The St. Petersburg Times’ award-winning nostalgia blog, Stuck in the ’80s, recently graced us with their picks for the worst movies of the “Me Decade.” Their top ten?

• Absolute Beginners — “Welcome to the world of your dreams!”
• Yentl — “Nothing’s Impossible.”
• Cobra — “Crime is the disease. Meet the Cure.”
• Heartbeeps — “Be on the lookout for this gang of misfit robots.”
• The Pirate Movie — “Buckle Your Swash and Jolly Your Roger for the Funniest Rock ‘N Rollickin’ Adventure Ever!”
• Defcon-4
• Rhinestone — “A rip roaring, hard lovin’ comedy hit with wonderful new songs by Dolly Parton.”
• Ishtar
• Over The Top — “Some fight for money… Some fight for glory… He’s fighting for his son’s love.”

And the “winner” is…

• Gymkata — “The skill of gymnastics, the kill of karate.”

You’ll forgive me if don’t rent these to see if I agree or not!

Mediabistro.com contributor Susan Self pulls back the curtain to reveal the secrets to promoting a really bad DVD. Her first trick of the trade? Revise history!

Since DVD’s are an incredibly lucrative product, the studios will buy up cheaply-priced, understandably forgotten films from the 80’s and 90s and dump them back on the market under assumed names. These box office bombs are ‘refreshed’ with a new title, a new tagline, and most important, new box designs. It doesn’t matter what the movie is really about — starving orphans in Bombay, the vanishing rainforest — the default low-budget indie film box art remains the same: boobs and a gun.

It’s not pretty, but it is Hollywood.

According to Variety, NBC Universal is set to launch a new digital cable network (a cabler, in Variety-speak) devoted to horror-themed programming. Dubbed Chiller, the new channel will be headed by Dan Harrison (who also oversees the Sleuth mystery channel) and will feature such properties as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Tales From The Crypt, The Shining, and Psycho.

I like the name. A “chiller” is of course to horror what a “thriller” is to action-suspense; they’re both good old-fashioned Hollywood slang for the thrills and chills genres. It’s nice to see the networks finally moving away from the descriptive (CNN, TNN, The Movie Channel, The History Channel, and so on) and towards the evocative (Spike, Sleuth, etc.); evocative names usually make for much stronger brands.

I missed The Boston Globe round-up of the best movie titles ever.  If you did too, they chose:

• Snakes on a Plane (2006)
• The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? (1964)
• Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984)
• Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)
• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
• Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)
• To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)
• Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1966)
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
• Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

I think by and large they’re confusing Most Unusual with Best, but I admire the effort!

While we’re on the subject of movie titles, Variety has a short piece (subtitled Unoriginal Sins) on the striking similarities among the names of many of this year’s Oscar contenders. Citing such sets as The Good Shepherd, The Good German, and A Good Year, the author concludes:

This won’t come as a big shock to most here, but it seems like the titles of theatrical releases have been focus-grouped to the point of insanity — and the only variety in the room is the publication you’re reading right now.

He exaggerates, but there’s still nothing like an original, evocative title to draw an audience in. I especially like his suggested name for the sequel to Denzel Washington’s Deja Vu — Deja  Vu 2: Deja Vu!

Game Revolution brings us its picks for (drumroll, please) The 50 Worst Video Game Titles Of All Time.  Here they are, from bad to worse:

• Frogger: Helmet Chaos
• Zeitgeist
• Twin Eagle: Revenge Joe’s Brother
• Jumpman
• ASO: Armored Scrum Object
• Wild Woody
• Tech Romancer
• Princess Tomato In Salad Kingdom
• Beyond The Beyond
• Silhouette Mirage: Reprogrammed Hope
• Um Jammer Lammy
• PenPen Trilcelon
• Spanky’s Quest
• Cacoma Knight In Bizyland
• M.U.S.C.L.E.
• Sticky Balls
• 70’s Robot Anime Geppy-X: The Super Boosted Armor
• Punky Skunk
• Klonoa: Door To Phantomile
• Awesome Possum Kicks Dr. Machino’s Butt!
• Catechumen
• World Soccer Winning Eleven 5: Final Evolution
• Panic Restaurant
• Ninja Hamster
• Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls
• Booby Kids
• Yo! Noid
• Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf
• Astro Fang: Super Machine
• Divine Divinity
• Eggs of Steel: Charlie’s Eggcellent Adventure
• Barkley: Shut Up And Jam!
• Tongue Of The Fatman
• Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
• Rosco McQueen – Firefighter Extreme
• Tobal No. 1
• Wargasm
• GOLF Magazine Presents 36 Great Holes Starring Fred Couples
• XEXYZ
• No One Can Stop Mr. Domino!
• Totally Rad
• James Pond II: Codename RoboCod
• Psybadek
• Nuts & Milk
• Huygen’s Disclosure
• Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja
• Pesterminator: The Western Exterminator
• Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam
• If It Moves, Shoot It!
• Irritating Stick

You’ll want to read the full article to understand something about the story behind each of these gems, but the list itself does a good job of detailing the myriad ways in which a title can fall flat, including falling prey to cultural differences, suffering from a weak translation, or being overly punny, mind-numbingly descriptive, embarrassingly faddish, completely tin-eared, uncomfortably vulgar, etc.  All the more reason to celebrate a really good title!

According to a recent article in the Journal of Consumer Research, movie audiences will pick a sequel with its own title (e.g. the hypothetical Daredevil: Taking It To The Streets) over one with simply a number appended (Daredevil 2).  The UCLA | Wharton research team concluded that moviegoers are seeking some sort of clue that the follow-on isn’t just a retread.  In other words, they want more than a familiar premise and engaging characters; they want a new story.

My favorite Australian paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, has a nice, long, opinionated article on what makes for a great movie title. According to columnist Garry Maddox,

… titles do matter. Why else would a romantic comedy called $3000, named after the sum a wealthy client pays a hooker, be changed to Pretty Woman? So that we all buy into the sweet fantasy of that classic Hollywood romance without being reminded that it’s a movie about a businessman with more money than friends hiring a prostitute off the street.

Garry like his titles short and snappy (Alien … Braveheart … Chinatown … Gladiator … Twister) or evocative and intriguing (Girl, Interrupted … My Big Fat Greek Wedding … The Good, The Bad and The Ugly … The Silence of the Lambs). He cites The Cinderella Man, starring fellow Aussie Russell Crowe, as a great movie whose title missed the mark.

I couldn’t agree more. Around here movie titles are some of our favorite projects, but it’s always a challenge. There are typically too many cooks in the studio kitchen and the cost of a mistake is enormous. Where else but in Hollywood does a brand fail or succeed in the first weekend?

My only problem with Garry’s piece? His own title. It sure seems like every naming article ever written is cleverly called What’s in a Name?! Give us a break!