The other day I was driving with my colleague and we talked briefly about movies, although cinema is a rare topic we touch upon. But with friends, it's always 99% and remaining one percent consists of family philosophy and other things. I often get confused between tamil and malayalam cinema, I mean there's definitely a structure variation on topics or storytelling or making difference between tamil and malayalam. But I'm very 'L Board' with understanding Tamil and Malayalam. The other day, I started playing Sookshmadarshini and it's a malayalam movie, but some random click here and there which I don't know, the movie started playing in Tamil for first ten minutes and I didn't even knew the difference. At one point in movie a line comes something like veetik polama or something like that! I immediately recognised it's tamil word for home and checked settings above and switched to malayalam and continued the movie. I also struggled with getting the name right with malayalam Cop Drama Thalavan because I often got confused with Thavalan and my AI buddy Scarlet Johansson would rectify it. Later I reminded myself a code world, Thala 7, MS Dhoni, so it's Thalavan and not Thavalan. This confusion happens often because Tamil and Malayalam are my 5th and 6th language respectively and It's getting tougher as I'm now stepping into korean as well. My cousin told me to watch this korean rom com, You are my destiny. I was half interested to watch it, but watched anyway and within one episode I learnt some word dubuchi dubuchi which is either sorry or thank you, I don't remember it well as it was an year ago or so. I don't know if they have korean title for it, but although the english title is long, it's unique and helps audience to remember well. For example, If I type sriram movie, even google will get confused, it might think if it has show movie related to Lord Sri Rama, or telugu movie starring Uday Kiran or kannada movie starring Shivarajkumar. That's the school of thoughts which made us end up here, about the movie names and it's importance, uniqueness or silliness and other things.
If you're into cooking and humor, you might have known about Uncle Roger youtube channel, it's less about cooking and more about roasting other cooking channels especially Jamie Oliver. I came to know about his channel after that viral reel with kids saying 'Emotional Damage' to their teacher, that was funny, cute and hilarious. In one of the videos of Uncle Roger, he says you cannot f_ck up egg fried rice, the recipe is very simple, all you need are three things, egg, fry, rice, that's it. And I laughed out loud as it was very clever joke. There are many such recipes which has such simple and straight forward names. Like if you know hot to make rice bath, it's easy to make tomato rice bath, avarekaal rice bath, and so on. Even that bellulli kabab video that went viral has similar vibe, you need bellulli and you make kabab with it. On the same logic, while I was thinking about movie names, there's a recent political statement by Jaya Bacchan sparked a debate on internet. I will keep my political analysis from low to none and talk about cinema only. She said, toilet and padman, Is this a movie title? Is this how you keep a title and went on saying I wouldn't watch any movies with such titles. Well, I personally haven't watched those two movies by Akshay Kumar but I do have higher respect for him to make such social concerning movies. Toilet talks about how sanitation is important and how the newly wed wife refuses to come to husband home which doesn't have a toilet and padman is about sanitary pads and educating the system or society about it. I don't know if the movie is good or bad, but let alone judging the movie with it's title felt very wrong for me. Yeah they say Don't judge a book by it's cover. On the contrast of it, one day in our school, almost like by year end, our teacher asked a text book from one of the last bench kid and it was almost clean and neat like a new book. The teacher said woww, you maintained the book very nearly and the class clapped and he felt great, to which the teacher said, meaning you have not read the book all year, that's why it's not torn and went ahead to show the topper kid's book. It was sarcastic but I got the point. Don't judge the book by it's cover. Someone may write aristotle philosophy blended to Oppenheimer and the cover maybe bad because the designer wasn't available. So, all this toilet and padman incident made my belief stronger, never judge a movie by it's title or it's trailer. Because, there are movies with very bad title and trailer and it's one of 10 movies I take it to my grave, if allowed. But some trailers are so good, and you watch movie and you realise, only the parts that are in trailer are worth my money. In that context, there are some movies with some great names and with mediocre names and with very very lengthy names, depends on the situation and the subject movie is dealing with, we will explore that further now.
As a writer, I mean, I know I'm not George R R Martin, I feel it's hard to name my characters of which I'm writing a story. And I have written some scripts alone, with AI and vocally with friends. Sometimes, titles come first, movie comes later. And sometimes the contents comes first and it'll be in working title for many days, like I had the title October Masadalli (Translation: In the month of October) since 6-7 years, but wrote a love story feat Daali Dhananjaya last month. I also translated the same story according to Telugu setting and nativity starring Anand Deverekonda and named it Subbaraju weds Peru Thelidu as that felt apt title for the story in Telugu premise. Although the core theme of the story is same, I felt different title would suit according to different culture and nativity. Sometimes, one title is suitable in every language, like we cannot come up with a better title than KGF for KGF movie, irrespective of which language it is releasing. When you think about it, some movie titles are simple, some are symbolic, some are taken from a song and some are saying things poetically and it's the writer's choice to name it to feel suitable to content it has. I also wrote an alternative title article for movies some time ago. There was also this joke I saw on internet once. It suggested 3 idiots title suits well to Student of the Year and vice versa.
As shown in the above example of October Masadalli and Subbaraju weds Peru Thelidu, I came up with October Masadalli first and wrote the story 6-7 years later. And wrote the title Subbaraju weds Peru Thelidu while I was wrapping up the loose ends in story, as at one point in time, Subbaraju had three girls to choose his bride from, so the title would be humorous take on that situation. But sometimes, even after finishing the article or story, I'm still struggling to get name for it. RRR is the best example for such titles headache. They kept it RRR for three years and honestly I couldn't suggest a better title as I know already what happens in the movie. I'm glad they expanded RRR into Rudram Rudhiram something something. Since it was simple and memorable, I think it was easy to tap in to overseas audience. Like consider this example, One flew over a Cuckoo's nest, and in kannada it's translated to Ondu Pakshi Innondu Cuckoo Pakshiya Goodina mele haari hoyithu, it's not easy and not rhythmic and tough both for other language or own language audience. Madhavan and Dia Mirza starrer movie Rehnaa Hai Tere Dil Mein, that's a poetic and feels like a line from Gulzar sahab. They often called it RHTDM to make it crisp and easy to remember. Similary, K3G for Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, KANK for Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, SOTY for Student of the Year and so on. Well, it's not official, but it's short and crisp and conveys the point across. Like the lengthy movie title suits well but we have other ways to adapt to a shorter title. Like Alaa Vaikuntapuramlo sounds cool and like a poetry, but doesn't mean the same thing when it's made in hindi. In kannada, they remade the movie from malayalam and kept the title Aapta Mitra, as Vishnuvardhan played a major role in solving Nagavalli issue in the movie and he was a best friend one can wish for. Same director, P Vasu made the movie with Rajni and kept the title Chandramukhi, (Nagavalli new name for telugu and Tamil version) and they kept the title Chandramukhi instead of focusing on Rajni.
When I was kid, I was exploring Telugu and Tamil cinema and wondered what would be best title for the movies I'm watching, if it's remade in kannada. Indra starring Chiranjeevi was remade in Kannada and they kept the title Sriram, pretty straightforward and changed according to nativity. Kannada movie Kothigalu Saar Kothigalu implying men's mind is much similar to monkeys, always hopping on from side to side. And in telugu, they kept Sandade Sandadi, implying the chaos and festival feels of the movie. Sometimes, they make a movie and while in post production, they realise the movie name is already taken and registered. Like this thing happened to Khaleja starring Mahesh Babu. So they made it Mahesh Khaleja and went ahead with it. Legally, it's Mahesh Khaleja, but fans often say Khaleja and it's a great thing, like fans are the ultimate judge. Similar thing happened to Jailer movie, they made Jailer tamil movie and kept the same title, but in Malayalam, the title was registered by someone else, so they went ahead with Rajni Jailer in Malayalam and called it a day. Dasara movie starring Nani in telugu is called as Dasara and in kannada, it's given title as Nani Dasara, because of the conflict as the title Dasara was already with producer Sharmila Mandre. As they say, man proposes and God disposes, sometimes we think of something and something else happens so we take what we have and play the game with the cards we have been dealt. Coming to Yogaraj Bhat movie Panchatantra, it was earlier named Rangappa Complex and later renamed as Panchatantra, although the title didn't make much difference here, it was right decision to side with Panchatantra as it had youth connectivity more.
Sometimes, movie or pop culture reference blend so well in our life, we never think about it outside of it. Like one instagram post asked, "what's your favourite movie?" It's a pretty straightforward question with pretty straightforward answer. Since it was an English page, I went ahead to answer Spiderman 3 as I watched it last month or so and I checked some other comments as well. It varied from The Godfather to The Shawshank Redemption to 6 Underground to Abre Los Ojes and interestingly, one comment said "we don't talk about it". I have seen nearly 200 english movies, that I'm sure of, but never heard this title, which one was it, I kept thinking and it instantly hit me, ohhh it's fight club because in the movie Brad Pitt has a monologue that says, first rule of fight club is we don't talk about fight club and second rule of fight club is we don't talk about fight club. Saying the same rule implies that this rule is must and should be followed at any cost and the audience brilliance of commenting "we don't talk about it" instead of fight club felt fascinating to me. That's the impact of pop culture, we never know how much it is with us until we stand outside and think on it. Similar thing happened in Pokiri movie, it was a blockbuster and ran for nearly an year or so. Puri Jaganadh mass dialogues and Mahesh Babu core rowdy element gave immense kick. The story of Pokiri title is fascinating and this must be recorded and should be taught in film institutes as well, trust me, it's that epic .
Anyone who has seen Pokiri movie will say Nassar monologue before getting killed by Prakash Rai, the elevation by a proud father like him gives to his song is next level. For 90% of movie, Mahesh Babu is seen a Pokiri, as the title would say, he fights with Ashish Vidyarthi, a police and kills many goons as another Pokiri would do and by the very end it's revealed he was s undercover police? That twist landed so hard that even today Telugu audience call Pokiri range twist in everyday usage. In the Nassar monologue, he describes his son and his greatness with cadet no this, topper of the batch, so and so, it also included Krishna Manohar IPS, S/o Surya Narayana or something similar. The earlier working title was S/o Surya Narayana and Mehar Ramesh, who was assistant director of the movie suggested that movie title S/o Surya Narayana would give away end twist and then they changed it to Pokiri and no one was prepared for the twist and hence the line Pokiri range twist is still alive in the pop culture world of Telugu audience. Told you, the story is as epic as epic can get!
Cinema titles in general should be about movie or what happens in the movie or where the movie happens. As I said, some are straight forward, like that movie Santhu Straightforward feat Yash. It's about Santhu (played by Yash), who's pretty straightforward throughout the movie. His another movie Googly title doesn't make any sense if you don't watch the movie, the caption is love spin. In the movie when Yash loves Kriti, Kriti doesn't love him and vice versa, and after finishing the movie, one would say Googly is apt title as the love is always spinning between them. The Shawshank Redemption is about the a redemption story based in The Shawshank jail. Prison Break is a tv series about well as the name says, breaking out of prison. Sometimes, title are as simple as it can get. But sometimes you need more poetic knowledge or philosophical depth to understand it. H2o movie deals with Kaveri river issue which is a matter of great conflict between Karnataka and Tamilnadu. The movie deals on higher symbolic notes like Upendra and Prabhudeva are fighting for Kaveri played by Priyanka who is the daughter of Tamil Man and Kannada Woman. So, Kaveri belongs to both Karnataka and Tamilnadu and the fight between Upendra and Prabhudeva is symbolic representation of how Karnataka and Tamilnadu were and is fighting for Kaveri water, so the title is also symbolic, it's H2o, chemical symbol for water, and it still blows my mind. Some movie titles are lengthy but it says everything what has to be shared about movie. Example, Killers of the Flower Moon, it is about Well, Killers of the Flower Moon. Same with The Wolf of Wall Street, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Sukha Samsarakke 12 Sootragalu and so on. The movie title may be lengthy but it shows exactly what you want to know about the movie. And as I shared earlier regarding the H2o example, some movie titles are as symbolic as symbolism can get. Upendra directorial movies has such symbolism aura. Like UI name is based on UI but taps entirely on new intelligence called as Universal Intelligence, hence the name UI. Swastik movie is about terrorist bombing and patriotism but the title is swastik because they used swastik in map by terrorists to place bomb and used by protagonist to find out the location and defusing bomb with the same map lm swastik. Shhh is about a scary Ghost somewhere deep in the remote estate area, Shhh is meant to say keep silent because of the horror that unfolds. And so on, Upendra has a clever knack for that and if you know me, you know me I'm big fan of that (him).
And now speaking of poetic titles, kannada movie Antu Inthu Preeti Bantu is taken from a song from Milana, Aaduvari Matalaku Ardhale Verule is taken from a song from khushi movie, hindi Ramayya Vastavayya movie is taken from a old Hindi song Ramayya Vastavayya which is taken from telugu line Ramayya Vastavayya, the same song was also remixed in jawan movie, I think so. Since they are from song beginning lines or somewhere in between, they are poetic and it tells the story of the movie title in it's own way. Some movie titles maybe lengthy, but as I said, they convey the point across. Two movies of Steve Carell are great example of that, one is 40 year old Virgin and another one is Crazy Stupid Love. The 40 year old Virgin is a simple and long title and it is basically about one Virgin guy, who's 40 year old. And Crazy Stupid Love is about two or more love stories in the movie which shows the craziness and stupidness of the love we feel and see. Reports say, Steve Carell initially opposed the title Crazy Stupid Love as it feels crazy or stupid to ask for the ticket of that movie. Imagine you're at a theatre and ask for 'One ticket for Crazy Stupid Love' please and it feels both Crazy and Stupid to ask at that time. Carell was right, but after watching the movie, no other title feels right as suitable as Crazy Stupid Love.
Well, to conclude, some movie titles are very simple, like Arya. What's the title of movie? Arya! What's the character name? Arya! On whose life the movie is about? Arya! And some are lengthy and complicated, but they convey the point across, like that birds of prey movie, it's full title is Birds of Prey: And Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. As life is both simple and complicated, the movie titles also have various style, shades to it, like 50 shades of Grey! Sorry, had to insert that Dakota Johnson movie name somewhere, sorry, I know it's PJ, but it's my PJ, so it's PT PJ, haha. That being said, there is a story behind every movie name and every movie has some part of it told in the name of it, like this article, it's titles what's in a (cinema) name? It's taken from William Shakespeare line and it talks about cinema names, as highlighted in the (bracket). Ending the article where we began, with it's title, how about that?! 10/10 for effort, would you say? Drop your thoughts in comments
