“Why did you say that?”

“I never said that.”

“Yes, actually, you did.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Yes. You did.”

“Okay, maybe I did, but it was taken out of context.”

It’s frustrating to have to defend yourself when people haven’t heard the whole story.

On the flip side, sometimes you have to advertise yourself with a single line full of subtext and that single lines is all you get. A perfect example of this? Movie poster taglines.

Ever go to the theater early, say an hour or an hour and a half before your movie’s show time? You get an early start on a bucket of popcorn along with an ice cold drink and you walk leisurely down the darkened hallways of the Cineplex looking at all the backlit posters promoting coming attractions and blockbuster features. What gets my attention the most is not necessarily the big names, the A-list stars or directors or even the brightly colored images. No, what really hooks me are the taglines.

Taglines are the one shot a film has to describe itself to you before you take a sip on your Dr. Pepper, shrug your shoulders and move down the hallway. It’s like speed dating for movies.

We could learn from these movie taglines to create taglines for our own blogs. Granted, Hollywood is big business, so you can bet they invest a ton of money in their films’ marketing. Lots of clever, witty minds come together to whip up the best possible taglines.

The best taglines are concise and capture the spirit of the movie and not necessarily the entire plot. It’s typically a single line, two lines at the most.

Some of my favorite taglines over the past few years?

• Oliver Stone’s biopic on George W. Bush, “W.” – A Life Misunderestimated.
• “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” – The Ultimate Romantic Disaster Movie.
• “Where The Wild Things Are” – There’s One In All Of Us.
• “It’s Complicated” – Divorced…With Benefits.

Sometimes it doesn’t even need to be particularly witty. It just needs to get straight to the point like,

“Inglorious Basterds” – Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied France.

Some movies don’t need a tagline at all, like “The Dark Knight”. It’s quite obviously a Batman movie with a built-in loyal following. But the tagline “Why So Serious?” gave it an added dimension of macabre humor.

Other times, a movie absolutely depends on its tagline. Best example would be “Michael Clayton”. A movie with that title could conceivably be about anything. It could be about your dentist or your high school valedictorian or it could be about an English ambassador to Nigeria. So, they gave it the tagline “The Truth Can Be Adjusted”. Granted, even with that tagline, it could still be about your dentist, but doesn’t that tagline make a movie about your dentist sound all the more dangerous and exciting?

What are some of the all-time best taglines? I love these ones:

• “Alien” – In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream.
• “Jurassic Park” – An Adventure 65 Million Years In The Making
• “Shrek” – The Greatest Fairy Tale Never Told

Some of the worst? How about:

• “The Cable Guy” – There’s No Such Thing As Free Cable
• “Bullet Proof Monk” – A monk. A punk. A chick. In a kick-ass flick.

Back to the world of blogs and websites, some of my favorite taglines are:

• Youtube – Broadcast Yourself
• Pink is the new blog – Everybody’s Business Is My Business

What are some of your favorite movie and blog taglines? I would love to hear them.

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Context, Subtext and the Power of Taglines for Movies and Blogs Alike is a post from Blazing Minds Copyright 2008-2011. Please link back when using this source material.

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