Who's going to see "Jaws" tonight?

I know I am. Taking my 12-year old. Remembering one of the greatest films of all times. I saw it five times in the theater when it opened.

 

I'm going to wait until the weekend of July 17, 18 and go catch it at the New Beverly cinema, it is playing in a double-feature with The Birds. I've never seen either film in the theater before.

 

I don't display a huge amount of my movie stuff, but I keep a little corner of my table reserved for an homage to four of the top films of all time. Can you identify them?

 

Raiders, Citizen Kane and 2001. Not sure about the ship...

 

What a setup!

"That's the U.S.S. Indianapolis, Mr. Hooper."

 

Jeez, for a sec I thought that was the Space Battleship Yamato...

 

Jesus. I'm embarrassed. The original release was in June! Our local theater has been advertising showing it tonight on July 2! Maybe that coincides with the dates in the film.

 

Mayor Vaughn: Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.

 

saw it at the movies! loved the experience! now I'll watch my DVD...

 

Saw it. Loved it. Still amazed by it. Still one of the great action films of all-time, if not the very best. The movie just breathes with life. It's alive and feels real. People frolicking on the beach on the July 4th so naturally. In every action scene you really get the sense of real space and action. That's something that's been lost with spfx where everything is hermetically perfect and produced. And the film has the best of 70s naturalism without any of the forced grittiness of other films of the period, trying too hard to be "real." Second unit footage of people arriving for July 4th is basically cinema verite and that just imbues the film with more believeablity. Then that's followed by the set piece at the beach and the pond. Completely orchestrated, no doubt, but still seems real. With all those people on the beach, it's just ripe for some screw up, but it's perfect. Spielberg directing a beach. No need for computer generated characters to populate it, they're all real and natural looking .Great character actors and locals (I assume) fill it out so beautifully. The beauty and marvel of real authentic faces. Old men with boobs. Wonderful! It's just wonderfully acted and scripted, even the Spielberg touch is in light supply, as it was early in his career. There's no sense of it being honed in any mechanical way out of cleverness, it just flows. It's just imperfect enough that it feels alive and shot out on a limb at times. The scenes on the boat -- who even shoots real action anymore? The boat being pulled by it transom and the waves smashing into it. Who would shoot that today. It would be a green screen or some other horsebull. Hollywood today and it's plastic canned crap. Superheros, comic plots and sitcom junk. I long for the days when movies like this were alive and human.

 

We saw it last week....lots of fun even if you have seen it a hundred times. It is definitely different in a theater. It wasnt playing with The Birds in Colorado...too bad!

 

What a great, insiteful, perfect post. I agree completely.

 

Oh, I wanted to mention a little oversight in "Jaws" I spotted. First time I've thought about it. When Capt. Ben Gardner goes out on his boat -- which is famously found beaten up by the shark and Gardner's head makes a shocking appearance - he has a first mate with him. No one ever mentions the first mate! They talk later about finding Ben Gardner, but no one ever mentions the poor first mate who presumably also went missing! He the "missing" shark victim!

 

the rest of your post was spot on though

 

There's a lot of truth to that.

 

indeed

 

Don't forget the dog that "vanishes" just before the little boy on the raft is attacked. :-(

 

I'm gonna catch hell for this but I have never seen JAWS. Pieces of it here and there, sure, like the climactic scene with Robert Shaw gettin' eaten (and even that I covered my eyes for most of). I've been surfing and swimming for almost 40 years and my imagination can run away with itself all on it's own, thank you very much

 

Also when the CGI boat is being pulled it would have to do 360s and be totally submerged a couple times as our heros hold tight,then dragged close to shore where it would be flung thru the air into a seaside eatery as people run everywhere to avoid the shattered windows and debris,while the action continues I imagine Hooper would lose his footing and some point and almost fall into the water but is saved by accidentally landing on and balancing on one of the yellow kegs.Thanks Peter Jackson.

 

Perfect observation.