What is the Deal With One-Word Movie Titles These Days?

That was spoken with my best Jerry Seinfeld impression, by the way--and it is awesome.

Exhibit A:

Gravity, Wanted, Moon, Alien...


Exhibit B:

Avatar, Up, Twilight, Taken, Duplicity, Adventureland, Zombieland, Fighting, Obsessed, Julia, Management, Tetro, Cheri, Surveillance, Bruno, Orphan, Shrink, Bandslam, Spread, Extract, Gamer, Whiteout, Splice, Fame, Trucker, Amelia, Antichrist, Motherhood, Skin, Precious, Uncertainty, Armored, Brothers, Invictus, Nine...

Have I belabored my point yet? And that is only a selection of movie titles from 2009 and beyond.

And I didn't even count the ones that started with The.


Are audiences that stupid that they can only process one word now? That they're only credited that meager of an attention span?

Maybe. Maybe we deserve it. Sadly. Or maybe we don't.

"I know what you're thinking when you say you want the title to be Silence of the Lambs, but I think we need to change it to Cannibal. Trust me--I'm an expert in marketing to dumb people. Have you heard of Crash? Speed? Batman? I did all those. Besides, think of how much you're paying me--I know what I'm doing here."

"Will you take a check? Or do you need cash so you can avoid taxes? I will gladly spend a million dollars to earn a million dollars--I'm kind of like the parking enforcement office in that way."

And the world turns, relentlessly, groaning under its own weight, strangely determined to outlast us.

_