A Trip Back to 1997 - Thoughts on Seeing Titanic on the Big Screen

As most of you should know, I'm a pretty big fan of Leonardo DiCaprio. My obsession started with him when I was 13 years old, and saw What's Eating Gilbert Grape for the first time. His performance in that is something fantastic - at age 19, he plays a young boy who is mentally retarded, and makes his brother's (Johnny Depp) life quite difficult with his hyperactive actions. I cried foul when I found out that he didn't win an Oscar for that performance. Until I saw Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List. How the hell did both of them miss out on an Oscar that year?

But I guess mine and Leo's story begins back at the beginning of 2007, when I was 11 years old. Titanic was on TV, and my mother had recorded it so she could watch it again later. Usually, I didn't watch movies with her, but I managed to catch the tail end of it, basically from where one of the lifeboats is going through all of the dead bodies. For some reason, I was ready to declare this movie as my favourite movie of all-time, and Leo and Kate were suddenly my favourite actors. Alas, it was another two and a half years before I saw the movie in it's entirety. While I had grown up a little since 2007 and wasn't ready to throw myself into calling something my 'favourite movie' after five minutes of it, Titanic was still a bloody good, if a little long, piece of cinematic history.

5 Reasons Why I Love Kate Winslet

This post is part of this month's edition of the LAMB Acting School 101!

It's been a wee while since I've done one of these...I think the last one I did was on Rebecca Hall and that post has continued to be really popular thanks to the fact that if you Google 'Rebecca Hall' the post is on the first page of results. Anyway, why not bring this back for a week since this month's actor on the LAMB is the wonderful Kate Winslet whom we all know and love a lot. I mean, how is Kate Winslet not awesome?

So without further ado, here are five reasons why I absolutely love Kate Winslet.

1. She was my first favourite actress.

Well, if you could call it that. Admittedly, this is a pretty stupid story. A long long time ago Titanic was playing on TV and my mother taped it so she could watch it the next day. While she was watching it I was out riding my horse or something and I only caught the last half-an-hour or so. From that half-and-hour I was like "this is my favourite movie!", "Leonardo DiCaprio is my favourite actor!", "Kate Winslet is my favourite actress!" Lame, I know, but I was only 11 years old. Still, I do love her to this day, and even when I finally saw Titanic from start right through to the finish in 2009 she was still one of my favourite actresses. So yeah, I guess I get a little sentimental about Kate Winslet sometimes.

2. 2008 - The year of The Reader and Revolutionary Road.

By 2008, Kate Winslet with her five Oscar nominations was deemed 'overdue' for an Oscar. Which was fair enough, because she had done so many bloody brilliant performances that despite her young age she deserved an Oscar more than anyone else. But which performance could they possibly pick out of Hanna Schmitz in The Reader or April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road? I always thought that her Oscar campaign in this year was a little bizarre. First, she wins a couple of Golden Globes for Best Actress (Revolutionary Road) and Best Supporting Actress (The Reader). For the SAG award, she won Best Supporting Actress again for The Reader, but lost Best Actress to Meryl Streep. Then she bet herself to a BAFTA for The Reader, which was this time placed in Best Actress. But even after quite a few nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category, for the Oscars her performance in The Reader was bumped up to Best Actress status, and she won that overdue Oscar that she actually really deserved for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Now, I'm on of those people who really believe that her better performance was actually in Revolutionary Road rather than The Reader. Sure, The Reader had her playing her character at various stages of her life, being a Nazi war-criminal and being illiterate...all Oscar favourites, as far as one can be concerned. But she was just so much better in Revolutionary Road. Okay, I just find it sad that her work went largely unnoticed by the Academy in favour of The Reader, which just wasn't as good as Revolutionary Road.

3. Her break-through was in a New Zealand movie. 

Back in 1994, before Kate turned 20, she starred with Melanie Lynskey in a small Peter Jackson film called Heavenly Creatures. The film was about one of New Zealand's most notorious murder cases: a pair of teenage girls decide to murder one of their mother's so they can go away and live together. They try to cover it up, but police see through their lies and they end up getting separated forever. The movie doesn't focus that much on the murder itself, but rather the friendship between the two girls and the imaginary world they had created for themselves. Kate plays Juliet Hulme, the English Rose that Melanie Lynskey's character falls in love with, and she does this role terrifyingly well, especially considering that this was her first feature film. And you know, Peter Jackson directed this film, and look where he is now. This film just did good things for everyone involved. And it was made in New Zealand!

4. She's an absolute darling.

Just watch her winning an Oscar. What a darling.
But really, Kate is such a great role model. She just looks so real, unlike some of the other actresses around, and she acts quite natural. She's impossible not to love. As me and my friend would say, "I would definitely turn lesbian for Kate Winslet."

5. She looks awesome no matter what the hair colour.

I still contest that her performance as Clementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is her best. Well, it's certainly my favourite, as I, like many film-lovers, love this film to death. If only I could track down the DVD to buy because I really want to watch it again. But still, Kate is amazing. Even with the multiple hair colours that don't suit that many people (not even Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), she still looked amazing. She's a flawless lady, Kate, and that's why I love her.

So, what do you love about Kate Winslet?

R.I.P's are in order...

I'm sitting here, taking a break from searching for DVDs I wish to add to my collection, beaming about how sunny it is (usually winter doesn't finish here until January...if we're lucky), but there is some sadness in the year. Yesterday morning, I recieved a tweet from IMDb informing me that Gloria Stuart died at the age of 100. This morning, I recieved another tweet (well, first I read a tweet from Rotten Tomatoes telling me that The Social Network might be a rare 100% 'Certified Fresh' soon, which got me really excited), informing me that Sally Menke, Quentin Tarantino's editor, died at the age of 56. So here are a couple of wee tributes I have for these two.

Gloria Stuart, 1910-2010
Most people, like me, would probably only remember the lovely Gloria from Titanic. Sure, she was in a lot of other movies, as she was one of the girls in the studio system days, like Gold Diggers of 1935, The Invisible Man and Poor Little Rich Girl, but today's more mainstream audience wouldn't remember that. What's most remarkable, however, about Gloria, is that she was a hard working actress in her hey-day, but managed to make it to the amazing age of 100 years old. How many actresses can do that?? And thanks to a role in her late career that everyone saw, Gloria Stuart will be remembered.

Sally Menke, 1953-2010
Everyone knows about the genius of Quentin Tarantino, and how his films always have cleverly cut lengthy scenes. The person behind that rather...intricate task was Sally Menke. Sally started working for Tarantino when he made his debut in Hollywood with Reservoir Dogs, and has edited every single one of his films ever since. There is no doubt that Sally played a huge part in how great a Tarantino movie is, and his films probably won't ever be the same again. The last film she worked on was an indie thriller Peacock, which stars Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon and Cillian Murphy (once again playing a girl). Sally will definitely be missed, especially by us Tarantino fans.

May these two rest in peace, they will definitely be sorely missed.