Smartass Summaries - Titanic
Smartass Summaries returns, this time with a movie that came out when I was one.
Titanic the movie is back in theaters for a limited run in celebration of its 25th anniversary. Titanic the ship meanwhile is still very much at the bottom of the Atlantic.
I saw it on the big screen for the first time a few weeks back with the ol’ ball and chain, and lemme tell you, it was an event. Partially because I forgot most of what happens in this movie other than Kate Winslet dumping ‘em out and everyone dying a cold, watery death, and partially because there was a preposterous presence in that theater.
We’re going to dive into all that and more. Ladies and gentleman, I present, Titanic.
The film opens with some weird aquatic grave robber with a single earring trying to excavate a necklace off the sunken Titanic. First off, there’s no way that’s legal. Second, how much money is this guy spending on this expedition? Gotta think that even if he finds the Heart of the Sea he’s going to break even at best.
He pulls up a safe from the ship’s wreckage then drills it open with no regard for its very old, waterlogged contents. These morons then crack a bottle of champagne in the most egregious example of counting your chickens before they hatch.
Sidenote: kinda fucked that someone made an expression referencing stillborn chickens.
Once the safe is open, the man flippantly ignores and mishandles its paper contents, most of which are likely bank notes now worth millions. Also, how is that paper still together? It’s been sitting in salt water for the better part of 100 years. You’re telling me the parchment they made out of orphan rags in 1912 is the most sturdy material on earth?
Triggered that he only found a never-before-seen painting of a naked chick, and not a blue diamond stolen off the non-existent head of a deposed king, he decides to bring in the big guns: a 100 year old woman who is somehow still all there mentally.
Enter Rose Dawson, a Titanic survivor and the woman in the drawing. I’ll tell ya what, if I was 75 years older…
Anyways, rather then going to the woman, they force this billion-year-old onto a helicopter and then onto a giant ship in the exact spot where she watched two thousand people die on a different giant ship. Sure she was thrilled for the trip down memory lane.
Some bearded science nerd then shows her an exact diagram breaking down how the Titanic sank, as if she didn’t witness it with her own eyes from the suspended bow of the ship.
Finally, she tells her tale.
FOURTH WALL BREAK
Brief intermission here to dive into what was going on the theater. There was a woman a few rows behind us who has clearly seen this movie 900 times. She kept quoting obscure lines before they were spoken and was responding to the characters on-screen, out loud, and at full volume.
Eventually another theater patron shushed her. She did not take kindly to that, responding “Oh yeah, I’m really spoiling a 25-year old movie.”
To be fair, I think her gripe was less with you spoiling a movie we’ve all seen, especially one based on a very famous historical event, and more with you acting like you’re on your couch at home watching reality tv you obnoxious asshole.
Eventually, someone went and tattled on her, resulting in a theater usher very politely asking her to keep her commentary to a minimum. She replied with a very indignant “OK??” before mocking the man as soon as he left, calling him a “huge loser.”
One might argue that the person quoting the Titanic and ruining other people’s theater experience is a bigger loser than a 17-year-old trying to just do his job, but that’s just me.
We’ll check in with this woman later. Now back to the movie.
We flash back to 1912, where a transient young man named Jack Dawson is playing in the most degenerate game of poker I’ve ever seen. After swindling some Nordic dude out of his tickets, Dawson heads onto the Titanic, a brand new, state-of-the-art steamer nicknamed “The Unsinkable Ship.”
People really love counting those chickens in this movie.
Alright, like the Titanic, let’s speed this up.
Rose whatever the fuck her last name is enters the ship. She’s a noble-born, engaged to some douchebag with greasy hair and eyeliner. Guy is a real tool. He orders her dinner for her and it’s the worst order ever — rare lamb with light mint jelly. So undercook the protein and then get rid of the thing that can mask the fact that you’re eating raw lamb.
Anyways, Rose hates the trappings of high society and tries to yoss herself into the ocean after despairing at a future of caviar and champagne.
This is by far the worst way and reason I can think of to off yourself.
Suddenly she’s saved by Jack Dawson, who had seen her earlier and was almost definitely following her. He gets her off the railing and is lauded as a hero and invited to join the snobby folks for dinner.
Dinner comes and goes before Rose covertly absconds with Jack to the lower decks to enjoy a real party, where she somehow can one-touch beer with the best of ‘em despite that likely being her first beer ever. She is followed by her fiance’s valet, a former cop, and the biggest simp loser I’ve ever seen.
Over the next few days she continues spending more time with Jack much to the disdain of her fiance. Mind you, we’re like an hour and a half into this movie and we still haven’t hit the iceberg.
Rose sees Jack’s drawings and decides to strip naked in front of this strange, likely smelly man she met less than a week before. They then bounce to the ship’s cargo hold and get it on in the back of a Model-T, almost certainly staining the new upholstery. I get being young and spontaneous, but have some regard for other people’s property you vacuous dicks.
FINALLY, we hit the fucking iceberg.
First off, no one has ever done their job worse than the crow’s nest guys whose sole job was to scout out icebergs. And I’m including me working for two years at a company that I’m still unsure of what their product does.
Secondly, build the ship out of a material that doesn’t get shredded when it clips ice. Feels like the ship should win that battle.
What follows is like 2 full hours of this ship sinking. James Cameron loves nothing more than to put needlessly extended scenes in the middle of his films. We eventually reached the point where, while I didn’t want to see these innocent characters die, I was kind of just like “Ok, let’s sink this thing already.”
Mind you, I hadn’t seen this movie in years so I forgot how violent some of the deaths are. At least 20 people die via smokestack landing on them or from falling off the bow and smacking their ribs into a railing.
The only cool person in the whole sinking was the one aristocratic guy who put on his finest clothes and demanded a brandy so he could die like a gentleman. I looked it up — that actually happened. Badass way to go.
Meanwhile, fiance and the valet are overly concerned trying to murder Jack who is actively on a sinking ship and likely minutes from nature taking him out for them, while he and Rose try to find an escape.
FOURTH WALL BREAK
As the death’s start ramping up, us folks in the theater begin hearing a strange noise that isn’t coming from the movie. It’s a loud, low moaning sound that is reminiscent of the noise a whale would make as it dies from harpoon wounds.
Suddenly, it becomes clear what the sound is.
The obnoxious woman from earlier is crying.
Everyone was so confused that we didn’t even know how to react. We all looked backwards puzzled and kind of just silently and collectively opted to ignore it. We’re not done here.
You know how the sinking plays out. There’s not enough lifeboats because they needed to accommodate all the crystal chandeliers and 40-seat dining room tables. So it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves.
That one pussy guy gets on the lifeboat and pretends to be a woman. Some ship hand kills a guy then himself, and fiance commandeers a lifeboat and actively prevents the poors from joining him in it. Meanwhile, the band is still shredding Beethoven’s 8th in D minor.
Jack and Rose? They’re in the frozen water of the Atlantic. Jack finds a floating door and has Rose climb aboard. Rose tells Jack she loves him after like 2 days of knowing each other, which is a bit much. Feels like that frozen water might have done Jack a favor in hindsight. Saved him from a stage 5 clinger.
Now, I know everyone debates this scene and whether or not there was enough room for Jack on the door. There definitely was — it was a massive door. The question is was the door buoyant enough to support both of their weight? Idk but at least maybe try and figure it out? Or at the very least implement some sort of rotational system.
But no, Jack opts to freeze to death and Rose pries a whistle from some dead dude’s frozen lips and gets rescued.
Also how about Rose saying “I’ll never let go,” as she literally lets Jack go. He was almost certainly dead but maybe check for a pulse at least just to be sure.
FOURTH WALL BREAK
As all this is happening, the woman behind us begins WAILING.
Not crying, not weeping, WAILING.
The only sound I can compare it to is when a kid on my baseball team broke his ankle in half and his foot was facing the opposite direction.
At this point, during the climactic scene of the movie, the whole audience begins cracking up. I personally was glad Jack was dead because it made this woman sadder.
Newsflash lady: Leonardo DiCaprio is still very alive. He’s out there hooking up with teenagers as we speak.
We flash back to the present. Rose took Jack’s last name (clinger) and alleges to know nothing about the Heart of the Ocean’s whereabouts.
That is until that evening when her 100-year-old ass somehow manages to claim up the railing of a moving ship before she deliberately tosses the necklace back into the briny depths.
Real nice symbolic gesture lady. How about don’t literally throw away your family’s inheritance? Maybe, just maybe, give it to the granddaughter who’s nice enough to take care of you so that neither she nor any of her offspring have to work again. Just a thought.
Soon, old lady dies warm in her bed, with a considerably smaller inheritance, and finds herself 17 again, aboard the Titanic, with her dear departed Jack waiting for her on the grand staircase.
Couple things here to wrap up:
Her version of heaven is the place where the most traumatic event of her life happened?
And all the passengers who went down with the ship just have their souls trapped in their watery tomb? This is definitely hell right?
Then she sees this guy who’s been dead for 90 years waiting for her, and she just saunters up the staircase all casual? Show a little urgency you meandering bitch!
Finally, what about the guy she ended up marrying after Jack dies? He seems like a nice enough guy — gave you a few kids. He just never gets to see his wife of 50 years again cause her soul is busy banging some vagabond she knew for two days, while he’s stuck with his ghost dick in his hand? Nice guys never win man.
And that ladies and gents is Titanic. On the way out of the theater, I shot a mean look at the weeping willow behind me then tipped my cap to a woman in front of me who had combined her popcorn and licorice into one big salty-sweet bomb.
What a film. What a night.
