Jaws *** 1/2

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

No, I had never seen it! Pinback, savvyraven and I are waiting for the last set of Battlestar Galactica discs to drop, so we watched Jaws (the original!) on Saturday.

Since I feel like I am not capable of anything but lousy BBS posts at the moment, let me go down a like and dislike sandwich.

- I liked how the movie dealt with the beach still being open. My main objective to Jaws, before I ever saw it, was that you'd have to be a huge asshole if you're the sheriff of that town and just Hurp Durp left the beach open. Well, they DO give you an asshole, and that a-hole is the mayor. nnngghhh governments!

- I don't know if I have the character's name right - Quinn? Quint? Anyway, whoever played him did a fantastic job. The movie would lose a number of pieces without him!

- My most vivid memory of anything Roy Schneider did was him walking away after he put Airwolf in front of an oncoming train. Which, of course, didn't happen - he was in the movie Blue Thunder, not Airwolf. I am now happy to say that I'll consider this his best role. Er, that I've seen.

- Of course, the entire bit when it's just Roy, Quinn and Richard Dreyfuss out on the water was engaging. IT MADE THE MOVIE!

- Christ, this review is terrible. I really didn't have much to say, other than that I liked it and I was amazed at how recklessly Kevin Smith homaged the "comparing of scars" scene for Chasing Amy. So, I didn't like how Jaws made me dislike my favorite movie a little.

- But, coming back to the good part of this review sandwich, I did like the scar-comparing scene, easily the best in the movie and possibly the best work in a Spielberg movie.

So yes, three and a half stars, with a half-star deducted because that shark was pretty fake!

[Flack]

I forgot how many fake sharks they made for the movie, but I saw one of them in person at the Museum of Science and Industry when they had all their movie special effects stuff there, and it looked even more fake in person. Apparently they had one that was missing the skin on the left half and one that was missing the skin on the right half (and then the front half of one for all the big biting scenes). We saw one of the ones missing the side so you could see all the gears and ballasts and stuff inside and I remember thinking, who on earth would think that was a real shark?

Then I saw the stupid movie and was so scared that I wouldn't get in a BATHTUB for a month. Seriously. That movie scared the bajeezus out of me and I had to have my parents convince me that there's no way a shark could get into our swimming pool.

Jaws is one of those series that got progressively worse with each film. If you like bad movies, rent the fourth one sometime. One of the sharks is holding a grudge against Brody's family and comes after them. My favorite part is either when the shark roars like a lion, or eats the helicopter. Also the special effects get worse with each movie. If you thought the first one was bad, the hand puppets in 3 and 4 are really craptastic.

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[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, I have a memory / citations thing going with Jaws 3D.

I could SWEAR I saw it on free TV, years after it was released in theaters, with 3D glasses.

However, the Wikipedia says that 3D effects won't work on normal televisions, and that it was not broadcast on CBS/NBC/ABC in the 80s.

But my memory of fish swimming in the ocean and having the 3D effect work is quite crisp! Normally I'd concede, but it's the Wikipedia, not an actual, authoratative source.

I hope to one day make a graphical text adventure that requires 3D glasses to play, though. I think I'd need a tripod for the two shots of each scene I'd have to take. I wonder if there's a camera that automatically shoots that way? (I know there is one such thing for motion pictures, but have no idea when it comes to still photos.)

[AArdvark]

Jaws.....
Well let me say that when Quint got bit I squeezed my popcorn box pretty hard. let's see, in '75 I was about ten years old so it was pretty intense.

I read 'The Jaws Log' . A narrative of making the movie by the screen writer, who is in the movie incidentally, as the editor of the paper..

'I buried the story on the back page by the supermarket ads.'

and..

'Well, technically you'd need a two thirds majority vote by the town council if you want to close the beaches.'

Some really insightful anecdotes about the people involved in making the movie.

It's one of the best movies ever made in spite of the horribly fake shark. I guess in the planning phase of the movie they figured there had to be some kind of shark wrangler who could teach a shark some simple tricks.
Remember this was in 1974, when nobody had a clue because cable television (and National Geographic channel) hadn't been invented yet.

THE
JOCK COO-STOW
COULD HAVE TOLD THEM
AARDVARK

[pinner]

The movie is made more brilliant by the fact that the shark is mostly absent. The scariest things in the movie aren't the shark, they are the barrels, or the busted-up pier. The threat, the ominous odor of the thing is always worse than the thing itself (especially when the thing itself is a fake rubber thing.)

Spielberg said that they were late making the shark, which is why there wasn't much of him in it. If this is true, and I hope it isn't, it's one of the best cases of stumbling into brilliance I've ever heard about. Subtlety and restraint end up vaulting this movie way past every other monster movie ever made.

(Plus the scars/USS Indianapolis scene, which is definitely in my top five movie scenes ever, and three of those five are taken up by Magnolia.)

[Flack]

I could SWEAR I saw it on free TV, years after it was released in theaters, with 3D glasses.

However, the Wikipedia says that 3D effects won't work on normal televisions, and that it was not broadcast on CBS/NBC/ABC in the 80s.

But my memory of fish swimming in the ocean and having the 3D effect work is quite crisp! Normally I'd concede, but it's the Wikipedia, not an actual, authoratative source.

I had to go read that Wikipedia entry myself, as your post made it sound like NO movie could be shown in 3D on a normal television. That's bunk; I remember an entire summer of watching old horror movies in 3D. I think you had to pick up the glasses at 7-11 or something. I specifically remember watching The Creature From the Black Lagoon in my bedroom in 3D. LILLY! For that matter, last year's Superbowl halftime show was in 3D and my kids and I sat around watching that with those silly glasses on.

I'm with you though. I'm sure I didn't see Jaws 3D in theaters, yet I seem to recall seeing it in 3D at some point in time. Memory's a funny thing.

I do own the Nightmare on Elm Street box set (comes with 3D glasses) and I think Shrek 3D or some shit the kids found.

[That Bitchy Amity Lady]

I don't think that's funny at awwl, I'm sahhhry!

[AArdvark]

After countless viewings of the movie I finally watched the bloopers and deleted scenes.

Veddy Eeenteresting.


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THE
THIS WAS NO BOATING
ACCIDENT! THIS WAS A
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, this is the paragraph from the Jaws 3D entry on the Wikipedia that I don't think is correct:

This kind of 3D effect does not work on television without special electronic hardware at the viewer's end, and so with two exceptions, the home video and broadcast TV versions of Jaws 3-D were created using just the left-eye image, and with the title changed to "Jaws 3" or "Jaws III". Because the left-eye image only takes up half the 35 mm film frame, the picture resolution is noticeably poorer than would normally be expected of a movie shot on 35 mm.

The encyclopedia anyone can ruin. I am brimming with doubt!

[AArdvark]

it's one of the best cases of stumbling into brilliance I've ever heard about.

Like that firecrab......