The Ten Worst Movie Titles Ever

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I've never heard wrong with judging it by the title. A stupid title will turn off so many people, and sink your film before it ever sets sail.

For example, here I have The Midnight Meat Train, which is a great, serious horror movie directed by Ryuhei Kitamure (Versus, Metal Gear Solid cutscenes), based on the amazing short story by Clive Barker (Hellraiser), and starring a pre-Hangover Bradley Cooper and a psycho Vinnie Jones. You should all go see it, however, you could not have seen it in theaters because they could not release a movie called The Midnight Meat Train to a wide audience.

While that was a good movie, here's ten (mostly) not-so-great films with even stupider titles. I can't believe studios would ever ok some of these dumb names. I'm not including any intentional dumb titles (ie The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies), nor am I including any indy or guerilla or just plain horrible films (Manos: Hands of Fate). All of these were green-lit by a major studio without anyone thinking the title was idiotic.   

Box Office Round Up: Fastest Fast Yet

Just a quickie today, and probably all this week. Yay Finals.

Fast Five was number one at the box office. No surprise there, but its gross is shocking. $83.6 million! That's $12M more than the previous best for the franchise, and a sure sign that 6 Fast 6 Furious is right around the corner. I would imagine speeding related deaths was also on the rise this weekend.

Unimaginative CGI throw-together #173452, also known as Rio, held on to second with a mere $14.4 million. That is about a SEVENTY-MILLION dollar drop out between first and second, which just has to be a record.

Rio is last week's news however (EDIT: make that two weeks ago), and it wasn't a good week for the rest of the new releases.

Prom was fifth with $5 million, 63% of its budget, while Hoodwinked 2 was sixth with $4 million, or 13% of its budget. And bringing up the pack is Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. While only on 875 screens (Fast Five was on 3600), Dylan Dog made a sad $885,000 -- good enough for 16th on the weekend. It definitely had a few dead nights.

New Releases for 4/29/2011

5 Fast 5 Furious

Just when the world didn't have enough stupid titles, here comes Fast Five. The previews say it's the best one yet, and I'll just have to take their word for it. Apparently, the Rock is the main character in this one, and there are spin-off plans with him in mind. Possibly a good idea. The Rock is a really talented, but poorly casted, actor. It's good to see him back in action movies (Walking Tall and the Rundown are great underrated flicks), and apparently Faster (somehow, not a Fast and the Furious spin-off) isn't too bad despite flopping at the box office.

Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil

Just when the world didn't have enough cookie cutter 3D CGI crapfests, here comes this. Apparently the first Hoodwinked (which came out way back in 2006. Five years is forever compared to most of these CGI cash-ins) was good. But it also had Anne Hathaway, who has gotten slightly more popular in that time.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

This doesn't look horrible, despite the bad reviews. The general consensus is it's a pale imitator to the comic book, but since the majority of America has never read the Italian comic, that shouldn't be a problem for most people. I'll reserve my judgment until I see it, but I can tell you for sure it isn't as good as the amazing Cemetery Man/Dellamorte Dellamore, the first Dylan Dog movie.

Prom

A Disney movie aimed at teens and Glee fans that was made for nothing. It's times like this when I cherish my Disney stock.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

A 3D documentary by Warner Herzog that's probably opening on three screens at the most this weekend. Since those screens aren't anywhere around here, watch his appearance on the Boondocks instead.