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50 years! Happy Anniversary Bruce!
Jaws was released on June 20, 1975. Opening in 409 movie theaters across the US, Bruce The Shark chewed up the competition and shredded it like that Kintner boy. (I was killed by Jaws … this is how it changed my life.) It took only 78 days for it to surpass The Godfather for highest box office gross earnings at $86 million. It would take more than three yellow barrels to stop this big fish tale.
In the summer of 1975 I had just turned 13 and oh hell yeah I was going to see this PG-rated movie that everyone was talking about. Living in Indiana we had no reference for what the ocean was like except for what we saw in films. With my group of friends, I rode my bike to the local cinema for an afternoon matinee and sat a little too close to the screen. All the jump scares and edge-of-the-seat tension had a theater full of teenagers screaming and giggling and popcorn flying. Looking back, it was the best way possible to have watched Jaws for the first time.
I have seen it more times than I can count since then and I’m sure many of you have too. The reason we have watched it so many times is a bit of nostalgia, but we keep coming back to it because it’s a really good, intense, rollicking and fun thrill ride of a movie.
We also love to quote this film.
“Y’know the thing about a shark, he’s got … lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.”
“You yell barracuda, everybody says, ‘Huh? What?’ You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”
“This shark, swallow you whole.”
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
“Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our shark.”
We can’t talk about sharks without mentioning a certain delusional, elderly, multiply convicted felon who seems to confuse real life with movies.
“If I’m sitting down and that boat’s going down and I’m on top of a battery, and the water starts flooding in, I’m getting concerned. But then I look 10 yards to my left and there’s a shark over there. So I have a choice of electrocution or a shark — you know what I’m going to take? Electrocution. I will take electrocution every single time. Do we agree?”
We can take some pleasure in enjoying a movie that he would hate.
Jaws stars Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, and Lee Fierro. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Music by John Williams.
Jaws is available with subscription on Peacock. $3.99 in the usual places.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is I’m Going To Bite Someone written and directed by Steve Dildarian.
Our next Movie Night selection is American Splendor, available with subscription on Max and Hulu. $3.99 in the usual places. For free on the Internet Archive (with Spanish subtitles.) Free on YouTube.
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