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Dec 7 07 8:57 PM
Dec 7 07 10:00 PM
MikeTheMook wrote: I've been saying this all my life, ever since I saw this as a 10 year old kid in '75. To this day, no movie has matched the theater experience that this was. No special-effects, super-budgeted super-hyped extravaganza has equalled the thrilling time I had in the theater watching this movie for the first time. This film drew me into it like no other. This is the single greatest and most exhiliarating time I've ever had in a movie theater, and probably ever will.
I gotta echo Mike's comments. And I think people forget that prior to Jaws hitting the movie plexes, there was no such thing as a "summer blockbuster" season. This one started it all--and what a start! Jaws had/has everything! All the actors were at the top of their game, and who could ever forget that incredible score? And to imagine that the beach shots were lensed in April or early spring, when the Atlantic is absolutely freezing (it's not even anywhere near warm on sweltering days), make this film all the more remarkable. As for Bruce, there's something to be said for something "real," and by that I mean 3 dimensional. He had substance, despite the fact he was really just a prop. But again, what a prop! I remember how completely taken aback I was when we first got a glimpse of just how big that mofo was! Spielberg has never been better, and isn't this the movie that first featured the track-in/pull-back shot, when Brody realizes the shark has again attacked (when the kid is killed)? Unlike most of today's summer movies, Jaws was still playing at my local cinema in November! Only Star Wars met that record! Rod
Dec 7 07 10:27 PM
yendor1152 wrote: Spielberg has never been better, and isn't this the movie that first featured the track-in/pull-back shot, when Brody realizes the shark has again attacked (when the kid is killed)?
Dec 7 07 10:41 PM
Dec 7 07 10:47 PM
yendor1152 wrote: Incidentally, there's an actress in the film--she has a speaking part--who was regularly on a local news program in Portland, Maine, when the film was being shot. I think her name was/is Dixie, and she's the rather loud woman with dark hair, a good tan, and glasses. We see her in the room when Quint arrives and later on the beach.
Dec 7 07 11:02 PM
Dec 8 07 2:38 AM
Jeffrey Allen Rydell wrote: Hollywood Gothique wrote: Oh, and I just want to say I'm shocked - and pleasantly surprised - that the first response to my post was a favorable one. I expected to come back to a batch of hate mail! You mean you weren't just being provocative, then?
Hollywood Gothique wrote: Oh, and I just want to say I'm shocked - and pleasantly surprised - that the first response to my post was a favorable one. I expected to come back to a batch of hate mail!
No, I was just offering a counter-balance to the wave of nostalgia that surrounds this adequate - but not great - film.
Cinefantastique Online: The Review of Horror, Fantasy, & Science Fiction Films
Dec 8 07 4:45 AM
Hollywood Gothique wrote: Jeffrey Allen Rydell wrote: Hollywood Gothique wrote: Oh, and I just want to say I'm shocked - and pleasantly surprised - that the first response to my post was a favorable one. I expected to come back to a batch of hate mail! You mean you weren't just being provocative, then? No, I was just offering a counter-balance to the wave of nostalgia that surrounds this adequate - but not great - film.
Dec 8 07 7:42 AM
Doctor 1313 wrote: I'm glad the movie didn't follow the book closely. SPOILERS--I never liked that Hooper was having an affair with Ellen Brody and died as punishment for it. The passage in the book where the shark sticks its head out of the water with Hooper's dead body in its jaws just to "show" Quint and Brody seemed ridiculous to me, too. DOCTOR 13
Dec 8 07 7:48 AM
DonM435 wrote: I agree that JAWS in almost perfect. However, Dreyfuss' character really shouldn't have popped up (literally) at the end. Scheider should have been the only survivor, to complete the MOBY DICK parallel.
Dec 8 07 7:54 AM
Hollywood Gothique wrote: The shark stuff is pretty good, but I think the LA Times nailed it when the called the film "a bore ashore."
What a joke! For one thing, there's barely much time spent ashore in the original when you consider the whole film. And no, I don't think any of it is boring. Maybe they were thinking ahead to JAWS 2 .
Dec 8 07 8:01 AM
ByronOrlok wrote: There's just one single scene in the whole movie that doesn't work -- the wide-angle profile shot of big ol' rubber-and-steel Bruce leaping onto the deck of the Orca. It's genuinely awful, and one can easily imagine Spielberg and Verna Fields agonizing over it in the editing room: VF: God, that thing looks like crap. SS: I know, I know -- just like all these other phoney-looking shark shots we had to cut! Can't we lose this one too? VF: I wish! But we don't have any other coverage that looks any better. We GOTTA get that damn shark on deck somehow...maybe if we cut it down as short as possible... SS: "Less is more", yeah, yeah...try it... VF: Okay, just a sec.... here goes...what do you think? SS: My career is over. VF: Yeah, still looks like crap.
Dec 8 07 7:46 PM
Joe Karlosi wrote: Hollywood Gothique wrote: The shark stuff is pretty good, but I think the LA Times nailed it when the called the film "a bore ashore." What a joke! For one thing, there's barely much time spent ashore in the original when you consider the whole film. And no, I don't think any of it is boring. Maybe they were thinking ahead to JAWS 2 .
Dare I suggest that your memory is playing tricks regarding the amount of time spent ashore? And no, the review was in regards to the first JAWS. There are other things about the film that are wrong. In the book, Hooper advises the mayor that the shark is likely long gone after the intial attack, so it makes sense that the town would re-open the beaches. In the film, Hooper invents this theory of "territoriality" and says the shark is probably still out there, waiting to eat someone else - and the mayor opens the beaches anyway. The whole Mafia subplot in the book was...well, I don't know what to call it, but at least it provided a motivation for why the mayor was so desperate to keep the beaches open. In the movie, the mayor is just stupid.
Dec 8 07 10:10 PM
Jeffrey Allen Rydell wrote: yendor1152 wrote: Incidentally, there's an actress in the film--she has a speaking part--who was regularly on a local news program in Portland, Maine, when the film was being shot. I think her name was/is Dixie, and she's the rather loud woman with dark hair, a good tan, and glasses. We see her in the room when Quint arrives and later on the beach. You mean, "I don't think that's funny - I don't think that's funny at all. I'm sorry."? She was great. One thing I really miss about Spielberg's early films is his use of non-professionals as opposed to character actors and up-and-comers. SUGARLAND is chockablock with colorful, *interesting* bit players, as is JAWS.
I love that lady, and, sadly, quote that line quite a bit. Was she in JAWS 2 also? I was surprised to see that she was in JAWS: THE REVENGE, too.
Dec 8 07 11:37 PM
capmonte wrote: I love that lady, and, sadly, quote that line quite a bit. Was she in JAWS 2 also? I was surprised to see that she was in JAWS: THE REVENGE, too.
One of the strangest cameos I noticed in JAWS: THE REVENGE was Mrs. Kitner, the woman in JAWS who slapped Brody for keeping the beaches open and letting her son Alex get attacked, pops up in Ellen Brody's kitchen offering sympathy after Shawn gets killed. I guess in the JAWS universe there is a support group in Amity for mothers who's sons get eaten up by sharks.
Dec 9 07 12:27 AM
Hollywood Gothique wrote: The whole Mafia subplot in the book was...well, I don't know what to call it, but at least it provided a motivation for why the mayor was so desperate to keep the beaches open. In the movie, the mayor is just stupid.
The whole Mafia subplot in the book was...well, I don't know what to call it, but at least it provided a motivation for why the mayor was so desperate to keep the beaches open. In the movie, the mayor is just stupid.
Hang on -- are we getting our JAWSes mixed-up again? I don't remember a Mafia sub-plot in Benchley's original novel, but I DO remember there was one in the JAWS 2 novelization. But maybe I'M getting my memories mixed-up -- hell, it was only thirty years ago.
Dec 9 07 5:09 AM
Friend of Daniel wrote: capmonte wrote: I love that lady, and, sadly, quote that line quite a bit. Was she in JAWS 2 also? I was surprised to see that she was in JAWS: THE REVENGE, too. One of the strangest cameos I noticed in JAWS: THE REVENGE was Mrs. Kitner, the woman in JAWS who slapped Brody for keeping the beaches open and letting her son Alex get attacked, pops up in Ellen Brody's kitchen offering sympathy after Shawn gets killed. I guess in the JAWS universe there is a support group in Amity for mothers who's sons get eaten up by sharks. EDIT: I looked it up on IMDb (what a sad Saturday night!) and that actress, named Lee Fierro, is billed as 'Mrs. Kitner' in JAWS and JAWS: THE REVENGE. By the way, according to IMDb, these are the only two movies in which this actress appeared.
Am I nuts, or isn't the "I don't think that's funny" woman in that scene, too? And I thought I read or heard somewhere that Mrs. Kitner was Spielberg's mom? I guess the Mrs. Kitner cameo makes sense...after all, she had lost her son to a shark twenty something years ago, so she would know what Mrs. Brody was going through.
Dec 9 07 8:50 AM
Dec 9 07 9:33 AM
Hollywood Gothique wrote: Dare I suggest that your memory is playing tricks regarding the amount of time spent ashore? And no, the review was in regards to the first JAWS. There are other things about the film that are wrong. In the book, Hooper advises the mayor that the shark is likely long gone after the intial attack, so it makes sense that the town would re-open the beaches. In the film, Hooper invents this theory of "territoriality" and says the shark is probably still out there, waiting to eat someone else - and the mayor opens the beaches anyway. The whole Mafia subplot in the book was...well, I don't know what to call it, but at least it provided a motivation for why the mayor was so desperate to keep the beaches open. In the movie, the mayor is just stupid.
Dec 9 07 9:34 AM
yendor1152 wrote: The first time my sister and I saw Jaws in 1975, my sister pointed out that "Mrs. Kitner" was trying mightily to conjure up some tears during her confrontation with Brody and seemed unable to do so. Now, everytime I watch that scene, I can't help but notice that despite the scrunched up face and choked voice, there's not one tear in her eye. I seem to recall somewhere that she wasn't an actress at all, but a local woman Spielberg had chosen for her particular "look."
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