Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox, Rated PG-13
Written and Directed by James Cameron

This film, already one of the top 10 grossers in the U.S., has the ultimate crossover audience appeal. There's hardly any demographic it's not targeting (except perhaps young children). So much has been written about it that I think you know the story by now. The love story part is probably the least interesting. It's quite contrived and whoever thought Leonardo DiCaprio could play more than one character was sadly mistaken. What makes this movie is 1) the special effects (for once, I had no idea how they were done until I saw something about it on Tom Snyder's "Late Late Show") which are put to the best use I've ever seen in any film. Not even the Visual Effects category at the Oscars is safe (which I previously thought would go to "Starship Troopers" or "Men in Black"). 2) Cameron's marvelous cinematography which puts you on the ship with the passengers. The shot after DiCaprio's character (see how forgettable his acting is?) spreads his arms out in front of the ship is amazing as is the often shown shot going from under to over DiCaprio and Rose (Kate Winslet) as the ship is going down and people are falling into the ocean. Never before have we seen in film what it's like to know you have less than an hour to live. 3) The fact that Cameron tells us how the ship sinks early on gets rid of needlessly contrived dialogue that explains what's happening, and we get to see almost every corner of the ship before and after the Titanic hits that iceberg. It's not as great as what your friends tell you (for those of you who haven't seen it, these friends probably skipped L.A. Confidential), but it's still as close as Cameron will get to a masterpiece (which this is far from being). ***

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