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Oh, come on, just one more list about this film... Titanic, in late '97 and early '98, seemed bulletproof at the box office. Online, however, was a different story. What follows is the best parts of an abbreviated list of  “127 signs you’re addicted to Titanic.” Here’s the best of them:

#2. When a street artists asks if he can draw your picture, you immediately start taking off all your clothes

#3. You only give the street artist ten cents for drawing your picture

#5. Whenever you feel amorous, you tell your spouse to meet you in the
garage in the back seat of the car

#9. Your dreams always seem to involve climbing up a grand staircase
surrounded by people applauding you

#11. You husband finally buys you that expensive $1,500 diamond tennis bracelet you've been wanting for years, but you're disappointed because now you'd
rather have a $35 replica of Rose’s necklace from the film.

#12. You insist that someone else drive so that you can stick yourself
out through the sunroof, spread your arms and say, "I'm flying!"

#31. For entertainment, you buy handcuffs and ask your husband to use an axe to cut them apart while they're on your hands.

#32. You go to the supermarket and ride those 25 cent boats yelling "I'm Flying."

#36. You demand that your mayor build a memorial to Jack and Rose. When he insists they were fictional characters, you organize a protest.

#40. You put intricately carved wooden debris in your swimming pool.

#43. You enjoy teaching women how to spit.

#44. You stand on Leo's front lawn naked hoping he'll sketch you.

#74. Even though you live in a one-story home, you install a Grand Stairway
leading to nowhere.

#79. At a recent AA meeting you stand up and say, "Hello my name is Jack" even though your name is Sally.

#91. You love your newly purchased Titanic poster so much you glue it to the
front windshield of your car so you can always look at it.

Titanic (DVD)

Color me confused; this DVD is no longer for sale! (???)

A 194-minute review by Techtite ;-)

Well, as of August 31st, 1999, it finally happened...Titanic on DVD. The much ballyhooed event was supposed to make DVD players fly off the shelf. However, it's video version was already sold everywhere, ad nauseum, just one year earlier. Is its DVD form too little, too late?

I will beat around the bush very little in this review, so let me start from the top; while DVD is a sharper picture, there's nothing else on this DVD that separates it from the video version. Zip. Nada. The most glaring faux paus --omitting the music video of Celine Dion's Oscar-Winning song-- is just one of many goofs...No "director's cut," no deleted scenes track(s), no behind the scenes clippage...nothing added at all. Not even an audio commentary from Mr. King-of-the-World, James Cameron, which would have taken a mere few hours of his time in a sound booth.

This leaves little to review, other than the film. However, unlike other reviews --both movies and DVDs-- I don't think I have to summarize the movie to anyone who doesn't live in a cave dwelling. This was the most ballyhooed movie of 1997...and most of '98, for that matter. It won 11 Oscars (although, yes, James Cameron's "King of the World" speech was pretty grating). To many females, Titanic was to them in '97 what Star Wars was to boys in '77. It was a very nice, fairy tale epic, where the heroine can be anything she wants to be (even, to a point, a little bit of a tart). It's certainly a film you will want to see at least once.

There are those who didn't like the film too much, though. This is understandable; it has its flaws. Titanic's historical significance takes a backseat to a fictional romance. The resulting script contains such fluff as "You have a gift Jack; you see people"..."I see you."(oh...gag!) The story's rich-folk/po'folk stereotypes are as overdone as the days of slapstick like Caddyshack and Animal House. The boyish Leonardo Dicaprio looks like he's 13 whenever next to the womanly Kate Winslet (no wonder, then, that 13 year old girls adored this film!). Last of all gripes is this: there's something apprehensive about girls claiming that their favorite romantic film is one where the woman poses nude for a man she just met, then sleeps with him in the cargo hold of a cruise ship (in the backseat of a car, no less!). So much for a "perfect" movie...as much as even I liked it.

Perhaps the above paragraph was too blunt for the film's fans, though you can hardly blame me; some Titanic fanatics took things a bit too far, didn't they? One '98 newsgroup imbecile claimed that Schindler's List was a "caricature of a picture" in comparison (man; if any comment was too inane for a debate...). Others visited a tombstone with the name "J Dawson" on it, desperate to believe Jack Dawson existed (hardly: the poor soul buried there is James Dawson). Entertainment Weekly showed geekettes posing for pictures next to J. Dawson's tombstone...Gross! Meanwhile, barriers had to be put up in the front of cruise ships, because women outstretched their arms a la Rose in the film (it was a movie set, sweetie!), only to fall off the ship. There was even a move to call a future cruise ship the Titanic2! Dare one ask WHY? It's not like Good Year names its blimp the Hindenburg2. Can you just imagine these fanatics on such a ship, demanding the Captain hit an iceberg, "to get the feel of it?" Yikes!

After all this geekette grandstaging, can any film --even Titanic-- survive as-is on DVD? Actually, yes; while just a movie, it was an impressive, cute movie. It also opened Hollywood's eyes more than a little. A romance heroine does not have to be a twerpy supermodel, the hero does not have to be on steroids. A similar message was delivered with As Good As It Gets, and the holler for fewer cutesy-wootsy romance movies is ringing loud and clear. No more stopping My Best Friend's Wedding. No more cutie-pies from NBC's "Friends" needing to bribe a man to act like her fiancée (yeah, right). Lastly, please, no more "hookers with a heart of gold" (I said PLEASE). If Hollywood brings back the romance/action/epic, Titanic is to be thanked even more. They don't all need $200 mil budgets, or break any records; just be good.

So, in the end, the question remains; buy, or not buy? I'd say buy it, if you don't own the VHS tape. Like it or not, it's a classic movie of the '90s, worthy of any DVD shelf. However, one can't help themselves when realizing that instead of Titanic becoming a reason to sell DVD players, DVD players have become the best chance to sell Titanic again. Big difference. It would've helped if the DVD version had any of the perks promised for so long. It didn't...

	Final Rating : Large Crater. A very good film, even if it is certainly not worth half the obnoxious hype it received, from some very overzealous fanatics.
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