In a Nutshell. Mini reviews of movies old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. And often no sleep.

Thursday 13 October 2016

JAWS [1975]

Director Steven Spielberg successfully scared people out of the water with his man vs nature adventure/thriller Jaws.
A sleepy island town is flipped upside down when a 20 foot long Great White Shark starts making tasty meals out of it's panicked citizens.
Effectively proving that showing more is less, Spielberg raises the b-movie premise into a top-class popcorn blockbuster that's endless nail-biting fun.  Like many of his films of the time it's about obsession and mostly chooses to ignore the potential social class themes floating around but never thoroughly studied.  There's some wonderful camera work made even better with John Williams' ominously simple iconic music and the late great Robert Shaw, who knows exactly what type of film he's in and has great old time playing it up for the camera with delightful exaggeration.

5 scars out of 5

5 comments:

Dr Faustus said...

I've never seen it on disc, only on TV, and I'd estimate the last time was close to 20 years ago, so I'd be seeing things for the first time if I was to view it as an HD scan. Memory says at least 4 out of 5, though. It's one of only three Spielberg films that I'd ever want to watch again (the others are Duel and Close Encounters).

cuckoo said...

I've seen Jaws and Duel several times.

CLose Encounters is the one I've only seen once and yeah...that was probably about 25 years ago.

I look forward to revisiting it again.

Dr Faustus said...

I forgot about Schindler's List. I've only seen it once (on VHS), so would give it another watch because I can't recall anything about it other than the red coat.

cuckoo said...

I've had Schindler's List on my queue for months (maybe even a year now XD).

I keep pushing it aside because it's not one I ever particularly feel 'up to'.

Dr Faustus said...

I've been pushing Godfather III back for about the same amount of time... but for a very different reason... :p