The weight of brokerage research reports thudding on to the average fund manager's desk each trading day is enough to sink a pocket battleship. So if an analyst wants to get his stuff read he has to do much more than not get his spreadsheets in a tangle. A snappy title which hooks the fund manager into finding out what the report is all about is becoming de rigueur. It also seems to reflect the cultural life of the analyst in question, which perhaps explains why movie titles feature. Here's Margin Call's contenders for the research title Oscars: Oil: Sum of All Fears - An HSBC tome from June 20 on Middle-East tension woes and the effect on where crude was headed. Four Weddings and No Funeral - A Salomon Smith Barney property note in April on why four land sites going on the block would have a good reception on the market. The Cable Guy - CLSA piece in May on Wharf Holdings, which runs a cable channel. Bridget Wong's Diary: Hong Kong Property and the Shenzhen Effect - CLSA strikes again. And the winner is . . . Our favourite is an ING Barings piece on the British prime minister's European Union entry strategy: The Blair Switch Project. When movie titles are all used up there's always the popular song title. Oops, I did it Again - Deutsche Securities on Lucent's most recent pre-announcement earnings warning. Cute. Let's Get Cyclical - A piece from Salomon Smith Barney strategist Ajay Kapur on why - you guessed it - investors should move into cyclical stocks. Others demonstrate more literary traits. Here's Mr Kapur again: Catalyst on a Hot Tin Roof. You Will Confess Yourself Or You Will Hang - ABN used this quote from Arthur Miller's play The Crucible in a piece about why investors should not let volatility in United States markets scare them off Asian bonds. 'The overzealous US press runs the danger of turning Securities and Exchange Commission probes into witch-hunting games,' the report said. Then there is Peter Churchouse of Morgan Stanley. How many times, Mr Churchouse, have you used There's Gold in Them Thar Hills on your property pieces? Hopefully not in the last four years. Those led by the stars to a career in analysis of gas companies seem to go out of their way to jazz up the sector. Gas Distribution in China: The knock in the pipes is opportunity - a recent entry from ABN Amro. Is It Piping Hot or a Pipe Dream? - Lehman Brothers on Hong Kong and China Gas' investment in China's east-west pipeline project. In the miscellaneous category comes: The cute: Mind the Gaap - Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein global strategist James Montier. The snide: Hang Seng Bank: It's the Dividend (It's certainly not the earnings) - A Merrill Lynch results wrap in March of this year. Look Mom, No Cash Flow - BNP Paribas Peregrine on the MTR Corp's most recent results. The philosophical: A Tree Falls in the Forest: Is the yen a threat to other Asian currencies? The sappy: Cerebos Pacific - Chicken Soup for the Investor's Soul. An ABN Amro report on the Singaporean chicken essence company. The inscrutable: Taiwan dollar: From glass jaw to steel chin - HSBC. Our favourite. From John Saunders at CLSA, a report on Swire warning that a certain development will cause downward pricing pressure: Cyberport - A Home for Albino Pachyderms.