Love him or hate him, Plinkett sure is opinionated, and makes some good points. Here's his new review of Titanic. And surprisingly, he doesn't completely hate it: http://redlettermedia.com/mr-plinkett-review-titanic/
I always like these reviews. He brought up some good points though. That said Titanic was always 'meh' for me.
How many times does he repeat that the Jack/Rose romance wasn't realistic because "women don't act like that" and/or "women always go for the rich guy"? I'm not sure I can subject myself to that sexist ******* even when he's reviewing a movie that I don't like.
Well he does make one very good point....Rose is always the smartest person in the room (buying Picasso paintings, knowing who Sigmund Freud was, discussing the lack of lifeboats with Andrews, rebelling against her mother's "proper place" mentality)...and then she meets Jack, and suddenly doesn't know how to swing an axe. Immediately Jack becomes the brains of the duo, so much so that she wouldn't have survived if it weren't for him explaining how hypothermia works, how the vacuum of a sinking ship would pull them down, etc. If it weren't for a handful of scenes in which Jack actually interacts with other characters while not in Rose's presence, I could argue that Jack never actually existed in the first place, and was merely a hallucination brought on by Rose losing her mind with the First Classers ("Outwardly, I was everything a well brought up girl should be, inwardly I was screaming"). Sure she had the portrait, but who knows....she's already got a history of art appreciation (Picasso!), so it's possible she drew it herself. EDIT -- And then there is the scene in which Andrews sets the clock and urges Rose to get to a lifeboat....Jack is standing right next to her, but Andrews never so much as looks at him...as if he wasn't even there.... EDIT 2 -- WAIT....the entire sinking was OLD ROSE'S STORY. She was telling Bill Paxton, Granddaughter, and Beard Guy what happened. So any time Jack interacts with any other characters without her being there is all IN HER HEAD. THE JACK IS A LIE THE JACK IS A LIE THE JACK IS A LIE
Probably my least favorite of his reviews because what is there to say about Titanic? It's a good movie with some shallow and realistic characters, the end. I found their behind-the-scenes making-of video unaccountably interesting, though.
And Saving Private Ryan was framed as a flashback even though Ryan doesn't even show up until 3/4 of the way through! NORMANDY IS A LIE
Not really....Reiben and Upham both survived, and I'm sure would have told him the entire story, especially since Reiben was pissed off at Ryan over the loss of Wade and Private Vin Diesel to rescue his ass, and Upham probably confessed everything while curled up naked and crying in a corner somewhere.
Strange that he hates on Avatar for being too long when it has a shorter running time (178mins max) than Titanic does (194mins), and it was a far more revolutionary movie than Titanic pretended to be. He also compares it to Star Wars by saying that was a breath of fresh air with a simple story in an era of long tedious pretentious sci-fi movies when Titanic itself is a long tedious movie, having a simple plot doesn't make it interesting. But the stuff with the imprisoned Na'vi and the Titanic Snowglobe was funny. I don't agree with his argument that DiCaprio is a bad actor. OK he wasn't great early on but since he's worked with guys like Scorsese & Nolan he has become much better. I do agree with what he said about Cameron's strength as a director being sci-fi and action movies not period romance dramas.
Knowing how to swing an axe with accuracy has absolutely no bearing on intelligence. Mythbusters busted that thing about the vacuum of a sinking ship, and I don't think his explaining hypothermia was anything she didn't know or that saved her life. All of those things are totally inconsequential, and I don't think Jack was the intellectual star of that relationship in any way. Actually, I agree with the school that sees Jack as a manic pixie dream guy. He's there to facilitate her growth as a character, but he's definitely not the "brains of the duo." Scorcese and Nolan have both worked with terrible actors without rehabilitating them. DiCaprio's really not that great.
Dani, you're breaking my heart! As time has gone on, my love for Titanic has turned into just like. Honestly if it's on TV I just wait to the boat hits the iceberg to start watching the movie.
Stoklasa sees overuse of CGI as a unimaginative and lazy. It's why he ripped into the opening shot of Revenge of the Sith ("This ain't no Goodfellas shot") and continues to use his own meme of George Lucas reclining back in a directors chair while drinking coffee while his actors walk back and forth in front of a blue or green screen.
Except the PT's CGI effects were often poor, Avatar's on the whole were not. Why make models when you can create world and creatures that look like real life with a computer far more easily? Just because some movies didn't do it right that doesn't mean CGI is a bad idea. I don't see why anyone would like either Avatar or Titanic and dislike the other, they are both almost the same aside from one being sci-fi (and made up) and the other not (only a little bit made up). IMO both are too long & often tedious, over-hyped, over-rated, over-achieving movies which Cameron and much of the general public hail as being way more awesome than they really are. But both have excellent visual scenes and some good acting performances despite the dodgy dialogue.
I would argue that Avatar did not look like real life. Looked more like a cartoon forest blended with CGI straight from Jurassic Park III.
I agree with that. The problem with a lot of CGI is that it simply looks fake. I mean, like TPM. The Battle of Grassy Plain or whatever the **** it's called, for example. I mean, that looked in no way real. It just screamed artificial.
Weta's stuff on the whole is very good, just look at Gollum in TH & LOTR. He looks like part of that world, he is as real as the actors are. Compare that to CG Yoda in the PT, looks more fake than puppet Yoda in the OT. So CGI can work and look real, if you do it right. Avatar didn't have totally phto-realistic stuff, but it looked much better than most other movies packed with CGI. Titanic is old school combining models and sets merely enhanced with some CGI , like the first Jurassic Park (which still looks good 20 years on) did. That is how most movies should be made IMO.
Actually, if I look at Gollum in LotR now he doesn't look like he's there. Or at least, he's not as integrated as I felt he was ten years ago. It's subtle, and nothing like as noticeable as many other CGI creations (which is a great tribute to Weta), but even he has lost something. His treatment in AUJ is much better, but I suppose that's part of the problem with CGI... because the technology is advancing so quickly the end products don't hold up for quite as long as those created physically generally do.
True, stuff that is physically real tends to look that way for longer because, well, it actually is real (sort of). Not that stuff looking fake makes movies bad, classics like The Day The Earth Stood Still or Forbidden Planet have stuff that looks really fake but are still good movies. With modern movies though I get that people who really want to be drawn in to something will momentarily (or frequently if it happens a lot) be returned to reality by something that clearly stands out as artificial.