News Taffy

Hey ya’ll! I’ve been avoiding that greeting all this time because I feel really southern when I say it or in this case write it, but I couldn’t help myself. This week I cast aside my better judgment and decided to go see Titanic 3D. Normally I would steer clear of the 3D option (I saw Wrath of the Titans in real D or what I like to call regular) mostly because of frugality but also because I don’t think it really makes that big of a difference. There’s only ever been a couple of movies where I was like “Oh that knife looked like it was gonna hit me in my face,” so I’d rather just save my money, but this week I figured I’d give Titanic a chance. James Cameron is an incredible director and obviously he knows how to deliver a great movie (I think we all remember Avatar), but could he really change my opinion of 3D movies? Keep reading and find out.

In case you’ve been hiding under a really big rock since 1997, most of you probably already know the story of the unsinkable Titanic, but for that one person under a rock I’ll briefly recap the plot. Rose (Kate Winslet) is a young woman stuck in an unfulfilled life of society’s standards and mind-numbing parties where nobody talks about anything except how fabulous they are. She is also engaged to be married to the biggest jerk on the planet, Cal, a rich man with an anger problem and an ego complex. On a particularly bad night for Rose, she ends up on the stern of the ship contemplating suicide when Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young artist, comes to her rescue and the rest as they say, is history. She’s rich, he’s poor but they fall for each other anyway, sneaking around seeing each other and seriously aggravating her mother (who is a real treat) and Cal. One night Rose asks Jack to draw her wearing a necklace (The Heart of the Ocean) that Cal gave her and nothing else. He draws her, they run from Cal’s bodyguard; hide in a car where things get real steamy and when they finally come out for air…CRASH!!! Titanic hits an iceberg and the unsinkable ship starts to sink—fast.

There’s a whole bunch of drama that happens from the time the water starts to rush in and when the Titanic takes its final resting place at the bottom of the ocean, but the movie’s real tear jerker moment is Jack’s pep talk when they’re waiting to be rescued in the water and he tells Rose that she won’t die now but later, after she’s had lots of babies and when she’s old and warm in her bed. Then there’s all that I’ll never let go stuff and well you know the rest. But did the 3D technology make any difference? Ummm…that’s debatable.

There were some scenes where you could definitely tell there was more depth like when Rose first steps out of the car and sees Titanic for the first time, or when the ship is going down and all the people are falling into the water hitting things on the way down. But there were also times when I lifted up my annoying 3D glasses only to find that things looked exactly the same. So is it worth it…I say not really. The movie itself is a perfect 10, but the 3D effects don’t make it any better, which frankly is not surprising.

What did surprise me what the amount of children that had to be under the age of 10 that were there. I was sitting next to two boys who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine and I was shocked. I remember my mom making me leave the room during a couple of parts (you know the parts) when she was watching it on VHS at home, but I guess things have gotten a lot more liberal since I was young. Anyway, the ship is still big, the iceberg still gets in the way and it all goes down after that, literally. Save yourself the extra $2.50 and go find the original in one of those $5 bins at Walmart and enjoy.

This weekend I might go see The Cabin in the Woods, and then it’s only one more week until The Lucky One, which I’m really excited about.

Until next time,
Raven