Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Tuesday Talkback: What's in a name?

Movies like HOT TUB TIME MACHINE and SNAKES ON A PLANE give the impression that they were developed with the title first and the actual plot later. Inspired by that, I thought today it would be fun to challenge everyone to either pitch a ridiculous title and a quick logline to go with it, or see what great loglines you could come up with for some of my own silly titles.

Here are my suggestions for inane titles that may make their way to a multiplex near you. See if you can come up with a funny pitch:

WET T-SHIRT CONTEST
USED CAR BLOWOUT
EXHIBITION GAME
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
VALET PARKING

Do any of these sound like titles that would get you to the theatre on name alone?

8 comments:

  1. The most selfish team in basketball just fell through a wormhole and landed in 1893. Now they have to 72 hours to learn how to play together so they can beat James Naismith and his YMCA All-Stars at the Chicago World's Fair and find their way home.

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  2. Hop Skip Pump:

    The story of an ex marine with one leg who ends up as a dopey security guard at a mega petrol station in Kansas.
    His best friend is a researcher in the military who has used his work place to develop a nifty bionic leg for him. The bionic leg can repair itself if damaged and it uses a new unlimited power source. A fellow researcher finds out about this and kills the dopey guys friend before he can post his new invention. The rest of the film consists of the murderer and associates chasing down the only working example of the bionic research to attain it's secrets. Our hero prevails because he has a bionic leg that allows him to hop and skip over long distances.

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  3. This sounds like fun.

    VALET PARKING:

    Two nerds working as valets, borrow expensive cars to impress the women, but when a dead body show up in a trunk, they'll have more than their boss to answer to.

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  4. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

    Johnny Daylight is doing more than just saving planet Earth from a black hole. He's saving time.

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  5. XKCD did the "Daylight Saving Time" movie bit. The tagline was "Never Fall Back!"

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  6. EXHIBITION GAME

    In the year 2040, exposing yourself on chatroulette has developed into a national sport. The Bater family has maintained the title for years. Now Derek Bater enters the finals unexperienced and in his twin brothers place, after a tragic accident where Nick Bater pulled his groin (in a bad way).

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  7. DRIVER'S ED

    Faced with a third DUI, disgraced racing champion Edward Schipht is given the choice of jail time or...teaching in a tough inner city driving school. But when the reckless but talented students show promise, it's up to Ed to lead them down the right road. Now they are on the fast track to Indy, but they can't make it there until they take...DRIVER'S ED.

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  8. It's cool to see we've got such a creative group of posters here. I really like the imagination in the EXHIBITION GAME pitches and I'm mildly surprised more people didn't have ones for WET T-SHIRT CONTEST.

    I got an email from Tim Queeney, who apparently had trouble posting his comment even after multiple tries. I've reprinted his below:

    WET T-SHIRT CONTEST

    A small-time drug dealer eats so much canned food laced with estrogen mimicker BPA, grows breasts and wins a nationally televised wet t-shirt contest. He is recognized by the drug kingpin he cheated and is forced to run for his life.

    USED CAR BLOWOUT

    A divorced special forces officer buys a used Mercedes Benz and discovers the car is wired with explosives, part of a terrorist plot to sell luxury bomb cars to the wives of U.S. officials. He falls in love with the wife of the Secretary of the Interior and foils the plot.

    EXHIBITION GAME

    Rival high school gangs of vampires and werewolves in a small town decide to settle their feud with a softball game — the losers get eaten. Both sides woo a beautiful girl, the best pitcher in the school, to play for them. Can she play well enough to stay alive?

    DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

    An absent-minded bridegroom forgets to turn his clock forward and misses his wedding. The jilted bride won’t speak to him so he must enlist the help of a witch to go back in time to get to the church …on time.

    VALET PARKING

    An illegal Mexican immigrant snags a job in L.A. parking cars and is so good that he gets a spot driving on the NASCAR circuit. An female INS officer is ordered to sleep with him to get evidence against him but falls in love with him instead.

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