Wonkette Movie Matinee: Jaws
'Smile, you son of a BITCH!'
I am going throw some words into the water like chum behind the Orca.
Then as the shark pops up, proclaim: We’re gonna need a bigger Movie Night!
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, we rode our bikes 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.
Interesting Movie Night history, we first watched Jaws as our 11th movie night on July 2, 2022. We were just a baby back then and Robyn was writing the details. (Unfortunately the comments on that post are no longer available.) We skipped it in 2023 but starting in 2024 it has become our 4th of July tradition as a matinee. Today is our 4th viewing!
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 for free with ads on OKRU; with subscription on Peacock and AMC+; $3.99 in the usual places.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules, go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is That One Time by Gavin McClurg and Red Bull TV.
Next week’s Movie Night selection is Adventureland, available for free with ads on Pluto TV; with subscription on MGM+; $3.99-4.99 in the usual places.
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I have mixed feelings about this movie….
BONUS TRIVIA:
When composer John Williams originally played the score for director Steven Spielberg, Spielberg laughed and said, "That's funny, John, really; but what did you really have in mind for the theme of Jaws?" Spielberg later stated that without Williams's score, the movie would only have been half as successful and according to Williams, it jump-started his career.