Entertainment | Sarah Millar

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Are you ready to go back to Titanic? I am

March 21, 2012 Entertainment No comments

Earlier this week, I bought my tickets to go see Titanic 3D. And no, I’m not ashamed of this purchase one little bit.

Neither am I ashamed that I got tickets for the one screening that happens before the movie reopens on April 4 (I’ll be going two days earlier). Although, I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t realize that I’ll be on holidays on April 15, and unable to see the movie on the 100th anniversary of the sinking.

I was 15 when Titanic first came out and actually went to the movie kicking and screaming, little did I know what I was in for. My mother took my siblings and I to see it on Christmas Day in 1997, and I was mad. Originally, we were going to see As Good as It Gets, but I believe my mother determined that movie’s subject matter may not be 100 per cent appropriate for my sister and brother (11 and 9 at the time). So we saw Titanic (yes there was naked Kate Winslet, but who knew?).

That was also the first time I saw a movie in a Silver City — the biggest screen we had ever seen, and supposedly the most comfortable stadium seating EVER. Truth be told, I didn’t find the seats comfortable at all, there was a lump right under my left thigh. Three hours later when the film ended, I discovered the lump my leg was on didn’t belong to my seat, it was the green jelly beans I had stolen from my nana’s house the night before.

It would be an understatement to say I enjoyed Titanic, almost as much as one as if you were to say the Titanic was a huge ship.

I was enthralled with the movie once it really got into it. I saw a lot of myself in Rose: sure, I wasn’t engaged to be married to a man I didn’t love, nor did my father die after cleaning us out of our fortune, but I did feel trapped, and there were times I wanted to just end it all.

After seeing Titanic that first time I went back to the theatre 14 more times (I know I had something to do with its box office success). I even went on April 14, 2008 to the late show, where (if you factored in the time difference, the ship began to sink in the movie at the same time it would have sank in 1912).

The movie came out on video on my 16th birthday in 1998 — I got a total of four copies from separate people. I guess it was an easy buy for me.

It’s easy to know what attracted me to the film — it was the love story. I was the prime age for something like that to affect me so deeply, and in a way I can’t really explain. Which is why I was interested when I heard this comment from James Cameron about the re-release:

Of course, the romantic love in the film is what I — and likely teenage girls around the world — latched on to when the film was first released. There’s no doubt that I wasn’t the only girl who saw the movie more than a dozen times. Hell, compared to other girls, I likely didn’t even see the film that much.

But is Cameron right? Will the film have a different meaning to me today than it did 15 years ago?

Sure, I no longer compare with Rose so much. I like my life, and am quite happy. I’m not looking for a Jack to arrive and save me.

So will I get something deeper out of Titanic when I watch it on the big screen all over again?

I’m not sure.

I mean, the movie did win the best picture Oscar, so there must be something else there besides some epic love story. But then again, Shakespeare in Love beat out Saving Private Ryan, so perhaps that’s not the best barometer.

Perhaps I’ll have my answer in a few weeks. And while I’d like to say going on April 2 will be enough to quench my Titanic obsession, I’m sure that while my 15-year-old self deep inside has other ideas.

Are you going to see Titanic when its re-released in theatres in a couple weeks? Share why or why not in the comments.

QMI covers trial with branded Twitter account

March 5, 2012 Entertainment No comments

Perhaps taking a page from our neighbours to the south, the London Free Press and QMI Agency have decided to cover the Michael Rafferty trial with a branded Twitter account (@RaffertyLFP) instead of using reporters’ personal Twitter accounts to live tweet the proceedings.

Many Florida-area newspapers and TV stations did the same thing when they covered the Casey Anthony trial last summer.

There are pros and cons to going this route for a court case.

Pros:

You don’t clutter reporters’ personal Twitter accounts with tweets their current followers don’t have an interest in reading;
Multiple people can access the account, meaning followers don’t have to follow three different people;
People can go back and read the case from beginning to end in one place.

Cons:

You have to build the account’s following from scratch (at least when you have reporters tweeting, you can piggyback off their following);
If not publicized correctly, it might never get much of a following.

From what I can tell, other media outlets are just using their reporters’ personal Twitter feeds to broadcast their courtroom play-by-play.

Just after the start of the trial Monday morning, the account had 212 followers. The trial could last three months.

It will be interesting to see how high the following on the account gets as the days and weeks of the trial go on.

This is me in Grade 9, baby

February 20, 2012 Entertainment One comment

To the right, you will see the worst picture of me ever taken — it is me in Grade 9 and lives in all its horrid glory in the 1997 Westmount Secondary School yearbook.

I dug it out, and am publishing it for all the world to see because I’ve been thinking a lot about high school over the last few weeks, ever since planning for my high school’s 50th reunion, which happens this May, has kicked itself into high gear.

I still remember the first day I walked into Westmount in Grade 9. I remember how unfamiliar it all was. How cool I thought I suddenly had become, as if I could shed my skin from the torture of elementary school and reinvent myself. As if suddenly I might be understood by my peers. As if I suddenly would be liked by them.

I remember what I had for lunch that day. The best damn cold tacos my Nana had ever made. They were in my brand new lunchbag. I ate at a table in the cafeteria with my childhood best friend and her middle school friends.

I had such high hopes for high school.

I don’t know if I’m going to go to the reunion, which is part of the reason I went rummaging through my hope chest, going through old photos, old cards, old memories.

Partly I don’t know if I want to go because I still kind of stay in touch with people on Facebook. And even the people I’m not friends with on Facebook anymore, I was once and we caught up. I don’t know what else there is to do.

The other reason I don’t want to go is more simple: High school was hell for me.

I know everyone says that. But it really was for me. I never did reinvent myself. Despite my best attempts, I was not popular, or well-liked. I didn’t get that dreamy high school boyfriend until the year I was walking out the door. In fact, I was so boy crazy (and I should emphasize the crazy part), I messed up what could have been some pretty great friendships with some pretty great guys. (Something I was well reminded when I tried to get in touch with one of those high school guys when Facebook was new and cool.)

I don’t blame everyone else for my high school mess entirely. I know I played a big part in my own hell. My attitude and my unwillingness to bend, or try, or act my age (I often acted way too much older), hampered what could have been.

Sure, I had some great times. Performed in some fun musicals, met a great group of friends that became my lifelines in Grade 10 and 11, but high school was not what Sweet Valley High or Saved by the Bell had told me it would be.

Eleven years after graduating, I’m wondering if I even want to walk down those halls again. I’ve only been back to the school half a dozen times since I graduated. Just once since breaking up with my high school boyfriend almost 10 years ago.

I still have lots of feelings of inadequacy, fear and shame of how I acted toward others. I know you can’t fully hold your 15-year-old self accountable for the way you behaved towards others, but I do. And while some have excused my youthful transgressions, happy to write them off as me being “just a kid,” I know others haven’t been so kind. And I just don’t want to face them.

(For the record: I did not kill anyone as a teen, nor was I a Queen Bee of any kind. I’m mainly talking about stupid shit one does as a teenager.)

What’s the past worth anyway? Is it worth going back and reliving the hell that was my teenage years? Or will the (potential) good outweigh the (potential) bad? And can you ever really make up for the things you did in your past by showing that you’re not that person anymore?

I’ve shown mine. Now you show yours. Leave your tales of Grade 9 woe in the comments below. And if you’re brave enough — add a photo!