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Can anyone come up with a title of a fairly mainstream movie - ie, not some wacky indie flick - that's longer than The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford?
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
"It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" is one that I can think of.
"It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care."
- Office Space
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The man I loved - the man who vanished - he never came back at all. But maybe he's still out there, somewhere. Maybe some day, when Gotham no longer needs Batman, I'll see him again.
- Joined: April 2000
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (1967)
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies! (1964)
And my favorite long movie title -
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (1967)
Dave hören... auf, Wille stoppen Sie Dave..., Stoppen Sie Dave..., Mein Gehirn geht..., Ich bin Gefühl es..., Ich bin Gefühl es..., Ich bin ängstlich Dave...
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966)
How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)
The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968)
Those Daring Young Men In Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969)
Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969, Anthony Newley's infamous ego vehicle)
The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World (1970)
Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (1971)
Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978)
Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back) (1980)
And don't forget all those movies about those rings and that lord of it.
Also, Fred Astaire sang a song in Royal Wedding called "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life?"
STOP THE MADNESS! STOP THE BUTCHERING AND ABANDONMENT OF TV SHOWS ON DVD!
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
It!
Bring back John Doe! Or at least resolve the cliff-hanger with a 2hr movie or as an extra on a dvd release.
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
A lot of rather obscure titles have been thrown out, so I'm surprised no-one has mentioned my favourite long movie title:
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
(which I wouldn't think is very obscure - it's a 1990s Hugh Grant film)
AFI Top 100 lists:100 Movies,
100 Thrills - Completed
100 Laughs - 24 to go - last seen:
The Freshman100 Passions - 39 to go - last seen:
Breakfast At Tiffany's100 Heroes & Villains - 10 to go - last seen: Tom Powers in
The Public Enemy100 Songs - 44 to go - last seen: "When You Wish upon a Star"...
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The Intentional Killing of Mister Gibbons
NO SHIRT
NO SHOES
NO SHELDON
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
Leo - glad I could help.
AFI Top 100 lists:100 Movies,
100 Thrills - Completed
100 Laughs - 24 to go - last seen:
The Freshman100 Passions - 39 to go - last seen:
Breakfast At Tiffany's100 Heroes & Villains - 10 to go - last seen: Tom Powers in
The Public Enemy100 Songs - 44 to go - last seen: "When You Wish upon a Star"...
- Joined: March 2003
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
Quote:
| The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley |
That's only if you take an overly literal interpretation of the idea that "the title is as presented onscreen". The other descriptors are clearly not part of the film title, and are presented as the titles attempting to find a single word to describe Ripley. None of the descriptors appear on screen with any of the others, and the only one to stay onscreen for more than a flash was "Talented". The title is clearly The Talented Mr Ripley - it's the title of the original book, and presented as such on the script, on all the posters, the soundtrack album, the VHS and DVDs, etc.
AFI Top 100 lists:100 Movies,
100 Thrills - Completed
100 Laughs - 24 to go - last seen:
The Freshman100 Passions - 39 to go - last seen:
Breakfast At Tiffany's100 Heroes & Villains - 10 to go - last seen: Tom Powers in
The Public Enemy100 Songs - 44 to go - last seen: "When You Wish upon a Star"...
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
Most of these films are demonstrations of "The Rule of Five", namely that any film or book with more than five words in the title is a stinker. (BTW, I don't think subtitles or series titles should count - thus the Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia designations aren't a part of the title proper of those films.)
The Broadway stage, especially the musical theater, had a vogue for wordy titles in the 1960s, which somehow managed to sidestep the Rule of Five, and a number of the films mentioned above were adapations of these productions. (Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying) are examples.)
But these are all exceptions. (And How to Succeed... was itself an adaptation of a book that parodied both corporate America and the self-help book phenomenon, so the title was deliberately exaggerated to begin with. Borat, with its ludicrous subtitle, is an example of a similar mocking approach to titles.) Generally speaking if you need more than five words to convey what your film is about, you have a pretty lousy film on your hands.
Regards,
Joe
- Joined: March 2003
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Re: Longest Movie Titles?
Quote:
| Well, the imdB lists it as the official title. |
It has it as an "also known as" title, with the comment that it is the "complete title" - but the IMDb is made up of user contributions, and the person who contributed that was clearly also applying an overly literal interpretation of "the title is what is shown onscreen". The whole presentation of the other adjectives is clearly part of the title design rather than being part of the actual title - it considers a lot of options before settling on the one word "talented" as the appropriate way to describe Ripley in the film.
AFI Top 100 lists:100 Movies,
100 Thrills - Completed
100 Laughs - 24 to go - last seen:
The Freshman100 Passions - 39 to go - last seen:
Breakfast At Tiffany's100 Heroes & Villains - 10 to go - last seen: Tom Powers in
The Public Enemy100 Songs - 44 to go - last seen: "When You Wish upon a Star"...
