The movie logline quiz (part 1)

To my knowledge, there are three times in the life cycle of any movie where someone is pressed to describe it in 1-2 sentences:

1. The pitch. In the beginning, the writer sells the idea of the movie to the producer or studio exec. Depending on the patience of the listener, the writer may have the liberty to provide a longer synopsis or even a storyboard, but in the end it comes down to the quick summary of the premise, which can often reference other movies. "It's Die Hard on a bus!" (Speed) might work. "It's Die Hard in an office building!" (Die Hard) probably won't.

2. The tagline. Once the movie is made and ready to market, this is the sentence that appears in the trailer and poster. Take Alien: "In space, no one can hear you scream." Bam! You already know the setting and the genre(s). In an interesting twist, it seems as though the most creative taglines go to popcorn movies, while the bland taglines are reserved for the otherwise literate film fare.

3. The logline. Long after the movie is made and has had its theatrical run, it will appear on television, and someone (usually the person who fills in the TV grids in newspapers or cable guides) has to write a sentence that sums up the movie. For example: "Two divorce mediators spend a wild weekend partying with a politician and his eccentric family." That's a fairly straightforward description of Wedding Crashers.

As you can tell from the title of this post, I want to have a little fun with the third item on this list, the logline. What if the logline were true but entirely misleading? What if it were completely vague, focused on the wrong character, or missing the tone or point of the movie it describes? Can you still identify the movie? I wish I could say I invented this concept, but I didn't. Here are a couple of famous examples.

"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again."
-- The Wizard of Oz (from Richard Polito of the Marin Independent Journal, according to Wikipedia)

"A boy and his sled are separated. Problems ensue."
-- Citizen Kane (from Movieline's list of the 100 Best Movies Ever Made)

Clearly, this is a job for Brevity, and I've already written about 30 of these. Here is my first installment; identify the movie (or for the last one, the TWO movies) in the comments. Skip the comments if you want to remain unspoiled and solve them yourself.

1. With the help of two friends, a hypochondriac converts his sick day into a vacation and a growth experience.
Solved by: Catherine

2. An even-tempered man refuses to leave a room until he can get a gruff colleague to do away with his past biases.
Solved by: Catherine

3. With hospitals refusing to perform his elective surgery, a troubled man forces others into his template so that he may fashion himself a new appearance.
Solved by: Quinn the Brain

4. A killer proves a man of his word when a thief reneges on his end of a deal. There is collateral damage.
Solved by: Ceresina

5. Misbehaving teenagers fulfill the unreasonable demands of an educator using a fraction of the requested manpower.
Solved by: Quinn the Brain

6. An accomplished son finds the object of his father’s obsession but learns its value is confined to a small radius.
Solved by: Jeremy

7. An intra-family vehicle swap has disastrous consequences for each side.
Solved by: Jeremy

8. During the Great Depression, a single parent takes on an uphill legal battle, puts forth the best possible case, and loses.
Solved by: Catherine

9. A local law enforcement officer works fiercely and outside the lines to save a visiting world leader from being killed by an unknown assassin in broad daylight.
Solved by: Jeremy

10. In a card game, a man wins himself a form of transportation. He soon finds adventure, and love with a woman who is otherwise attached. The affair is soon dead in the water.
(Two movies)
Movie #1 solved by: Catherine
Movie #2 solved by: Jeremy

For more fun with loglines, try the Random Logline Generator. And look for future installments here. (They get weirder.)

Random bullets

Thought I was going to give you little snippets of information that add up to a blog entry? Guess again.

After a lengthy respite -- from Brevity and from advanced movie screenings -- I saw Wanted Thursday night. I'm usually a good judge of movies, knowing ahead what I'm willing to see and willing to avoid, but I couldn't get a handle on this one. I knew it was going to be all kinds of stupid, but would it still be fun?

My answer is no. (Though much of the packed audience -- and many critics -- vote yes.) Generally, I keep an open mind, but this movie turned me off in the first 30 minutes: An Indian woman is the first to die. James McAvoy drops his appealing Scottish accent to play American. And the same song is used twice as background music. (Despite Martin Scorsese being guilty of that last one on two counts in The Departed and still winning Best Director, I say all of these examples are strikes against the filmmakers.)

There is a car chase that walks a fine line of being long but not too long, and an assassin training sequence that manages to be brutal yet interesting. But the rest is a loud, obnoxious mess. McAvoy's been on a roll lately as an actor, so this big-budget U.S. debut comes as a bit of a disappointment, even though it's not his fault. I will give him credit for bulking up and bringing more to the table, physique wise, than the rapidly disintegrating Angelina Jolie.

Speaking of Angelina, she does a remarkable job of phoning in her performance even when she's on-screen. She's like a CGI Jolie, inserted into scenes where appropriate. I'm not sure how else to describe it; she's just not there. Morgan Freeman can bring class and substance to anything, even this embarrassing movie. It's his duty to explain the film's ridiculous premise (which I won't go into) and its inevitable twist (that I felt was coming but couldn't quite justify given what I'd already seen). But I'll give Freeman a pass here; many lesser actors have done worse for a paycheck.