The Good

Titanic

During Titanic’s record setting deflowering of world wide moviegoers’ wallets, it quickly became fashionable to bash it. The task was made easier because James Cameron is the kind of annoying bastard who shouts “king of the world” quotes at the Oscars and finishes a moment of silence for the dead of the Titanic at the end of the Oscars with the boisterous shout, “NOW LET’S GO PAR-TAY!! WOO HOO!!” That is slightly less appropriate than pimpslapping a nun, farting loudly while taking your wedding vows, or calling Tom Green an “actor.” So his behavior at the Oscars, among other things, drew the ire of many.

Even before that, Titanic was a victim of its own mania. Any time something becomes HUGE, there is the inevitable “flavor of the month” backlash. Since the movie was huger than William Shatner’s ego, more powerful than Bill Gates’ personal computer at home, and able to leap over all takers during its run (don’t forget that “Good Will Hunting” and “As Good as it Gets” got cuffed around by Titanic) the backlash was as huge as the hysteria surrounding it.

Another reason people love to say the movie Titanic sucked was its association with Celon Dion. This horrid singer is the worst Canadian export since fried mayonnaise. People hate her with a boiling loathing usually reserved for stoplight cameras, karoyoke, or Downtown Julie Brown. Attach the shrill, hideously annoying Celon to any movie and you’ve got a dedicated 10% of people in the world who will hate your movie even if it is “ET 2” or “Debbie does EVERYbody.”

So a lot of people profess to dislike Titanic because it is fashionable to do so and because some of the people associated with it are very irritating. Still other smug rascals like to vaingloriously declare “Titanic? Never seen it. I’m one of the proud few!” Oh really? Perhaps there are a few other things EVERY OTHER PERSON IN THE WORLD HAS DONE that you might like to give a try sometime. Sex, for instance. I’m not impressed with poser rebels. I want to a see a REAL rebel who will not do ANYTHING that everyone else has done. Come back to me with your patronizing accomplishments when you’ve sworn off sex for life because everyone else has done it and is doing it. Oh, wait! You can’t come to me because that would require driving a car, something else that everyone does. You couldn’t call me either, everyone uses phones. Few people use smoke signals anymore, perhaps you could contact me that way.

Now, for the rest of the 99.99999999% of us who actually lowered ourselves to see the movie, here are my thoughts on it:

I loved it.

Thanks for stopping by. That’s it. What are you still here for? Oh, very well, I’ll elaborate.

The score, with the exception of Celon who was embarrassedly stashed at the end where it was hoped most people would miss it for rushing to the bathroom because the movie is longer than a Stephen King booksigning line, is excellent. I still play the soundtrack CD here in 2001, that is how good it is.

Obviously the special effects were mind blowing, but anyone who goes to see a movie, or likes it, merely for the special effects should be locked in their bedroom for their own safety before the next two Matrix movies come out. Special effects should do two things.

1) Not be so lame that I’m rolling on the floor of the theater laughing so hard I miss half the movie.

2) Make me believe what I’m seeing.

3) Never involve anyone named Jar Jar.

Okay, that was three, but #3 is crucial for me. The special effects for Titanic accomplished all three things. I’ve seen Titanic 6 times and I’ve never noticed any Jar Jar Binks in it. That fact alone elevates this movie onto my top five best ever list. And the special effects made me believe we were on the Titanic and that it sank. But people who love this movie for the special effects need to get a grip. “The Ten Commandments” was the greatest special effects movie ever ... for about ten minutes. Then Barbarella came out and blew its doors off. 20 years from now people will be saying, “Titanic’s special effects? But it was made before they perfected Smellovision! You can’t even smell the blood in the water!”

So it wasn’t that. I love Titanic for many reasons. One is the HOT romance between Captain Smith and Bruce Ismay. It was HOT, and keeps me awake at night fantasizing ... what? Oh, I meant Jack and Rose! Of course! It is a sweet, perfect screen romance. The tasteful love scene in the car is one of my favorites in movies. The dancing scene was great ... in fact every moment they had together is to be treasured except for the spitting scene. I’m not talking about the satisfying later spitting scene where Rose shows her former fiancee what she had last eaten as a way of saying “goodbye punk.” No, I am referring to the stomach turning spitting demonstration scene. Any honest man will tell you that they never want to see a woman spit, and spitting in general has always been mildly repulsive to me. I watched it a couple times in the theater and it was amusing and all that, but these days I whiz through it starting with the line “and SPIT like a man!” and stop whizzing when I see Rose's spinster mother utilizing her rat like glare. I doubt this is the only time that hideous woman has made a man stop whizzing. In any case, everything else between the two star crossed lovers was golden.

It also never fails to entertain me to see all the egomaniacs, especially Bruce Ismay and Smith, come to the realization that Titanic is going down. Sadly, Ismay doesn’t die. But seeing him slink onto the boat and then the long moment where the crewman stares at him almost makes up for him surviving. It would have been better if Ismay had to resort to putting on a dress like apparently some men did. In fact, it would have been absolutely fabulous had Ismay been forced to wear a hot pink tutu, make up his face so elaborately that Tammy Baker would burn with envy, and sing a rendition of “I Feel Like a Woman” as he pranced aboard the lifeboat with a Showgirl high step. But alas, it was not so. On the whole, however, what we got was good enough.

Speaking of characters I hated, I must confess that I was sweatily aroused when it was announced that Cal Hockley killed himself after the Wall Street crash. The only thing better would have been seeing him eviscerated by pigmy mummies, but that is a different blockbuster. I must subsist on imagining the various painful ways he could have done himself in. Jumping out a building was too good for him. As was his stated method, eating a gun with a side order of brains. My two favorite ways thus far are leaping into a chicken pie making machine or staying in an Embassy Suites hotel room and starving to death as he waits for room service.

Don’t get me wrong, any good movie will have villains you truly lust to see die in the most horrible ways. As long as this is true, Joaquin Phoenix will always have work. So even the villians worked for me in this movie.

In conclusion, Titanic was satisfying in many ways. I loved Titanic and I am proud to admit it. No movie is perfect but this was 94% perfect.

You could say the movie floated my boat.

Shadow Dog sez:

This movie wasn't too horrible, though there were not enough dogs in it. Several bitches, as Dex mentioned, but no true dogs. The highest compliment I can give this movie is that if it were a female dog, I would sniff its butt.
-