Titles in the era of SNAKES ON A PLANE

So, all the summer movie buzz is targeting SNAKES ON A PLANE, with an incredible free media buy-in owing to the reaction of the "in" crowds to the concept and the title.

We all know how essential the right name for a movie is...would PRETTY WOMAN have been such a success if it had retained its original title, 3000 DOLLARS? I don't think so. The title sets an expectation, a focus, a subtext for what the consumer sees or hears next.

E.J. was dead on perfect when he encouraged me to put out a book of poetry with the word "poetry" or "poems" in the title, more as an experiment than anything else. 101 GREAT LOVE POEMS has been my most reliable selling book, although thanks to the x-factor, THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES has leapfrogged it in some markets.

But, thinking about SNAKES ON A PLANE, how wonderfully inobtuse that title is...imagine if other films used such logic in their naming, that purity of synopsism:

TITANIC would have been LOVERS ON SINKING SHIP

BASIC INSTINCT would have been SHARON STONE HAVING SEX

PRETTY WOMAN should have been called NICE HOOKER MEETS RICH GUY

ET would have been KIDS MEET HARMLESS MAGIC ALIEN AND SEND HIM HOME (Why is it in Spielberg movies all aliens, and even people who have been in prolonged contact with them, are required to develop superhuman powers that transcend the laws of physics? Aren't we setting ourselves up for a letdown when we do actually meet aliens? "What do you mean you can't freeze time, teleport or fly?")

Of course, using E.J.'s logic, the actual title should include the name "movie" or even a genre description, so

TITANIC would have actually been LOVERS ON SINKING SHIP TEARJERKER MOVIE

and who wouldn't want to see the classic

FUNNY CHICK FLICK WITH HAPPY ENDING instead of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY?

Maybe we're onto something here? Me, I am going to see SNAKES ON A PLANE when it hits, two days after my birthday. Why? Not for the title...I just love watching Samuel L. Jackson bring the fury...this movie could and should be this year's BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, an unexpectedly huge money movie with cultural impact (I hear they are right now reshooting some scenes to use saltier language to take fuller advantage of Mr. Jackson's image and raise the rating from a PG-13 to an R).

Me, I have to go work on my new book...101 GREAT EROTIC POEMS. I think that title is clear enough, although you never know...maybe 101 POEMS TO MAKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND WANT SEX would be clearer? Hmmmm....