Jaws
 

Popped this one into the dvd player last night.

Wow, this film is perfect. It is a shame Robert Shaw wasn't nominated for best supporting actor. He was fabulous.

For that you get the head...

...the tail...

...the whole damn thing.

Watching it right now as I surf...

"here's to swimmin' with bow legged women"

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian t'Leyte, we'd 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 hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was 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. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the squares in the old calendars like the Battle o' Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til 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 your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks 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 do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep, Reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and start 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, the sharks took the rest, June the twenty-ninth, nineteen-forty five. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

http://connor.pandacrafts.com/antony/jaws/quint.jpg

one of the best movies ever created!

Always thought his performance was iconic and a joy to watch. I'll have to watch this again now.

I see you brought your rubbers. :D

You hit the nail right on the head Parcher.

That was the scariest part of the movie for me, better than the shots with the actual shark in the picture.

A great performance by Robert Shaw.

Damn right!

Jaws is my favorite Spielberg film of all time It was the very first Spielberg film I saw in the theatre, so I've been always partial to this. Nothing has quite matched that experience since then for me. Not Close Encounters, not Raiders, not E.T., and well, Schindler's List is a different cup of tea...

I always remember being most terrified when I couldn't see the shark in those various POV shots. When the shark appeared, it was like a relief because at least I knew what to expect. :)

They should have included the original Oscar winning mono sound mix on the DVD. The whale song heard while the guys are waiting at night aboard the Orca used to scare the bejesus out of me.

Did you see the E! true hollywood story on Jaws? It's very interesting.

I can definitely say that Quint is one my favorite movie characters of all time...

Jaws is a great movie. It's dated, of course, but thereøs just something about it that works.

What is the deal on the mono track? Can somebody explain?

I have'nt watched it in a few years, but man, this is how a blockbuster should be. No mindless popcorn movie, but an honest damn good ride with a great script, charcters, and action.

Besides Shaw's performance, I thought Roy did a good job too. You can totally feel his "I'm here in Amityville to get away from New York" charcter, someone who just wants to get the job done, but is scared as hell.

Man, Steven made a jewel here. All the special effects in the world can't beat the ride of when the Orca takes out of harbor and you know doom is waiting on the other side.

Jabootu has what I think is the best in-depth review of this great film: http://www.jabootu.com/jaws.htm

(P.S. Jabootu usually only has humorous negative reviews of bad movies but, in this case, a great positive review was written for the original Jaws that was then followed by a series of humorous negative reviews for all of the lousy sequels: Jaws 2, Jaws 3D, and Jaws 4.)

John Milius wrote that.

In fact Milius wrote other parts of the dialogue, for example "I'll find him for 3, but I'll catch him and kill him for 10".

Carl Gottlieb has stated himself that Shaw DID write that long monologue, but Milius is often credited for it...

Shaw wrote that bit I believe...watch the Doc on the disc...

Jaws is one of my top 5 favorite movies.

Shaw did The Deep after Jaws, and then died in 78.

Like I said, he should have been at least nominated for a best supporting oscar for this role.

Great movie.

I also love the bar scene in Chasing Amy that resembled that scene in Jaws where they were exchanging scar stories. Never caught that until I saw a special on HBO or Cinemax on Chasing Amy. They talked about how they even went so far as to make the bar in CA resemble the boat look from Jaws.

JAWS is easily one of the best movies of all time. I can watch it any day of the week and be riveted for the entire running time....without fail. A true classic.

MATT

It has held up extremely well over the years.

Too bad the sequels were sukkeeee.

Agreed - Jaws is a fantastic film and one of the best genre-changing films to ever be made. That said, it still isn't my favorite Spielberg piece.

When asked "What's your favorite movie?", the answer I give is JAWS.