Death Blow.
Cry, Cry Again.
Rochelle Rochelle.
Agent Zero.
Brown-Eyed Girl.
Source Code?
Yes, I think so.
Seinfeld went off the air in 1998, but the spirit of a good Seinfeld fake movie title is alive and well in this week's new thriller.
I can't put my finger on it, but there's something so wonderfully ersatz about the title Source Code. It could be because you can easily imagine someone saying it in the excited, earnest fashion of a trailer voiceover guy: "Source Code!" That tone that's so urgent, it practically mocks itself.
But if you break it down further, it's got all the ingredients of a fake thriller title. It's got two short words that roll off the tongue quickly. It's technobabble. It's a phrase that's familiar to you, but not so familiar that it doesn't carry an air of mystery. And it's easy to imagine Jerry Seinfeld saying it, half in mockery, half in genuine excitement about the cheesy thriller pleasures that lie within.
And it's not the first time I've thought a real movie title sounded like it should have appeared on Seinfeld's eponymous sitcom. The first time I consciously remember that was with Suspect Zero, E. Elias Merhige's Silence of the Lambs ripoff from 2004. However, that connection was more overt -- one of the fake movies Kramer recites when he's impersonating the Moviefone guy is the aforementioned Agent Zero.
Well, the fact that I giggle a little bit when I say it doesn't prevent me from wanting to see Source Code. In fact, I've got a tentative plan to see it Saturday night. I don't necessarily expect it to be better than a string of recent films I wanted to see until they were tepidly reviewed, but I've got to see something -- I can't let every review sap my enthusiasm to get out to the theater. It's been since Red Riding Hood on March 13th that I've seen a movie in the theater. So I'm due.
Besides, if director Duncan Jones can make this script half as good as he made his own script for Moon, he's got my attention and then some.
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