It's really not such a bad movie! It's not the Best Movie Evar, maybe not even the best movie of that year, but who cares, it's a grand gorgeous spectacle and it really does care about the characters. At the opening, the salvage crew just sees the lost people as a giant number, faceless, and by the end, it's all about the individual stories and they're all crying. It's great. And, like William Goldman pointed out, the spine is just a great story. It's got levels of suspense built right in even though everyone knows what's going to happen -- that makes the tragedy.

I wasn't going to see it at all because I also thought, mushy love story, and Cameron was already an asshole at that point, but I read this long article in I think Newsweek (lol) about how he'd gone completely overboard trying to resurrect the ship, down to the White Star logo on the backs of china plates that no one would ever see. More like recreations than props. So I saw it on the big screen for that, and it was gorgeous.

Still CANNOT STAND that song, tho, not even on its own merits, but it was just everywhere.