There are times when you just have a rough week, and nothing is going your way, moreover, feeling a bit of a slump. Sometimes re-watching a modern-day classic will help you out of that slump. I know that I talked about the greatest and perfect horror movie Jaws back in July close to two years ago in my Monthly Recommendation and sure I could just rehash my review or upload the old one but since the perfect movie about Sharks as well as the first ever major motion picture that gave a whole new meaning to the term Box-Office success has turned 50 years old well, there are just some of these movies that I cannot choose to ignore especially I missed a great opportunity with Ghostbusters 40th Anniversary.
When a young woman is killed by a shark while skinny-dipping near the New England tourist town of Amity Island, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) wants to close the beaches, but Mayer Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) overrules him, fearing that the loss of tourist’s revenue will cripple the town. Ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and grizzled ship captain Quint (Robert Shaw) offer to help Brody capture the killer beast, and the trio engage in an epic battle of man vs nature.
The interesting thing about Jaws and granted I've covered a good portion of the terror of Jaws while watching the film in IMAX on my earlier review of Jaws two years ago and that is, there literally hasn't been a definitive Shark movie to surpass Jaws. And among the research I've learned, that's literally the truth I mean there's been a few movies about Sharks that reached potential but none of them ever came close to Jaws. Like there was one movie in 2016 called the Shallows which was basically Blake Lively trapped three feet of water with a killer shark, which I'm sure if I watch it again it would probably still be good but I'm smart enough to know that the film alone is nowhere nears as close to Jaws perfection, it’s like if Michael Jordan's 95-96 Bulls faced off with the 15-16 Warriors, hell Michael would beath that Warriors team with just is shooting arm tied behind his back. By 1971 author Peter Benchley had various freelance jobs to support his family, during that period Benchley was at the point in his life where he decided to make one final attempt to stay alive as a writer. During pitch meetings where he met with his agent as well as his publishers, and so he pitched two ideas one of them was a non-fiction book about pirates and the other about a man-eating shark terrorizing a community and I'm not going to spoil which idea got green lit but let's just say the rest became history. Originally the producers were going to try and get a real Great White Shark to train, but they found that idea a not-so-great idea to begin with. So, they decided to just build three versions of the Shark that give the film a realistic tone. While building the sharks which would later be called Bruce by Steven Spielberg, the studios wanted to begin production as soon as possible with the massive success of the book, Jaws. Though a lot of the guys had to tell the studio heads how complicated these sharks are and needed more time, though like most studio heads they don't listen, and so later in production it would bite them in the a** because through the shoot the sharks were not working even through the course of shooting majority of the scenes and they even had a scene from the book where they showed the shark. But Steven Spielberg decided to shoot less of the shark to create more of an Alfred Hitchcock feel to the movie where the less you see the scarier it becomes. The interesting thing I didn't realize when it comes to casting was that a lot of extras or supporting cast are all locals from the shooting location of Martha's Vineyard. Stuntwoman-turned-actress Susan Backlinie who plays Chrissie Watkins aka the first victim, and she was an excellent swimmer and was willing to skinny dip into the water, and she deserves a ton of credit because she's setting us up, to the most infamous scene of her getting eaten by the shark for which you basically are not focused on the shark you are focused on her fear as well as her reaction as to what is happening. The thing in what makes the film relevant even 50 years since the film's release is that it would make sense of a Mayer of a small community covering up these shark attacks, so that his town will be open for the fourth of July and sure sharks attacks in a realistic sense wouldn't happen the way Jaws does but it would make sense that a Mayer would be an unreasonable person that would do anything to guarantee summer dollars and, actor Murray Hamilton who plays mayor Larry Vaughn did in excellent job in playing, in our minds the real antagonist of the film, who thinks this will be the best summer until things begin to hit the fan. Like Apocalypse Now, Jaws is another great example of movies in the seventies that were important and influential films of our time, because you have directors like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and George Lucas who are pushing the art in film as well as making these kinds of movies that we can love and watch over and over again. And shooting a good portion of the ocean scenes, were all shot in open water's and in logic sense you can shoot this at a nearby tank in the Universal Studio's lot and shoot there but Steven wanted to shoot out in open waters to create the realism as well as the isolation you see in the movie. Furthermore, you look at the three actors in the movie especially when they hunt for the Great White, both Shaw, Dreyfuss and Scheider can't stand each other for which brings great acting from each of them all because they're on just one boat with open water. Even 50 years after finishing the film, Spielberg through the course of his career had nightmares about making Jaws even after finishing shooting in Martha's Vineyard he had a panic attack because of how difficult it was to get the film made and even though Jaws was behind him it just wouldn't go away from him and it haunted him a good portion of his career and at times Spielberg would sneak to the replica boat of the Orca and would have a quite time and he would burst into tears all because of making the film that would launch his career. Though more importantly Jaws was a important movie that took movies to the next stage in terms of epic and suspense as well as pop culture phenomenon. Even watching Jaws now, it’s still this amazing and suspenseful film that stands the test of time, but more importantly it's a film that you can sit down and watch over and over again and still be entertained from John Williams tremendous music score, but more importantly the actors that make Jaws work as well as Steven Spielberg's leadership and his vision of making this film one of the greatest films of all time. Now, films today aren't really making those risks anymore as caring more about making money than pushing the art of film or creating something new and different they just decide to remake movies from the past or making another Superhero film and that's the sad truth, when seventies was the best time to make movies fifty years now it's barely holding on by a thread in my opinion. This week is Shark Week the epic week for shark lovers so, if your ever looking for something to watch, Jaws is hands down the most perfect suspense film of all time but more importantly another movie to watch on Hulu or Disney +, is the National Geographic film Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, upon which I've learned a lot from the making of Jaws, but more importantly grown to appreciate the film more. So, if you’re a Shark fanatic I would highly recommend watching this amazing and only perfect shark movie, for a ton of reasons but the most important reason is that it's a film where nothing in life is working for you, you, yourself, must find a way to make it work.
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