PR for People® Book Review:
Have you ever sat in a darkened movie theater and thought you could write a better script than the one being played out before your eyes? North Carolina illustrator Austin Light takes a somewhat different tact. He tinkers with blockbuster screen titles – check out his new book, “Movie Title Typos.”
It all began when Light stumbled across an online community that was playing around with movie titles – removing just one letter could sometimes suggest whole new storylines, and the “what-ifs” were often hilarious.
Light was inspired to try illustrating some of these. Imagine the visuals inspired after taking the following megahit titles and eliminating merely one letter: suddenly you have “The Fat and the Furious,” “The Ark Knight,” and “Star Wars: The Empire Trikes Back.”
When Light posted his efforts online, it created a huge buzz – in six hours, he garnered more than a million views.
Now Light has compiled a batch of these for publication by Chronicle Books (112 pp. - $14.95). You’ll get a big chuckle out of many of these – “Petty Woman,” “Pollo 13,” “The Lord of the Rigs,” “Silence of the Labs.” For fun, envision your own scenarios first before turning to see what Light has done with them.
A couple of them don’t hit the mark: “Snake on a Plane” and “Pirate of the Caribbean” aren’t different enough to justify the ink. And the illustrations and captions for “Alen” and “Abe” don’t make a lot of sense.
“Movie Title Typos” isn’t hugely consequential, but it is fun and it will get your own creative juices flowing. Since this issue of The Connector is all about entertainment, it’s a good reminder that we don’t always have to be passive consumers – sometimes, when we tap into our own ingenuity, we can create our own unique brand of amusement.
Barbara Lloyd McMichael is our ground reporter in South King County, Wash., and author of the syndicated book review column “The Bookmonger.” Her PR for People® Book Review is written exclusively for The Connector.
From South King County, Wash.:
Make a movie better? –
Remove one letter
By Barbara Lloyd McMichael
Movie Title Typos By Austin Light
– Chronicle Books – 112 pp - $14.95