picture: Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King
Best Director: Peter Jackson, LOTR:Return of the King
Best Original Screenplay: Lost In Translation
Best Adapted Screenplay: LOTR:Return of the King
Best Animated Feature: Finding Nemo

Dude…

Incase you were wondering where Ashton Kutcher stands…Dude, where’s my endorsement? Yeah, this will make me vote for John Edwards. It seems that “star of the minute” Ashton Kutcher has gone out on a limb and endorsed Democrat John Edwards for President. The fact that CNN published this is troubling enough.

I think I read somewhere that Kutcher asked Demi Moore to marry him…man, its a long way from St. Elmo’s Fire for Demi. She must really be desperate for publicity these days.