The Flick Filosopher responds:
The costumes were wonderful, but that's not enough to make for a great movie for me.

citizen_kevin@hotmail.com writes:
I went back and reread your Deep Impact review (a sad lonely life I live) and here's what I think of that film: Deep Impact is a surprisingly unaffecting, boring, unrealistic film.

1. The fact that a teenager can find a new dot in the sky and the government can't?
2. The fact that after getting the coordinates of this dot, an adult grabs his cell phone and goes charging for his car and drives wildly down a mountain not even bothering to look at the road. And at the same time a semi-truck, of all things, is coming up the mountain, too. That had to be the most boring and predictable scene of the whole film.
3. People's response to their impending doom is surprisingly Zen and monklike. They seem to not care, or just sit and [look] teary eyed at the TV.
4. The lack of any anarchy or riots or mass suicide, things that happen in real life, even when there's no f*cking comet headed at us.
5. The fact that the government was able to make the most powerful, most sophisticated spaceship ever built in one year. And it's so great it can even ride through a comet's tail.
6. And the second telegraphed scene is the one on the comet. A flat scene lacking any suspense.
7. The old veteran and rebellious young crew. Been done, nothing new or exciting here. This cliché will no doubt be done better in the future, or I may want to be killed by a comet if it's done this bad again.
8. Too many characters! It's not that I couldn't keep track of them all, it seemed that the movie had trouble with that. Not enough time was given to each character.
9. And of course the serious drama I hoped it would be [sic], I was shocked to see Elijah Wood outrunning a tidal wave on a motorcycle and getting to higher ground. And that his parents seemed to not care that he was about to risk his life and go get his girl. Which if the girl and her family had died would have caused some emotion to overcome me. Which leads me to....
10. I didn't care about the people at all. Like I stated, too many and not enough time to develop them, give them personality.
11. The script is unforgivable. It wastes compelling material. It wastes what could have been smart, realistic characters. It dumbed it down. It dumbed from what it could have been.
12. The direction by Mimi Leder is way off. She doesn't know when to give the film a kick start or how to slow it down. She needs more experience, at least needs more than The Peacemaker.
13. How come the president was on TV looking so sloppy? Sleeves pushed up to his elbows and such. You'd think he'd get fixed up for what will be his last speech to many and too many more who are losing loved ones.
14. Here's what is most likely a dumb ass question, why was the traffic so backed up? You'd think that people would be moving as fast possible yet it's so backed up.
15. And why do the parents think that Elijah and his girlfriend can raise the kid up healthy?
16. And my last complaint is the ending. It seems like the last reel was cut off, so anticlimactic.

The Flick Filosopher responds:
Okay, bear in mind I haven't seen the movie since the spring, so forgive me if I'm a little off on what I remember about it.
If the government isn't looking for "a new dot in the sky," it isn't going to find anything. Remember when Deep Impact and Armageddon were first released? They stirred up a lot of debate about how the governments of the world are doing nothing to prepare for the kinds of inevitable events both movies depicted. The fact remains that most discoveries of this type are made by amateurs.
The guy who "drives wildly down a mountain" had just made the most important discovery in human history -- I think anyone would be a little excited. Have you seen most morons on their cell phones in their cars? They nearly cause accidents just yacking to their friends about what's on TV tonight.
The Zen folk and lack of riots: Rioters and suicides are the wack jobs. Sure, there would be that kind of reaction to the planet's impending doom. But I bet most people would be pretty calm -- after all, running around yelling and screaming isn't going to help. One of the things I liked about Deep Impact is that it focused on ordinary people, not the ones who go flying off the deep end at the slightest provocation.
As for the "sophisticated spaceship," I wouldn't be surprised to discover today advanced spaceships on the drawing boards of not only government institutions but also defense and shuttle contractors. Building it quick and skimping on testing mightn't be safe, but when that's the planet's only hope, you do what you gotta do. And the material in a comet's tail is so dispersed and thin, I don't think traveling through it would be a problem. In fact, Deep Impact got a lot of the science right.
"Elijah Wood outrunning a tidal wave": The tidal wave was being slowed down by its travel over land at that time -- I didn't have a problem with that. And his life was already at risk, even in the tunnel system -- you think that would have been a particularly pleasant or safe way to live, with the survivors outside banging on the doors and those inside struggling to survive? And the girl's family did die.
Mimi Leder's direction: I love Mimi Leder and I thought the film's pace was just fine. If you want an overblown action movie, go see Armageddon.
"How come the president was on TV looking so sloppy?": Um, because he was under enormous stress? Because he didn't want to waste precious time cleaning up?
"Why was the traffic so backed up?": Where do you live? Nowhere near a big city, I'd venture. Things called bottlenecks -- like where two 4-lane highways merge into one 4-lane highway, in other words, eight lanes merging down to four -- back up traffic even when everyone wants to get somewhere. Accidents and disabled vehicles block lanes, making everyone have to go around them, slowing down traffic. Hell, a few speeding cars suddenly hitting the brakes when they see a cop in the distance on a highway can have a ripple effect as the drivers behind them brake, and then the drivers behind them, and so on, causing huge backups. Until you've driven on the Long Island Expressway or L.A. freeways, reserve your judgment on traffic.
"Why do the parents think that Elijah and his girlfriend can raise the kid up healthy?": The alternative is letting the baby die with them in the tidal wave. Which would you choose?
"The only good thing were the effects.": Funny, I thought the effects could have been better. They looked a little blue-screeny at times.
"Ties with Titanic for worst of all time.": Sorry, I liked Titanic, too.

citizen_kevin@hotmail.com rides again:
I'm so glad to see you can intelligently defend your review. Most people act like assholes when they hear from someone with a different viewpoint (I admit I do it, too). But I also meant to write to you about Titanic. Now, pardon me while I launch myself into a boring ramble:

1. James Cameron has made many interesting screen romances, from The Abyss to the Terminator films. I just thought Leo and Kate's was a little flat. The Abyss tackled two people falling in love after a failed marriage and obviously painful divorce. Yet, he carefully and beautifully brought them back together. Titanic has a romance straight out of the old 50s films. Which is not bad, but when nothing new is brought to it, it fizzles quickly. The idea of people meeting somewhere romantic, but also meeting under uncomfortable situations (Rose's suicide attempt) and them falling in love seemed to be contrived.
2. Adding something new would have been to have older leads, having the man being the sad and low one and have a woman come along and save him, to teach him how to have fun again. That and many other possible romances could have been used but Cameron instead he goes for the simple one, two young attractive people. This seems like it's supposed to be all the more tragic because they have their whole lives ahead, when having an older couple rediscover love then die as soon as happiness finds them. That seems more tragic.
3. The beginning seemed very promising. A movie about the construction, the hype and hope surrounding this ship and then its destruction and years and decades later talking in the present day with a young boy who was on the ship and watched his family die or with a construction worker would have been insightful and more interesting.
4. What are the actors given to work with? Kate, who's done great work in Heavenly Creatures and Jude, is given nothing more to do than look angry, sad, and happy. Leo, who I liked in The Basketball Diaries and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, does nothing more than tell Rose about his Bob Dylan life ("I'm just a tumbleweed blowing in the wind"), teach her how to have fun, look handsome and make the girls swoon, and then die.
5. The only interesting characters I could find were Bill Paxton's and Kathy Bates's. And you're right, Bill Paxton is a wonderful actor and I can't wait to [see] A Simple Plan.

The Flick Filosopher responds:
I'll admit that Titanic's romance is rather conventional -- it's the setting that makes it unusual. Titanic is different, though, in the respect that it has a love story in which the man and woman are the same age. I get awfully tired of seeing beautiful young women with men old enough to be their fathers or grandfathers.
Titanic is partly tragic, but it's also celebratory. Rose became the dynamic, adventurous old woman we meet in the framing story because of her short, intense relationship with Jack. That aspect of the story would have been missing if Rose had been at the end of her life when she fell in love with Jack instead of at the beginning (we also couldn't have had the same contemporary framing story with the salvagers if Rose wasn't still alive today). Also, I'm sick of sappy, sentimental movies in which people declare they'll never love again, life is over, etc., now that their true love is gone. Bull. Life goes on after people we love die, whether we like it or not. Titanic not only acknowledges that fact but celebrates it and shows that it can be worth living.
"A movie about the construction...": You can make that argument about any given movie. It was different, it would be different.
I thought both lead actors were fine. Winslet was like a bubbling cauldron of desperation just waiting to boil over. DiCaprio in Titanic appears to be playing himself but it's obvious from his other roles that, like Bill Paxton, he is so good at playing ordinary guys that it looks like he's not even trying. And the poor guy can't help that teenagers think he's cute, and I'm sure no one, least of all DiCaprio, could have predicted the effect Jack Dawson was going to have on all those girls. If I recall, he wasn't a huge star before Titanic.
As for other interesting characters, what about Victor Garber as the master shipbuilder? He had that exquisite moment when the ship is listing, and he knows he and his ship are dying, and like a delicate caress, he adjusts the minute hand on a clock on a mantle. That moment blew me away, and I became an instant fan of his.
And how about the guy (can't remember the actor or character's names, darn) who was the White Star representative, who pushes the ship's captain to force Titanic beyond her limits in hopes of big headlines and then cheats his way onto a lifeboat? When we see him shivering under a blanket while the ship goes down behind him, you can see on his face that he hates himself for being such a coward. (He got his headlines, though...)
Titanic isn't the best film ever made, but it's probably one of the best big-budget blockbusters ever made. Sure, it's overblown and hyperbolic and all those things Cameron gets accused of, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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