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Groan as much as you want guys – um, who said projecting
was a bad thing? - you know it’s a pretty flippin’
fantastic movie too, right?
It’s worth more than my mortgage, student loan and tax
bill times twenty – and that’s saying something,
believe me. But at the end of the day the time, energy and
capital that Jim Cameron spent on recreating the biggest ship
in history really helped the movie reel in the audience.
From the get-go, we were suckered into its grandiose tale
– and syrupy love story – and then, when it was
time for extras to get jumbled about, smack-bang into propellers,
we would hurt along with them. In short, money really does
talk – and Cameron made good use of those Benjamin’s.
Titanic is one amazing looking movie. Okay, it’s
also a bit of a tearjerker too – Billy Zane’s droopy
hairpiece evokes much emotion.
DVD Extras
So is the DVD any good? That’s what you really want
to know right? Well, yes, it’s good. Great? No. There’s
a lot of stuff on the DVD, but it’s not stuff that we
should have been made to wait all these years to see. For
instance, most of it – especially the TV specials on
the film’s making and the history of the ship –
are as old as the cold chips on the surface of my car mat.
Also a bit ‘seen it before somewhere’ are the electronic
press kits (old interviews and bits and pieces about the film),
a mock newsreel from 1912, the music video, and the gallery.
There is some new goodies too though – a bunch of deleted
scenes, a couple of featurettes on the technical aspects of
the film, a presentation on deep diving by Cameron, a ‘Titanic’
crew video (rather amusing), a tour of the ship, an option
to watch behind-the-scenes stuff as you work your way through
the film, and a swarm of stuff that falls under the ‘marketing’
category.
Best of all, though, are the audio commentaries. There’s
three – Cameron provides one (largely technical –
but never boring), Cast and Crew - including Gloria Stuart,
Executive producer Rae Sanchini and Producer John Landau,
and Kate Winslet - provide another (where everyone’s
been recorded at different stages and they’ve all been
intercut with one another – making it a little hard to
work out who’s talking sometimes), and Don Lynch, Titanic's
Historian and Ken Marschall, the film's Visual Historian,
provide the third commentary.
Oh, and it all looks and sounds rather frickin’ superb
on DVD.
Conclusion: Movie 90% Extras: 80%
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