Ever hear of any of these films? No, they're not obscure Indie films or foreign films translated into English. They are well-known films that were released with much more trendy titles. They all may have had working titles similar to these, but it's easy to imagine the execs at the movie production companies suggesting more catchy titles for greater potential returns on their investments.
In the Seventies you may recall movies and maybe a few TV shows with titles meant to inspire Intrigue, let's say. The Eiger Sanction. The Andromeda Strain. The Amityville Horror. The Rockford Files. There was a play called The Thudpucker Proxy. The grammatical structure of the title is the word "The" plus a proper noun, often some character's last name, then another noun, but a concept noun rather than an object noun. There are some more recent examples of this: The Shawshank Redemption, and the entire Bourne series, but that formula is not as common anymore. It has, in fact, morphed into a newer formula.
I first noticed this new apparent trend in 2001, when checking the movie listings, I saw that there were two movies in theaters concurrently called Kissing Jessica Stein and Saving Silverman, that began with a verbal noun, or gerund, then a proper noun, usually a character's name. Saving Silverman even had the added cutesy saleability of alliteration, and I remembered the year before a film called Finding Forrester. This got me thinking, and I started to remember several films like this. As far as I can reckon, this trend in film titling began in 1983 with a movie called Educating Rita. In 1987 there was Raising Arizona, and Driving Miss Daisy in 1989. In 1992 we had Raising Cain and Educating Peter. 1993 saw the release of Killing Zoe and Boxing Helena. Leaving Las Vegas came out in 1995, Chasing Amy in 1997, and 1998 saw the release of Waking Ned Devine and Saving Private Ryan. 1999 was the year that saw probably the most extreme (possibly parody) use of "the formula": Being John Malkovich. It is almost as if the formula had gained such influence on the collective consciousness that a title such as this was inevitable--rather than an action taken toward a character, actually BEING the character! In the 21st Century we had the three films already mentioned, then Finding Nemo in 2003. This trend in movies started to trail off at this point. Perhaps the movie moghuls sensed a coming glut and eased out of it, though 2008 had Forgetting Sarah Marshall and 2009 had Facing Ali. The trend by now was migrating into other media.
After Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss had a short-lived sitcom called Watching Ellie. Other shows are Raising Hope, Saving Hope, Finding Bigfoot, Flipping Vegas, Flipping Boston, and Breaking Amish. Breaking Bad qualifies on a technicality because although the word "bad" is an adjective, in this context it is being presented as a concept, which is proper noun-ish. It has infected band names--Flogging Molly, Breaking Benjamin, and Walking Elliot. Books--Renting Lacy, Catching Fire, and Killing Lincoln, which was recently adapted to a TV docudrama. A Blog--Kissing Suzy Kolber--and you can bet there are myriad blogs on the internets that use "the Formula".
Trends like this are interesting. A film called The Rita Education, though awkward sounding, might have prevented this trend! The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3 has been re-made twice years later as a TV movie and then in 2009 as a big-screen release, and the urge to call it Taking Pelham was resisted. The popular comedy There's Something About Mary could have possibly been called Stalking Mary, but the urge was most probably quashed by its inappropriateness. Was Spielberg encouraged to call his film Saving Private Ryan rather than The Last Son or Family Discharge? It's interesting that as the formula moved into TV from movies, it seems that the formula lends itself even better to reality series and blogs than to films because of the ongoing nature of those formats. Then again, it could be that it's just familiarity and saturation.
Naturally the formula can now become something to ignore or forget about since it is so ingrained in our consciousness. It took me a long time to get around to finally saying something about it. Right now the more annoying Hollywood trend deals with subject matter rather than title structure formulas--the fact that nearly every other film or TV show these days is about Vampires, Werewolves, and/or Zombies! Breaking Dawn, anyone? In the name of all that is Holy, come up with something original!
Post post script: Another movie title popped into my head recently, and it predates Educating Rita from 1983 as my claimed start of the trend. Eating Raoul came out in 1982.
