Titanic

Directed by James Cameron Running Time: 3:14

As a movie lover, I love this time of year. All the studios roll out their big Oscar contenders, so therefore the quality of the movies increases. And Titanic certainly fills the bill. The last time I felt this good coming out of a movie, was when I saw Braveheart for the first time. Both movies are over three hours, yet you never notice how long it is. You just want it to keep going on forever. Let's start with debunking one myth. As almost everyone knows, this movie cost upwards of $200 million to make. Special effects are the brunt of that money, so I know a lot of you probably think this is just going to be a disaster film, with the ship Titanic as the star. But it's not. The movie is a love story, that happens to have some major special effects in it, but it's not like watching the shoot-em-up summer blockbusters where everything is exploding all at once, and there's no story behind it. In Titanic, the ship is the setting for the story, and the sinking of the Titanic is just a plot point. Don't get me wrong, it's not like you don't see the sink ship. Some of the most heart wrenching scenes happen during the downfall of the ship. But it's the story of Jack Dawson (DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater(Winslet) that is the focus of the movie.

The film starts out with a man (Bill Paxton) who has spent three years of his life searching for a mysterious diamond that supposedly went down with the Titanic. Instead he finds a picture of a young women, with the diamond around her neck. Rose, now 101 years old, sees her picture on TV and sets out to the search party, and tells her story of how she survived the collision with the iceburg. Rose was an upper class woman, engaged to a man she didn't love. In those days, class distinction was important, and running around with people lower than yourself was unheard of. But she meets Jack, and they fall in love. Rose's mother and finance are determined to keep them apart, but love, as it always does, wins in the end. This is almost the perfect movie, it has romance, action, adventure, drama, something for everyone. And something I don't usually mention, a great score. Most of the time you don't notice a movie's score, the music that plays in the background throughout the film. But in this case the score, by composer James Horner, is incredible. Each note has meaning and makes the mood of the movie that much better. Titanic is definitely one of the best movies of the year, if not the decade (as evidenced by it's recent 8 Golden Globe nominations, and probably just as many Oscar nominations in the future). Remember to bring some tissues, because this movie will make even the strongest man cry. It's something you can see over and over again, and still feel like it's the first time.