#83: Titanic (1997)

Oscar Winner:

Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Effects, Best Visual Effects, Best Music (Original Dramatic Score), Best Music (Original Song), Best Sound

One of the great things about seeing films multiple times is that it can evoke an entirely different sentiment the second time around. People will always have films that they will revisit time after time, but I'm talking about a response that is the complete opposite of what you originally felt. How many times have you revisited a film from your youth and it wasn't quite as good as you remember? I had the exact opposite reaction to Titanic on second viewing. Like everybody else in 1997, I saw Titanic, but as a teenager, the romantic air of the film made me want to gag. Although I thought it was a good film, I didn't quite understand why it broke so many Oscar records. I wasn't necessarily looking forward to seeing it again, but much to my surprise, I couldn't believe how much I was swept into…. yes, I'm going to say it… a movie masterpiece.

Yes, even a young child probably knows that the Titanic was the ship that was said to be unsinkable, but the director James Cameron uses a forbidden romance between two social classes to guide us through the disaster. Torn between being her own person and high expectations of a fortune-bound marriage, spoiled Rose (Kate Winslet) reluctantly comes across an artsy, yet poor star-crossed lover in Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio). Jack slowly, but surely, starts to crumble the walls of society that Rose is so bound in, but just as the two decide to take the giant leap into forbidden devotion, an iceberg comes along and ruins their party.

Even though every movie pretty much has a three-act structure, people don't mind dividing this movie into two-halves; the romantic story and the disaster story. Although I think that the sinking of the ship is a far better part and as close to perfect filmmaking that there is, I was surprised by how much I got caught up in Jack and Rose's story. This film had to have a strong foundation for you to invest in a journey where you already know the outcome. Cameron does a brilliant job of flipping the tables and makes the unknown into what happens to this young couple. Although this romance can't help but reek of cheesiness (and is the reason for not quite making it a five-star movie), I emotionally bought into these characters as my teenager soul mocked me in the back of my mind. I'm sure Winslet and DiCaprio have to shudder a bit when they watch this film because their performances aren't necessarily the best ever, but you can for sure see the talent budding that has now made them the top tier of the acting world.

Now that I got that sappy stuff out of the way, I have to expound on how gripping the visuals of the Titanic going down were. Cameron uses special effects mixed with live action to perfection. You can definitely see the budget of this film on screen, but I was shocked at how well everything holds up here. It's been a long time since my eyes were literally glued to the screen and I was totally swept up by the impact of the impending doom. The editing of the disaster scenes are near perfect and I think what really draws you in is the secondary characters that bring a realness to the screen that is very much needed.

Titanic is a film that contains humor, romance, action, big-screen effects, drama, sadness, and most importantly, entertainment. I'm not quite sure why all those elements weren't so clear to me when I was sixteen, but thank goodness for this list to help me see the way.

I give Titanic, 4.5 out of 5 scandalous portraits.

The Reader (2008)

This film has Oscar bait written all over it. From the music, to the subject material, it screams to be noticed as important. Sure enough, it worked, because it earned a Best Picture nomination and a Best Actress win for Kate Winslet’s performance. My curiosity coming in was if it was deserving of all these nods.

Without giving too much away, The Reader is a little strange to watch because it centers on an affair between 15-year old Michael Berg (David Kross and later, Ralph Fiennes) and a mid-30’s bus-ticket puncher, Hanna Schmitz (Winslet). What starts as seemingly just a sexual adventure blossoms into a relationship that ends suddenly for both characters. The way the two meet again is not as much surprising as a moralistic decision that no person would want to take on.

The Reader takes a little time to get into. I didn’t know if it’s because of the uneasiness of the main relationship at first, but once the plot arrives at the turning point, my interest was set in. Kate Winslet is very good here giving a sympathetic feel to at the very least, a faulted character. I would usually go more in depth about both the plot and setting, but trust me, the less you know about the story going, the more you will get out of it at the end.


I wasn’t blown away by the total package of the film, but the moral dilemma forces you to invest, which made for a movie that is very much worth seeing, but won’t stay in my subconscious for a long while.

I give The Reader 3.5 out of 5 tape recorders.