I think the first two movies that I found to be breathtakingly overrated were E.T. and Titanic. I was twelve when E.T. came out, and I found it insufferably sentimental. And I remember going to see Titanic reluctantly, feeling it was my civic duty to go see that horrifically expensive movie, to do my part to keep Hollywood from going bankrupt. I was already incredibly pissed off that Kevin Costner had singlehandedly caused the extinction of the big-budget postapocalyptic sci-fi epic for a generation, after the lameness that was Waterworld and The Postman made studio execs allergic to spending that kind of money on that kind of movie (as if it were the genre’s fault rather than Costner’s). So I really didn’t want Cameron to kill off the big-budget disaster movie the same way.
Who knew that all those 12-year-old girls would keep going to see Titanic over and over and over again? Who knew that anyone would actually like the love story? You could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned how profitable Titanic was to become. I know people, actual educated and intelligent people, who still call Titanic their favorite movie. Oof.
