Titanic: 3D

Well I am about to eat my words ladies and gentleman. A little while ago I posted an article voicing the bad taste in my mouth against current Hollywood. Bad mouthing the idea of reboots/remakes/rehashing, whatever you want to call them. I also talked about how silly I thought it was for studios to re-release movies we have already seen in theaters. I essentially accused "Hollywood" of doing this out of greed and not for any artistic reasons or for fans. I still believe that however, I now have a much lighter opinion towards the concept of re-releasing old films.

Earlier this weekend I went and saw the 3D re-release of the 1997 epic movie, "Titanic" starring a very young Oscar Nominee Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond, The Departed) and Oscar Winner Kate Winslet (The Reader, Contagion) as a young Jack and Rose, one of the most famous movie romances in history. They meet aboard the doomed luxury liner days before it's sinking in 1912. The romantic story is obviously one of fiction. The film starts with a salvage team in present day 1997 exploring the wreckage of the Titanic (with actual footage of the ship) and are searching for the "Heart of the Ocean" a pricey diamond that was aboard the ship the day of the sinking. When all they find is an old hand drawn portrait of a young woman (Rose) wearing the diamond on the night of the sinking, an old woman (played by Oscar nominee Gloria Stuart) claiming to be the woman comes forward to tell her story which is where we get our narrative. Jack and Rose meet when Rose is fed up with being trapped in her life full of snobs and wealth and she's tired of being controlled by her mother and sinister rich fiance Cal (played by the now non-existent Billy Zane). When she attempts to jump off the ship and end it all, a young study Leo comes to save the day and the rest is history. Come on, most of you have seen the film so I don't need to explain the whole damn movie.

Titanic is arguably one of the best films in recent memory. If you think I'm crazy, than that's your right to have an opinion on the matter. For me however, it's one of the grandest, most sensational films I've ever seen. I normally detest romantic films, but Titanic is much more than that. The first half is the slower, build up of the Jack and Rose relationship. The second half of the film is where all the action is, as this is when the ship hits the iceberg and sinks to it's final resting place. I'll say this about the film: at times, it is quite corny, mainly in that first half. Jame's Cameron, who won 3 Oscars for the film (Editing, Director and Picture) has never been known for his ability to write incredible dialog. He can beautifully craft a scene better than most people but when it comes to giving people things to say...well, he's no Tarantino. Jack and Rose aren't cinema's greatest characters, but at the same time, you can't help but love them. This is due in part mainly to the fantastic performances from both DiCaprio and Winslet. Winslet was nominated for her role in the film, but DiCaprio was not.

The film as a whole though, despite the occasional cheesy writing, is brilliant. It evokes so much emotion and it truly tugs at your heart strings. The second half of the film, the sinking, is some of the most captivating moments of imagery I've ever seen in a film. It's done hauntingly well by Cameron who doesn't just focus the whole story on Jack and Rose. He shows us the horror of all of the people on board. The turmoil, the pain, the heart ache captured breathlessly on film. The old couple laying bed, holding each other as water begins to engulf them. The woman who tells her children a bed time story to get them to sleep. It's completely tragic to watch unfold because these events actually happened so it can be hard to watch.

When it comes to the action, there is perhaps no other film to do so so realistically and full of excitement. Cameron and his crew re-created the ship on a smaller scale and when he wasn't busy destroying that his visual effects crew were hard at work bringing this disaster back to life in an awesome way. The ship breaking in half is probably one of the more impressive moments in movie history. The ship breaking and then slowly going beneath the ocean top is a scene full of excitement and intensity. People falling to their deaths, smacking into railings and propellers. It's chilling to watch. It's the second half of the film that the 3D conversion benefits a lot from.



So how about that 3D? This is one of the reasons why we have a re-release. The other reason is to remember the 100th anniversary of the ships sinking. Cameron kind of started this trend of 3D recently with his epic film "Avatar". Now we get 20 or 30 films a year done in 3D and normally I'm not a big fan of the gimmick. To me, 3D should bounce out of the screen and make you apart of the action. Now 3D films seems to add depth perception but nothing really ever pops out of the screen. It's even worse with films that were not filmed in 3D originally (like Titanic) but were converted. So with this film, the conversion doesn't add a whole lot to the film. However I will say in the latter parts of the movie, there are some cool moments. For instance when they are in the ship and moving through water, the 3D makes you apart of that action, it feels like you were in the water with them if that makes any sense. Also, the famous sweeping shot of the ship when Leo and Winslet are doing their "I'm flying" moment it's really cool to see with that added depth.

So overall, I don't believe the 3D helped that much, but you know what...it didn't hurt either. Seeing Titanic in theaters is one of the greatest movie experiences a person could have. If you have people who never saw the movie in your life...go with them to see it in theaters before it leaves again. It's a breathtaking experience, and I loved watching it on the big screen again. It reminded me of how much love I have for the film. You don't have to be a girl to enjoy Titanic. You can be a dude and love the movie and not be ashamed of it. It's not all romance fellas. It's 3 hours long and over half of the film is epic disaster scene after epic disaster scene. It's what I like to call a universal film. Meaning it has something for everyone. It's seriously one of the most enjoyable movies you can possibly watch. Which is awful to say that a movie about such a horrible tragedy where over 1,500 people lost their lives, is enjoyable. I just mean it's so well done that you can't help but fall in love with it. Fall in love with Titanic all over again by seeing it in theaters before it's gone! It's worth it!

**Titanic was nominated for 14 Academy Awards in 1998 and won 11 awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Song (My Heart Will Go On), Best Score, Best Editing. It received 2 acting nominations for Gloria Stuart (Best Supporting Actress) and Kate Winslet (Best Lead Actress but lost both of those as well as Best Makeup.**

**The film was the first to ever make over $600 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. Before Avatar it was the highest grossing movie of all time. It was in theaters for roughly 40 weeks and was number one for at least 15 weeks. Up until now it had grossed $1,843,201,268 world wide in theaters and earned over $900,000,000 in worldwide rentals. The film cost $200,000,000 to produce**

**Did you know?: The name "Jack" was said over 80 times by Kate Winslet/Gloria Stuart not counting the times she says Mr. Dawson. The name "Rose" was uttered over 50 times by Leonardo DiCaprio**

**Fun Fact: It was James Cameron's hand sketching Kate Winslet nude, not Leo. Cameron also drew all the drawings in Jack's sketch book**