Oct 15, 04 09:56 AM
Abolishing the 'Ing' Flick.
I'm seeing ads for this Affleck/Gandolfini flick, "Surviving Christmas," and it's depressing me for two reasons--
First of all, the unstoppable sprawl of the Christmas season, having breached Halloween, is now marching inexorably toward Labor Day. Not that I dislike tiny twinkly lights or tinsel.
Secondly--there is a cancer on the entertainment business. It's the ING movie. "Saving Silverman." "Chasing Amy." "Finding Forrester." Et al.
For some reason, I find three-word ING movies less objectionable--"Kissing Jessica Stein," "Breaking the Waves." Especially if there's an article in there--the 'the' in the latter title--the rhythm, it seems to me, is less generic.
But can we please, as a society, abolish this practice? Fire the marketing departments? Force filmmakers into poetry classes at the Learning Annex?
Among the reasons I've neglected to finish my novel, "Ray Slape Is Dead," is a fear that if I do find a publisher, they'll force me to call it "Killing Ray Slape."
(Well, OK, it's more for the terror of embarking on the task--for a songwriter, used to terse, four-line verses, it's like scaling Kilimanjaro. As a novelist--I forget who--said in an interview, "It's like trying to cover the Empire State Building in text.")
Also--another grammatical note--how do I do italics in HTML? Such poor form, on my part, to put film titles in quotes!! Gentle readers, advice please?
Posted by Mike at October 15, 2004 9:56 AM
