“Avatar” now #1 all-time domestically as well as worldwide: http://bit.ly/cr3v6k. Still only #21 adjusted for inflation: http://bit.ly/cIrCA1.
“Avatar” now #1 all-time domestically as well as worldwide: http://bit.ly/cr3v6k. Still only #21 adjusted for inflation: http://bit.ly/cIrCA1.
Good. I’ve hated Titanic since it came out. Something about “My Heart Will Go On” being played 50 billion times in about three months, and sung by every girl I knew at the time for no reason. I’ve never seen it, or given it the time of day. It bugged me to NO END that Titanic, of all movies, was number 1, and remained as such so long despite inflation, and despite Star Wars movies and LOTR movies being released. (Indeed, my great hope was that Star Wars Episode I would unseat Titanic, and I was not only disappointed by the movie, but disappointed that it couldn’t unseat the stupid Titanic. (Part of this may be that when I first heard about it, I was expecting a historical epic, and got a love story. While in high school. Which to a high school male, was ICH of the highest order.)
And now, even though Avatar is by the same director, at least it isn’t Titanic.
B. Minich, I would withhold judgment on Titanic until you’ve actually seen it. Is it a love story? Sure. But it’s a love story set amidst one of the most intriguing disasters of all time. Indeed, that is most likely why the movie did so phenomenally well — it was equally appealing to both men and women, for different reasons. The love story aspect of Titanic obviously leaves much to be desired among men, but the beauty of the movie IMO is that that aspect of it doesn’t really take away from what men like about it (DISASTER!), the generally good storytelling, awesome special effects, etc. Even now, if I’m flipping idly through the channels and come across Titanic, I can usually put the remote down no matter where the movie is and be entertained by the remainder.
I’m with Joe Mama on this — I’ve always felt the anti-Titanic backlash was severely overstated, fueled no doubt by the excessive overhype. Was it the OMG GREATEST MOVIE EVER, such that it deserved not just the all-time box office crown, but also the all-time Oscar record (tied with Ben Hur and Return of the King)? No. But is it an awful, sappy piece of crap, unworthy of any praise, like its detractors seem to think? No. It’s a very good film.
I find it curious that Joe Mama, of all those who mix it up back here, jumps to the defense of Titanic as love story. First of all, there’s no doubt that Titanic is a big-time guilty pleasure, and if nothing else, it has one of the all-time great filler scenes that has nothing to do with the plot but makes the movie so much more entertaining. Early in the film Bill Pullman shows a graphic illustrating how the ship went down to the old lady, for no other reason than to give enginerd male viewers an idea of what to expect, and Cameron doesn’t disappoint in that regard. Very entertaining.
That said, Titanic is the most odious, hideous, hateful, shitty, example of the gooddamn Hollywood liberals with their screwed-up values and heads stuck so far up their asses that they look out their mouths. The Titanic “love story”, for spewing crap liberal drivel, makes Sean Penn look like William F. Buckley. No, makes Sean Penn look like William F. Buckley’s scornful, disapproving-of-these-kids-today Grandfather.
Where do you even begin with the hideousness of the liberal drivel in that supposed love story? The token evil Billy Zane character, whose crime is that he is apparently some sort of big businessman, who is a little rough with his fiance when she is off fucking some dirty rat in steerage? Yes, the enlightened rich guys just smile and take that crap from dirty rats in Cameron world.
Or how about Rose’s mom? She the bitchy mother who tells her daughter you better stop fucking the indigent steerage boy or I’ll be forced to live as a seamstress as opposed to our life of opulence, all over some sort of dramatic soundtrack to let you know what an evil bitch Rose’s mother is!
Finally, Rose herself. She of the indulgent photos of her living a life of imagination for “Jack” that doesn’t include her actual family, including her doting granddaughter (must have been an idiot, that granddaughter), who as her final act returns the priceless diamond to the ocean, rather than you know figuring out a way to maybe sell it to a museum or even sell it to a high-class loan shark, to give the money to her extremely dedicated granddaughter?
The love story in Titanic is a big steaming heaping pile of liberal, value-less Hollywood shit. As mentioned earlier, even Sean Penn grimaces at the soulless Hollywood liberal crap of that film. Joe Mama likes it? Could have knocked me over with a feather.
Jazz, I agree about Titanic. It was well made around a terrible script. George Constanza came closer than any other critic:
George: I saw “Titanic”. So that old woman, she’s just a liar, right?
Jerry: And a bit of a tramp if you ask me.
Jazz,
First of all, how do you construe my comments as defending Titanic “as love story?”
Second, as someone who has been (wrongly) accused on this blog of seeing everything through an ideological lens, I have to say that “liberal Hollywood values” didn’t once enter my mind any of the times that I’ve watched the movie.
Finally, and most importantly, Lone Star does not appear anywhere in the film.
Joe Mama,
As you are no doubt aware, there’s a crucial scene near, or at, the climax of Titanic, where Billy Zane puts his fiance on a lifeboat, while Zane stays behind with Jack, the dirty steerage boy who moments earlier was fucking his fiance. Zane “promises” his fiance that he will save the dirty steerage man (whom she was fucking) on a rowboat he will take later. The dirty steerage man then looks at Zane sadly and says “You never had any intention of saving me!” and Zane does his best impression of a cartoon from Spy vs. Spy by smiling broadly and saying “Ha, dirty steerage man, I always get what I want!”
Now those of us who believe in old fashioned values, and are a little bit hawkish about same, look at that scene with horror, as we feel that the Leonardo DiCaprio character should be thanking his lucky stars that the Billy Zane character didn’t have his goons throw him in the furnace, as, frankly, that’s what we would do if we were Zane. The fact that Zane was even giving Jack the opportunity to take his chances in the water seems unbelievably generous to us right-wing, Hollywood-lily-livered-liberal-suspecting types.
So when you, as a Fox News soldier in the 24/7/365 culture war that those clowns are waging, say that there is “nothing in that film to take away from the enjoyable disaster flick”, you must be including the abovementioned, hideously-offensive-to-conservative-values interaction between Zane and the dirty man fucking his fiance.
You further said that the film was characterized by “generally good storytelling”, by which, as a Foxy Newsy guy, you must mean the parts of the film that were not related to the scene described in this post, as that would be anything BUT goodstorytelling for us conservative types. Considering that the scene in question is very much near or at the climax of the film, its hard to fathom what part of the film was a) unrelated to that scene and b) inoffensive to you, as a Fox News conservative.
I know the scene you speak of, but I don’t understand why you find it offensive or the reference to me as a “Fox News soldier.”
How did this turn into a “LIBERAL VALUES IN THE MOVIES!!!!” thread?
Anyways, I refuse to watch it on principle. I mean, I can’t stand “My Heart Will Go On”. That song ALONE ruins the movie for me.
Jazz, last time I checked women were people not property. Acting as if the Zane character is somehow being wronged by Jack is, while emotionally understandable, kinda weak. What kind of message does it send that you are standing up for the guy who is abusive and possesive towards Rose? Are we to read that THAT is a conservative value now? I mean it would be pretty sad if you were actually championing that don’t you think?
I think you are reading WAY to much into it as a liberal/conservative thing. Its an underdog story. Its a story about two people who love each other but are trying to be kept apart by societies rules story. Its a boat sinks story. Its not a liberal agenda story.
David,
I certainly understand that there’s a school of thought that says that a man who raises his hand to his fiance and gives her threatening looks – when she’s fucking another man – can be labelled abusive. I also understand that there’s a school of thought that a woman is “not property” in the sense that her commitment to marry a guy is not binding if she wants to go fuck someone else, especially if the first guy looks like he gets mad when he finds out he’s been cuckolded. I also understand that there’s a school of thought that a woman is not obliged to restrain or modify her passions when her mother, for whom she has primary responsibility, will be seriously compromised by said passions. I also understand there’s a school of thought that an old woman is no more obliged to the granddaughter that cares for her than a memory of some cat she fucked 85 years ago, when it comes to how to dispose of a priceless diamond she’s happened to secretly have in her possession for those 85 years.
I understand that some people think that way. I. don’t. True conservatives don’t. Now that I think about it, Catholics don’t.
Wait a second. Aren’t you Catholic, David?
What the hell is wrong with you?
You know, this is overkill, but I totally overreached earlier in this thread, particularly in post #7 when I said that folks with old fashioned values would watch the presentation of the Zane v. Jack scene “with horror”. They might, but to be honest, I don’t. I actually give Titanic a thumbs-up for the production values of the ship sinking, and in truth don’t feel horror at the Hollywoodish displays of dubious morality in that movie – in fact, my favorite movie ever (Streets of Fire) has many elements that are quite obviously immoral.
I think my overcooking this argument is driven to a large extent by how a film like Titanic puts paid to the stupidity of the Foxy Newsy culture war. The other day, when the hotheaded Rahm Emanuel described liberal activists as “f’ing retarded”, didn’t everyone’s clock in their heads start ticking, in a countdown to the obligatory Sarah-Palin-I-am-so-offended-statement?
Meanwhile, does anyone for a minute have difficulty imagining Sarah and her pregnant daughter/poster child for teen abstenance, passing the tissues during Titanic when Jack discovers that the fiance of the woman he’s sleeping with actually won’t go out of his way to save Jack’s life?
Even if – by some long shot – Palin actually grasped the offensiveness of the Titanic love story, given that everyone else loves it, what are the chances of her pushing into the headwinds of public sentiment by calling it out for what it is?
Zero.
What good is a culture war if you don’t actually fight it? This is a great example of why the modern Republican party has become a hideous embarassment.
Jazz, I can’t help ribbing you a little bit on this one. Sarah Palin’s hypothetical failure to object to the movie Titanic is “a great example of why the modern Republican party has become a hideous embarassment”? What?!?
I would assert that there are many examples of why the modern Republican party has become a hideous embarrassment… but I’m thinking the Palin family’s imagined enjoyment of a random movie isn’t really one of them. 🙂
The expectation that Sarah Palin would object to any particular film, Titanic included, as the price of admission for Republican self-respect, would be pretty stupid, which my post 12 didn’t make clear. Point conceded.
The larger issue, though, is that as the Queen of the Culture War, Palin takes shots at obvious and easy targets – Rahm Emanuel as hotheaded buffoon, David Letterman as guy who doesn’t fact-check enough before he makes jokes about underage girls, etc. The Culture War itself is obsessed with cheap shots of the “OMG can you believe Sean Penn went to Iraq???” variety. (Yeah. Who cares?)
If the Republican culture war was actually defending us from something, it might be helpful if they, you know, pointed out an occasional, insidious, not-instantly-obvious way that the culture falls short. The Titanic love story would be an example, though Palin or the culture warriors are by no means obliged to call that specific one out. But it would be nice if they dug deep once in a while. As opposed to pointing fingers at the offensiveness of Rahm Emanuel, which, to be honest, I was pretty much braced for, thanks anyway…
Heh. True dat.
It doesn’t surprise me that Jazz would somehow tie Sarah Palin and the GOP into a thread about Titanic. But then again I’m just a Fox News soldier/Foxy Newsy guy/blahblahwhateverwhatever….
Joe:
Sad to say, any topic can be used to bash Palin, the Republican Party and conservatives……