Wow, I found this film highly unenjoyable

Rating: 1/10 (29 November 1998)

I held off on viewing Titanic until it was let out on tape. I had heard horror stories from friends and colleagues. They spoke of oceans of tearfilled faces and groups of 12 year old girls singing along with that god-awful Celine Dion song. So I dodged the theaters until a friend bought the tape. Out of morbid curiosity to see this "epic" film, I borrowed the tape, and sat down to watch it with her. My lord, it was the LONGEST freakin' piece of schlock I have ever seen. As my friend began to sob after the death of Leonardo, I got about as emotional as I do when I watch those AT&T long-distance commercials. You know, the ones where a little boy in L.A. talks to his daddy who is on a business trip in New York. And the boy always tells his father, "I love you, daddy.", then the music cues to pictures of the teary-eyed father. Well, I saw a parallel between the commerical and movie Titanic. Both are contrived, blatantly staged, and chocked full of cardboard characters. The film was a filthy attempt to contort and force the emotions of the lowest common denominator. An striking example of this film's attempt to grab people and literally wrench the tears out of them come with the scene where the frozen, dead mother cradles her frozen child in her arms. Had this scene been in any fillm where the emotions were not completely artificial, I would have cried. But the fact is that this film was devoid of any real, heart-felt emotion. So when I saw this scene, I felt nauseous and grew full of spite. I now loathe Cameron for his utterly plastic, inhumane protrayal of the Titanic disaster. Yet it appears he tapped a class of people bountiful enough to garner Titanic in excess of 600 million dollars in the states alone. I never knew America was so replete with people of such bad taste, people who would not only like, but view repeatedly this sad excuse for cinema. I weeped after seeing Titanic, but not do to its shoddy screenplay or horrifically unrealistic acting and emotions. I weeped for America, and the death of American filmmaking. I weeped knowing that such a film could garner accolades and billions of dollars, and that this bounty would push studios to make bigger films with smaller characters, crappy scripts and pretty faces devoid of ability that would pack seats no matter the quality of the film. (Here comes the TITANIC melodrama.) I could see a future where Coppola, Kubrick, and Malick stood on the gallows, pleading to the masses, now anesthetised and made prostrate by Springer and the numerous Titanic sequels. The directors voiced there thoughts on the death of intellect in America, then the masses let them hang as they chanted "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!"
Cue "My Heart Will Go On" and the sobbing girls.