It’s time the film, movie journalism and festival communities took a hard look at a practice that is practically rampant in the cinema world and needs to stop now. I’m taking about the cute homonymic use of the words “real” and “reel.” As a guy who’s written his thousands of movie-related headlines, cover lines and photo captions, I know how easy it is to reach for, but it is so, so played. (Just google reel film festival for a taste). It is no longer clever, funny, or attention-grabbing.
It’s especially prevalent in the world of documentary cinema, where the whole “documenting real events” thing makes it especially tempting. But there it’s even less appropriate, as how many docs are even shot on film—which as you recall, is stored on reels—anymore, anyway?
Now, I’m not opposed to puns, or wordplay, or even really bad and stupid examples of either (just ask anyone who knows me). But it’s time for programmers, writers, editors and producers to come up with some new bad puns.
