Friday Flicks: What’s So Different About Titanic in 3D?

Grab some popcorn! Check out the movies you should see (or avoid) this weekend.

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Titanic (in 3D)

Tagline: Nothing On Earth Could Come Between Them.

At this point, is there anything even left to say about Titanic? You can even make a case that the story of the making of the 1997 movie (the crew got pneumonia!) gets mentioned almost as much as the actual events which took place exactly 100 years ago. And in case you’ve been under a rock – or indeed iceberg – Cameron’s fictional retelling thrusts rich girl Rose (Kate Winslet) into the world of the distinctly lower class Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), under the jealous eye of Billy Zane’s Cal (“Your excursions below decks were no doubt exhausting.”)

So what bang do we get for our 2012 buck? Cameron had gone on record saying that he wouldn’t change a single frame of the original (and with a running time of 195 minutes, there were plenty of them) and that the boat still sinks. But, naturally, the re-release has been converted to 3D (at a cost of $18 million which took 60 weeks of work). But he couldn’t end up resisting one tweak: at the suggestion of the astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, who questioned the position of the stars during the climax, Cameron conceded, “All right, you son of a bitch, send me the right stars for the exact time, 4:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, and I’ll put it in the movie.”

SPECIALTIME Commemorative Reissue “A Titanic Discovery”

So all the stars onscreen are aligned. What do the freshest reviews make of it? According to the New York Post, Cameron “judiciously — and sometimes with great subtlety — uses the technology to make a great film even greater.” At least the McClatchy-Tribune News Service had the good grace to findthe length tedious, some of the dialogue eye-rolling and some of the digital effects lacking,” but nevertheless concluded that “those quibbles fade with time.” TIME’s Richard Corliss is (still) a rare dissenting voice, “baffled by its appeal.” But the Miami Herald believes that “here is a rare opportunity to return to something you once loved, and discover it still holds up, no apologies necessary.” Apologies? When it comes to anything James Cameron-related, that’s the last word that springs to mind.

PHOTOS: 100 Years Later: A Snapshot of Life on the Titanic

American Reunion

Tagline: Save the best piece for last

The American Pie franchise also began in the 1990s and similarly had plenty of “excursions below decks.” Now it’s back on a big screen near you, in case Kate and Leo’s romance isn’t crude enough for you.  All your favorite characters (played by the likes of Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy and Tara Reid) have returned to East Great Falls for their high-school reunion. And in the course of one wild weekend, they’ll discover who and what has or hasn’t changed (hey, no one said the plot needed to be deep).

And perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the early word is positive. “Taken altogether, the Pie movies offer a cohesive worldview, showing each of life’s stages as the setting for fresh-yet-familiar catastrophes, relieved by a belief in sex, however ridiculous it might look, as a restorative force,” notes the Village Voice (presumably without a hint of irony). Getting straight down to business (rather in keeping with the tone of the franchise), OK! magazine believes that “American Reunion is funnier than all other movies in the series combined.” And Time Out New York quite possibly hits the nail on the head for why this reunion should be welcomed: “Call it a strange and unintended benefit, then, that many of these generic characters work better as awkward adults than as teens.”

MORE: In Praise of Dirty Movies

The Hunter

[youtube=http://youtu.be/KgfB9kebFNI]

Tagline: Some Mysteries Should Never Be Solved

Willem Dafoe plays Martin, which doesn’t sound the most promising of names in a movie called The Hunter. But sure enough, he’s a skilled and ruthless mercenary sent into the Tasmanian wilderness on the hunt for a tiger believed to be extinct.

Indeed, the film seems to want us to believe that both Martin and this elusive tiger are dangerous, wounded loners. A twist of sorts emerges as Martin proceeds to live in a broken-down farmhouse, where he stays with a family whose father has gone missing. But as Martin grows ever closer to these new companions, unforeseen dangers begin to present themselves, thus complicating his deadly mission.

Critics aren’t totally bowled over or put off. “The Hunter has a lot of ideas to express, but it would probably be a better film if it chose to focus on one of them,” said Slant. Movie Time is far more positive, noting that “it’s a handsome, thought-provoking film, none the less, and another contribution to the re-emergence of an Australian cinema of ideas.” And the Australian based At The Movies plays the patriotic card, remarking that “the real star of this quietly gripping film is Tasmania itself, an extraordinary wilderness landscape gloriously photographed for the wide screen by Robert Humphreys.”

LIST: TIME’s Top 10 Films of 2011

NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: Titanic hardly needs our help, whereas American Reunion already has an audience. So that leaves The Hunter for our pick of the week.

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