Titanic 3D
Titanic was released in December of 1997 and immediately praised as being one of the best movies of all time. This led it to being the most successful movie up until Avatar. However, a few years later for some reason, Titanic lost a lot of respect. Its flaws were pointed out far more than its successes. I have been a backer of this film for a number of years, however, and believe its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses.
Titanic was released this past weekend on the big screen in 3D. I saw it with my family and I was very excited. It’s been one of my favorite movies for a while now, and I was too young to see it on the big screen when it came out so it was neat to have this opportunity. Now I do believe that re-releasing movies in 3D (like The Lion King, The Phantom Menace, and Beauty and the Beast) is just a gimmick, but if I love the movie, I’ll still probably see it. Especially if I never got to see it in theaters to begin with.
This is going to be more a retrospective of the experience than a review of the movie. Those of you that know me well know that this was the first love story I ever really cared about in a movie, and that I love nearly everything about it (especially Billy Zane).
The experience was great. For the most part, I dislike 3D films because it needlessly raises prices and it’s a cheap gimmick. However, Titanic of course wasn’t initially filmed for 3D. This was both a benefit and a hindrance. It was good because there were no cheap moments of things coming at the screen made for the 3D audience, however it was a hindrance because in many moments the only things popping at the screen were just characters’ faces.
Overall, though, I felt this fared well in 3D. The scenes of the camera coming down and revealing the bow of the great ship with Leo against the fence looked great. And the disaster scenes looked great, too, notably the stack thing falling on Fabrizio in the water and the windows breaking and people being sucked into a vortex of death. Actually my favorite little moment was when the Zane Train took Lovejoy’s pistol and fired a bullet at Leo and Kate down the stairwell and it hit the water, causing a splash to pop right into your eyes. It looked great and it didn’t feel cheap.
I can now say that Titanic is my second favorite film I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in theaters, but that will all change when Jurassic Park is released in 3D in 2013, or so I hear.
The Hunger Games
I was late to The Hunger Games train. Not just because I saw it a couple weeks after everyone else, but because I had virtually no idea what it was. I knew it was a futuristic kind of dystopian thing or whatever, with kids murdering each other on worldwide television. And I knew it was a trilogy.
So I saw the movie and it was very good. It had some flaws but overall these were outmatched by just how fun and interesting the movie was. The opening scenes showed a poverty-ridden society of District 12 or 13 or something, where Katniss Everdeen lives with her younger sister and basically catatonically worthless mother. She also spends time with this other guy who may or may not be her boyfriend. They might just be friends. I don’t know.
It’s revealed that she’s a good hunter (even though she misses the deer horribly due to a distraction) and that comes in handy when she goes and plays/fights in the Hunger Games. So the people from the Hunger Games Association come to the village/distract and pick names of a girl and a boy to represent their district in the Hunger Games, which fulfills some treaty after a crushed rebellion or whatever.
Now a few things confused me here. First, when is this? If it’s Earth, it’s the future, but how far in the future? They’ve got spaceships and stuff that don’t go to space, so maybe they’re not spaceships. I think it’s safe to say we’re a couple hundred years from a lot of the technology shown in this movie. But the movie never really tells you it is Earth. I didn’t read the book or anything so I came in to this with no outside knowledge. I wasn’t even sure it was Earth, because they’re all citizens of Panem or whatever. That’s not a country I’ve ever heard of. Is it not Earth? If so, that would make Jennifer Lawrence’s character an alien. Is it strange then that I’m attracted to her? And lastly, what country makes its citizens fight to the death? Yes, Earth’s history has had cases of people being forced to fight to the death. But Roman gladiators were mostly slaves and not Roman citizens. These people from all the districts are citizens and they’re paying dearly for some rebellion that happened sometime.
So Katniss’ younger sister is picked, and she volunteers in place of her. And then the kid from Zathura is picked. They call him Peta, but for half the movie I was certain it was Peter. What’s with the names? And costumes?
Now to this point it probably sounds like I didn’t like the movie because I’ve had some negative stuff to say about it. The beginning, if you ask me, was not that great. It established the character of Katniss very well, and Jennifer Lawrence was great as her. But really until she volunteers the movie was pretty mediocre. After that, it picked up greatly.
They all go to the capitol where they’re greeted by more people who dress really weird and have weird hair, including Stanley Tucci and the video camera guy from American Beauty. Oh, and Woody Harrelson and a ridiculous looking Elizabeth Banks.
After an over-the-top but effective introduction of the two District 12ers to the capital, it’s training from then on. They train with swords and stuff and it’s revealed that some districts have trained their people their entire lives for that, so it’s clear that Lawrence and Peter are outmatched. In addition to this, Peter makes himself look like an idiot when he falls from a climbing net, but it turns out he’s really strong because he throws a big medicine ball that seems to impress people. This is said to be important but never pays off later in the film. I guess maybe it got him a better rating than he would have without it, but really what do the ratings mean? I understand they make it easier to get sponsors but I don’t really understand that. Sponsors send stuff like food and medicine when people are murdering others in the Hunger Games. But really if this is watched by the entire world, how could anyone go unsponsored? If Peter has a horrible cut or whatever and can’t even walk but there’s seven billion people watching, I’m sure someone will send him something.
Anyways then the twenty-four people are sent to a remote location to duke it out. The beginning of the Hunger Games was one of the strongest scenes of The Hunger Games because this was one instance in which the shaky camera worked. It conveyed the frantic and violent nature of the games, showing teenagers get murdered left and right, all without sound save for some music. I thought this scene was excellent.
Then stuff happens and eventually Peter and Katniss team up, as I kind of suspected they would. There’s some good action during the games but not a lot of it. This film is more about character development of Katniss Everdeen and that’s part of what made it so good. Also it did I thought a good job of showing how all this violence was wrong without being in your face about it. I appreciate movies that assume the audience has some intelligence.
The story wrapped up pretty nicely, almost to the point that I have no idea where the sequels will be headed. Like I said, I know nothing about the sequels. Now the year’s Hunger Games are over, but I guess there’s still this militant dictatorship run by Donald Sutherland that people need to get rid of. So that’s coming up, I suppose.
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