This Week In Actual Movie Taglines
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
10:00 AM
Labels: actual movie taglines , taglines , The Invention Of Lying , Whip It , Zombieland , 1 comments
Labels: actual movie taglines , taglines , The Invention Of Lying , Whip It , Zombieland , 1 comments
A look at the taglines for this week's major releases. How do studios try to hook us when they only have a sentence?
The Invention of Lying
Actual tagline: In A World Where EVERYONE Can Only Tell The TRUTH... He's Just Invented The LIE
Because the title The Invention of Lying (which is reminiscient of Snakes On A Plane in its explicativeness) apparently wasn't enough, a two-part sentence hammers home the high-concept premise from star/co-writer/co-director Ricky Gervais.
I can't get past the logical contradiction involved- clearly, if he invents the lie, then it's no longer a world where "everyone can only tell the truth." It should more properly be "In a world where everyone has heretofore only told the truth..." and so on.
Whip It
Actual tagline: Be Your Own Hero
But what if I'm not eligible for women's roller derby? How will I be my own hero? Does that mean I should join the military?
Zombieland
Actual tagline: Nut Up Or Shut Up
OR: This Place Is So Dead
Dead! Get it? Like zombies are dead. And I'll "nut up" when I join the military- all right, movie taglines? Stop telling me what to do with your informal second person commands!
I really think Whip It missed an opportunity here. Such overachievers, if they had just gone with the tagline: "Whip it good!" (which you know they wanted too) they could have easily qualified for most hyped film followed by worst tagline.
For films like The Invention of Lying, is a tagline really necessary? It's like naming the film: Story of a Man Getting Revenge and then giving it the tagline, "This man's going to get his revenge!"... duh?