Rise of the Nonsensical Film Titles: and these people employ screenwriters...?

 

Rebecca Armstrong
Sunday 10 March 2013 20:23 GMT
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There’s no clearer indicator of the fact that you’re getting older than moaning about grammatical inconsistencies in pop songs. But thanks to three new or forthcoming films, my entry into grumpy old womanhood has been assured.

Their names, you see, are nonsensical. First up is All You Need Is Kill. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? The movie isn’t even out yet but each time I read its name, a part of me dies. Then there’s Welcome to the Punch. The punch? Whose? What? Finally, there’s Machete Kills, the promotional material for which features a lady firing bullets out of her bra. Citizen Kane it’s not.

If the “s” was in the right place, it would sound like a public-safety film warning of the dangers of sharp-bladed weapons (“Machetes Kill”). Not as exciting, but grammatically correct. I can only imagine that the Hollywood marketing teams have abandoned all hope of film titles making sense and have gone straight for the key search-engine-optimised terms likely to get the most hits online. And I bet those marketing teams are getting younger every day…

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