Caffeinated Clint
“It all looks and sounds rather frickin’ superb on DVD” – Clint Morris
Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton, Bernard Hill, David Warner, Victor Garber
Ah, finally we can see those deleted scenes featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the heroic off-duty copper who helps save a thousand or passengers before using his muscle to flip the barge back to its safe side. Or not.
Finally, after years and years of whining from my wife asking ‘Why Titanic hasn’t got an extras on the DVD?’ we’ve got a super-duper 4-disc edition of the waterlogged blockbuster. Groan as much as you want guys – um, who said projecting was a bad thing? – you know it’s a pretty flippin’ fantastic movie too, right?
It’s worth more than my mortgage, student loan and tax bill times twenty – and that’s saying something, believe me – but at the end of the day, the time, energy and capital that Jim Cameron spent on recreating the biggest ship in history, really helped the movie reel in the audience. From the get-go, we were suckered into its grandiose tale – and syrupy love story – and then, when it was time for extras to full smack-bang into propellers, we would hurt along with them. In short, money really does talk – and Cameron made good use of those Benjamin’s. “Titanic” is one amazing looking movie. (OK, it’s also a bit of a tearjerker too – Billy Zane’s droopy hairpiece evokes much emotion).
So is the DVD any good? That’s what you really want to know right? Well, yes, it’s good. Great? No. There’s a lot of stuff on the DVD, but it’s not stuff that we should’ve waited to wait all these years to see. For instance, most of it – especially the TV specials on the film’s making and the history of the ship – are as old as the cold chip on the surface of my car mat.
Also a bit ‘scene it before somewhere’ are the electronic press kit (old interviews and bits and pieces about the film), a mock newsreel from 1912, the music video, and the gallery.
There is some new goodies too though – a bunch of deleted scenes, a couple of featurettes on the technical aspects of the film, a presentation on deep diving by Cameron, a ‘Titanic’ crew video (rather amusing), A tour of the ship, an option to watch behind-the-scenes stuff as you work your way through the film, and a swarm of stuff that falls under the ‘marketing’ category.
Best of all though, are the audio commentaries. There’s three – Cameron provides one (largely technical – but never not gripping), Cast and Crew (including Gloria Stuart, Executive producer Rae Sanchini and Producer John Landau, and Kate Winslet) provide another (one of those one’s where everyone’s been recorded at different stages and they’ve all been intercut with one another – making it a little hard to work out who’s talking sometimes), and Don Lynch, Titanic’s Historian and Ken Marschall, the film’s Visual Historian, provide the third commentary.
Oh, and it all looks and sounds rather frickin’ superb on DVD.
Rating : 
Reviewer : Clint Morris
