On this day in movie history - The Fabelmans (2022):

The Fabelmans

directed by Steven Spielberg,

written by Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner,

was released at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada on September 10, 2022.
Music by John Williams.

Cast:

Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle, Mateo Zoryan, Keeley Karsten, Alina Brace, Julia Butters, Birdie Borria, Judd Hirsch, Sophia Kopera, Jeannie Berlin, Robin Bartlett, Sam Rechner, Oakes Fegley, Chloe East, Isabelle Kusman, Chandler Lovelle, Gustavo Escobar, Nicolas Cantu, Cooper Dodson, Gabriel Bateman, Stephen Matthew Smith, James Urbaniak, Alex Quijano, Kalama Epstein, Connor Trinneer, Lane Factor, Greg Grunberg, David Lynch, Jan Hoag, Carlos Javier Castillo, Ezra Buzzington, Paul Chepikian, Brinly Marum, Mason Bumba, Mary M. Flynn, Adriel Porter, Tia Nalls, Larkin Campbell, Harper Dustin, Crystal the Monkey, Nikolai Bazan, Jared Becker, Art Bonilla, Colt Carville, Ari Davis, William Dawson, Deborah Dir, April Elize, Kendal Evans, Alejandro Fuenzalida, Samantha Rose Gomez, Andrew Goodman, Caroline Anna-Kaye Green, Taylor Hall, Sarah Hamilton, Orion Hunter, Cody Mitchell Key, Julian Lerma, Paige Locke, Marissa McBride, Cody Miller, Jonathan Moorwood, Vera Myers, Nick W. Nicholson, Molly Renze, Brandon Keith Rogers, Julyah Rose, Meg Schimelpfenig, Lucy Schmidt, Rob Shiells, Meredith VanCuyk, Trang Vo, Max David Weinberg, Nicole Alicia Xavier.

On this day in movie history - Saving Private Ryan (1998):

Saving Private Ryan

directed by Steven Spielberg,

written by Robert Rodat,

was released in the United States on July 24, 1998.
Music by John Williams.

Cast:

Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Harrison Young, Tom Sizemore, Jeremy Davies, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Dennis Farina, Ted Danson, Harve Presnell, Bryan Cranston, David Wohl, Nathan Fillion, Paul Giamatti, Ryan Hurst, Max Martini, Leland Orser, Joerg Stadler, Dylan Bruno, Demetri Goritsas, Rolf Saxon, Corey Johnson, John Sharian, Glenn Wrage, Stéphane Cornicard, Dale Dye, Amanda Boxer, Kathleen Byron, Andrew Scott, Erich Redman.

On this day in movie history - War of the Worlds (2005):

War of the Worlds,

directed by Steven Spielberg,

written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp,

based on the novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells,

was released in the United States on June 29, 2005.
Narrated by Morgan Freeman.
Music by John Williams.

Cast:
Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, Justin Chatwin, Tim Robbins, Rick Gonzalez, Yul Vazquez, Lenny Venito, Lisa Ann Walter, Ann Robinson, Gene Barry, David Alan Basche, Roz Abrams, Michael Brownlee, Camillia Monet, Marlon Young, John Eddins, Peter Gerety, David Harbour, Miguel Antonio Ferrer, January LaVoy, Stephen Gevedon, Julie White, Marianne Ebert, Rafael Sardina, Amy Ryan, Erika LaVonn, Christopher Evan Welch, John Michael Bolger, Zoe Quist, Ana Maria Quintana, Lorelei Llee, Mark Manley, John Scurti, Becky Ann Baker, Mariann Mayberry, Jerry Walsh, Tommy Guiffre, Daniel Franzese, Ed Schiff, Ellen Barry, Amy Hohn, Dan Ziskie, David Conley, Daniel Eric Gold, Booker T. Washington, Eric Zuckerman, Daniel A. Jacobs, Asha R. Nanavati, Joaquin Perez-Campbell, Dendrie Taylor, James DuMont, Ben Ciaramello, Ricky Luna, Columbus Short, Kent Faulcon, Kevin Collins, Terry Thomas, Clay Bringhurst, Jorge-Luis Pallo, Suanne Spoke, Kirsten Nelson, Melody Garrett, Lauri Johnson, Takayo Fischer, Shanna Collins, Elizabeth Jayne Hong, Art Chudabala, Jeffrey Hutchinson, Dempsey Pappion, Chris Todd, Johnny Kastl, Juan Carlos Hernández, Bruce W. Derdoski Jr., John N. Morales.

On this day in movie history - Minority Report (2002):

Minority Report,

directed by Steven Spielberg,

written by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen,

based on the novella The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick,

was released in the United States on June 21, 2002.
Music by John Williams.

Cast:
Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow, Steve Harris, Neal McDonough, Patrick Kilpatrick, Jessica Capshaw, Richard Coca, Keith Campbell, Kirk B.R. Woller, Klea Scott, Frank Grillo, Anna Maria Horsford, Sarah Simmons, Eugene Osment, James Henderson, Vene L. Arcoraci, Erica Ford, Keith Flippen, Nathan Taylor, Radmar Agana Jao, Karina Logue, Elizabeth Anne Smith, Victoria Kelleher, Jim Rash, Colin Farrell, Stephen Ramsey, Tom Choi, Tom Whitenight, William Morts, Samantha Morton, Daniel London, Michael Dickman, Matthew Dickman, Lois Smith, Tim Blake Nelson, George D. Wallace, Ann Ryerson, Kathryn Morris, Tyler Patrick Jones, Dominic Scott Kay, Arye Gross, Ashley Crow, Mike Binder, Joel Gretsch, Jessica Harper, Bertell Lawrence, Jason Antoon, William Mesnik, Scott Frank, Severin Wunderman, Max Trumpower, Allie Raye, Rocael Leiva, Nicholas Edwin Barb, Catfish Bates, Peter Stormare, Caroline Lagerfelt, Danny Parker-Lopes, Vanessa Cedotal, Katy Boyer, Adrianna Kamosa, Kari Gordon, Elizabeth Kamosa, Raquel Gordon, Laurel Kamosa, Fiona Hale, Pamela Roberts, Clement Blake, Jerry Perchesky, Victor Raider-Wexler, Nancy Linehan Charles, Nadia Axakowsky, Dude Walker, Tony Hill, Drakeel Burns, William Mapother, Morgan Hasson, Andrew Sandler, Bonnie Morgan, Kathi Copeland, Ana Maria Quintana, Lucille M. Oliver, Gene Wheeler, Tonya Ivey, David Stifel, Kurt Sinclair, Rebecca Ritz, Beverly Morgan, John Bennett, Maureen Dunn, Ron Ulstad, Blake Bashoff, David Doty, Gina Gallego, David Hornsby, Anne Judson-Yager, Meredith Monroe, Benita Krista Nall, Shannon O’Hurley, Jorge-Luis Pallo, Elizabeth Payne, Ethan Sherman, Jarah Mariano, Miles Dinsmoor, Vanessa Asbert.

Jaws (1975) - the thing about a shark …

Movies, in general, are just movies – nothing more.

You see them – you forget them.

However, some movies are so good – you never forget them; they stay with you forever and get better every time you watch them.

Jaws (1975) has always had a special place in my heart.

It was the movie that made me fall in love with movies.

During my early teens, it was the first movie I saw on rental VHS video cassette.

When I was fifteen, I bought a four-hour video cassette and recorded Rollerball and Jaws when they were screened on TV.

Already a dyed in the wool movie fanatic, it felt great to have my own copies of two movies I love, and that video cassette was like gold to me – a treasure!

Both movies were released in 1975 – a great year for movies – and I will post a blog on Rollerball in the future.

I went through the usual precautions concerning prized video cassettes: broke the small, square plastic tab on the base of the cassette, preventing accidental erasure … affixed a label to the base of the cassette, on which I wrote ROLLERBALL & JAWS in bold, felt-tip-pen capitals … then hoarded it away in my bedroom.

Unless I was watching some other late-night movie on TV, then the double-feature of Rollerball and Jaws was my late-Saturday-night-into-the-early-hours-of-Sunday-morning treat.

During that period, settling to watch movies was something of a ceremony:

More coals on the fire to keep the room temperature comfortable … check!

Draft-excluder covering the gap at the bottom of the lounge door … check!

TV angle realigned, parallel with the rug in front of the fire … check!

Seat cushions banked with my bed pillow against the base of the couch … check!

Fresh mug of coffee … check!

Snacks … check!

Me laid on rug … check!

Cushions behind my shoulders … check!

Pillow behind my head … check!

TV screen perfectly positioned with my direct line of view … check!

TV remote strategically placed to the right of my coffee mug … check!

The ceiling light and corner lamps out; room lit only by the glowing coals and TV screen … check!

My German Shepherd dog stretched out asleep on the couch behind me … check!

Yep! You read that right! I was laid on the floor; my dog was on the couch. I spoil my pets.

Over the years, I’ve watched both those movies less frequently, but each new viewing has always felt like a special event and my appreciation for them has never waned.

I’ll focus on Jaws for this blog.

Jaws was released in the United States on June 20, 1975.

The plot, based on the novel by Peter Benchley, is simple: the locals in the summer resort of Amity Island have their livelihoods – along with their lives! – threatened when a Great White Shark makes a smorgasbord of the swimmers.

Police Chief, Brody (Roy Scheider), Oceanographic expert, Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and shark fisherman, Quint (Robert Shaw), eventually team up and set out on Quint’s vessel, the Orca, to hunt down the shark and kill it.

There is so much to love and admire about this movie: superb script, beautiful cinematography, fully developed characters, suspense and humor.

I can’t choose one particular favorite scene – I love the entire movie and can’t find a fault with it.

From the classic opening, starting with those marine sounds, leading into John Williams’ now timeless and brilliant theme music:

Beach party tragedy:

Official report:

MAYOR VAUGHN:

Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.

The moment of shock, zoom shot:

HOOPER:

This was no boat accident!

Dinner conversation:

Covert autopsy:

Sunken boat:

MAYOR VAUGHN:

(pointing to the billboard as he talks to BRODY):

Brody! Sick vandalism! That is a deliberate mutilation of a public service message. Now, I want those little paint-happy bastards caught and hung up by their Buster Browns!

Author, Peter Benchley’s cameo as the news reporter:

Estuary victim:

Working out differences and setting terms:

Gone fishing:

Keeping the chum line going:

False alarm:

BRODY:

"Slow ahead." I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit.

BRODY:

You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

The first barrel:

Quint’s story:

HOOPER:

You were on the Indianapolis?

BRODY:

What happened?

QUINT:

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. Just delivered the bomb – the Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. You know how you know that, when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week.

Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle, like you see in the calendar named: The Battle of Waterloo, and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya, right into your eyes. You know, the thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living ... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then ... ah, then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin', the ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they ... rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Bosun’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up and down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us ... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened ... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again.

So, eleven-hundred men went into the water; three-hundred-and-sixteen men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

NOTE:

Although the story of Jaws is fiction, Quint’s story of the USS Indianapolis is rooted in fact.

Stacy Keach and Richard Thomas starred in a 1991 TV movie of the story: Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Jack L. Chalker’s fictionalized novel of the event: The Devil’s Voyage, was published in 1981.

In 2016, Mario Van Peebles directed USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, starring Nicolas Cage, Thomas Jane, Tom Sizemore, and James Remar.

Shark attack:

The shooting stars in this scene were real:

Man against shark:

Final battle:

BRODY:

Smile, you son of a bitch!

For me, Jaws remains the best of the genre.

The sequels to Jaws didn’t come near the magic of the original and sank (pun intended) into the depths of the cinematic pit of movies so bad – they are woefully BAD!

There have been numerous other shark-themed movies, not connected to the Jaws franchise: Open Water … Shark Night … Deep Blue Sea … Red Water … Bait … The Reef … The Shallows …

Oh … yeah … and let’s not forget the cinematic classic that is Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus … and I still can’t believe I actually sat through it!!!

… but I have yet to see another shark-themed movie as exciting or entertaining as Steven Spielberg’s 1975 original: Jaws.

If you’re ever thinking of buying a suitable vessel for a shark fishing trip … always opt for the bigger boat!