This is not a review of Hot Tub Time Machine.

This is not a review of “Hot Tub Time Machine.”

I’m a sucker for a title (not like viscount or marquis). I will eagerly throw hard-earned money at a book, film, or album on the basis of a clever title.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. “Hot Tub Time Machine” is simply the most recent example, but as soon as I heard about this movie, I knew that I had to see it the first week. It was the same feeling that I had when I saw the book “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”. I purchased Zombies immediately. I honestly felt that the author deserved my fourteen bucks for the title alone (which works out, since the entire book is an extrapolation of the title joke. It’s not bad; it’s just a one note song, not that there isn’t an art to the beating of a dead horse. More on that another time).

Some of the other examples that immediately come to mind are “Snakes on a Plane”, which might be the coolest name for a film to ever come out of the studio system and crush millions of people with disappointment; and “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”, which succeeded in making me laugh really really hard at a stoner comedy, a genre that I typically despise (I’m told that this is probably due to the fact that I don’t smoke pot. I’m also told that smoking pot makes Dane Cook funny and the Doors listenable).

Now that I’ve alienated half of my audience...

So, why am I obsessed with clever titles? I think that it probably stems from a fear of failure. If I can hook an audience with a title, they may be more forgiving of the content between the covers. This is why I wrote a master’s thesis titled: “Driving a Pinto with a Mustang in the Garage: Exploring Issues of Underachievement.” You can’t hate a book like Christopher Moore’s “Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal”, nor would you want to. Even if it weren’t delightful and fun, it would get a pass on the strength of its title. Actually, Christopher Moore is a poor example, because the work that he does between the covers always lives up to the name printed on the spine (that sounded weirdly sexual).

For the record, I did enjoy Hot Tub Time Machine, and I will continue to spend my money on entertainment of its ilk. I need to save up as much Karma as I can until I unleash my own half-baked projects. I assure you that they will be cleverly titled. As for the content...

I promise you nothing.