A little background: I think James Cameron is an asshole. Hear he likes to abuse his employees. He can do that because he's a genius and geniuses get to do that. The closest I've ever met him was when I was in college freshman year. Friday afternoons at the film school there is a lecture/Q&A by a Hollywood figure. It's open to any student, but since it's in a pretty small room it's first come first serve. Some dormmates of mine invited me to this lecture because it was Cameron. I was tired but I thought, sure, why not. So we waited in line for an hour, maybe two. I actually laid down on the floor and passed out for, like 20 minutes while all of us were kept waiting. Finally, they started packing the room in and, of course, we were too far back in the line to get in. While all of us sheep were waiting for a glimpse of Cameron he came up with a bright smile on his face, about, um, two hours late. Either I saw him say, or I heard from someone else, that he was late because he was joyriding in the new Porsche he bought. Prick.
Titanic is the only grade-A movie I've ever seen that I hate myself for giving a perfect grade to. There is something incredibly infantile about the story, but seeing two young people falling fast in love just as this massive ship is about to sink is absolutely perfect for the story. (It helps when the leads are Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.) And the initial scene, where the excavation team explains how the Titanic ship broke apart after hitting the iceberg is a perfect expositional plant that pays off tragically and memorably when you see it in the powerful third act. Shit, Cameron's technological omnipotence gives Avatar a B all by itself. However, that is all it gets because this story, with its obvious parallels to the plight of the Native American and the nihilistic nature of "our" military force is just too weak to support the 3-D effects.
And yet that doesn't matter to some people. Like Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, there are websites dedicated to fans of the movie. In fact, this article shows that some of them are thinking and feeling very deeply about it. Way too deeply, if this quote is any indication:
"Ever since I went to see Avatar I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in Avatar."Seriously, dude, what the fuck? I hope to Buddha that your parents don't walk down to the basement and try to call you for supper, only to see that you've blown your head off. Picture the red of your blood perfectly complementing the blue paint you spackled all over your naked body before you ate your gun. And there'd be a suicide note you'd leave for them, Mike, but they wouldn't be able to read it because you wrote it in fucking Navi. They'd be so goddamn ashamed that they'd bury you in a pauper's grave, where that Home Tree would have no chance of transferring your soul into a lanky blue person, ha-ha.
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