Some years back when we lived in the same zip code, Steven Marsh and I used to play a mash-up game with movie titles. I don’t think it every had a real name, but it was something to do on the long drive to the yo-yo championships and cons and so forth. The idea was to conjoin two movie titles which had a common word at one’s beginning and the other’s end (for clarity’s sake, I’ll underline the common word). I think my personal best was “The Unbearable Lightness Of Being John Malkovich”.
I may have mentioned that we did this while driving. Obviously, we were very bored.
In any case, it’s something I revisit every now and then, when a batch of movies have come out and thus created new possibilities. Sometimes I simply like the absurdity of the conjunction, as in:
- Wag The Dog Day Afternoon
- The Trouble With Harry & The Hendersons
- Pretty Dirty Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead
- While You Were Sleeping With The Enemy
- That Thing You Do The Right Thing
- Last Tango In Paris, Texas
But more often I like to imagine the storyline that might go with such a title.
- The Man Who Would Be King Of New York - the classic Kipling tale of Sean Connery’s rise and fall as a New York crimelord.
- Thirteen Turning Thirty Days Of Night - Jennifer Garner as a prematurely aged vampire . . . and hilarity ensues! Sort of a remake of “Freaky Friday The 13th”, actually.
- Sex & The City Of Lost Children - a weird-looking clone guy (Kim Cattrall) kidnaps children so he can steal their dreams of dressing like slutty manhattanites. Subtitled.
- Red Dawn Of The Dead - a ragtag bunch of Midwestern teenagers defend America’s Heartland from an invasion of Commie zombies. With Patrick Swayze!
- Road House Of The Dead - okay, so I fudged by splitting the first title into two words. Still, how can you resist Patrick Swayze? And zombies? You can’t!
- Remains Of The Day Of The Dead - Anthony Hopkins as a stiff, emotionless butler in an English manor house. The big surprise: he’s a zombie! Then Patrick Swayze kills him.
- Arms & The Man Who Fell To Earth - David Bowie plays an alien who is very confused to find himself in a George Bernard Shaw story. Sorry, no Swayze here.
- Dressed To Kill Bill - Uma Thurman is an ex-assassin hunting her ex-lover, the cross-dressing Michael Caine. With a cameo by Quentin Tarantino as Brian De Palma. Length: appr. 750 min.
- Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back To The Future - Kevin Smith kills Michael J. Fox, then goes into an alternate timeline so he can kill him again, while Jay gets very stoned.
- Blackhawk Down The Rabbit Hole - wounded Marines in Somalia defend themselves against overwhelming forces with an animated discussion of quantum mechanics.
- Charlie Wilson’s War Of The Worlds - Tom Hanks is a playboy senator on a crusade to help Afghanistan resist an invasion of Commie martians. With David Bowie as a confused alien.
- Rosemary’s Baby Mama - Tina Fey is the career-minded Satanist who hires Mia Farrow to be the surrogate mother for the AntiChrist. Hilarity ensues!
Well, like I said, it’s a game for long drives when you’re bored. So what’s your excuse?
