Has the Filthy Critic

March 28, 2002 12:52 AM

Has the Filthy Critic been reading been reading the NYTimes.com film forums? Probably a coincidence, but both notice a rather annoying trend. Present participle film titles. (referring to the "Kissing Jessica Stein" review by the Filthy Critic.)
posted by McBain (3 comments total)

Is it really a trend? There are only so many ways one can title a film. I mean, for example, are one-word titles a trend? No.

On the other hand, Face/Off and Crazy/Beautiful were somewhat idiosyncratically titled, but two instances is not a trend, either -- although that convention is at least unique enough to be the germ of a trend.
posted by artifex at 2:35 AM on March 28, 2002

I couldn't get into the filthy link but I couldn't believe the NYT forum poster left off "Raising Arizona," which always springs to mind when people bring up this trend, which has not gone unnoticed. (That last link seems to pretty definitive.)

And by the way, I'm no grammar maven, but I think these are more commonly called "gerund phrases."
posted by luser at 5:26 AM on March 28, 2002

The filthy critic must have filthy bandwidth. Anyway, this was also noted in an aside by Slate:

Nonetheless, now that we've eaten Raoul, chased Amy, boxed Helena, drowned Mona, been John Malkovich, and for God's sake, felt Minnesota, our sympathy for the gerund-entitled, under-budgeted movie is, to say the least, no longer automatic.
posted by dhartung at 7:35 AM on March 28, 2002