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Despairing Titanic's reign >> Why I won't go down with the ship by MATTHEW HAYS
Though I acknowledge being virtually alone in my stance, I am utterly dumbfounded by the immense success of this movie. I could understand if Titanic made its money back; hell, there was plenty of publicity surrounding it and everyone has a fascination with disaster (this one in particular). But Titanic isn't just a case of mediocrity being praised; I would argue this is a truly dreadful film, among the very worst I've seen in years. How can one argue with Titanic's endlessly dazzling array of special effects? This is the one aspect of the film worth praising; it is, undoubtedly, a technical achievement. The ship looks cool, and when people start drowning and fighting over lifeboats, the nasty, acrimonious images are at least as entertaining as the fights in that Jerry Springer video of banned clips. The performances, too, are good, though I would argue they're nothing much beyond that. I realize I risk alienating all of those readers who also subscribe to Teen Beat magazine, but I am not among the many Oscar-followers who have been completely affronted by DiCaprio's "shut-out" in the Best Actor nominations; he's competent in the role and he's cute, but let's not stretch unwarranted accolades any further. By far, the lamest, most inexcusable element of Titanic is its script. Running approximately three hours and 20 minutes, Titanic looks like it took about that long to write. It is trite, ludicrously anachronistic and, for the most part, just plain unbearable. Every scene is played to the hilt for its "cute factor." And the lame we-love-each-other-despite-class-difference is ridiculous--not to mention vaguely hypocritical in the middle of the most expensive movie ever made, where money clearly meant everything. And all that's left for further character development for DiCaprio and Zane, as Good and Evil incarnate respectively, are the white and black hats they should have been handed by the costume department, just to make every character's morality crystal clear to the audience. When I ragged on this film before (proud to say I have from the start), I received some e-mail complaining that I was too cynical and not romantic enough to appreciate the love story in Titanic. But I would argue the folks who subscribe to the phoniness inherent in Titanic's pseudo-tender moments (neatly pointed up by a glaringly manipulative musical score) are the real cynics. Titanic's theme is fittingly sung by Celine Dion; her tinny voice and the vapid nature of her work generally is a perfect match for this movie. Defenders of Titanic's central human bond are the same people who can't quite determine the difference between Jane Austen and a Harlequin romance: one has depth, the other doesn't. Watching the Academy make the blunder of handing Titanic a Best Picture Oscar won't signal the end of its credibility. No, that's been toast for quite some time. This is the same Academy of voters who made Braveheart and Forrest Gump winners, too (Gump was another good example of a film which won in large part because of its flashy effects). And need readers be reminded that this Academy also managed to make Ordinary People Best Picture the very same year Scorsese's Raging Bull was overlooked--a film most consider one of the finest of that decade? The list of inane Academy decisions could go on and on. But I'm more concerned about the deleterious effect Titanic's success will have on cinema generally. Unfortunately, Titanic didn't end up like Heaven's Gate. Its rampant success will trigger Hollywood's typical knee-jerk response: imitate. Titanic's formula will be applied ad nausea: pump up the budget for special effects, get a cute cast, carefully set aside $1.49 for script development and voilà! You have a winning movie! If people thought Jaws and Star Wars altered the course of cinema, I can read the hand-wringing now that will be printed in about a decade. Nice movie, critics will say, but look what monsters it unleashed. I told you so. At the Oscar ceremony this Monday, when the final envelope is ripped open and the title is read, the name called will undoubtedly be Titanic. In solidarity with the people who actually went down on the ship in 1912, and in anticipation of all the cheap Titanic knockoffs that will besiege cinemas in the near future, this film critic will slip into a tub full of piping hot water and promptly open some veins. Titanic is now playing. The Academy Awards air this Monday, March 23 at 7pm on CFCF-12
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Behold the rather bizarre and disturbing spectacle that is Titanic, James Cameron's overblown toast to the grandeur of movie special effects. After sailing to new box-office heights this past weekend (overtaking Star Wars for top spot), Titanic appears poised to sweep the Oscars this Monday night; if critics and psychics are unsure of exactly how many of its 14 nominations will culminate in golden trophies, every poll and critic is predicting the film will, at very least, take the Best Picture award. The media have set aside much time and many pages to analyze the film's success, interviewing people in movie line-ups about why they're venturing to see the film for the 52nd time, and profiling its various stars on full tabloid pages (Billy Zane, the film's Principal Evil, is currently in Montreal shooting another feature). Cameron is on the cover of this month's Saturday Night, in which journalist Peter Waal fawns over the director.