Covid Classics: A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet
That Billy Shakespeare, he certainly knows how to tell a tale! He also has come up with some of the great names in storytelling history: Romeo & Juliet, Othello, MacBeth. All amazing. Those names are so good, they sometimes transcend the great story built around them.
Below are 6 classics engaging in that great battle: is the movie better, or is the title better?
Son of a deceased king receives a ghostly message revealing the truth about his dad’s passing.
Why It’s Good
Might as well start with Shakespeare right? And with Laurence Olivier, the master of turning the bard into film. His Hamlet adaptation is one of the best out there, telling Shakespeare’s most famous tale. Olivier uses eerie shots during the ghost scenes, and gives the movie the dramatic heft and size it deserves with his performance and direction, letting the work of Shakespeare at times just speak for itself.
Better Title, or Better Movie?
No question: Hamlet is one of the great titles in written history.
An aging man slowly realizes his pension is not enough to afford the spiking rent on his apartment, and tries to make money to make rent.
Why It’s Good
Life certainly traumatized Vittorio De Sica. Yet another heartbreaker of a film, his story picks a subject that movies rarely choose: aging retiree. De Sica matter of factly tells the tale, showing all the little hoops poor Umberto has to go through just for the right to stay in the place he’s called home for decades. There’s a bit of humor here and there, but mostly this movie is a tragedy, showing how unassuming sweet people become sad and desperate as the world starts giving them the cold shoulder. And like always, how dogs can help save the day.
Better Title, or Better Movie?
De Sica’s movie is better. Umberto D unfortunately sounds like a low grade Italian porno.
An innocent couple gets a flat tire, and enters a mansion for help, where a strange gathering is afoot.
Why It’s Good
An early pioneer of queer cinema, Rocky Horror has aged like a fine wine. There’s less of a story and more of a zany sexual adventure with all sorts of interesting characters parading about in stellar costumes and wacky sets. Front and center is Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a leather lothario oozing sexual energy. The songs are hella catchy too, part of the reason this movie has been a midnight favorite for years on end.
Better Title, or Better Movie?
The movie is really fun, but that title is legendary now, especially to the LGBTQ community.
Story about a well off Indianapolis family, and how time and society influence the family’s decision making.
Why It’s Good
If you’re being unkind to this movie, you’d call it the lesser follow-up to Citizen Kane. No big deal: just follow up the greatest movie of all time. It’s not as searing an expose as Orson Welles first feature, but Ambersons is still one of the best movies of the 1940s. Welles enjoys peering behind the scenes at life inside a wealthy family, and how haughty decision making can create a series of events that lead to a tragic downfall. Joseph Cotten and Dolores Costello are great playing the linchpin characters; Costello the heir to the fortune and Cotten the poor kid from nothing whom Dolores loves, but the family wishes she would not marry.
Better Title, or Better Movie?
It’s a good title, but I’m here to say the movie is better, and deserves to be treated that way.
David Lean’s epic about the titular doctor, a man who lived through the perilous Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
Why It’s Good
Speaking of Orson Welles, David Lean tried to give Zhivago the Citizen Kane treatment, crafting around his life a sprawling, grand epic. Lean is the king of this type of filmmaking, masterfully fusing Zhivago’s rise to the unrest across Russia during World War I. But if you boil it down, this movie is just a Titanic level love story, about star crossed lovers Zhivago and Lara, a woman he encounters at important moments of both their lives. Though it goes for the tears more than a few times, the movie has a soft heart, with Omar Sharif capturing the goodness and artistry inside of a man who had every reason to rebuke the world he was born in.
Better Title, or Better Movie?
The title has a little sumpin sumpin I can’t quite articulate. As big as the movie is, the title is somehow bigger: Zhivago just SOUNDS important.
Anime about a young boy and his life after his parents bring home his younger sister from the hospital.
Why It’s Good
I’ve said it a thousand times, but anime films are great because in Japan, they’re taken as seriously as any adult drama. As such, this film, from the perspective of 5 year old Kun, is much deeper than you think it is, because of its brilliant understanding of real family dynamics. The animation is used sparingly, but smartly, as Kun’s imagination kicks the fantasy elements into high gear. But after a small adventure, we’re always back with the family of 4, taking all those normal conversations families have and putting them onscreen in compelling and fascinating ways.
Better Title, or Better Movie?
In Japan, Mirai means future, which is…fine as a title, but the movie is a revelation, taking a lame plot and using anime/great writing to make it something special.
