While I enjoyed a great deal about James Cameron’s Titanic (outside of Vlad the Impaler, never has one man been so intent on having his name attached to much human misery), there are also huge swaths of it that I disliked quite a lot.

But rather like a beloved small town high school football coach, it is almost impossible for any of us to criticize Titanic without hordes of people covering their ears and crying, “Heretic!”

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So I’ll confine my criticism of Titanic to the one scene that really stuck in my craw, the one scene which made me sit up on my couch and say, “Oh, what the hell is this? Give me a break!”

I did, really.

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Imagine the horror of the ship sinking, the panic and the terror of the passengers, and the emotional angst provided to us via the love story of the young lovers. Like movies about the Alamo, we all know how this story is going to end, and yet we stick wit it.

And then . . .

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Cal Hockley (played by Billy Zane, an actor I like quite a lot) is running around the ship firing off a gun?

Huh?

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Far from ramping up the tension, this just adds a certain comic relief to the movie. I mean, really, Trembling Reader, wasn’t the sinking of the Titanic itself providing enough tension? It is the most needless scene in the movie.

Well, it could have been worse, I suppose. We might have gotten a glimpse of Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the guise of a Terminator, seeking an ancestor of Sarah Connor, who just happened to be on the Titanic. I have it on good authority that they can, after all, travel through time.

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Well, it’s a small quibble, I guess. The ship still sinks, we all shed a tear or two, and we eagerly await the eventual paranormal show in which ship-bound ghost hunters will attempt to make contact with the spirits of those who died when the ship went down.

Must See TV, as NBC used to proclaim.

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******

A movie that can sink Cameron’s Titanic

The 1958 film A Night to Remember is superior to Cameron’s effort in almost every aspect, save special effects. Shown every so often on Turner Classic Movies – the only channel I’d have if I were on a desert island – it should be seen by anyone who enjoys not only films about that harrowing voyage into hell, but good drama, besides.

*****

Quote of the Day

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Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. – Oscar Wilde

sdrake@cox.net

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