"The Towering Inferno" was more concentrated on the disaster with side-stories amounting to very disjointed plotting -- the actors were good but there wasn't a lot for them to do other than fight the fire or escape. There was a moralistic element but it was similar to "Earthquake" about the methods and practices of building skyscrapers.
Nowhere could that outstrip reality with 9/11 and I don't believe we'll see a film about that disaster for another twenty years at least. In "Titanic" the plot spelled out with the love story what happened to the ship -- relationships can be "swim or sink." All these films lose their impact on a small screen. Even a large screen TV in order to show the full Panavision have to letterbox. I saw it on the largest screen on the West Coast and it was spectacular.
At least "Titanic" qualifies as the modern film people love to hate. I just have never read an objective criticism of the film other than a marked dislike for Leonardo which to me has an irrational aspect to it. True, he was really at his best in "Catch Me If You Can."
Sum total I liked Titanic although there were some scenes and plot development I thought were poorly done. My favorite scene was to short. That was the scene in the engine room when the helm orders full revers, I would have liked to have seen more of those engines. The best review (unfair) of the film I saw was "ship sinks, love stinks".
What seems to happen is, a movie gets so much hype and the dollar amounts are bandied about with so much abandon that when the movie finally comes out, there's the group that wants to rip it apart just because (critics mostly) and the other group, the movie-going public, which has such unrealistic expectations that couldn't possibly be fulfilled. Titanic was a good movie. I don't understand why it was panned by so many, except for the reasons stated above. This, I believe, is what happened with Kevin Costner's "Waterworld." So much negative press swirled around that movie, which at the time was the most expensive movie ever made, same as Titanic, that it couldn't help but lose. It wasn't a bad movie, in my opinion, but with the press going like gangbusters, it just couldn't get out of it's own way.
The reviewer in the New Yorker did not pan the film. There is a backlash on the pretense of making a movie on big themes -- can a director make an epic truly epic? On the big screen "Titanic" was entertaining and whether one liked the director's admitedly chick flick plotline, it was successful because it did have something for everybody. The sinking was unique in that it followed the latest technological extrapolation on exactly what happened to the ship. There was a technological flaw in the ship, the brittleness of the steel, that was a significant part of the ultimate cause. The audacity to crank up the speed of the ship was, of course, the other.
"Waterworld" suffered from Costner and the director not exactly getting along and it's storytelling was much creakier than "Titanic."
Yes, Titanic ran on many levels, some foolish, but enough great to make me love to watch it more than twice. Unusual for me.
By strange coincidence, in the paper today, is news
that the Life of Brian is likely to be re-released. The intention, I guess, is to provide some comedic relief to The Passion of Christ .....
I will avoid it like the plague since the
excruciating 2 hrs spent watching it with friends
20 years or so ago. Then, we were much enthused
by the very latest technology....a rented VCR and
being able to take out a movies to watch in our own homes! Still, the movie made me cringe!
I've suspected for some time that I'm the only person left on the planet who hasn't seen Titanic. I didn't miss it. I deliberately avoided it. Why? I find it a rare movie indeed that can sustain my interest for three hours. I even thought that Lawrence of Arabia was too long. (It was very good, though.) I disliked all the hype. And I knew the ending. But the bottom line is that something about it just didn't appeal to me. This happens sometimes, and I have no explanation for it. Some movies, no matter how well received, just don't interest me.
The sinking wasn't the ending of the fictional story which begins with a Titanic survivor showing up on the ship exploring the wreckage. The general storyline is quite good but some of the dialogue is predictable and a bit too modern. Of course, James Goldman got away with that in "The Lion in Winter."
I understand Roberta's statement. I avoided The Godfather for the same reason. I only consented to see Titanic to please my wife. I went, prepared for the ultimate in boredom. It was a pleasant surprise to find I not only enjoyed it, but did not mind the length at all.
I thought the film went by like a flash and, if anything, it was successful in showing off what expert directorial staging and special effects are capable of. Peter Jackson capped it off with LOTR -- all three films do not seem as long as they are even in the extended version. I just recently bought the DVD rerelease of "Lawrence" and the storytelling still kept be rivited to the screen without any realtime drawbacks. Again, these films have to really be seen on at least big screen TV with the best reproduction. Hi Def DVD is just around the corner.
When I saw Lawrence of Arabia for the first time, I was in a gigantic old theater with a huge screen--and there was an intermission. I dragged myself up the aisle in desperate need of liquid refreshment. All that sand made me thirsty. I saw it again without the intermission and felt it was a bit too long, but it was riveting. Same with the Godfather I and II. Riveting. I just don't like to be sitting for so long--a personal idiocyncracy (I have many).
Seat fatigue is definitely a factor so I'm glad I never had to sit through the long version of "Heaven's Gate." Although the long version is superior to the shorter edit.
When I saw Gone With the Wind in a theater, it was in an old south Texas windjammer (can't remember the town). I was squirming in my hard seat long before intermission. But I stuck it out. At my young impressionable age, I felt like the characters in the story had become like people I had known all of my life. With all its failings, I still watch it on video every two or three years.
I saw Titanic and a matinee and most of the seats around me were occupied by teenage girls (14/15) As the movie opened there was a lot of adolescent foolishness as they responded to teenage male foolishness from a group seated several rows in front. (tossing popcorn etc) By the end of the movie I was surrounded by a sea of sniffles and barely suppresed sobs. I'm afraid I did not find the movie that effective.
The tear jerker aspect of the film didn't really work for me either -- it was overshadowed by the attention to detail of how the tragedy occurred. It was really a docu-drama and a chick flick. No accounting for what will draw people to the box office though.
A big two thumbs down on Spiderman. I just don't get it.
As far as comic book hero adaptations it was a passable popcorn movie. It does look like II may have some more engrossing storytelling. That's what made the first two "Superman" movies and the first "Batman" excellent adaptations. The newest adaptations suffer from playing with CGI until your head starts swimming. These boys have to stop playing with the toys and actually use them as tools. That's what seperated us from the ape.
(Peter Jackson used CGI as a tool with a minor lapse here and there using it as a toy in the LOTR trilogy).
