Aug 4 2008'Flash of Genius' Trailer Would Be Better with Catchier Title, Such as...

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Well, there's this now: a movie where Greg Kinnear dramatizes the life of Bob Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper who was involved in a huge legal battle with Ford and Chrysler after they stole the plans. It looks like your typically melodramatic ("To me, it's the Mona Lisa" is a line), inspirational, based-on-a-true-story fare, but what really bothers me is the title. "Flash of Genius"? I know that was the name of the New Yorker story that served as the film's basis, but really, that's the best we can come up with for such a quirky real-life tale? Where are the ridiculous puns? How about one of these titles?

- The Wipe Stuff
- Mr. Wiper Goes to Washington
- Where There's a Windshield, There's a Delay
- Who'll Stop the Rain? Or Wipe It, Intermittently?
- Greg Kinnear's Wipe ("Wipe" is written in bold red letters)
- Hypothetical Histories: What if Greg Kinnear Invented Intermittent Wiper Blades Then Car Companies Stole Them so He Had to Go to Court?
- Greg's Blades
- Kinnear Window
- Kinney

And if this doesn't end with Greg Kinnear returning a bittersweet wave to a set of moving wiper blades, followed by giant wiper blades coming from the bottom of the screen and wiping to credits, they've made a second fatal error.

Reader Comments

It DOES!!!

Even those brilliant title proposals can't wipe away the putrid muck of boredom surrounding this movie.

"Stroke of genius" would make WAY more sense. But the movie still looks like a visual tranquilizer.

Why couldn't the dork make blades that actually wipe the whole windshield, instead of leaving big sections at the top and bottom unwiped? I hate those unwiped sections. Hate.

Blades of Glory

or
Wipe Hard: The Bob Kearns Story.

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