'Movie scrambles' can spark the imagination

One slip. Freudian. Of the tongue. Or whatever else. That's all it takes.

It's hard to resist creating concatenations or "movie scrambles," which combine film titles that have some of the same words, but which otherwise have little in common. And, actually, I swore I was done with them for awhile, but then a friend and co-worker who meant to say "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" instead said "Tim Burton's Nightmare on Elm Street." Which got me wondering. ...

What would the Freddy movies be like if they had been re- imagined by oddball filmmaker Tim Burton? He'd probably want to work again with Johnny Depp, with whom he made "Ed Wood" and "Sleepy Hollow," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride." So imagine what Depp would be like as Freddy Krueger.

Now that's scary!

Anyway, here are a few more scrambles for you to mull over:

"Akeelah and the Beerfest" ("Akeelah and the Bee" and "Beerfest") Underage drinking is not funny. But a bunch of intoxicated Americans trying to spell might be.

"The Bad Santa Clause" ("Bad Santa" and "The Santa Clause") Tim Allen could play a foul-mouthed mean drunk rather than a family man. Though that might be too much like real life.

"The Fast and the Curious George" ("The Fast and the Furious" and "Curious George") Monkeys are funny. Monkeys behind the wheel of a tricked-out sports car would be super-funny.

"The Omen of the Year" ("The Omen" and "Man of the Year") As it turns out, evil child Damian isn't really the son of Satan after all. It was all a prophecy glitch.

"The Rocky Balboa Picture Show" (the upcoming "Rocky Balboa" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show") Sylvester Stallone could probably pump new blood into the tired "Rocky" concept by turning it into a musical -- or an audience-participation event. Everyone yell, "Yo, Adrian!"

-- THEY CAN'T ALL BE WINNERS. Try as I might, I couldn't really figure out what "Idlewild at Heart" ("Idlewild" and "Wild at Heart") might look like.

The same was true of "An Inconvenient Truth or Dare" ("An Inconvenient Truth" and "Truth or Dare"), "Little Man Sunshine" ("Little Man" and "Little Miss Sunshine") and "The Princesas Diaries" ("Princesas" and "The Princess Diaries").

Both "Raging Ant Bully" ("Raging Bull" and "The Ant Bully") and "War of the World's Fastest Indian" ("War of the Worlds" and "The World's Fastest Indian") also turned out to be passing fancies.

My old pal Eric Snider contributed both "The Marine Antoinette" ("The Marine" and "Marie Antoinette") and "The Last Kiss of Scotland" ("The Last Kiss" and "The Last King of Scotland").

And Deseret Morning News music critic Scott Iwasaki chimed in with "Star Wars -- Revenge of the Nerds" ("Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" and "Revenge of the Nerds").

E-mail: jeff@desnews.com

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