Kinematoscope

A look at the taglines for this week's major releases. How do studios try to hook us when they only have a sentence?

Actual tagline: This Fall...Daddy's Home

OR: This Fall... Do You Know Who Your Family Is?

Just so you know kids, stepfathers, in addition to being not your real dad are also murderous killers! Or at least they are this fall!

This should be part of a mini-film festival confirming children's worst fears about people they allready distrusted, along with The Faculty (Teachers are evil aliens!), The Good Son (adopted siblings are psychopaths!), Disturbia (your neighbor is a serial killer!), and The Guardian (babysitters are evil druids that want to sacrifice you!).




Actual tagline: There's One In All Of Us

I'd be snarky about this film, but I'd be immediately disciplined by the Hipster Police (a coalition of agents from Urban Outfitters, McSweeney's, tumblr.com, and all non-Starbucks coffee shops).

I'm stoked for the film, being a hip twentysomething, but has there ever before been a movie made from a children's picture book marketed seemingly exclusively to hip twenty-somethings that were fans of the book long ago?




Actual tagline: The System Must Pay

OR: Justice At Any Cost

OR: How do you stop a killer who is already behind bars?

OR: The Man Who Has Lost Everything is Capable of Anything

The rule is thus: the more generic your title, the greater number of taglines you will need. Law Abiding Citizen needed four to get us beyond the boilerplate reference in its moniker- though that poster doesn't make it terribly clear that Jaime Foxx is the person being hounded by "the man who has lost everything," and not the character seeking "justice at any cost."