(James Cameron, 194 min)

In the summer of 1997, things looked grim for 20th Century Fox. Their highest profile summer film, "Titanic," was behind schedule and had to be bumped to the holiday season; one of many ominous signs. Their hotshot director, Jim Cameron, flush from the worldwide success of "Terminator 2," had demanded the highest budget ever issued for a film, and had still overspent. He was telling a story everyone already knew... and everyone knew ended unhappily. And while his young stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, were respected, Oscar-nominated up-and-comers, they had little name recognition and even less demonstrated box office clout. The media was making regular snide comments about pending icebergs; the common assumption was that Fox would go bankrupt when the film, well, sank. As shareholders panicked, Fox traded domestic grosses and US distribution rights to Paramount in return for a reported sixty million dollars.

When release day came, things seemed a bit better. Despite some nasty advance reviews, including in the LA Times, most critics gave glowing notices, and the opening weekend box office was solid if not spectacular. Over the following weeks and then months, though, the box office went from solid to spectacular and then to something there aren't any adjectives for; "Titanic" would become a global phenomenon, the biggest smash in the history of movies, and position Cameron as, as he so modestly put it, "the king of the world" (a title so intimidating, perhaps, that he would wait a decade before announcing his next feature film). With mammoth success came a mammoth backlash; many cynics detest "Titanic," ignoring its status as throwback to the golden age of Hollywood, when epics like "Gone with the Wind" fused elaborate sets and spectacle with time-tested archetypes and heartfelt sentimentality. Though Cameron's hokum-heavy script was rightly derided for its cliches and occasional anachronisms, it was also a masterpiece of efficiency, from the way it sketched out the physics of the sinking in the opening moments so as to not confuse viewers hours later, to the adroit balancing of story elements so as to please all facets of the film-going audience, from lovestruck preteen girls to history buff retirees. As is his habit, Cameron pushed his technical crew and visual effects wizards beyond all reasonable expectation, but they were richly rewarded in the end; this ode to old-fashioned Hollywood splendor and newfangled directorial gumption won Oscars for (deep breath) Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Score and Song.

Followed by discussion.