Lame of name

State of Play has not even come out yet, and I've already forgotten it.

Could it have something to do with that title? You tell me.

As far as the ads tell me, State of Play is about murder, political intrigue, cover-ups and journalistic ethics. All the makings of a pretty standard thriller.

And what more does the title itself tell me?

Zilch.

Oh, I shouldn't blame State of Play in particular for having an uninspired title. In fact, it joins a shameful tradition in Hollywood, a tradition of naming films (especially thrillers) with the maximum possible bland interchangeability. Here, I've culled together a list, drawn mostly from movies that I've seen. (Hey, I had to narrow down my search criteria somehow.)

Addicted to Love
Basic Instinct
Before and After
Big Trouble
Body of Evidence
Body of Lies
Chances Are
Color of Night
Courage Under Fire
Crimes of Passion
Desperate Measures
Dream Lover
Endless Love
Enduring Love
Fatal Attraction
Fatal Instinct
The Forgotten
Fracture
Hide and Seek
House of Games
The Invisible
Laws of Attraction
Lost & Found
Made of Honor
Malice
Marked for Death
Nick of Time
One False Move
Out for Justice
Out of Sight
Over the Edge
Point of No Return
Point Break
Primal Fear
Ransom
Return to Me
The Rules of Attraction
Running on Empty
Secrets and Lies
Separate Lies
Serendipity
The Shape of Things
Shattered
She's So Lovely
She's the One
Shoot to Kill
Sleeping With the Enemy
Something's Gotta Give
Stand and Deliver
The Sweetest Thing
Taking Care of Business
Til' There Was You
A Time to Kill
To Die For
Trial and Error
True Romance
Under Siege
Unfaithful
View from the Top
What Lies Beneath
When a Man Loves a Woman
Wishful Thinking
Without Limits
Wrongfully Accused

How many of those films do you remember?

Okay, it's not as few as I'd have you believe. Some of them are in fact memorable, their titles' best (or worst) efforts notwithstanding. We remember Basic Instinct because Sharon Stone wielded an ice pick and flashed her beaver. We remember Point Break because Keanu Reeves yelled "I am special agent Johnny Utah!" We remember Fatal Attraction because of Glenn Close boiling bunnies.

Moments like these make a film -- and by extension, its title -- immediately memorable. But most films don't have indelible moments that instantly become part of our cinematic zeitgeist. And without even a memorable title to distinguish them, these films endure no better than half-remembered trailer fragments. Two years after they've left theaters, they're totally gone from even the bear-trap minds of the hardcore cinephiles.

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain? Now there's a film I can remember. Even if I haven't seen it. (I probably should -- this is one of my favorite titles to bust out during moments of levity at parties).

I'm not saying that every film has to go for maximum eccentricity in its title. If every film title were Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we'd all have a big headache.

But is it too much to ask for your title to have something to do with what's in the movie? That lone ingredient can make an otherwise bland title seem more meaningful. Let's take something superficially generic, like Stuck on You. That movie could be about anything, right? Find out it's about conjoined twins, and voila! Titular relevance.

Okay, so maybe "state of play" actually means something within the context of State of Play. But the problem is, most of us will never find out. Liking Russell Crowe or Ben Affleck may put some asses in the seats, but not as many as in the past. The rest of us will just write it off as the latest forgettable thriller to quietly plop off the assembly line.

The irony is, a title like State of Play is actually chosen specifically for its marketability. It's like an amalgam of thriller buzzwords, jammed together specifically because it reminds your average viewer of other films they half-remember. (Maybe they're trying to get the same crowd that saw Crowe's most recent, Body of Lies). That title has been market-tested to within an inch of its life, and for what? They're not going to get me.

Then again, they were never going to get a viewer like me. If they wanted the Eternal Sunshine crowd, they'd have come at it differently. But they want the "of" crowd. They want the people who are soothed by a title with a well-placed preposition. They want people who will forget about this movie right afterward, because that's all it's supposed to be -- temporary disposable escapism.

As long as the money leaves the pockets that one time, that's the only "state of play" that matters.

Numbers must always mean something

Warning: The following post exposes me as a huge nerd, and possibly a person in need of getting his head checked. At least it is meant for whimsical entertainment purposes only.

I'm a numerologist. I should just go ahead and say it. I'm a person who likes numbers and what they may signify, even when they don't signify anything.

This is an apparent contradiction for people who know me, because they know I am primarily, publicly, a man of words. But I did do better on the math portion of my SATs than the verbal, and if you're looking for an explanation for my ability to excel in the world of information technology, then my love of numbers probably has something to do with it.

It also helps explain why I love baseball, the most statistics-driven sport, and especially why I love lists. Where an item is ranked on a list means something to me beyond the surface level.

I also love dates. I remember insignificant anniversaries, and I have a subconscious auditor continually running a check for when a friend's birthday is coming up.

And so it is that I get a little geeked for movies like Knowing, which opens tomorrow. It's all about numbers and dates.

Now, I should say I am not geeked for Knowing in particular. In fact, given that Nicolas Cage is the star, I expect it to file right in there with all the other interchangeable high-concept thrillers he's made during the last, oh, 15 years. Next, anyone? And as for this type of movie -- well, The Number 23 should have steered me clear of them for good.

But I did think the release of Knowing provided a good opportunity for letting you in on the latest obsessive list I've been keeping, because it's just the kind of thing that the hero in a good numerology thriller would do. Only, the fate of the world isn't in the balance. But my numerological list is just as ridiculous as theirs, and if you saw The Number 23, you know it can get pretty ridiculous.

As I've mentioned before, I maintain a number of lists related to the movies I've seen. I won't single them out here -- I'm sure they will come up at other times, if they haven't already. But it had been awhile since I'd started keeping a new type of list -- that is, until about two months ago. This latest is probably the most absurd list I keep, but that doesn't make it any less fun to update.

It's a list of the dates I've seen certain movies -- by date. I already had a list of the order of the movies I see, which includes their dates. But I didn't have a list like the following, and let's use today as an example:

March 19: Roger Dodger (2003), The Emperor and the Assassin (2008)

I used the movie order list to help come up with this. It was a little tedious, but it was fun.

You see, I find some inherent interest -- as insane as it undoubtedly sounds -- in whether there are (certainly coincidental) similarities between movies I saw on the same day in different years. The same year doesn't count, because I might have been watching movies according to a theme that day. Or at least you couldn't say it was totally random. If I were counting movies seen on the same day in the same year, you could argue that I skewed the results to be more interesting. And in fact, if you are really skeptical of me, you could say that I will plan viewings in the future to be interesting, now that this list exists. Which is why I'm telling you about it now -- and I promise, never again. (Maybe.)

Now, I should tell you, I've only kept the movie order list since March of 2002. So the similarities I did end up finding -- some of which are really pretty funny, most of which are just stupid -- date back only to 2002.

Without further ado, I will adopt the persona of Walter Sparrow, otherwise known as Fingerling, otherwise known as Jim Carrey's character(s) from The Number 23. You'll get the dates, the movies, and the frantic conspiracy theory on why they're related. Understand the rules? Okay, there's one more: Films seen on that date that don't fit into the "pattern" have been excluded. Believe me, you'll thank me. But not as much as you'll thank me for the warning at the beginning of this piece, which may have allowed some of you with less time on your hands to skip this post altogether.

Okay, let's begin.

January 5: Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2004), With a Friend Like Harry ... (2008). A man named Harry is coming to kill me!

January 31: Bandits (2004), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2006). Those Enron guys were bandits alright! (Eh, not so much).

February 8: Lucky Break (2003), Miracle (2004). A higher power is coming to save me!

Feburay 23: The Last Temptation of Christ (2004), The Devil's Rejects (2006). God vs. the Devil!

March 7: Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr. (2002) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2008). Long titles! Names! Colons!

March 9: The Time Machine (2002), Deja Vu (2007). I know I've seen this somewhere before!

March 23: Jackpot (2002), The Bank Job (2008). Money money money!

April 3: Sin City (2005), 300 (2007). Both movies are from source material by Frank Miller! (I do think this one is genuinely weird.)

April 14: Sorry, Haters (2007), P.S. I Love You (2008). Love vs. Hate!

April 18: Big Trouble (2002), Anger Management (2003), Kill Bill, Volume II (2004). If you don't manage your anger, there will be big trouble, possibly resulting in killing! Of Bill! Volume II!

May 12: Super Size Me (2004), 28 Weeks Later (2007). Morgan Spurlock wanted to see how unhealthy McDonald's would make him 28 days later! And 28 Weeks Later is a sequel to that!

July 7: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Transformers (2007). Machines are coming to get us!

July 19: Eight Legged Freaks (2002), Freaks (2006). Freaks are coming to get us! (Note: These are the only two films I've ever seen with the world "freaks" in the title. You just blew your own mind.)

August 4: Duplex (2005), Monster House (2006). Giant houses are coming to get us!

August 11: Dead Ringers (2006), The Number 23 (2007). Watch out for evil twins! (Plus, I had to get The Number 23 in there again.)

August 21: Still We Believe: The Boston Red Sox Movie (2004), The Bostonians (2005). Boston is coming to drag me back home! (Note: These are the only two films I've ever seen with the word "Boston" in the title -- and I'm from Boston. Mind blow #2.)

August 29: Hero (2004), World Trade Center (2006). Self-explanatory!

September 4: Stargate (2004), Across the Universe (2008). A stargate helps you get across the universe!

September 30: Thirteen (2003), 21 (2008). What did I tell you -- it's all about NUMBERS!!

November 8: Love's Labour's Lost (2002), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003). Beware lost love!

November 12: The Doors (2005), Last Holiday (2006), Last Days (2008). Impending death! For Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Queen Latifah's woman with a terminal illness! How long will they "last"?!

November 22: Elf (2003), The Queen (2006). Beware characters in fantasy adventures!

December 26: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Fun with Dick and Jane (2005). Beware Jim Carrey!

And Jim Carrey brings us pretty much back to where we started.

I sincerely apologize for wasting so much of your time.

But don't say I didn't warn you, like a good numerological conspiracy theorist should.

Several times.

Michael Jackson must be so disappointed

Why?

Because the thriller is dead.

Don't believe me? Well, when's the last time you remember getting really excited for an upcoming thriller? Don't hurt your brain.

The (at least temporary) death of one of cinema's most venerable genres first occurred to me over the weekend, as I was staring absently at a billboard for The International. I'd seen a trailer, and been unimpressed by it, several months earlier. Seems like another latter day paranoia movie about righteous people getting targeted by the corporate machine. Yawn.

This movie should theoretically have a lot to offer me, if not in terms of genre, then in terms of ingredients. Clive Owen may currently hold the honor of my biggest man-crush in Hollywood, and as for your run-of-the-mill heterosexual crushes, Naomi Watts ain't bad either. But perhaps most importantly, I love the director, Tom Tykwer. Despite having a couple duds on his résumé -- if you haven't seen Heaven, don't -- this man is truly an outside-the-box thinker, who brought his highly original perspectives to Run Lola Run and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. In fact, I own both films. If he can breathe exciting new vitality into a costume drama about conjuring fragrances, why can't he save the thriller?

Yet I have no interest whatsoever in seeing The International.

Maybe I'm gun shy from all the dreck that has littered the thriller landscape these last couple years. You know, the Firewalls, the AntiTrusts, the Disturbias. It's titles like these that leave me thinking the thriller is as dead as the horror was, before Scream came along.

Still don't believe me? Well, to further illustrate my point, I've taken a gander at my handy-dandy list of 2008 movies -- not the ones I saw, but the complete list, according to their U.S. release dates. Of the over 200 movies on this list, there were only nine -- that's right, nine -- I could feel fairly certain of classifying as straight-up thrillers. (I consider The Bank Job more of a heist movie, and the political thriller is a different enough genre to take Body of Lies out of contention). Granted, I don't recognize all the titles at a glance, but even if I've missed some, that still leaves the genre pretty darn scarce. And if there are thrillers on that list whose titles I don't recognize, that makes them fringe -- the kissing cousin of "scarce."

Shall we take a look at some of these films and how they fared?

88 Minutes. I saw this on a number of worst films of the year lists, as all of Al Pacino's shark-jumping tendencies really crystallized into a movie people could stand up and boo. I did not see this film, but am content to take its detractors at their word. U.S. box office: $17 million.

Bangkok Dangerous. Does a Nicolas Cage movie really count as a thriller, or is it its own idiotic genre? I should probably call this straight-up action, more like Max Payne or The Punisher: War Zone, neither of which I'm counting here. This film was a laughingstock, released on the first eligible date after Labor Day. You either count it as a failed thriller, which supports my theory, or don't count it as a thriller at all, which also supports my theory. I win either way. Clever, eh? U.S. box office: $15 million.

Cassandra's Dream. Woody Allen's Match Point was pretty definitely a thriller, and this was filmed on the same loooong trip to England as that film and Scoop, so let's classify it as a thriller. This film has less nuance than any Woody Allen film I've ever seen, with bluntly expository dialogue and almost a total lack of action. Boo-ring. Even Ewen McGregor and Colin Farrell can't liven it up, and U.S. audiences noticed in a major way. U.S. box office: $971,000.

Eagle Eye. This definitely qualifies as the most successful thriller of 2008, having crossed the $100 million mark in the U.S. How much of that can be credited to the filmgoing public's love affair with Shia LaBeouf is uncertain. Because you didn't hear critics saying much good about it, did you? The thing I thought was funniest about this film was that its poster contains no fewer than three anguished expressions apiece for its two stars -- anguished expressions on the poster being the dead giveaway that a movie's a thriller. I've included the poster here for your reference. U.S. box office: $101 million.

Lakeview Terrace. Supposedly laughable domestic thriller in which Samuel L. Jackson does everything but yell "I'm the police! King Kong ain't got nothing on me!" Interracial couples beware. This film was seriously derided by critics, but a couple people did see it. U.S. box office: $39 million.

Passengers. I would not be surprised if this Anne Hathaway starrer were really good, because Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives) is a really good director. However, this film was so under the radar that IMDB does not even show a U.S. box office take for it, after an October 24th limited release. U.S. box office: ???

Tell No One. This is the thriller I wanted to see in 2008. A French film with some supposedly excellent twists. Yet I was never aware of it playing at any theaters near me. Though it did quite well in France, its U.S. results were much more modest. U.S. box office: $6 million.

Untraceable. Yet another "serial killer taunts FBI agent" movie, starring Diane Lane. It did okay at the box office, but that would seem to depend more on having little competition when it was released last January. No one said anything good about it. U.S. box office: $29 million.

Vantage Point. A decent cast boosted this "differing perspectives" thriller to a pretty good box office. But again, no one I respect had a nice thing to say about this movie. And it's yet another film on this list that I did not see. If you're counting, the only one I did see was Cassandra's Dream. And I try to see a good cross section of what's out there, if I have half a mind to. U.S. box office: $72 million.

Proof? Hardly. Signs of a trend? Hell yeah.

And it doesn't seem likely that this trend will reverse itself anytime soon. I'm not expecting some 21st century Hitchcock to come out of the woodwork. But then again, who would have thought one terrifying phone call to Drew Barrymore -- which has now become a parody mainstay -- would revive the whole horror genre?

As for The International ... well, if I have to give someone the benefit of the doubt, maybe it should be Tom Tykwer.

Or maybe I'll just wait to see what my fellow critics have to say about it first ...