Why you should see 'Titanic' on the big screen again

Twenty years ago, I was a college freshman at Eastern Illinois University who played "Tekken" on his roommate's PlayStation, convinced his entire floor to watch this black-and-white raunchy comedy I liked called "Clerks" and discovered the "golden experience" of Miller Genuine Draft. (You didn't read that, Mom.)

I also had a gigantic poster of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio on my dorm wall.

Few moviegoing experiences compare to James Cameron's "Titanic," and beginning Friday you can recapture the magic with a weeklong 20th anniversary rerelease at AMC's Dolby Cinema locations.

Is "Titanic" corny and cliched? Absolutely. It's also haunting, when Brock Lovett (the late, great Bill Paxton) dives down to see the wreckage of the ill-fated passenger ship and floodlights dance over the relics of sunken staterooms.

It's also incredibly intense, as star-crossed lovers Jack (DiCaprio) and Rose (Winslet) climb to the ship's stern and hold on for dear life as it goes under.

It's also emotional, when engineer Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber) admits defeat to the icy waters of the Atlantic: "I'm sorry that I didn't build you a stronger ship, young Rose."

Most of all, it's swoon-worthy (if not seaworthy), beginning with Jack and Rose's dance at the below-decks party and concluding with the film's final, devastating shot.

Add those moments to the film's technological and logistical feats and you remember why "Titanic" became the all-time box office champ and won eleven Academy Awards. It remains a testament to the power of cinema even if, in 2017, some of those digital effects look a bit dodgy.

But the movie itself won't look dodgy, if you believe Cameron's hype for AMC's Dolby Vision from a Dolby Laboratories news release: "The image leaps off the screen as bright and vibrant as life itself. This is the way all movies should be seen and without a doubt, 'Titanic' has never looked better."

Having been to the Dolby Cinema at the AMC South Barrington, I can guarantee you it will sound great - my reclining chair rumbled its way through "It" and "Thor: Ragnarok" at that location.

AMC's local offerings include 2D screenings at theaters in South Barrington, Naperville, Oakbrook Center and Vernon Hills, as well as 3-D screenings at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago. Go to amctheatres.com/titanic for the full list of participating theaters. (I saw Cameron's first 3-D release of "Titanic" in 2012 and found it to be an effective use of the technology. Is it worth a long car trip downtown? Probably not.)

"Titanic" was pulled off all streaming services just in time for this rerelease, but you can probably find it on your television any given weekend - in fact, it's playing twice this Sunday, Dec. 3, on BBC America, at 2 and 6:30 p.m.

But the best way to watch "Titanic" at home is the four-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo package that includes everything you could possibly want in a home video release: two feature-length documentaries, three full-length audio commentaries, dozens of deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes featurettes, the Celine Dion music video, trailers, TV spots, parodies, screen tests (Jeremy Sisto as Jack!?) and more. You definitely get your 20 bucks' worth.

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. Follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.