I now pronounce you...

In recent years there have been sporadic stories in the entertainment press about dwindling box office receipts, the death of cinema as we know it and all that guff. Sometimes it's in relation to the amount of utter bobbins that gets screened at your local multiplex; other occasions have seen super-duper home cinema systems and DVD technology being heralded as the triumph of home viewing over your local movie auditorium.

I've noticed another potential threat to box office takings however - inability to pronounce the name film you're going to see. Take a hint, Hollywood - you want people to see your movies, stop giving them silly names.

If you've been reading this blog for long enough you'll remember me giving a glowing write-up to the Oscar-winning SYRIANA. Good film, crap name. Granted, it's not the hardest to pronounce and I'm sure most people managed just fine but it's still a bit of an odd word to western audiences and you can't help wondering if it put some people off.

Fast forward to just a few months ago. Tommy Lee Jones scoops a whole bunch of prizes for his performance as both leading man and director, but wins no prizes at all for naming his film THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA. Melquiades Estrada? Come on, Tommy - if you wanted something vaguely Mexican-sounding could you not have just called him Pedro Sanchez or something like that? Luckily by the time I went to see it my local cinema were simply referring to it as the abbreviated THREE BURIALS. What a relief - it was either that or I'd be asking for a ticket for THE THREE BURIALS OF WHATEVER HIS NAME IS.

And now the latest effort, which really takes the biscuit. An African update of Bizet's Carmen, U-CARMEN EKHAYELITSHA is just taking the piss. How the bloody hell are you supposed to say that? Who's going to take a chance with buying a ticket for a film with a name like that? Most people will stay at home and watch telly instead. Or even worse, they'll stay at the cinema but we'll hear the dreaded words:

"Hi, can I have two tickets for U-Carm... um... U-Carmen Eky.. Ekhyl... Sod it, two tickets for SHE'S THE MAN please."