80. Titanic (1997)
I know, I know, there are several reasons to hate this film: the "Leo" phenom, that damned Celine Dion song, the fact that James Cameron is still an asshole. I know all that, but I just can't hate this film. When I judge it as a movie alone (putting aside the hype and biases), its a pretty good film. It has solid performances from a charming, even great cast. Its visuals are enticing and its story (while very formulaic and full of cliches) is fairly decent. Sure, it won so many awards you wanted to throttle it until it died and yes, that "My Heart Will Go On" followed people wherever they went (literally, that song was everywhere!). But despite that, this film is better than the credit it is sometimes given (not as good as the hype made it, but not many films do live up to the hype).
The story begins with a group of deep sea treasure hunters (led by Bill Paxton) searching the Atlantic for the HMS Titanic. They begin to find debris when an old woman (former silent screen star Gloria Stuart) contacts them claiming to be a survivor of the Titanic disaster. Her name is Rose (flashback to her younger self, the always great Kate Winslet) and, boy, does she have a tale to tell. She came from a family of wealth and was sailing on the great ship with her mother and future fiancee (brooding Billy Zane). On the boat, she meets stowaway Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the romance begins. They are from two different worlds but thier love strives to survive anything. SPOILER ALERT: And then the ship hits the iceberg. The second half of the 3 hour movie deals mostly with the sinking of the ship and shows how the two did everything they could to live through it. SPOILER ALERT: Unfortunately, Jack couldn't make it but Rose did and was able to start life anew. Full of cliches, yes, but it is one of the few 3 hour-plus films I like.
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