This is one of the great cornball films of all time. This said, it is also one of those films you should probably see at least once.

James Cameron does a masterful job of keeping to the abject stupidity of his central plot hidden by distracting the audience with a big boat sinking. The film focuses on a couple of wayward lovers, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is a young, handsome hobo from Wisconsin and Rose, a selfish horrible, young, rich slut.

The movie shouldn't have been titled Titanic. It should have been titled Rose DeWitt Bukater is the Devil.

Rose is perhaps one of the great terrors of modern cinema. Her myopic lust for self gratification causes one of the world's great tragedies that lead to the torturous deaths of women and children.

James Cameron who is a brilliant director and a lukewarm intellect thought it was good to have his main character Rose follow her heart rather than follow her duty. Cameron has Rose abandon what amounts to an arranged marriage with a rich, handsome, go-getter (albeit an abusive one). She runs off with a dreamy hobo who promises...well...sex with a guy who kinda looks like a pretty girl.

If you've seen the film you may have not noticed how Rose is actually Satan with birther hips. You see, Rose opens her wares to the Jack the hobo. Following the two of them casting their souls to hell in the back of a car in the ship's cargo hold, the pair decide it is wise to get all kissy on the deck. The comely duo's time on the deck distracts the ship's crew. This leads to their not seeing the iceberg in time. This leads to said iceberg scraping the hull of the ship. This leads to children drowning in freezing water because Rose couldn't keep her legs closed.

If this wasn't bad enough, Rose survives the sinking of the Titanic. Jack offers her his piece of driftwood. After her lack of morality slaughters 1,517 innocent souls, she takes the final piece of floating refuse in the Atlantic and allows the hobo to become fish food.

If this wasn't' bad enough, Rose goes on to live her life like a happy little liberal jerk - meaning she lives for herself. The exact kind of thinking that caused her to sink the Titanic itself. So, she has learned nothing from the death of 1,517 people who were victims of her lusty wants.

If this wasn't bad enough, Rose ends the film tossing the Heart of the Ocean, a valuable blue diamond into the ocean - losing it forever. She received the priceless gem from the man she scorned for the backseat love of a girlish hobo. She gets the Heart of the Ocean from her fiancee as an engagement gift. She accepts it, this accepting him as her husband. She then, through her infidelity, kills him and then wastes his gift for the ages by throwing it to the bottom of the ocean in a sign of allegiance to a hobo she knew for a few hours.

Rose DeWitt Bukater is the devil.

What is the lesson to be learned from Titanic? Following your heart and sleeping around on your fiancee will kill other people.

All of this moral stupidity aside, the technical achievement of the film forces me to recommend it. If the technology doesn't impress you, skip this movie. It is as immoral as it is foolish.


Related Reviews:
Leonardo DiCaprio Movies
The Departed (2006)
The Aviator (2004)


Other Critic's Reviews:
Ain't it Cool News
Movie House Commentary



Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See and learn
to change the world from your couch

Labels: Bill Paxton, Billy Zane, film, James Cameron, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, Leonardo DiCaprio, movie review, Victor Garber

Short Review: One of the best westerns made.


Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, Charlton Heston, Stephen Lang, Thomas Haden Church, Dana Delany, Michael Rooker and Billy Bob Thornton - All of them and you toss in Robert Mitchum doing the narration for good measure? This is how you cast your Western.


This is a film that others in Hollywood movies should emulate. Directors George P. Cosmatos and Kurt Russell explore the familiar tale of the shoot-out at the OK Corral . Following his famed stewardship of Dodge City, Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), retires to Tombstone, Arizona where he hopes to live a quiet existence with his brothers and their friend Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer).

Earp's idyllic dreams are ruined by the Cowboys, a band of outlaws, who threaten the small town. The Earp Brothers, along with Holiday, face down the brutal outlaws. The conflict leads to the final shoot-out that made all of the men legends.

While the cast is impressive, it is Val Kilmer who makes the movie. His turn as Doc Holiday is one of the great performances in the genre and one of the best film performances of the 1990's. His sly, fatalistic Holiday is reason enough to see the film.

Doc Holiday is presented as an ominous gunslinger who has the capacity to bring quick death to anyone. His ever present danger is undercut by terminal illness. He is racked with tuberculosis and is physically fading. The duality of a dying man who is forced to summon the skills of his healthier days is fascinating to watch.

Kevin Jarre’s script is perfectly paced and full of so many brilliant lines I can’t decide where to begin my praise. The dialog in this script puts most screenwriters to shame. Characters should always have heightened speech. The best way to elevate your characters is through the words that flow from their lips. Jarre offers his characters great lines that perfectly match their personalities. Not once does the elevated language feel imposed. Another example of this use of grand language is Pirates of The Caribbean series (written by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio.)

Jarre’s wise use of language meshed with Kurt Russell’s confident performance give credence to the fear that Wyatt Earp puts into those around him even though he doesn’t use his gun until the midpoint of the film.




Children, that is how you write dialog.

This is how you make a movie.


Cautions: Obviously, since this deals with the shoot-out at the OK Corral, there is violence. In comparison to what you see on TV these days, the violence is not out of hand.


Worldview: Men are fallen and their hunger knows no bounds. This hunger for power, sex, wealth drive many to commit atrocities. These horrors can happen on large and small scales. The immediate threat the Cowboys pose to the peace of Tombstone is an interesting moral problem that replicates the one found in war zones. When is it acceptable for a man to pull the trigger? To kill another man?

The sixth commandment states "You shalt not murder". Murdering is different than killing. Murder assumes no moral right is promoted by the act. Murder is wasteful and hateful. One is permitted to kill as the need arises however. But where does that moment come?


Self-defense is one of the central human rights. The ability to be free is centered on this concept. Wyatt Earp tries to shirk the concerns over the Cowboys, up to the point where violence is visited upon his family.

Wyatt refuses the role of Sheriff only to have his brother Morgan take up the position. Morgan is the calm soul, the thoughtful brother who says at one point "God made all this and He remembered to make a little speck like me." He is not the one to confront the evil of the world alone. That is Wyatt's calling. Wyatt's hesitation to stand up to evil costs both him and Morgan dearly.

I find questions about where these important lines are drawn to be fascinating. I also find that they cause a boatload of arguments as well. I would say that it proves the potency of this film that a simple Western can prompt such thoughts in the first place.



Related Reviews:
Westerns
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Shane (1953)


Other Critic's Reviews:
ReelViews
Celluloid Heroes



Click here to buy your copy of
You Are What You See and learn
to change the world from your couch

Labels: Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Charlton Heston, film, Kurt Russell, Michael Biehn, movie review, Powers Boothe, Sam Elliott, Stephen Lang, Thomas Haden Church, Val Kilmer, western

Short Review: Can you sue film producers to get your time back? If so, I’m can hear the grumbling of a class action lawsuit in the making…I take that back, for a class action you need more than one person. I think I’m the only one who has sat through the whole movie.


Orlando Bloom may be a cutie-pie but he has the stage presence of an oven mitt. Again, I understand, he’s a pretty oven mitt, but an oven mitt just the same. In this film, he leads an ensemble cast of professional supporting actors and still manages to barely upstage the extras in the background. At one point, his character is assaulted by getting acid thrown in his face. From that point forward, Oven Mitt has a large scar running across his face. This is bad news for Oven since the scar then becomes the most interesting thing about his performance from that point forward.

This movie is a dark, miserable parade through the lower elements of human nature. As if the world didn’t have enough trouble, now we have yet another “important” movie wanting to tell us how crappy life can be. In a time of worldwide terror, nuclear escalations and The Bears losing the Superbowl, we don’t need to hear the whining of how hard things are for a bunch of thugs in the Caribbean.

This film wants to be a rehash of Crash. It weaves a number of seemingly unrelated stories that look at the troubles in our lives. Unlike Crash, this film doesn’t have any central theme worth investigating and it is completely without voice or character. The production is literally a series of events, some related but most not, where things happen but none of it makes sense nor has any meaning. In the end, after wading through almost two hours of Oven Mitt and company looking frustrated and numbly vomiting their lines at one another, there isn’t a resolution. The film simply ends. There isn’t an important statement of purpose, no overarching lesson, just a quick image of a gun and then the credits. Normally, this kind of ending would infuriate me. The ending of a film is critical. In this case, I was thrilled. The darn thing was finally over.


Related Reviews:
Orlando Bloom movies
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Troy (2004)


Other Critic's Reviews:
FilmJerk
eFilmCritic

Labels: Bill Paxton, film, movie review, Orlando Bloom

What the heck is with the soundtrack on this one? What is that Earth Music (or whatever it is) playing over an ad for a Western? Why not just play a polka?

Fantastic film but this trailer does a terrible job selling it. The film's best features, the dialog and Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell performances aren't really displayed well. What we do get is a spoiler on Morgan Earp's fate and a series of dizzying snippets.

Labels: Bill Paxton, Charlton Heston, film, Kurt Russell, movie trailer, Sam Elliott, Val Kilmer

Short Review: Not the greatest movie ever made.


This film follows the quick rise of Francis Ouimet, who goes from caddy to playing in the 1913 U.S. Open. We follow the young man from his meager beginnings as a caddy through to the big game where he is set up against golf legend Harry Vardon. The match up is akin to an unknown twenty-year-old amateur finding himself playing against Tiger Woods today.

The first act of this film may dissuade you from going further. The opening act is clunky and forced. Director Bill Paxton who is usually referenced via his thirty years of acting work by people saying “you know, that guy - what’s his name, you know…that guy from Aliens, “Game over man!”, yeah him!”, tries far too hard for much of this film. The opening act pushes the class struggle Ouimet and Vardon cope with throughout their careers. The old notion of class is a serious part of this piece and has its place. Neither Vardon or Ouimet are “gentlemen” and they are reminded of this deficiency constantly throughout the film. They are viewed as talented pawns for those in high society. The drumbeat of class issues throughout the first act makes it difficult to get through. Once through these clumsy efforts the film quickly becomes fun and well paced. The U.S. Open, and the events directly surrounding it, are very well done and make this a worthy movie overall.

The biggest problem with the film is Paxton getting in the way of his own work. There are a plethora of overly complicated shots and special effects that are clearly not needed and distract from the real action on the screen. Paxton pulls out at least a dozen shots where the camera “follows” the path of a flying golf ball by putting us directly behind it (reminiscent of Scorsese’s obtuse pool table camerawork in The Color of Money.) The numerous special shots Paxton lays out do not necessarily add to the piece and implies he didn’t feel the game itself was interesting enough on its own. The game was interesting. It is the ultimate real life underdog sports story.

The story is helped along a great deal by some superb acting by Shia LaBeouf as Francis Ouimet. LaBeouf carries the piece and brings an honest performance to the screen as the young man who finds himself in the middle of an historic event. He is a great conduit for the audience to understand the enormity of Ouimet’s success. There is also a fine performance by Stephen Dillane as the legendary Harry Vardon. Dillance gives a quiet performance as the master golfer and plays well against LaBeouf. Supporting these two are solid performances from Stephen Marcus as TedRay and twelve year-old Josh Flitter as Ouimet's caddy Eddie Lowery. Flitter's performance is notably good in its confidence and in his delivery. He and LaBeouf have some playful moments together on screen that left me wanting more interactions from the duo.

This is a good sports film and probably the second best golf film ever made (sorry, Caddyshack simply will never be beaten.) Given a sturdier director, this could have been a far better production. This is a shame given how good this story is and how inspiring it can be to see. While an enjoyable film, with a more adept hand, the story of Francis Ouimet could have been the greatest sports film ever made.


Related Reviews:
Another golf movie
Bobby Jones: A Stroke of Genius


Other Critic's Reviews:
Hoosier Review
The Village Voice

Labels: Bill Paxton, film, movie review, Shia LaBeouf, sports