What's in a title?

What's in a name? That which we call a garlic clove
By any other name would still stink.

* * * * *

Consider the movie titled "Dead Snow" , translated literally from its original Norwegian title "Død snø".  What could it be about?  Mayhap a meditative depiction of doomed romance, set in an unforgiving Oslo winter (featuring Rachmoniff's Piano Concert No. 2, mov. 1).  Or a Viking tirade gone awry.  Or a documentary feature on the alarmingly high levels of mercury and other toxic chemicals that endanger the existence of life in the Artic Circle.

Or it could be exactly what the Spanish translation of the title indicates: "Zombis Nazis" (or, you know,  "Nazi Zombies", to follow the proper English grammar structure wherein the adjective precedes the noun).  With that title there's no doubt about what you're going to see, no question about it.  It's not as if the words "dead" and "snow" don't exist in the Spanish language, but that title sounds a lot more impressive and fun that "Nieve Muerta".  Although I love me some good wordplay,  I also find pleasure in a straightforward title that doesn't balk from its subject matter-- movies like "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". I guess I'm also fatigued from movies (mostly romantic comedies) that try to have punny, clever titles that don't really do anything for the movie except serve as expanding benign tumors in an actor's body of work-- "How Do You Know" and "Just Go With It" are the first egregious examples that come to mind. 

Most of the time when I write a post I come up with the title last.  I don't relish having to think up ways to summarize or capture the essence of the post that follows the title, and when I'm done writing I've usually veered into another subject.  I think the title for this post is pretty...okay.



movie info taken from IMDb