A guy I knew loved ' Scarface ' but hadn' t seen ' The Godfather ' so I lent it to him . He didn't get past the first 10 minutes and said there was " too much talking." Oh , well...
Great post, exactly what I wanted to point out, the reality of shark behavior and, good grief, blood spatter characteristics, but I'm too lazy this morning.
I saw a pod of 4 orca killer whales this year from approximately 300-400 yards from shore. They were transient orcas, the culture that hunt seals. Very spectacular to see. There’s a culture of orca killer whales called “killer culture orca whales” that hunts great white sharks. Lots of YouTube documentaries on this. Great whites are rare where I am but I’m uncomfortable in the ocean knowing that the local orcas can kill great whites.
From my perspective "Jaws" is still a good, fun, movie to watch. All other variants of the Jaws movies are not good in my opinion. Besides, there are just too many good quotes from the original Jaws.
Jaws is a great film and I personally cannot understand how anyone would not like it. Great characters and a great script. Effects? The shark looked real to me and looks real to this day. Hell, some of it is a real shark filmed with a midget in a cage to make him look bigger. I doubt a CGI would be superior. Dated? Is that a real criticism? Do shark bites not hurt as much now as they did then? Sure, the characters' clothes and styles are classic 70s, but so what? That's when it was made. Would it be better with Sean Penn, George Clooney, and Justin Bieber as Quint, Brody, and Hooper? Maybe Quentin Tarantino could play the mayor. I love the array of not so hidden themes. The lone man warning of danger (Roy Scheider trends Gary Cooper). Elites vs Working Class (Hooper vs Quint). Moby Dick revisited (Quint as Captain Ahab). Leaving chaos to find peace of mind only to find even more chaos (The Brody's move from NYC to Amity). Mass Denial (Everyone in Amity except Brody). Tradition vs Technology (Quint and Hooper again). Great movie. Maybe Spielberg's best.
Shhh!Don't even think this. It could happen. Or something even worse like an all-women version with Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy and J-Lö. And Helen Mirren as the mayor.
There have been quite a few killer shark movies made since Jaws and I would say most have been vastly inferior if not downright awful. The Meg, for instance. On the other hand, I quite enjoy The Deep Blue Sea if for no other reason than this piece of cinematic What the Hell?:
Oh , yeah. That scene took me by suprise I must say. I would have thought that Samuel Jackson was going to be in the movie for the long haul. Not.
That's called the "Marion Crane Maneuver". I don't know if Hitchcock was the first director to pull that particular switcheroo, but Crane remains the most influential example of it!
Eeeeppp killer whales scare the geeezzzz out of me. I was kayaking in Alaska when a pod took out a beluga whale and its calf (they were between us and shore). Pretty creatures to look at, but not something I would like to get near.
The funny thing is I find the films that try and improve on Spielberg's film or goes bigger or users CGI sharks to be lame. Spielberg's film has drama, character development, humor and suspense.
I still think that the TV version of "Duel" is better than the theatrical version that was released in the European cut. The one on BD and DVD is the theatrical cut which has a bit of filler.
I think the intelligence of Killer Whales and that they work as a team makes them scarier than Great Whites, but interestingly, there hasn't been a single recorded attack of a Killer Whale on a human in the wild.
Agreed! And when you see documentaries of them “playing” with their food..... Well, no reported deaths from wild killer whales, but they do stalk and attack fishing boats to get their catch: Gangs of aggressive killer whales are shaking down Alaska fishing boats for their fish: report I think the reason you get shark attacks on people is specifically because they are so much dummer. You will see sharks bite everything from inflatable rafts to surf boards. Here is a pretty entertaining video of a great white going after a boat:
Here’s the National Geographic “The Whale That Ate Jaws’’ special. In the first witnessed event it was only 1 killer whale that killed the great white for food. And within a day over a hundred great whites left the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco for Hawaii because of 2 killer whales.
True. For me, though - I'm 51 - there's way too little character development in today's horror movies. In most cases, I couldn't care less about the characters and what happens to them.
