Jaws

1975 blockbuster

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: no rating because she fell asleep. She claims she saw this in a theater with her dad and sister but that she was wearing 3-D glasses which I believe means that she's confusing it with the third Jaws movie or that she's weird. She did watch both The Last Temptation of Christ and Casablanca with 3-D glasses.)

Plot: In the pacific waters of the Atlantic Ocean that surrounds Annuity Island, a special place where the sun doesn't rise and fall gradually but instead sort of dances up and down, a giant phallic symbol with teeth threatens the tourist season. "Children can't see the giant phallic symbol!" cries the police chief. The mayor disagrees, and following a gathering of homosexuals for what can only be described as the most massive phallus hunt in the history of Ambiguity Island, he declares the beaches safe from penii and open for business. But they're not, and the phallic symbol still roams freely, eventually severing the rest of some dude's body from his leg in what was quite possibly the most grotesquely kinky sex scene filmed during the 1970's. Three men--a pirate-turned-hippie-turned-pirate-again, a guy who works at a zoo (as a janitor), and a professional jerk-off racer--venture out to find and, at the very least, make the phallic symbol more inoffensively flaccid. They spend most of their time seeing who can come closest to pissing on a buoy that is hundreds of feet away. None of them even come close.

Mr. Spielberg manages to transform pulp into something artistic. This is a case where things--Williams' score, the visuals, the slight-of-hand dramatic tricks up Spielberg's sleeve--blend so nicely to create lots of genuine tension and surprise. The triumvirate of heroes are realistically flawed and their dialogue, their fears, and ultimately their companionship ring true. They're likable because they're real. The story is hokey-pokey, unscientific, and offensive to sharks, unfortunate creatures who, although highly intelligent, can't operate cameras and are unable to film a rebuttal. I also would have changed the ending to something with a little more of a thematic backbone, something like the shark eating everybody on Epiphany Island, jumping out of the water, and giving a big high five to the monster in 20 Million Miles to Earth. It'll always be my opinion that in these Man v. Nature movies, Nature should always win since that's how things wind up anyway. Despite its flaws, however, there's lots in the way this is filmed (the use of space on the screen, the angles, the withholding of even a single shot of the villain for the first 2/5 of the movie) that keep this cool. There are moments that scream out, "This is the 1970's!" but there are more moments that, for better or worse, plant the seeds for the blockbusters that follow.

I don't know. Is there anybody else who has anything to say about this movie?