Jaws (1975)
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2025 1:51 pm
It's the big fiftieth anniversary! And yet, my fandom which had peaked the last few years had, for some reason, taken a back seat to more pressing real-life issues, so I hadn't really been following all that, or terribly interested in the first place.
Oh well. Before turning in at bedtime last night though, after one last Oxy and a little toot of indica, I realized, fer chrissakes, tomorrow's the Fourth of July!
So, just for fun, for old time's sake, I flipped it on to fall asleep to. My wife insisted I was gonna watch the whole thing. Obviously I was not gonna watch the whole thing, I was gonna be asleep before Kintner started to prune.
She knows me too well. I watched the whole fuckin' thing.
After the first two or three hundred times you watch it, you start to notice some of the flaws. And there are definitely flaws! Of course there's flaws, a fresh young director trying to do something no one had ever done, using a bunch of local non-actors to try to cobble together a reasonably believable "Amity Island" community, struggling with high-strung actors, running over-budget and over-time, with self-imposed technical problems biting him in the ass at every turn.
There are tiny flaws. You know, Polly hands the phone to Brody saying "it's the medical examiner" when she had the phone up to her head for about 0.00013 seconds. The obvious, bizarre, "this is what happens" cut when Hooper is examining Chrissie's remains. Kintner's mom being old enough to be my mom, today. Whatever.
There is one HUGE flaw, though, that will bother you every time you watch it, after I point it out:
When Hooper is trying to convince Vaughn to close the beaches, he goes into his "found a tooth the size of a shot glass" bit, like that is his big proof that there is a problem. What he DOESN'T mention, though, is that while he was finding that tooth, noted local fisherman Ben Gardner's FUCKIN' HEAD CAME AT HIM WITH A FUCKING EYEBALL POKING OUT OF HIS SKULL. Like, I probably would have mentioned that? "There was a tooth! Oh, also a DEAD GUY THAT EVERYONE ON THIS ISLAND KNOWS." God.
There is a good, practical reason for this flaw. That jump-scare scene with Ben Gardner, still the best jump scare ever committed to film, was shot after all the rest of the movie was done. It was filmed in the editor's backyard pool! It was done just to give the audience a thrill. It works. It's an unforgettable moment in movie history. It's great.
But it makes Hooper hyperventilating about a tooth instead of Ben Gardner's decapitated head completely ridiculous.
Ah well.
Shortly thereafter, Brody, Hooper and Quint set sail in the Orca. There are no more flaws the rest of the way. None.
So what do we have here? The first "summer blockbuster", the film that made Spielberg a star, the film that launched countless, uniformly awful sequels and copycats.
It is all perfect, even with its flaws.
FIVE STARS (*****) and still possibly the greatest movie ever made.
Oh well. Before turning in at bedtime last night though, after one last Oxy and a little toot of indica, I realized, fer chrissakes, tomorrow's the Fourth of July!
So, just for fun, for old time's sake, I flipped it on to fall asleep to. My wife insisted I was gonna watch the whole thing. Obviously I was not gonna watch the whole thing, I was gonna be asleep before Kintner started to prune.
She knows me too well. I watched the whole fuckin' thing.
After the first two or three hundred times you watch it, you start to notice some of the flaws. And there are definitely flaws! Of course there's flaws, a fresh young director trying to do something no one had ever done, using a bunch of local non-actors to try to cobble together a reasonably believable "Amity Island" community, struggling with high-strung actors, running over-budget and over-time, with self-imposed technical problems biting him in the ass at every turn.
There are tiny flaws. You know, Polly hands the phone to Brody saying "it's the medical examiner" when she had the phone up to her head for about 0.00013 seconds. The obvious, bizarre, "this is what happens" cut when Hooper is examining Chrissie's remains. Kintner's mom being old enough to be my mom, today. Whatever.
There is one HUGE flaw, though, that will bother you every time you watch it, after I point it out:
When Hooper is trying to convince Vaughn to close the beaches, he goes into his "found a tooth the size of a shot glass" bit, like that is his big proof that there is a problem. What he DOESN'T mention, though, is that while he was finding that tooth, noted local fisherman Ben Gardner's FUCKIN' HEAD CAME AT HIM WITH A FUCKING EYEBALL POKING OUT OF HIS SKULL. Like, I probably would have mentioned that? "There was a tooth! Oh, also a DEAD GUY THAT EVERYONE ON THIS ISLAND KNOWS." God.
There is a good, practical reason for this flaw. That jump-scare scene with Ben Gardner, still the best jump scare ever committed to film, was shot after all the rest of the movie was done. It was filmed in the editor's backyard pool! It was done just to give the audience a thrill. It works. It's an unforgettable moment in movie history. It's great.
But it makes Hooper hyperventilating about a tooth instead of Ben Gardner's decapitated head completely ridiculous.
Ah well.
Shortly thereafter, Brody, Hooper and Quint set sail in the Orca. There are no more flaws the rest of the way. None.
So what do we have here? The first "summer blockbuster", the film that made Spielberg a star, the film that launched countless, uniformly awful sequels and copycats.
It is all perfect, even with its flaws.
FIVE STARS (*****) and still possibly the greatest movie ever made.