This one should draw the crowds, like nothing else has recently, but that really doesn't say much. My girlfrien, who hates screening movies with me that late, thought this one was really good. The romance was touching at times, and the battle scene was nice.

I hope the boys "Aflec and the others" make their money back.

-Will (don't believe the hype) morrow.
 

I will grant it this, the battle scene, (where'd that 45min battle scene crap come from?) was decent, but unlike another poster, you could see the CGI in lots of the aerial battle shots, especially the ones in the airfileds between the buildings, etc...

Anyway, as I was saying, the film, overall, was a 2/5 due to the over-involvment of the love story. This, we could have done without. Too bad, fo me, this was the SOLE film I was looking forward to this year. Guess I missed the boat again. Oh well, there's always next year....

------------------
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!
 

**1. Did the movie live up to the hype?

**2. Do you think it's a Titanic wannabe?

**3. What did you think of the sound mix?

**4. Does anyone actually think Michael Bay is a good film maker?

My answers:
1. No. Certainly no one actually expected it to.
2. Yes.
3. Crap.
4. Hell no. Though if he could break Jerry Bruckheimer's leash he *may* be able to show some potential. But those two seem joined at the hip.

This Movie would have been so much better if was only 60 minutes long. The actual action scenes, thats it! Thats all!

------------------
--Sean McKinnon
Asst. Manager/Projectionist
Gloucester Cinema 1-2-3
 

Like Aldo, I'm not a big fan of Bay's. This is mainly because he directs action movies like MTV videos. He's stylish with the camera movements and the slo-mo when he shouldn't be, but I also figured with the subject material, and a script by Randall Wallace (Braveheart), he just might settle down with the bullshit shots. I couldn't be more wrong.

With Zimmer's score and Bay's direction, Pearl Harlor sometimes felt like The Rock or Armageddon set in a WWII frame. In particular the scenes with the Japanese invasion planning, the Code Breakers, and the President talking to his Staff members. Quick cuts, flashy strobes, tracking shots and severe close ups with Zimmer's overdone Crimson Tidish music. I'm really surprised Michael Bay didn't have Roosevelt and his Staff walk into the Oval Office in slow motion a la The Right Stuff or Reservoir Dogs. But let me just point out at least two more instances in Bay's ability to compose irritating, of not plain weird, shots.

First, there's a shot in the White House about maybe ten minutes after the attack first starts. We leave the invasion with the big man who was boxing with Cuba Gooding Jr. in the beginning of the film being trapped in a flooding compartment of the Arizona. After he is submerged and his death clearly is evident, we cut to an old White House Aide running to give the President word of the bombarding at Pearl Harbor. It is almost laughable because the height of the camera is just below crotch level, and just when we think the old man's privates are about to run into the camera's lens, they tilt up to an absurd low angle shot of the old man running. Needless to say, I found this rather odd if not somewhat distracting. Just as I'm immersed into the action and devastation wrought by the Japanese, I suddenly start to wonder just how close and personal I'm going to get with this running old man's genitals. Now was that supposed to happen? Gives a whole new meaning to the term HEAD ON shot doesn't it? (I had to take advantage of that! Groan all you want.)

The next ill composed shot is actually a series of shots, but they all take place in the same locale. The hospital. Things are happening fast and chaos is rampant as the wounded are rushed in masses overwhelming the nurses. It makes ER look like a practice lab. You have to give the audience the doctors and nurses' sense of confusion yet also strength in this crisis. How does Bay accomplish this? To better depict the disorder, the lens blurs. No my friends. It is not the projector. It is Bay at his best. And it is bad. I was hoping that would only be an effect limited to the trailer, but it occurs intermittently, and it is beyond frustrating. Bay was probably trying to pull off something similar to the audio level dropping in Private Ryan when Tom Hanks would lose his focus during some of the battle scenes, only Bay is trying to do it visually. In order to give you insight into the character's lack of focus amidst a sea of agony he literally makes the audience lose focus. So the optic effect just seems like such a cop out. I almost wish his excuse was that he went overbudget, the hospital scenes were the last scenes to be shot, and they found out the next day during the dailies that one of the elements in the camera's anamorphic lens was cracked, but couldn't reshoot the footage, so they decided to blur the rest in post in a desperate attempt to look artistic. That would have been more respectable. But alas I feel the effect was premeditated, and therefore a screw up on Bay's part.

I was told by someone that Bay had on at least four occasions threatened to walk out on the project because the studio wouldn't give him the budget he wanted. I really which he'd have been allowed to walk out. The action scenes were great, and it seems painfully obvious most of ILM's staff was dedicated to this project more than to Mummy Returns. Bay's films look good. He has a wonderful D.P. But in the end, it's wasted on Bay's sense of direction, or lack there of.

So I think the movie sucks. And it's all Bay's fault. But at least the Lord of the Rings trailer looks cool.

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The man with the magic hands.

please define "crap" for the sound: you mean poor sound editing? poor sound effects? Zimmer's score ? ??

Also wished Steven or even Petersen had done it but hey, there are 3 no-nos for a real, "à la SPR" movie behind: DISNEY ( which must appeal to its teenagers/families public too ) BAY-BRUKY so, I'm not surprised at all.
3hrs is way to long, 140min would have been acceptable and fair.
thanks

 

"In April 1942, we bombed whomever and ... died"

"This person and that person lived happily ever after"

"The war ended with the bombing of Hiroshima on ..." (I'm sorry, I don't remember the exact date)

"God Bless all those who fought and died for our country during this war"

"Have a nice day, please pick up and dispose of your trash on the way out"

The last hour I felt was just plain boring.
 

In other respects, the love story was forced, there was too much cheezy dialogue throughout the film (some that is supposed to be uplifting, but just made us all laugh) and the script seemed as if it had been rewritten about 30 times to make sure that no cliche was left out. Visually though the film does look very nice with one exception...the panicked hospital scenes. Someone really should explain to whoever was responsible that effects should not be overused. The entire sequence in the hospital during the Pearl Harbor bombing appears to have been shot with 2 containers of Vaseline on the lens! It looks like shit and was exceedingly annoying. On the flip side, the special effects by ILM are first rate! Apparently there were only 25 prints made in dye transfer. That is a damned shame.

By the way, did anyone else keep thinking that Ben Affleck was actually Kevin Costner with the way he spoke and his mannerisms in this movie?

buying TORA TORA TORA new edition this weekend!
 

Paul.
 

I haven't seen the film and the earliest possibility will be if Mike B. books it at his theatre in Forsthe MT 90 miles from here; if not there then on DVD. I see from other posts that there are some "premium prints" around [IB-tech?] which are in booths run by film-techers so for a new Mission Impossible we have to see if there might be some way that Mike could get one of these specially shipped direct out of 1st-run. 4 prints reported to be in one place. Makes your mouth water!

Disney needs $140-Million just to make back the negative on this one, never mind the print costs. "Heaven's Gate," the bomb which sunk United Artists, didn't even make enough in theatres to recover the print costs. I ran it back when I was a projectionist and the 12 full 2000' reels in 3 cans were sent back after just one week, engagement cancelled.

We'll all know in a couple of weeks if "PH" is the "Heaven's Gate" of Disney in Year 2001.

As for show times, I count (for Friday), 104 showings of the film, and if an average of 300 see each show, that's over 30,000 admissions. Over a 4 day weekend, its entirely possible that over 100,000 could see this film in this area.

Mark L.
 

Josh
 

Why can't they give this guy another decent role?

Jeez...he was in Paul Hogan's 'Lightning Jack'...isn't that punishment enough???

------------------
Children really brighten up your life...they never turn off lights.
 

On the sound mix, yes, I found parts of it to be really disappointing. Some passages of dialog on some quieter scenes were so badly recorded that I looked up into the booth to make sure the DTS unit was still engaged. Even the print playing in a THX house seemed to lack some oomph to it. I have heard much better bass in other movies. There was lots of surround activity, which I did like, but there were a lot of parts to it that really did sound compressed like others have observed.

Do I think the movie is a "Titanic" wannabe? Yes, and it was a stupid marketing move at that. This could have been a really serious and entertaining war movie without the cheapo soap-opera like love triangle. But I guess Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay decided they had to do that to get the females into the box office. Here is a clue for those guys: "Saving Private Ryan" made over $200 million without any love story happening.

Also, "Titanic" had a far better screenplay and actors with much higher degrees of talent to carry the lead roles. Ben Affleck is really a movie star type personality and not what I would call a real actor. He is just eye candy for teen age girls and will likely only play hero and love interest roles. Would he take a very unflattering role like his friend Matt Damon did in "The Talented Mr. Ripley"? I doubt it. And I doubt that he could pull it off either.

Now, I really have to say something critical about the directorial style of Michael Bay. Can this fellow get through one single scene of a film without a swooping crane shot? I mean, damn, his last two movies (this one and "Armageddon") don't feel like movies at all. They play more like movie trailers, music videos or TV commericals. All of the camera trickery and movement just squashes out any chance of the actors delivering good performances or letting the screenplay speak for itself.

Some critics have dubbed this kind of directorial style as "post human" and I agree 100%. Guys like Michael Bay and John Woo are far more in love with fancy camera moves and making their shots look pretty than actually making a real movie. In the end, their work is basically a lot of cake icing and no cake underneath.
 

Blame Disney for that one, they were the ones kissing Bruckhimer/Bay's ass to keep the project going and they INSISTED it be PG-13 so the teen girls can go see Ben Assflex' pretty-boy face...

-Aaron

 

Mention of "celluloid" will be observed here. Regardless of the precise technical nuances of what the term means, it seems to be glued into synonymity with "film" in the public mind, and this isn't going to change any time soon.

.............................

Why ‘Pearl Harbor’ Won’t Bomb
Disney’s new war epic is one for the ages.

May 30, 2001 -- Opinion Journal

By SETH LIPSKY

The reader should be forewarned that my taste in movies has never run to the art films. My lifetime favorite is “Around the World in Eighty Days.” But after discounting for that fact, let me say that with respect to “Pearl Harbor,” I just don’t know what in Sam Hill the reviewers are talking about. I saw the Disney war epic over the weekend. It would be a disservice if I reported that the film is anything but fabulous--one of the best rainy day afternoons I can recall.

I should say at the start that I went with a party of six, including three boys between the ages of seven and 10. We went to the 5:45 p.m. showing at the Tri-Plex in Great Barrington, Mass. We had taken the precaution of purchasing tickets late in the morning, which turns out to have been a good idea, because by 5:30, when we got there, it was impossible to get near the ticket counter. The place was what could only be called mobbed.

That the crush to get in had been precipitated by one of the most uniformly negative batch of reviews since the invention of celluloid was not lost on those jostling to get in. “Pearl Harbor” was panned in the local paper, The Berkshire Eagle, as well as the Daily News, the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, which found the love triangle “ludicrous,” the dialog “leaden.” One Eric Harrison, writing in the Houston Chronicle, actually opened his review with a little disquisition marveling on Leni Riefenstahl and her mastery of cinema as a propaganda tool.

“It may be heretical to say so,” quoth the Chronicle, “but Michael Bay, the director of ‘Pearl Harbor’ and other equally bombastic and manipulative action movies, may be Riefenstahl’s equal in his ability to marshal resources for the advancement of unworthy causes.” Young Harrison goes on to concede that Mr. Bay isn’t selling anything as monstrous as Nazism. “But, appearances aside, he isn’t selling anything noble, either,” he writes, going on to assert that he is “pushing nothing more or less than a vision of America comprising equal parts of Norman Rockwell, romance novels, patriotic old war movies and MTV.”

It seems to me that when a movie reviewer writes about a movie “appearances aside,” it’s a little bit like Mark Twain’s famous remark about how Wagner’s music isn’t as bad as it sounds. But I digress. When someone in the packed theater lobby remarked on the contrast between the reviews and the crowd, a lady a few feet away called out, “I was just thinking the same thing.” And someone else muttered that he’d like to see what would have happened had the reviewers praised the film.

Anyhow, if it turns out that there was a sudden run-up in the world price of raw sugar over the weekend, it may be because my gang hit the counter where the Tri-Plex sells candy by the pound. We managed to get it and the popcorn and drinks to our fifth row seats by hauling it in with a makeshift sledge. I just mention that because a surprising thing happened during the movie, which is that the popcorn went unfinished and the candy was abandoned.

The munching stopped almost the moment the movie began, meaning about the time young Rafe and Danny accidentally started up that old crop-duster and found themselves bouncing down the runway. The scene in which Rafe meets his girl while dropping his drawers for an inoculation in the rear end was met with great hilarity. There were also a few questions about whether that was really what it was like when one got inducted into the army. I had to explain that I got inoculated by a gun-like contraption wielded by the medical equivalent of Rosie the Riveter. But if this lack of verisimilitude bothered anyone, it wasn’t me.

Nor was there a single complaint during the development of the love triangle all the reviewers have been complaining about. I don’t know what it is about the concept of a love triangle that has upset the reviewers. Maybe they reckon the device was ruined by Shakespeare. Or the makers of Casablanca. But I looked down the row and every single kid--not to mention the neighboring adults--was leaning forward in his chair or looking otherwise absorbed in the big screen. What better way, it seems to me, than one of those confounded love triangles to illuminate the undeniable fact that war is bigger than any of us.

The battle footage was stunning. Even the reviewers are conceding that point. I was a bit concerned that the seven-year-old would get a bit nervous, so I kept leaning over and saying, “Watch for the cook, watch for the cook.” This was a reference to Cuba Gooding Jr.’s portrayal of the hero Dorie Miller, who, in the most desperate moments of the attack, emerged from the galley to take over an anti-aircraft gun and bring down one of the Japanese planes. The reviewers are of the opinion that the inclusion of this African-American holder of the Navy Cross was a cynical bow to political correctness, but it’s hard to imagine a telling of the Pearl Harbor story without this hero.

Or, for that matter, FDR. The reviewers are also upset at Jon Voight’s portrayal of the 32nd president, particularly the scene in which Roosevelt has gathered his aides to plot a counter-attack on Tokyo. When he is told that it can’t be done, he reaches under the table and moves his legs to the floor from the wheel chair and then, brushing his valet aside, pulls himself to a standing positions and tells his staff never to tell him that something can’t be done. I’d go a second time for that scene alone.

As for James Doolittle, I thought it was the movie’s best touch. It moved the whole thing beyond the American defeat, and it did so in a way that gripped the lads I was with, right down to their socks. Afterward, at the ice cream parlor, they started asking questions about the history of World War II. This carried on much of the weekend. Their mothers are likely to be shopping for books on the topic. As we headed back to the car, my brother leaned over and asked me if I remembered our father’s friend Howard Corbin taking us to see Audie Murphy playing himself in “To Hell and Back.” The fact is I could remember almost every detail, even to the point of us getting Howard to haul out the medals he himself had won in the war. If “Pearl Harbor” proves to be half as memorable for our boys as that long ago trip to the cinema was for us, well, let’s just say it would be hard to place a value on the price of admission.

Mr. Lipsky is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Wednesdays.

|===========================|

‘Pearl Harbor’ Performs Very Well, But Doesn’t Set Box-Office Records

May 29, 2001 -- Media & Marketing

By JOHN LIPPMAN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

LOS ANGELES -- Walt Disney Co.’s much-hyped “Pearl Harbor” performed extraordinarily well during its first weekend in movie theaters, but fell short of a widely predicted shattering of box-office records.

The big-budget holiday movie sold an estimated $75.1 million in tickets over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. That’s about 6% higher than “Mission: Impossible 2” did over the same period last year, but much less than the $90.2 million record set by “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” in 1997. After taking into account inflation of ticket prices, “Pearl Harbor” appears to have drawn only incrementally higher audiences into theaters -- if that -- than “Mission: Impossible 2” did last year.

Nonetheless, Disney executives pronounced the $140 million budget “Pearl Harbor” a success, saying the movie’s box-office performance met expectations and is on track eventually to make a profit. “It did every bit as good as we thought it would, perhaps a shade more than we thought possible” because of its length, said Chuck Viane, president of Disney’s distribution arm. “Pearl Harbor” is nearly three hours long, and most theaters can schedule it only three times a day, compared with four to five times a day for most other movies.

But perhaps the more interesting development over the long holiday weekend was the continued strong performance of the children’s computer-animated movie “Shrek,” produced by DreamWorks SKG. The box office for “Shrek” actually rose for the Friday-through-Sunday period, pulling in a total of $42.5 million, compared with $42.3 million over the previous weekend. Ticket sales usually decline for movies on their second weekend. “It’s incredible,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “That’s a film that could surpass the $200 million mark.” When a movie performs better on the second weekend, that usually means it benefits from good “word of mouth,” and suggests a broader and repeat audience.

|===========================|

Box-Office Blowouts

Top five films opening over Memorial Day weekends.

MOVIE YEAR WEEKEND TOTAL (millions) The Lost World: Jurassic Park 1997 $90.2 Pearl Harbor 2001 75.1* Mission: Impossible 2 2000 70.8 Mission: Impossible 1996 56.8 Godzilla 1998 55.7

Note: Some films opened Wednesday before the Memorial Day weekend, but figures include only Friday to Monday grosses.

Overall, the top 12 movies over the four-day weekend generated an estimated $176.5 million at the box office, compared with $171.2 million last year. Last year’s final tally of $183.6 million includes the box office for all movies in release, which won’t be known for a couple more days. Other top-performing movies over the long weekend included Vivendi Universal SA unit Universal Studios’ “The Mummy Returns,” which generated an estimated $19.1 million for a total to date of $170.7 million, and Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures’ “A Knight’s Tale,” which pulled in an estimated $9.3 million for a total so far of $44.5 million.

Theater operators appeared satisfied with “Pearl Harbor’s” performance, but also marveled at the holdover strength of “Shrek.” Bruce Olson, president of Marcus Theaters, based in Milwaukee, said that “business-wise, [“Pearl Harbor”] did about as expected.” He is projecting box-office ticket sales to total about $1 million over the four days on the 70 screens of his company in the Midwest where the movie is playing. But Mr. Olson added the “big surprise” was “Shrek,” which pulled in box-office ticket sales 29% higher than its first weekend at his theaters. “That’s extremely rare,” he said.

Disney executives noted that 85% of the theaters showing “Pearl Harbor” had sold out, indicating strong interest among the first wave of moviegoers. Richard Cook, chairman of Disney’s Motion Pictures Group, said that most theaters had “pretty much maxed out” and that some were showing the movie on two screens simultaneously in a practice known as “interlocking.” “There wasn’t anymore we could have done, maybe 5% one way or the other,” he said.

<EOF> WSJ530-1.doc

"They show these planes swooping in like jets, & they could only go, what, 140 mph or so?"

quote:

---

"Leo cheats his way onto the ship, sets his sights on Rose, teaches her how to spit overboard and acts like a complete pompus ass at a table of social elite. Then goes on to get Rose drunk, draw nude pictures of her, which inturn she sticks into a safe knowing full well that it will enrage her already upset fiance Cal. Then to top it all off, they have pre-marital sex in the back of a car like some love sick teenagers from 1955!"

---

Well when you put it like THAT...

You did forget to mention the fact that if Leo and Kate had not been kissing on the deck of the Titanic, that the two fellas that were supposed to be watching for icebergs would not have been distracted and the disaster would have never happened.

And as far as that Titanic ship. Had it had a big enough rutter on the damn thing it would have turned the ship quicker.

I agree with you, though, that the story of the Nevada is an amazing one that should've been told (certainly deserved more emphasis than the love triangle). Out of eight battleships at Pearl, she was the only one which wasn't a sitting duck. It takes two hours for a battleship to get up enough steam to move, but Nevada managed the feat in 45 minutes. Pretty memorable account of the Nevada in Walter Lord's account of Pearl Harbor, _Day of Infamy_.

Then you... um... practice.
 

Pearl Harbor may hearken back to From Here to Eternity and Tora! Tora! Tora!, but those were classics. This film is crap. Aside from sharing the same genre, it's not even close to being in the same league as the aforementioned films. So I don't consider it an adequate comparsion. As for Bay's editing, that's the least of his problems.

And there is something to be said about a film taking in more than 600 million domestically and tying with Ben Hur in receiving the most awards for a motion picture. Therefore, in my opinion, you really can't compare Pearl with Titanic like all the critics have been doing. Titanic is far superior to Bay's joke in every aspect of the film making process.

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The man with the magic hands.

I think a lot of people on this forum watch classic movies (pre-1953) quite a bit. There definitely seems to be a lot of knowledge on old movies here!
 

Thanks for catching my mistake. Nevada is what I ment to put. I changed my post to reflect the correct ship. Yes I think they shoul have spent more time telling the story of the various ships and what the crews went thru rather than spending all the time trying to make a romance story.
 

to sum it up on the sound:
problem with dialog intelligibility
lack of deep and loud frequencies ( they're sometimes deep but not loud enough and you can feel it restrained )
bullets and machine guns lack any liveness ( and in reality, these are very loud ! a 9mm goes as high as 130dB or more )
a general laid-back presence.

war sound is frightening. this was not.
 

So when your sitting in the auditorium on Thursday night watching the latest greatest from David Spade... know that your just sitting around watching, while other are out doing.
 

quote:

---

I know every movie can not be a Saving Private Ryan, but give me Pearl Harbor to watch on Thursday night over say... What's The Worst That Could Happen, Freddy Got Fingered, Spy Kids, Joe Dirt, Along Came A Spider, Someone Like You, Saving Silverman, The Pledge, Head Over Heels, Sweet November, The Replacements, Pokemon 3, Dude, Where's My Car? and so on and so forth.

---

The films you named could have been just as good as "Pearl Harbor" if they had put $135 Million into a bombing raid over Hawaii. I blame the writer, Randall Wallace, for this film. Other than "The Man In The Iron Mask" (which he also directed) and "Braveheart", Mr. Wallace has done mostly television writing (e.g. "Hunter"). The plot execution was obviously contrived. In "Titanic", I might have anticipated an iceberg, but I never wanted it to hurry up and get here.
 

Ok the fight sequence is kind of ok but the majority of the film is based on the horrible love triangle thing.

People who have bad on screen chemistry splurting out bad dialogue. -Thats recorded badly.

The Affleck fella should stick to that Paltrow woman. He dont sit right with Beckinsale
 

And as far as manipulation goes, I don't think most directors out there can invoke a particular emotion without some form of it. I mean you can't tell me that watching a bunch of defenseless Navy men wading in the water while the Japanese mow them down with strafing runs isn't some form of manipulation. True, it's an accurate depiction, but how many audience members are going to be angered by those scenes? I know I was. Or how many Japanese people watching this show do you think are going to feel awkward watching this? Even more so now that we are allies?

No, Jason I don't think my logic is glitched unless I'm drinking. And I was very much sober when I watched this film, and I still do not like it, and again, that is my opinion and if it shocks you that my tastes are not in agreement with yours, well then I apologize.

------------------
The man with the magic hands.

As for the comments about "Pearl Harbor" going back to a classic style of movie making --that high praise is given wrongly. This is far from a classic film. It sure cannot hold a candle to "The Longest Day" or "From Here to Eternity". Micheal Bay has made a highly derivative film and just put way too much polish on it. Aside from my criticisms of his rapid editing style and all the moving crane and dolly shots, he tries to marry in stylistic elements from "Saving Private Ryan" in some scenes while shooting other shots like a damned way-too-pretty TV commercial. Please note his liberal and obvious use of tinted grads over the camera lenses. TV commercials and Michael Bay films seem to be the only ones doing this. So many other movies are being shot with the color drained away ("Three Kings" "Traffic" "Seven" etc.).
 

How can you say that all of Titanic's Oscars were rightfully won! Tell me how, when we had so many great films that year. L.A. Confidential is a thousand times the movie Titanic will ever be. Julia Roberts wins an Oscar because everyone wants to remember that performance, because its to hard to swallow what Ellen Burstyn did in Requiem For A Dream. So by this logic, Titanic sweeps the Oscars preventing worthy movies from receiving their just rewards. L.A. Confidential sweept every single critics awards in '97, but who won the Oscar... Titanic.

Also your not addressing what I have been saying all along about Pearl Harbor. Randall Walace's story may have weak spots, but a least he doesn't have his main characters spitting off the side of a ship(or out of a plane) as they are falling in love. Titanic and its weak-ass story line could float out to sea for all I care. Cameron's ideas are so forced and manipulative that you find yourself being leaf like cattle to the slaughter. Look up the original script for Titanic, Bill Paxton's character was in early drafts a fame seeking ego maniac, but after test screenings, sections of his dialoge were cut to make him more sympathetic. I not saying that Michael Bay doesn't listen to what the test screenings tell him, but the simple fact remains that Titanic is not deserving of such praise, technical awards maybe... maybe. Surely not Best Picture, not over Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, and As Good As It Gets. All three of these films have so much more to offer than Titanic.

Now if you want to talk music scores. I guess your just not into your feminine side. The love story is a weepy romantic triangle, so Hans delivers a lush, romantic, innocent theme for the movie. I myself was shocked the first time I heard it on the web site for the movie, yet over time I have begun to favor as suitable for the film.

Hats off to you Michael Bay for making an enjoyable film that everyone, from all walks can enjoy and learn from.

All the nay-sayers can sit at home and watch the historical accuracy of movies like the The Longest Day, which felt like the longest movie to get through.

And feel free to use my posts as quotes... it let's me know that its sinking in.
 

As to the Oscar comments, the year Titanic won was one of the only years I wasn't screaming in pain at the Academy's decisions.

Oh well, to each his own, right?

Hi and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I happen to have watched it a second time ( ) yesterday in a smaller theater: 12meter 2.35 screen, Altec Lansig power amps (94xx serie), DTS sound, 240 seats room, Klispch speakers. The sound was much better, more violent (while indistorted), more "impacting", especially on gun shots and machine guns shots. The explosions went deeper and tighter. Dialogues still remain an issue here. Let's hope for the dvd

All in all, I admit that kind of room size and screen size ( more contrast, crisper image ) over large ones. Surrounds where superb, no wonder with the romm twice narrower. A 40 or 45 wide room, and 40ft screen is really the right compromise to me.
The theater was not THX certified but was using THX gears.

Now you're slamming The Longest Day? Man, I just don't get your taste. And it's obvious you don't get mine. So I guess as Brad said before, to each his own, right?

And as far as music scores go, most of my collection comprises Williams, Goldsmith, and Horner. Men who know how to use the brass section! So yeah. I guess I'm not as in touch with my feminine side. That and I'm just not a big fan of Zimmer. I only have the scores to Gladiator, Broken Arrow and Backdraft and the latter two were gifts.

You obviously have gotten more out of this picture than most of us, and that's fine. But I still happen to think Titanic is better. Also understand that despite the luggies, the pre-marital sex, and Paxton's toned down ego-manical character, I happen to think Titanic is overall a better film than the best picture contenders of '97. I'm not just looking at the storyline in Titanic, I'm also admiring Cameron's directing, editing, and storyboarding capabilities. And there is no "maybe" about the technical aspects warranting award. Especially when you've got Gary Rydstrom doing the sound mix for instance. To take on an immense project in the $200 million range and deliver a movie like Titanic is worthy, I think, of an Oscar. Even for Best Picture.

As for the characters, I cared for the ones in Titanic more than I did the ones in Pearl Harbor. And if you think the characters are childish in hocking luggies for love (at least he wasn't teaching Rose how to delevop other groteque habits such as belching or passing wind in the movie {unless its in the director's cut}), you must admit that the two main characters playing a game of chicken with two P-40 fighter planes during practice, while not directly related to the love story, is just as childish. But at least the love story in Pearl is more respectable as far as body functions go, yes. I will agree with that. But it's still a weak ass one. And I didn't think it was as strong as the love story in Titanic. I'm not saying there's something to be said for saliva, don't get me wrong. I just have to care about the characters in the first place before I can care about the love story. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if you CAN spit from a P-40 like that.

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The man with the magic hands.

About two hours into the film, an elderly gentleman came out and said he felt a bit strange, so we gave him a glass of water, and as he was recovering he said "I was watching this and some girls behind me were laughing, and all i was thinking was, if only they knew what i went through"

whoa, what can you say? It might be just some bruckheimer production to us, but hey! makes you think a bit harder!
 

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion