Jaws

It’s summer, a good time to revisit ‘Jaws’

ROBERT SHAW (left), Roy Schieder and Richard Dreyfuss in the original “Jaws.”

“Jaws” is a watershed film in many respects, something we sort of take for granted today. Yeah, ‘watershed’ is a bit of a pun.

Based on the Peter Benchley novel, it’s the story of a New England town, Amity, terrorized by a great white shark.

The film was released 35 years ago and spawned plenty of inferior sequels. In fact, one sequel was ahead of its time, it was “Jaws 3-D.”

But the original “Jaws” shows what can be done when ingenuity and imagination get together because computer generated images weren’t available yet.

“Jaws” was the first summer blockbuster, marketed for the season.

Director Steven Spielberg had a difficult time creating a really scary shark in 1975, so his people opted to do many scenes scaring the audience by showing the effects of the big fish without showing it.

It was a big film for Roy Scheider, who played Police Chief Martin Brody; Richard Dreyfuss, who was played college know-it-all Matt Hooper; and Robert Shaw, who was the grizzled sea captain with many stories to tell, Sam Quint.

The story was fairly predictable. It was the journey that was exciting.

It became popular in an era of disaster films like, say, “Towering Inferno,” released the year before.

In “Inferno,” firefighter Paul Newman warns about potential problems because the new, fancy high-rise was built shortcutting the building code.

Tsk, tsk, don’t worry, the bigwigs say.

“Jaws” opens with a young maiden running along the beach drunk, jumping into the water, only to become fish food. But like a polite nibbler, the shark didn’t eat everything. He left a little something to wash up on the beach.

So the chief wants to close the beaches, but the mayor says tsk tsk, don’t worry. All will be well.

In both movies and so many others, the results turn out any way but well.

That’s the trouble with disaster films. Public officials are too optimistic and are looking out for the bottom dollar.

“Jaws” does a wonderful job of building suspense, sometimes because of false starts. Oh, it is just kids wearing fake shark fins.

But there are so many instances as the familiar music starts and despite our best efforts, we jump and gasp at onscreen antics.

Doggone, the film just exudes summer.

People lying in the sun relaxing. Kids splashing and having fun all day in the water.

The perfect antithesis for the foreboding phantom of the water.

Early in the film the townspeople are excited because they believe they have captured the dastardly devil of the deep. Those fools, they should have realized it was too early in the film for it to be the real culprit.

No, we need a few more severed limbs and splashes of red in the water to get everyone focused on solving the problem.

The film goes from disaster film to buddy / disaster picture in the final quarter. The Dreyfuss, Scheider and Shaw characters set out in the Shaw character’s crusty boat after the great offender.

The filmmakers dodge a real cliché here by making the salty Shaw and nerdy Dreyfuss bond, swapping stories about their adventures at sea, punctuated by battles with their oversized menace.

It is here where the Scheider character actually sees the creature and open-mouthed declares, “We need a bigger boat.”

The film has been re-released to theaters at various times and is readily available on DVD, as are the far inferior sequels.

The original film had such an impact, it kept people off the beaches.

Sure you’ve seen it before. But take the plunge. Watch it again.

JAWS

• Directed by Steven Spielberg

• Written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb

• Runtime: 124 minutes

• 4 stars out of 4

Zombieland

WOODY HARRELSON (holding the bat) and Jesse Eisenberg are attacked by a zombie in a supermarket in "Zombieland."

Gore, violence and fun in ‘Zombieland’

Let’s admit it. Zombies are cool.

And there’s many things cool about “Zombieland.”

For one thing, it has a real sense of humor.

It’s also pretty gross and gory.

It’s flippant and funny and irreverent.

It also doesn’t take any of the plot time determining how the vast majority of the world’s population has become zombies.

It started with a mad cow-like disease that causes peoples’ brains to swell and causes them to go berserk. That’s it. That’s all you need to know.

Jesse Eisenberg is Columbus. It’s not actually his name. Every character in the film is nicknamed by where he or she is from. Jesse’s character is from Columbus, Ohio.

The film opens with Columbus narrating. He tells us he’s learned to survive in a world full of screaming, vicious, blood-spewing zombies.

He explains when killing a zombie, hit or shoot them twice, to make sure they are dead. Always make sure you have an escape plan. Don’t be a hero.

Columbus tells how he first learned about the zombies. His sexy neighbor knocks on the door, scared because this mysterious person chased and tried to bite her. Nerdy Columbus can’t believe his good fortune. The frightened beauty falls asleep on his shoulder on his couch.

Ah but soon she awakens as a crazed zombie, vomiting blood all over poor Columbus. The guy can’t get a break. He’s able to kill the first of many zombies he will dispatch in this film.

On the road, Columbus meets up with Tallahassee, played by Woody Harrelson. They hook up, looking for the fabled region of the country where there are no zombies.

Harrelson’s character says those living in the East say the Zombieless area is in the West and vice versa.

Columbus hopes maybe Columbus is free of zombies.

Harrelson is on a quest for Twinkies. So the pair stop at a zombie-infested supermarket where they have to kill zombies before they can shop.

There they meet up with Wichita, played by Emma Stones, and her 12-year-old sister, Little Rock, played by Abigail Breslin, who seems to be everywhere these days.

The weakest point of the film is there’s not a whole lot of plot. They stumble into a Beverly Hills mansion searching for what they can find.

Lo and behold, it belongs to actor Bill Murray. What happens there is not only bizarre but pretty funny.

The girls decide they want to attend a local amusement park. Although not open, all of the rides still work and the two girls figure out how to operate each one.

When they show up, huge numbers of zombies appear, licking their chops.

Let me tell you, they hired the ugliest extras ever or there were truckloads of makeup artists on the set of this film.

It was a fun diversion and a must for zombie lovers. The gore abounds but there is so much of it, you get numb to it.

So grab your munchies and get ready for a gorefest.

As an aside, I saw this film in the Blu-Ray format, using a version of BD Live called movie IQ. What that means is if you have your player hooked to the Internet, you can get interesting information about the film when an icon appears in the upper right of the TV screen.

Don’t bother with this option. When the icon appears, we simply get a rehash of who these actors are and something about the location of the screening.

After the icon appeared a few times, I decided it wasn’t worth pushing the button and ignored it the rest of the film.

ZOMBIELAND

• Directed by Ruben Fleischer

• Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

• Rated R for horror violence¼ gore and language

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• 2 1/2 stars out of 4