All in the Name

Theo Angelopolous’ ‘Eternity and a Day’ is a beautiful movie. But look at the title. Isn’t it beautiful by itself? There are some movie with such interesting titles that we instantly feel like watching them. Bergman’s ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’, Polanski’s ‘Cul-de-sac’, Linklater’s ‘Me and Orson Welles’, and Scorsese’s ‘Last Temptation of Christ’ belong to different genres. But I find all of these titles extremely interesting.

Was going through The Guardian’s list of must-watch movies and came across some truly catchy titles. These must be good films, having been recommended in such a list. The following are a handful of them – films I want to watch just for their titles.
1. Closely Observed Trains (1966)
2. Eyes Without a Face (1960)
3. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
4. Five Easy Pieces (1970)
5. I Walked With a Zombie (1943)
6. Man Bites Dog (1992)
7. My Life as a Dog (1985)
8. Nil By Mouth (1997)
9. Play It Again, Sam (1972)
10. Serial Mom (1994)
11. Spanking the Monkey (1994)
12. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
13. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
14. Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993)
15. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)

Do you find any of these interesting? Can you and I predict, without going to IMDB, the genre and the premise of these films? I just feel intuitively that ‘I Walked With a Zombie’ would be a sweet romantic film. Also, ‘Closely Observed Trains’ reminds me of ’12 Angry Men’ or of Wong Kar Wai films. But what the hell is the Buckaroo Banzai adventure? Any guesses?