May 3, 2008

Counting in movie titles

When I was deathly bored at work the other day from foolishly not bringing anything to amuse myself, I came up with a clever time-killer: thinking of movies with numbers in the title, and seeing how high I could count with them. I don’t get internet at work, so I couldn’t cheat by looking online. (Even later, I didn’t check the interwebs because that’s no fun.) I asked some friends for input though, which helped a little. I set some rules: cardinal numbers are okay (i.e. “fifth”), the number can occur anywhere in the title, and in the case of longer numbers, it’s how you pronounce it (i.e. 1984 is “nineteen-eighty-four,” not “one thousand, nine hundred and eighty four”). I set a goal of getting up to 30, which I did, sans three numbers. Thirty to 60 proved more difficult, but I got about half. Some numbers are obviously easier than others, but you only need one for each. Want to try it? Think about it, and scroll down if you give up and want to see what I came up with. Remember, don’t check the interwebs, that’s cheating!!






















1. One True Thing
2.
Two Weeks’ Notice
3.
Three Kings
4.
Fantastic Four
5.
The Fifth Element
6.
The Sixth Sense
7.
Se7en
8.
Eight-Legged Freaks
9.
Plan 9 From Outer Space
10.
The Ten Commandments
11. The 11th Hour (Leonardo DiCaprio environmental documentary - it was in theaters, don’t give me crap)
12.
12 Monkeys
13.
Thirteen
14.
1408
15.
15 Minutes
16.
Sixteen Candles
17. Edge of Seventeen (some gay independent movie we had at the video store where I used to work)
18. COULDN’T THINK OF ONE
19.
1984
20.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
21.
21 Grams
22.
Catch-22
23.
The Number 23
24.
24 Hour Party People
25. 25th Hour
26. COULDN’T THINK OF ONE - I had my friend IMDB it to see if there were any obvious answers, but he said there were none anyone has ever heard of
27.
27 Dresses
28. 28 Days Later
29. COULDN’T THINK OF ONE
30. 13 Going on 30

This game is dangerous, because it spurs an obsession - thinking of movies with a specific category of words in the title. It’s a great game for long car rides or for engaging shy/lame people you’re stuck hanging out with. It’s all I could think about for about a week afterward. Both solo and with friends, I thought up movie titles with color words (A Clockwork Orange, The Green Mile), body part words (Happy Feet, Hair), animal words (Dog Day Afternoon, Crocodile Dundee), food words (Mystic Pizza, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes), types of flowers (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Driving Miss Daisy), family words (Father of the Bride, Uncle Buck) U.S. states (King of California, Sweet Home Alabama), cities (Fargo, An American Werewolf in London), countries (My Voyage to Italy, Big Trouble in Little China), and even building materials (The Asphalt Jungle, Steel Magnolias). See, it’s addicting!



5 comments:

DGB said...

18 Again

Anonymous said...

29 Palms

Kali said...

Wow, that's really impressive without internet help.

Unknown said...

I Think I ll love this game...

Anonymous said...

Very impressive, and you didn't even use IMDb!