So whether as an icebreaker or as a drinking game, has anyone played the game where you say things that you haven't done? Whenever I was involved in a game like that, I usually had a few statements that were always my go to things to say:
1. I've never been to Florida
2. I've never been to the ocean
3. I've never had a piercing
4. I've never seen 'Titanic'
And every time I'd say that I haven't seen 'Titanic' the following reaction would always be a surprising "You haven't seen 'Titanic'??" I had attempted to watch it in the past but there will be more on that later.
So the next movie in this series is James Cameron's 1997 epic romantic disaster movie 'Titanic'. I don't quite remember when I first heard about this movie. Being six years old when it was released I clearly didn't hear or see anything about it. But as the late 90's wore on, I had heard more about it but not a whole lot. I knew it had starred Leonardo DiCaprio, it was based on a real event, it had won a lot of Oscars, and I had heard of the phrase "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!!". I knew that my grandparents owned it on VHS and that it came out in 2 videocassettes since it is a ridiculously long movie. I also knew that I wasn't allowed to watch it. I also remember hearing that it was the highest grossing movie of all time, beating out a 20-year record held by 'Star Wars Episode IV' and a record that would fall 12 years later with James Cameron's own movie 'Avatar'.
Although perhaps I had heard enough about the movie that spurred an interest in the Titanic when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. We read a story about it in class and we watched the 1958 Titanic movie 'A Night To Remember'. At some point I got a small book written for children that talked about the voyage of the Titanic. How it was said to be unsinkable. How it had a system in place where if four compartments flooded the ship would still be fine, but as we all know more than four compartments had flooded following it's collision with the iceberg. How there weren't enough life boats for everyone on board. I remember reading about Captain Smith and some rich business person name J.J. Astor.
In addition to the story in class, the 1958 movie and the children's book my brothers and I also received a computer game entitled 'Titanic: Adventure Out of Time'. From what I can remember about the game you start off in a London apartment during World War II. As London is being bombed by the Nazi's the apartment gets hit and all of a sudden you are transported back to 1912 on the Titanic. You are able to walk around the entire ship and even talk to certain fellow passengers. There is an actual storyline involving missing items but I don't believe that any of us actually finished the game.
But I'm not here to talk about computer games, I'm here to talk about movies. So before finally watching it on Netflix for this series on my blog, there haven't been too many attempts to watch it in the past. I'm sure at some point I asked my grandparents if I could watch it but I don't quite remember. If I did I'm sure my grandparents were fine with it but it was up to my parents, who I know would say 'No'. Like I said, I wasn't allowed to watch this movie when I was younger. The only other attempt to watch it that I can recall was that I had rented it from the library but I had never gotten around to actually watching it. But now thanks to Netflix....I've finally watched it. Sure it was re-released (in a 3D conversion of course) in theaters last year for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, but why would I go pay to see a movie that while I had never seen I could easily access for free?
Alright, enough rambling. 'Titanic' starts off in the present day as treasure hunter Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) is exploring the wreckage of the Titanic looking for a lost blue diamond known as "The Heart of the Ocean". His crew discovers an unopened safe in the wreckage and while they don't find the diamond they do find several papers that could be salvaged. One paper reveals a drawing of a young women wearing the "Heart of the Ocean" around her neck, with the drawing being dated the day he Titanic sank. After the drawing is shown on TV, Rose Calvert (Gloria Stuart) claims that she is the woman in the drawing and recalls her experiences aboard the Titanic. These experiences mostly involve Rose (Kate Winslet) being miserable around the other aristocrats and her fiancee (Billy Zane). She doesn't really love him and is primarily marrying him because her own mother Ruth (Frances Fisher) wants to keep her high social status. She soon falls in love with a kind but poor artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio).
Before it was released some in the movie industry had predicted that 'Titanic' would flop, largely because it was the most expensive movie ever had at the time. But it opened number 1 at the box office it's opening weekend (beating out the latest Bond movie 'Tomorrow Never Dies') and the rest is history. It received mostly positive reviews and soon started sweeping the awards circuit. It received fourteen Academy Award nominations, which tied it with 1950's 'All About Eve' for the movie with the most Academy Award nominations. It won 11, including Best Picture, Best Director (James Cameron), Best Original Song ("My Heart Will Go On - music by James Horner/lyrics by Will Jennings/performed by Celine Dion), Best Original Dramatic Score (James Horner), Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing and Best Visual Effects. The 11 Academy Awards tied it with 'Ben-Hur', and it was later matched by 'Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King". The Academy Awards it was nominated for, but didn't win, include Best Actress (Kate Winslet - lost to Helen Hunt for 'As Good As It Gets), Best Supporting Actress (Gloria Stuart - lost to Kim Basinger for 'L.A. Confidential') and Best Make-Up. For Best Picture it beat the likes of 'As Good As It Gets', 'The Full Monty', 'Good Will Hunting' and 'L.A. Confidential'. I've heard of all of those but the only one I've seen is 'Good Will Hunting'. If you haven't seen 'Good Will Hunting' it is a pretty good movie.
So after having sat through all 194 minutes of 'Titanic', what did I think of it? Honestly....I liked it and thought it was pretty good. 11 Academy Awards and over $600 million good? No. But it is pretty good. Going into the movie I thought that the running time of the movie would bug me and that the love story would make me roll my eyes, but surprisingly I was okay with both of those. I've seen way worse love stories than this one. But anyway, the acting actually is very good. Some of the special effects haven't exactly aged well but the actual sinking of the Titanic later on in the movie is really well done. Another thing I liked is the ship itself. Something that I found fascinating in the Titanic computer game was being able to walk around and explore the ship. Indeed various parts of the ship are explored and it does look really neat. It's shot well and the score is also quite good. The flashing back and forth between the present and 1912 got annoying sometimes because as I was invested in what was happening in the past it would cut to the present and someone interrupting Rose as she was telling her story. Overall it is very well made and very well acted. So now for the question I'm sure that you're all thinking to yourself if you know anything about how watching 'Titanic' has affected some people:
Did I cry while watching it?
...........I will plead the fifth on that one...........
Now there were a few times in the movie I kept making snide comments referring to this year's 'The Great Gatsby' movie that also starred Leonardo DiCaprio. During the dinner scene where Jack is having dinner with Rose, her fiance, her mother and other various aristocrats, Rose raises her glass to toast something that Jack had said when asked about his life. After Rose said her line, I immediately said "To Mr. Gatsby!" and of course the next shot was DiCaprio looking on, raising his glass as well. After the dinner scene Rose's fiancee leaves to go have cigars and brandy and while Jack doesn't join them he does slip Rose a note telling her to meet him at the clock by the staircase. She meets him, and Jack then tells her "So do you want to go to a real party?". My immediate reaction was "We then CUT TO 1920's New York in the West Egg at Gatsby's House". I got a kick out of those comments, but then again my sense of humor can be very very dry sometimes.
So that's 'Titanic' and the second installment of 'I Finally Watched...". Now I stated this in my last post about 'Gladiator' but I'll quickly say it again. I'm always asking for input. If you like this new series, let me know. If you dislike this, let me know. If you feel that I should quit this entirely and stick to my so far non-existent day job, let me know. While I do have a list for this that I've made up I'll still take suggestions for movies that I possibly haven't seen. Leave a comment on Facebook, reply on my Twitter account, leave a comment directly on my blog, talk to me, text me, read my mind, write a letter, smoke signals, call from a landline or payphone, etc.
The next two movies for this series I have already picked out. For the third installment I've chosen a movie that is largely considered to be a Christmas classic ever since it was released in 1946. The movie for the fourth installment has also been considered a Christmas classic since it was released in 1964.....but for all the wrong reasons and is usually on lists of the worst movies ever made.
After these two movies I will then resort to randomly picking one from a list that I recently put together. Basically I'll be Google searching for a random number generator, and I'll watch whatever movie happens to correspond with that number.
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