We got off on the wrong foot: SOME GOOD MOVIES WITH BAAAAD OPENING TITLE SEQUENCES (pt. 1)

Bad posters, bad trailers, bad opening titles -- the things we wish didn’t count but do. It’s easier to ignore the former two, however, because they’re not literally in the film. Indeed, a title animation that misrepresents a film is uniquely frustrating because, well... it is the film, is it not? So how could it misrepresent itself? And who killed Jefferson Sevence?

Anywho, here are a handful of movies that stand out to me as being particularly high hurdles for my mental gymnastics in the unending struggle to save good films from themselves.

3:10 to Yuma

James Mangold always had one foot in the ‘director-for-hire’ door and one in the ‘actual director’ door -- I frankly prefer the former because I never gave a fuck about Girl, Interrupted, yet whenever Hollywood came calling he could deliver something edible with workmanlike efficiency (3:10 to Yuma is one of the stronger examples of this, incidentally). 

But, by the very nature of being an industry mule, he’s a slave to popular trends, and in the 2000s the quality of title animations was at an all-time low (like everything else) so here we are: a good movie with a bad opening title graphic -- by all accounts, one could even assert it’s unnecessarily bad. After all, it’s a western; just put the fucking text in Times New Roman without animation and be done with it. 

The Color of Money

For my money, easily the worst opening in a long career of otherwise exciting and inventive title animations (which Marty never really became ‘known’ for like, say, Hitchcock, even though he definitely deserved to).

I dunno what the thinking was here. Maybe the garish red was meant to offset the grey-green-blue hues that dominate the rest of the film, a la Goodfellas, but what about the Sam Raimi font? Or the ‘glow’ effect from the original Blob? I mean, fuck. If there was ever a movie that demanded simple, rudimentary font/color coordination - and I’m talkin’ like City of the Living Dead-level simplicity - it was this movie right here.  

Sorcerer

Some movies don’t need opening credits at all; I’d rather some movies opened cold and stayed cold - Hard Eight, First Reformed, Birth, any Herzog or Cassavettes film, and Sorcerer. This film’s unorthodox pacing and structure are slightly diluted by ceremonious introductions of any kind. Plus, this is kind of an Apocalypse Now situation: isn’t it cooler if the title only appears diegetically and without any frills?  

Manhunter

Fight me if you want. 

The green glow is fine, I got no problem with the green glow, but the font is unforgivable. Not only does it not suit the movie, I struggle to think of a movie that it does suit. Perhaps... Fast Times at Ridgemont High? 

Blood Simple

This one feels a tiny bit unfair considering 1) this is the Coens’ first outing, and 2) Joel and Ethan have, themselves, unofficially ‘disowned’ this credit sequence. But what I know about is Texas, and down here you're on your own. 

You like how I just quoted the movie there? Yeah, well, that’s because M. Emmet Walsh’s opening monologue goes down so smooth that we didn’t need a chaser. The main title is fine, I guess, but the actors’ names flashing in sync with passing headlights is just, in a word, nonsensical. And the faux-ominous music that underpins the scene effectively trivializes the mood of the rest of the film for a good chunk of the runtime - it always takes me about 40 minutes or so to recover. 

And in that same vein... 

Lost Highway

This one’s a tough call (Hell, the whole movie is a ‘tough call’). It’s tough in the sense that calling Lynch ‘corny’ is difficult to do without falling into your own trap. Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks are both ‘corny’ but in that good kinda way, y’know? 

I suspect one of the reasons why his few detractors refrain from specific criticisms and instead hide behind “he makes no sense” is because they don’t wanna risk unwittingly making themselves the punchline to one of his jokes. But I feel like I understand David well enough to know that this title sequence was a bad idea. My evidence: the literal and figurative highway depicted in the film takes on an altogether spookier aura toward the end of the film, and this opening is anything but ‘spooky.’ 

Donnie Darko

Another ‘tough call,’ though for very different reasons: in this case, there’s a mild charm to how cheap-looking the graphics are. This is the kind of movie that appeals to teenagers who aspire to be filmmakers, so I s’pose an iconic indie feature with Adobe Premiere Pro-quality graphics could be construed as... heartening?

Pain & Gain

The format of this list permits me to forsake the laborious task of defending this movie’s inclusion as a ‘good movie,’ and I could easily take advantage of that, but it’s necessary to speak at least briefly to why the movie works in order to explain exactly why this title card doesn’t: screenwriting, casting, and comic timing aside, the film’s greatest asset is that it’s one of the most visually stunning movies of the past twenty years. So it’s especially jarring when the vibrant color palette and lush textures are suddenly interrupted by Breaking Bad-green, Prison Break title font, and painfully uncalled-for sound FX. It looks like something from a TV spot for the movie rather than the movie itself. 

And to make matters worse: the title card doesn’t stand alone; it establishes a stylistic motif (or ‘running gag’) in which the frame will freeze and funny text will smash! onto the screen, furnished with the same ugly font and stupid sound FX. And although the text itself makes me chuckle in these scenes, the stylistic approach leaves me wondering if people are right about this movie after all...