The 5 most confusing movie titles of 2009
2009 is about over and all the bloggers, newspapers, magazines, and various outlets are showing you what they think are the best films of the year. One thing I’ve noticed in some of those lists are movie titles being incorrectly spelled and/or written. I posted about the INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS misspell frenzy (mistaken for “INGLORIOUS BASTARDS,” as seen in the fake poster above) on Twitter earlier today and had a conversation about it with Victor Diaz, News 8 Austin film reporter. That conversation inspired me to make this list, which is the 5 most confusing movie titles of 2009. Most of these titles weren’t incorrectly spelled a lot, but misread. Chances are, if you were writing about them, letters were added, forgotten, or put in place of another in their title.
Just so this article does not sound ridiculously cocky, mean, or pretentious, I wanna throw out there that I misspelled INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS the first time I wrote about it and up until Christmas Day, I thought THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS was THE IMAGINATION OF DR. PARNASSUS. These things happen and this post is just a little reminder that we’re all still human. Feel free to comment with your thoughts!
5. BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS
You try writing that without googling and see what you come up with!
If you’re one of the ones out there that actually misspelled PIRATE RADIO, I’m worried about you. I love you to death, but you should have probably paid more attention in English class. I put this on this list because PIRATE RADIO was known as THE BOAT THAT ROCKED for almost two years. Before its U.S. release, the title was change, confusing lots of fans and press. If you’re in the U.K., know that I miss you and I wish we kept THE BOAT THAT ROCKED.
3. ME AND ORSON WELLES
Of course, the reason why most people will think I put ME AND ORSON WELLES on this list is because Orson’s last name might have been written “Whale (tee hee),” “Whales,” or “Welle.” As Pepa (from “Salt ‘N Peppa) famously once said, “That’s not itttttt.” MAOW is on this list because its title is improper and English majors would gut you if they caught you writing this way. Linklater still went with it and it’s 100% awesome!
2. THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
Like I said, for the longest time I thought it was THE IMAGINATION OF DR. PARNASSUS. The funny thing of this is, when I realized it was IMAGINARIUM, I’d stare at the word for a long time and wonder, “Is that right?” It took me googling it a few times to get reassurance.
1. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (der)
Of course, without multiple misspellings of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and the discussion that followed on twitter today, this list would not have been made! If Tarantino’s mission was to severely confuse the hell out of his fans when writing about his latest film, he did a fine job!
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