Trashback: Crap That Goes On And On

Hi Gasmi, well time to look at yet another assault by Hollywood on our cognitive ability, and this time we mix it up a bit. As tempting as it would be to delve even deeper into Schwarzenegger film catalog, we’re going to zig when they zag, and not spend time with things that go boom, and ideally make people go boom, and all the while no one in the movie questions why a guy named Joe Brenner has a Teutonic accent so thick you could cut marble with it. Nope, in the spirit of the season, we are going to spend some time learning about love. It’s a lot more complicated then you might think. I mean it’s a lot more about midget subs, the early 20th century version of a sex tape and Kate Winslet repeatedly getting out of life boats and back on to a sinking ship then than you might think. (I thought it would be more about settling, so you don’t die alone and get eaten by your cats, who knew?) That’s right Gasmi, we riding James Cameron’s Love Boat, the 1997 release, Titanic, so make the jump and let’s get to the good stuff.

Oh by the way, this post wouldn’t have been possible without the crackerjack programmers over at NBC who picked the one sport this Valentine’s Day that would give this waffleboy the urge to really explore what was out there on his cable package he hadn’t seen yet. Also, if any biathletes are out there, here’s a little tip for you. If you have a gun, you can steal a snowmobile, so those skis are a complete waste of time, okay? Coolio, on with the show.

Okay, the assumption would be that this movie would start with a shot of the Titanic; I mean hence the name, right? Well we kind of get some shots of the big boat in the credits, but the picture is kind of screwy to make it look like a super old newsreel print from back in the olden times. Only it’s not super old newsreel footage because (b) there probably isn’t any, and (4) it costs a lot more money to make your old newsreel today, and you don’t make the most expensive movie ever made at the time, if you don’t start burning money right from the opening credits.

Once the credits are done, we cut to some mini-subs shooting through the ocean deep. Oh and if you’re wondering what mini-subs have to do with star crossed lovers on a ship that sank over 80 years before, the answer is not a whole hell of a lot, but it does allow James Cameron to work the following things into the movie: get us plenty of min-sub footage, because everyone loves them some mini-subs, show a lot of cool underwater footage from subs actually diving on the actual Titanic wreckage, and it come up with a remotely plausible reason to get Bill Paxton and his crap haircut into the movie.

Yep, Bill Paxton is the king of the mini-sub guys, oh and just so you know, they’re treasure hunters, which is why they use a little mini-mini-sub to go get this safe out of the Titanic, and then head back up to the surface. Everyone is super excited when they are opening the safe because they are going to find this big honking diamond and everyone can make a much needed trip to Supercuts, but wouldn’t you know it, when they get the safe open they are short one big honking diamond. Oh come on, you’re not that surprised, if they found it, we’d only have an eight minute movie.

Everyone is pretty rattled by this but Bill Paxton snaps into action and starts blowing smoke up everyone’s hoo-haw, and going on TV and showing off a sketch of a young neeked girl, who just happens to be wearing the aforementioned big honking diamond.

Luckily for the plot a little old lady, and I’m talking kiss from Willard Scott old, in Arizona just happens to see this on TV and poops a tiny dusty brick. It’s later on in the scheme of things, and Bill Paxton (who is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean) gets a phone call from the little old lady, and she just happens to know all about the missing big honking diamond, which by the way, nobody except for Billy’s bad haircut brigade is supposed to know about.

By the next scene they’ve hauled her wrinkled little butt out to the middle of the ocean, and she proceeds to tell Bill Paxton, and you and me, all about what happened back on The Titanic. Now do you understand why the movie starts with mini-subs? Really, could you explain it to me then, and if at all possible use small words and visual aids? Anyway, the little old lady starts jawing, and we get to the actual movie.

Finally after 20 minutes, we get to see the frigging boat. It’s just before the Titanic is about to sail, and we start learning so very important stuff we’ll need to know if we’re going to watch this movie all the way to the bitter end.

For starters, the Titanic herself is pretty snazzy. Actually she’s pretty much the most luxuriously fantastical thing in the world. Fantastical in the sense she’s frigging huge and just full to the brim with all sorts of steam engine type giant gizmos, and as for the luxury? Oh baby, the type of luxury on the Titanic would give Donald Trump a diamond hard three inch erection that would last for days (By the way, this situation is also known as “Ivana’s worst nightmare”). In other words, it’s like if Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory could float; only without the chocolate, and the floating, but it’s otherwise exactly the same. Yeah, pretty cool, huh?

Oh and we also find it that it can’t sink. Why? Because people keep telling us it can’t, repeatedly, over and over, so it must be true right? Then what about the mini-subs? Look, forget about the mini-subs, we’ve got more important things to deal with now.

Like a bunch of Richie Rich types, featuring Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane. Kate Winslet is Rose, a free spirited young girl, with a love of art and life. Billy Zane is her fiancé, and his hobbies include effortless douchebaggery and having a better complexion then Kate Winslet. They are here to ride the Titanic back to the good old USofA, so they can get married and get down to the serious business of Billy Zane crushing all of Kate Winslet’s hopes and dreams.

While these jokers are wrestling with their luggage, well paying other people to wrestle with their luggage, we meet our hero, Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo’s in a poker game with his little Italian buddy, and some Scandinavian types, and everybody has everything they own in the pot, which just happens to include a couple of tickets on the good ship Titanic. Naturally the star of the movie wins the hand, and Leo and his little buddy are super excited but they don’t get to do too big of a happy dance, because the Titanic is about to sail in like five minutes.

This leads to Leo and his pal running to get a seat on the Titanic, which with our 20/20 hindsight makes them eligible for their Lemmings merit badges, so kudos guys! There is a fun bit where the guys are hopping on the boat as it is literally pulling away from the pier and one of the Titanic’s officers asks Leo if he and his buddy have been checked for lice. Leo tells him they can’t have lice because they are Americans. Ah, wasn’t the world a wonderful place 90 years before Rock of Love went on the air?

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So, the ship pulls away from the dock and everyone settles in, which gives James Cameron the chance to spoon feed us another 20 minutes of exposition. Leo and his little Italian buddy get settled in and me this surly Irish dude, and Leo just happens to see the rich girl who takes his breath away, and she just happens to be his costar.

While Leo and his buddies are being plucky and poor out on the deck, we cut back up to Kate Winslet and Billy Zane’s stateroom, so we can check on what these kids are getting up to. Well we find out Kate Winslet loves art and just picked up a bunch of brand spanking new Picasso’s over in Europe, and that Billy Zane is an asshat because he thinks Picasso is a hack, and that Katie should do a little less thinking and a lot more looking pretty. Oh and by this time we figure out that Billy Zane is rich, and Kate Winslet’s mom, Frances Fisher is marrying Katie off to the boob to keep her and her daughter in a steady supply of serious coin. Wow, that’s a lot of expo, so who’s hungry?

Well the cast of the movie is, specifically, Kate Winslet and Billy Zane. Kate Winslet gets to know Kathy Bates, who plays a lady named Molly Brown, and this guy who designed the ship, which gives James Cameron the perfect excuse to let us in the audience know just how extra special the Titanic was, and that it only has lifeboats for half the people on board.

While Kate Winslet is introducing new characters to the movie and getting us waterheads in the audience all the fun facts about the Titanic we could ever hope to remember, Billy Zane is still acting like an asshat. In Billy’s defense, it should be noted that he is really good at this, and it’s always good to see people play to their strengths. Billy Zane spends the meal treating Kate Winslet like a special needs pigeon, and letting everyone at the table know he’s marrying her more for the way she looks then what she thinks about.

We cut to a new scene, and oh crap; the poop has hit the fan. We know this because Kate Winslet is running though the ship crying and in the narration, the little old lady tells us that she decided she was going to kill herself that night. Why? Because she’s an illiterate Nazi. Wait that was The Reader. Uh because her marriage to Leonardo DiCaprio in a 1950′s Connecticut is a complete sham? Revolutionary Road? Man, somebody needs a big handful of Prozac, ASAP, don’t they Katie?

Well, in this particular movie, Katie is ending her cruel, cruel life because she’s going to be fabulously wealthy for the rest of her life. Oh and be married to Billy Zane, who as we all know is a complete and utter jerk.

She ends up on the stern of the ship, and gets all set to jump off the boat. Luckily for the plot our boy Leo just happens to be hanging out by the stern and decides to get involved when Kate crawls over the rail.

Leo takes off his shoes and jacket, because as he tells Kate Winslet, if she jumps, he jumps. Oh and he just happens to mention that the most dangerous thing about jumping off the ship, is the temperature of the water. It’s close to freezing in the north Atlantic, so if you go for a dip you can count on a very painful and very quick death. This information is enough to get Kate to change her mind on the whole goodbye cruel, cruel world bit, which works out good for the producers, because if she killed herself, then the movie would be about the start crossed romance between the two remaining stars in the movie, Leo, and Billy Zane. Not that there is anything the matter with that, but would the world really need a 200 million dollar made for TV movie for the Logo Network?

So Katie decides to come back over the rail and give being rich enough to buy Picassos one more shot. The only thing is she slips crawling back over the rail of the ship and almost falls. Luckily Leo grabs her and wrestles her back on to the deck of the ship. However when Kate Winslet screams, a bunch of sailors come running, and when they find Leo laying on top of her, the crewmen decide Leo looks a little rapisty, and smack him around.

The scene cuts to a whole bunch of bigwigs being on the scene, and Billy Zane wandering out to ask Leonardo DiCaprio; just what made him think he could manhandle Billy Zane’s property, fiancé. Kate Winslet finally snaps out of her funk and tells Billy Zane that Leo didn’t attack her, he saved Kate’s life. She then launches into a completely lame ass story about coming out to look at the ship’s propellers and almost falling over the side of the ship. Luckily for her, Leo just happened to be walking by, and was able to pull her in, so nobody was sexually assaulted, and for sure, nobody was thinking that they would rather be dead then be married to Billy Zane, so it’s all a big misunderstanding.

Like I said, it’s a completely lame ass story, but seeing as Billy Zane views Kate Winslet as having an IQ comparable to turnip, he ends up buying the story. Leo gets released, and Billy Zane tries to slip Leo a twenty for saving Kate Winslet, which makes her cranky even though twenty bucks went a long way in 1913. This leads to Billy Zane inviting Leo to have dinner with the rich folks the next night, which won’t go as far as a twenty, but will keep the plot marching smartly along, and with that settled everyone goes their separate ways.

The next scene we get is in Kate Winslet’s bedroom and Billy Zane is stopping by to have a heart to heart about any problems their relationship may be having. Just kidding, he shows Kate how much he loves her by giving her a big honking diamond necklace, and telling her he can give her anything she wants. This would be the perfect time for Kate Winslet to let Billy Zane know that the thought of having to spend the rest of her life with him has Katie seriously considering swimming the last 600 miles to New York, but come on, it’s a 56 caret diamond, so she gives romance one more shot.

We cut to the next day Leo and Kate Winslet are walking around the deck making small talk, and letting us know that Leo is poor but scrappy. There is also some more stuff about how boo-hooey Katie is at the thought of having to live her life with the membership of Bushwood Country Club, but the important thing we find out is that Leonardo DiCaprio is not only poor and scrappy, but also an artist.

We find this out because Leo just happened to take his sketchbook with him when he went on his walk with Kate. We find out that Leo is pretty talented, and likes drawing women in their birthday suits.

Eventually Kate Winslet’s mom shows up when Leo is teaching Kate how to spit (don’t ask), she treats Leo like crap, and everyone heads off to get dressed for dinner. Well not Kathy Bates, she tells Leo to come with her, because one of her son’s just happens to be the same size as Leo, so Leo can wear his tuxedo. They never explain in the movie why Kathy Bates felt the need to take her children’s clothes on a cruise, but it advances the plot, and suddenly makes everyone in the audience’s mothers look 37% saner, so we are going to go with it.

We go to dinner, and everyone likes that Leo is so poor but plucky, well except for Billy Zane and Kate Winslet’s mom, who go out of their way to make Leo feel like dirt. Too bad for them Leo is plucky so it’s kind of a wasted effort. After dessert, Billy Zane and the rest of the rich guys head off to have some brandy and work on being self important gasbags, hey, it’s not as easy as looks, and Leo says he has to get back to hanging out with the rest of the riffraff, and he exits stage left. Only not before he slips Kate Winslet a note and tells her to meet him on the big staircase. Kate makes like a tree, and goes away, and then she and Leo head off to party the with poor folks.

Kate and Leo head down below, and naturally have the bestest time in the world down in steerage. There is plenty of music, dancing, drinking, and smoking so a good time is had by all.

Okay, I just have to mention this, almost everybody in this movie smokes like a chimney and acts like it’s the greatest thing in the world, and do you know what? That’s because in 1913 smoking was wonderful. This is mainly because thanks to medical science being so primitive, almost nobody lived long enough to get cancer. It was just smooth tobacco satisfaction, well and probably dying of diphtheria. Anyway, I had to mention that, back to the movie.

So the party finally breaks up and we cut to Kate Winslet and Billy Zane having breakfast the next morning. Billy Zane seems to be in a good mood, but that rapidly fades because he had his big goon follow Kate to the party and Billy Zane doesn’t like his special lady stepping out on him. He then proceeds to smash all the breakfast dishes and hint to Kate Winslet that she should expect things to get a little physical if she doesn’t lay off the Leonardo DiCaprio. He then storms off, but Kate Winslet can’t catch a break, because her mom shows up, and lays a massive guilt trip on Kate because if Kate Winslet doesn’t marry Billy Zane then they will be broke, and her mom will have to get a job.

Everyone then heads off to church. Well all the rich people, because let’s face it, God likes them way better anyway, hence all of that moolah they are packing. Leo shows up, but Billy Zane’s big goon tells him to take a hike and when Leo gets uppity, the goon tips some stewards to walk Leo back down to the poor people part of the ship.

This doesn’t stop our Leo, and he sneaks back up top and gets Kate Winslet alone and tells her he’s in love with her and wants her to run away with him. Kate Winslet is very nice, and doesn’t point out that running away on a ship is a serious exercise in futility, but she does let him know that she has decided to bite the bullet and marry Billy Zane for his moisturizing tips, money. Leo comes down with an immediate case of the pouts, and Kate Winslet heads off to put this obviously well thought out plan into action.

She spends the day with her mom, and lasts a whopping 45 seconds at being prim and proper before she makes a break for it. Kate Winslet finds Leo hanging out by the bow of the ship. Naturally they have a big hug, and then Leo holds up on the rail so she can feel like she’s flying, and then they get down to some serious smooching.

We cut to our happy couple wandering into Kate Winslet’s stateroom, where she tells Leo she wants him to paint her neeked, oh and wearing that big honking diamond. Not surprisingly, Leo doesn’t seem to have a problem with this.

This leads to a fairly lengthy nude scene by Kate Winslet, but it’s okay, because it’s arty, and we know this because Leo is doodling like a mother humper. Once Leo is done, Kate tells him to put the big honking diamond back in Billy Zane’s safe, and she writes a pretty snippy note to go with the neeked picture to let Billy Zane know he’s flying solo again.

The scene breaks up pretty quick when Billy Zane’s goon shows up and Leo and Katie have to duck out the back the door. However, the goon is persistent and Leo and Kate Winslet end up having to duck into the engine room to give him the slip.

Leo and Kate then proceed to the hold of the ship, and Kate Winslet pulls Leo into the back seat of Billy Zane’s car where they proceed to start making the sweet, sweet love. Hmm, doing it in the backseat of her fiancé’s car, when he doesn’t know the relationship is over yet? You know, if somebody beats somebody else with a bucket of fried chicken, this will officially turn into an episode of Cheaters.

Billy Zane’s Goon finds Billy Zane and takes Billy to the stateroom where he finds the neeked picture and the snippy note, and finds out he has just become the newest residence of Dumpedville. Of course, Billy realizes that he is much better off not spending the rest of his life with someone who can’t stand him, and heads out to the Lido deck to work off his stress at the next Tai Chi class. Kidding! What kind of movie would we have if the villain packed it in at the half way point? He immediately gets busy plotting an evil master plan.

Meanwhile, Leo and Kate Winslet are in love, and after leaving a stain on Billy Zane’s back seat that he’ll never be able to get out, they head up to the deck of the ship to pledge there eternal love to each other. Aw, how sweet. There’s nothing that could stop these two star crossed kids now. Well maybe one thing, care to guess what it is? An iceberg? Wow, you’re good; I was going with pesky reoccurring cold sore. Yes, I do live alone, what’s your point?

Anyway, the ship plows into an iceberg in a pretty cool scene, and almost right from the get go, you can tell that everyone on the ship is pretty well screwed. Leo and Kate Winslet hear the captain telling his officers about all the brand spanking new holes the ship’s hull has, and realize this is not good news. Kate Winslet tells Leo they need to tell her mom about this, which makes sense, and they also need to tell Billy Zane, which is blindingly stupid, but Leo just got some, so they exit stage right.

Just as Leo and Kate are heading into her stateroom, Billy Zane’s goon slips in behind Leo and slips something in his pocket without Leo knowing about it. We figure out what the goon slipped in Leo’s pocket pretty quick, because as soon as Leo steps through the door, some stewards swoop in and grab him, and Billy Zane starts accusing Leo of stealing the big honking diamond. Naturally Leo looks pretty guilty when they find the big honking diamond in his pocket, even to Kate Winslet, because he was out of her sight while she was writing her snippy note to Billy Zane. They cart Leo off as he’s yapping about being framed, but not to worry because they are just taking him to the bottom of the ship. Oh crap.

We cut back to the bridge of the ship, where the guy who designed the Titanic shows up, just to make sure everybody knows that the ship is going to sink. Nobody wants to believe this, but the designer has blueprints, and they don’t so he wins that particular argument. Oh and he lets everyone know that the ship is going to sink in an hour, maybe two, and then just to make it an extra special visit the captain confirms that they only have room on the lifeboats for about half of the passengers on the ship. Bummer.

Billy Zane gets Kate Winslet alone, and decides this would be the perfect time to start smacking her around. Sadly for Billy, he doesn’t get a chance to really get in touch with his inner Ike Turner, because another steward comes in and announces the Captain wants all passengers on deck for the surprise treading water contest that is about to take place.

Kate Winslet, her mom, and Billy Zane get up top, but there is a just a lot of rich muckety mucks milling around waiting for the crew to break out the life boats. However, this works out good for the plot because Kate Winslet sees the guy who designed the ship and gets him to admit the ship is going to sink, and that it is super duper important that she get on a life boat as soon as she can.

Everyone starts queuing up, and Billy Zane and Kate Winslet’s mom are apparently in the long program for mixed couple’s douchbaggery because they are making cracks about how as long as the rich people make it off the ship that’s all that counts. Oh Billy Zane also thinks this would be a great time to make a crack about how now it looks like Leonardo DiCaprio is heading for that big artist studio in the sky, so we aren’t too surprised when Kate Winslet doesn’t get in the lifeboat when it’s her turn. The lougie she hawks on to Billy Zane’s face, now that’s a surprise.

Anyway, Kate Winslet heads out to rescue Leonardo DiCaprio, and after finding the guy who designed the ship who can tell her where on the ship they would be keeping someone framed for stealing a big honking diamond, and then terrorizing an elevator operator, and then spending a lot of time sloshing around in water up to her knees, she finds her sweet baboo. Yay!

The only problem is that Leonardo DiCaprio has been handcuffed to a pipe, and Billy Zane’s big goon has taken the handcuff key, leaving Leo to die. Leo has Kate Winslet search the room, and guess what? There isn’t a spare, oh and the water in the room keeps getting higher and higher. Kate Winslet decides to go find someone to help her get Leo out of the handcuffs and exits stage left, while Leo sticks around; because, well he’s handcuffed to the pipe, remember?

Kate Winslet wanders around through some hallways, and almost gets rescued by a steward, but eventually she finds an axe and heads back to rescue poor little Leonardo DiCaprio. Kate cuts Leo’s handcuffs with the axe, which is kind of a neat trick considering they both have their eyes closed at the time.

Anyway Leo gets sprung, and now they can escape right? Well, it’s a little complicated, because the stairway that Kate Winslet came down on is now under water, so they need to find another way out of the ship, and we see them sloshing off camera, stage left.

We cut to Leo and Kate stumbling into a part of the ship that isn’t flooded, good news right? Well, things are still complicated, because the stewards aren’t letting the poor folks up on the deck, which means no lifeboats for Kate and Leo, which means drowning. Luckily for the plot, Leo and Kate Winslet run into Leo’s little Italian buddy, and the surly Irish guy, and the three of them use a bench as a battering ram, so the poor folks can panic up on the main deck of the ship just like their social betters.

Okay, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet finally make it up on to the deck, good news, right? I mean we should be due at this point, right? Hah, in your dreams. It turns out just about all the lifeboats have already launched and things are getting a little dicey.

How Dicey? Well Billy Zane has gone back to his stateroom and gotten the big honking diamond, and as we speak is bribing one of the ship’s officers to get him into a lifeboat like he’s never bribed anyone before. It pretty much works too, and the officer is all set to get Billy Zane into a lifeboat, but Billy Zane’s goon shows up and tells Billy Zane that he’s spotted Kate Winslet on the other side of the ship, and they exit stage left.

Okay, please allow me to talk to my TV here for a second. Jesus Christ, what part of not enough lifeboats don’t you people get? What is every member of the cast of this movie in the Polar Bear Club? Did I mention Jesus Christ? Okay, I’ve got that out of my system now, thanks, and back to our movie.

Billy Zane actually shows up at just the right time actually. Leo and Kate are at a lifeboat, but Katie doesn’t want to get on, because then she’d have to leave her sweet baboo. Billy Zane tells Kate Winslet he has an arrangement with a guy on the other side of the ship and can get Leo into a lifeboat too. Kate and Leo have one more lip lock and she finally gets in a lifeboat.

Of course as soon as she’s out of sight, Billy Zane makes sure to let Leo know he’s now officially fish food, and once they get back to dry land he’s going to marry Kate Winslet, so neener, neener, neener. Okay those aren’t his exact words but the do sum them up rather nicely in my opinion.

Well Billy might have gloated a little too early, because Kate Winslet promptly jumps right back on to the boat. Why? Call me cynical, but it’s kind of hard to have a romantic thriller of a movie, if the female lead heads off to safety 40 minutes before the end of the movie. Luckily for the plot, Kate Winslet isn’t as cynical as I am and she just tells Leo she luvvvvvs him so much, and then they suck face again.

Aw, even a big Bradley Bitterface such as myself is touched at this moment, but you know who isn’t touched? Billy Zane. He shows up just in time to figure out that Kate Winslet is willing to die rather then be separated from somebody whose acting career started on Growing Pains. This actually hurts Billy, and we see him try to figure out what he ever did that would make people rather die then have to spend the rest of their lives with him in pampered luxury? Dear Billy, go back and look at pictures of you sausaged into that costume in The Phantom, and all will be explained, love Waffleboy.

How does Billy deal with this pain? Why by snatching his goon’s gun away from him and trying to give Leo and Kate some new handy dandy holes to let the blood out of their bodies. Oh no Billy Zane, no, use your words, use your words!

Luckily for the plot Billy doesn’t attempt to interact with Leo and Kim and try to express his feelings in a positive way; no he just chases them back down into the ship blazing away at our favorite couple until he’s out of bullets and they are pretty much in the exact situation they were back when Katie sprung Leo from his handcuffs.

Once Billy Zane runs out of bullets, calms down, he heads back up topside. Oh and he starts to laugh, because he put that big honking diamond in his coat pocket, and gave Kate Winslet the coat when she was going to get on the lifeboat. Kind of ironic, huh? Yeah, I know, not really, but it does finally explain why Bill Paxton couldn’t find it at the beginning of the movie.

So, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have to make it out of the boat again. Well it was exciting a half hour ago, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be again, right? Right?

Actually it is pretty exciting what with almost getting drowned and almost getting a steward to unlock one of those pesky poor people gates, and then unlocking the gate themselves while almost drowning and finally getting up to the deck again. So yay, right?

Uh no, the situation up topside has headed straight for the crapper. The ship has just about completely sunk at this point. Leo’s surly Irish friend has gotten shot for being surly, and his little Italian buddy got squashed by a smoke stack, and people are dying right and left.

The good news is Billy Zane managed to weasel his way onto a lifeboat by using a little kid for pity. Hey, works on Idol, why wouldn’t it work here? Of course Billy doesn’t rest on his laurels then, because he proceeds to spend plenty of time braining people with an oar to keep them from getting into his lifeboat, so at least we’ve got that one good thing going for us, right? Oh crap, he’s a tool, never mind.

Anyway, Leo takes a look at the situation and decides he and Kate need to go to the very back of the ship, because they need to stay out of the water as long as possible. So before you know it, they are right back at the stern of the ship where they first met. Naturally Kate Winslet remembers this moment, but it seems to have slipped Leo’s mind. Of course we can cut Leo some slack because the stern of the ship is almost completely perpendicular to the ocean at this point. The ship then breaks into two pieces, and Leo just happens to know that when the ship sinks he and Kate Winslet are going to need to kick as hard as they can, or they will be sucked under with the ship when it heads for the bottom of the ocean. Man, is he smart. That settles it, if I’m ever in a disaster, I’m standing next to the struggling artist, those guys have skills.

The ship sinks, and sure enough, Leonardo DiCaprio was right. They get pulled under by the ship, which is bad, but they kick, which is good, but Leo gets pulled away from Kate Winslet, which is bad, but Kate has a life vest, so she floats up to the surface, which is good, but a guy without a life vest tries to use her as a life vest and almost drowns her, which obviously is bad, but Leo shows up and belts the guy in the mouth so Kate Winslet doesn’t drown, which is good, and they find a big piece of wood, which is also good, but it’s not big enough for both of them to use it to get out of the water, which is bad, but it is big enough for Kate Winslet to get on top of it, which is good…for Kate Winslet. (By the way, if you have even the slightest understanding of grammar and punctuation, that last sentence? Sorry about that, my bad. I’m a product of public schools, what can you do?)

Okay, with that out of the way, we cut over to the lifeboats. Once the ship sinks, Kathy Bates wants to go back and help the people in the water, but the rat faced sailor on her lifeboat tells her to shut her piehole. Man, after the movie Misery I’m always amazed when anyone sasses Kathy Bates.

While Rat Face is taking his life in his own hands, this one ship’s officer gets a case of the guilts and tells his sailors they are going to put the women and children in their lifeboat into a couple of the other ones and go back to look for survivors.

We cut ahead, and pretty much everyone in the water has frozen to death, and Leonardo DiCaprio is giving Kate Winslet a big pep talk about how she’s not going to die, and she is going to have a bunch of kids, and lead a long wiz bang exciting life. He then gets her to promise him that she won’t die.

This scene is actually a testament to just how good an actor Leonardo DiCaprio is, because he can pretty much pull off this complete line of okey doke. Also it is pretty realistic for a couple that have only known each other for three days for the guy to be this heroic in this situation. I guarantee you, if they had been going out for six months, Leo would have been sure to say something along the lines of; “look, I’m not mad, but really, would it have killed you to stay in the second lifeboat?”

Anyway, eventually the guys in the lifeboat show up, but by then Kate Winslet discovers she is in love with a Leosicle. Yep, our little Leo is dead, and Kate thinks just about dying with him, but she remembers her promise, and thanks to prying the whistle out of a dead man’s lips she is able to get rescued.

We cut back to the present day, and the little old lady fills us in on some final exposition. The survivors were eventually rescued, and she used Leo’s last name as hers to disappear and start a new life. Billy Zane killed himself when the Great Depression started and he lost all his sweet, sweet money, and Leonardo DiCaprio was and is the best dead boyfriend in the history of mankind, so there.

Naturally everyone gets all dewy eyed at the little old lady’s story, and Bill Paxton in particular starts blubbering about how it was always about finding the big honking diamond and he never thought about the people on the Titanic. Me, I’m a little blubbery at this point in the movie too, because it is now painfully obvious that Billy is going to sport his shit haircut for the entire movie.

We cut forward to later that night, and the little old lady is wandering around on the deck of the ship in her nightgown. She shuffles over to the rail on the back of the ship, and guess what, she’s got the big honking diamond. Well, we already know that because Billy Zane told us she had it, over 80 years ago. Anyway, she looks at for a bit, and tosses it in the ocean. I guess somebody else wasn’t a fan of Bill Paxton’s crappy haircut either.

We then see her sleeping in bed, with a whole mess of pictures on her dresser of the long full life she lived just liked she promised Leo back while she was watching him freeze to death. The camera then goes down underwater to the wreck of the Titanic, and eventually goes inside, where everything turns back to the way it was before it sank, and everyone who died in the movie is standing around and smiling, and we see Leonardo DiCaprio standing up on the big staircase, and young Kate Winslet shows up, and she and Leo start sucking face, and everyone claps, and Celine Dion starts wailing. The End.

Wow, there you have it a movie with a timeless lesson about the nature of true love. Mainly, that it is more to love then mini-subs and big honking diamonds. It’s about meeting that one special person, who will always be in your heart, and doing it in their asshat fiancé’s car, oh and big boats sinking and killing hundreds of people. At least that’s what I took away from the movie. Anyway, here’s hoping you’ve found or are going to find that special person, and that you have the keys to their asshat fiancé’s car. Thanks for stopping by, we’ll talk again soon.