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

Coco Avent Chanel

Chanel’s life interesting, film boring

AUDREY TAUTOU in "Coco avant Chanel."

OK, I like autobiographical films.
The one on Harry Truman, portrayed by Gary Sinise, was shown on HBO years ago and I bought the video and can watch it any time.
But there’s been a few recent efforts that left me, well, pretty unmoved.
I caught “Amelia” the other day, about the famous aviator Amelia Earhart. She was a renowned pilot, had many lovers and disappeared mysteriously. Yet the filmmakers were still able to make her life a bore.
But it towers over “Coco Avant Chanel,” the biography of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, the famous fashion designer.
It starts promising enough, with Gabrielle living in an orphanage. Now films that start in orphanages are usually pretty good. That coupled with it being a biography should make it a real winner.
But somehow despite opulent mansions, nightclubs filled with prostitutes and lots of singing and dancing, this thing is dull, dead in the water.
Coco is played by the usually perky Audrey Tatou. Everybody liked her in “Amelie,” she was so darned precocious and fun.
But somehow, director Anne Fontaine makes Tatou seem plain and uninspiring, right from the start.
Early in the film, we see Coco and sister, Adrienne, played by Marie Gillain, signing novelty numbers in a cabaret, where they must keep pointing out that “the hookers are over there.”
She meets up with rich playboy Etienne Balsan, played by Benoit Poelvoorde. You can sense she doesn’t care for him, but when they lose their jobs and sister decides to marry a rich nobleman, she really has nowhere to go.
So she ends up at the door of Etienne’s sprawling mansion, providing sex for a roof over her head and something to eat.
But after awhile Etienne tells Coco she needs to leave. Coco agrees to go but remembers, oh yeah, she has nowhere to go, so she stays.
Ah, so you can see how she became a famous fashion designer. Right? Well, no.
Did I mention she rode horses even though she didn’t know how to ride a horse? No, that doesn’t really qualify someone as a fashion designer.
She is so bland and the movie offers little insight into this woman. Despite being so plain and lifeless in this film, rich and lazy Etienne wants to marry her. But she won’t marry any man. In fact, she likes girls, too.
But you know what, even that touch fails to make her interesting.
She creates clothes that free women from their corsets and create comfort. Heck, they look like guys’ clothing.
She is credited with getting women out of 19th-century garb.
Fine, but it takes more than two hours for us to learn this.
So we see more of her life. She has friends. Some die.
Eventually we hit 1971 and we learn she died.
Good. Movie over.
Maybe the next biographical film will be better.
If I hadn’t let someone borrow my copy of “Amelie,” I’d watch that again.

COCO AVENT CHANEL • Directed by Anne Fontaine • Written by Fontaine and Edmone Charles-Roux • Rated PG-13 for sexual content and smoking • Runtime: 105 minutes • French with English subtitles • 2 stars out of 5

Bigger Than Life

Dad goes berserk in ‘Bigger Than Life’

JAMES MASON (far right) wants the best for his wife, played by Barbara Rush, in "Bigger Than Life."

Ed Avery was a junior high teacher in the 1950s.
He had a good rapport with the kids. He obviously enjoyed his job. But this is the 1950s. He didn’t make much money.
He certainly could not expect his wife to work, so he gets a second job at a taxi cab company.
But Avery’s world goes into more disarray when he suddenly has blackouts.
“Bigger Than Life” stars the great James Mason as Avery in this story of 50s family bliss that turns ugly.
That nonworking wife, Lou, is beautiful and wears a dress and earrings while working about the house. She is played by Barbara Rush.
Christopher Olsen plays their son, Richie.
Mason goes to a physician to find out why he is having the blackouts. The doctor discovers a rare disease and prescribes a steroid, cortisone, to treat him.
He becomes dependent on the drug and makes excuses to obtain extra prescriptions.
It quickly causes changes in his personality. At a parent-teacher conference, he lectures the shocked parents about what is wrong with their children, while lighting up a cigarette. Apparently even in the 1950s, you don’t light up in school.
At home his manic-depressive personality shows.
He wants his son to be more competitive in football and announces if he misses another catch, he won’t get lunch.
His actions and personality become more bizarre. His best friend and fellow teacher, Walter Matthau, is concerned as well.
The film has been compared with the more recent “The Shining,” in which Jack Nicholson and his family live in an isolated resort alone for the winter to handle routine maintenance. But Nicholson slowly descends into insanity.
In “Bigger Than Life,” Mason’s character gets more and more irrational. He demands to know why a glass of milk is missing from the pitcher.
When son decides to find the offending pills and dump them, Dad really gets angry. He quotes the Bible and comes to the shocking conclusion he must kill his son.
The movie was filmed in Cinemascope, a process requiring a larger screen and was designed to fight competition from the small screen, that being television.
The movie is decidedly 50s. Even when her husband acted bizarre, wife was respectful and agreeable because that’s what wives did. It was only when he got to the point maybe the child should die she decided he was a bit too unreasonable.
Today, a father who sits around the house wearing a bowtie would seem strange enough. In Mason’s world, it was perfectly permissible.
Special kudos goes to Christopher Olsen, playing the young boy who sees his father descend into madness. Olsen made several films but stopped acting in 1959 after a couple of episodes of “Lassie.”
As an aside, Marilyn Monroe was making “Bus Stop” on an adjoining stage at 20th Century Fox and appeared in a cameo as a nurse. But the scene was cut because the studio worried Monroe would use it as the second film she was required to do under her contract.
This is a gripping film worth watching, not just for the story and actors, but the overall tone and great 50s atmosphere.


BIGGER THAN LIFE • Directed by Nicholas Ray, written by Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum • Not rated, too intense for young children • Runtime: 95 minutes • 3 1/2 stars out of 4

Obsessed

It’s not quite ‘Fatal Attraction’

IDRIS BELBA and Beyonce Knowles in “Obsessed.”

It’s not the most original concept for a movie.
And the ending leaves a LOT to be desired.
But come on, “Obsessed” isn’t that bad of a film.
This is almost a remake of “Fatal Attraction,” except no family pet gets cooked on the stove and the husband stays true to his wife. It’s just nobody believes him.
Idris Elba plays Derek, a likable vice president of a high-classed company who loves his wife, played in lackluster fashion by Beyonce Knowles.
He seems to have a great life. He has a beautiful wife, a 2-year-old son. He’s just moved into a cavernous house.
Among initial conflict in the film is, should they leave the mirror over the bed in the master bedroom?
On his way to his office one day, he finds himself alone in the elevator with a temporary employee, Lisa, played by the luscious Ali Larter.
They make small talk. She drops papers. He helps her pick them up. She flashes her eyes and her skirt.
After a day as a secretary, she becomes his aide for a week while the regular guy is out with a cold.
All seems fine except she seems too good to be true. She knows just what to do. She knows his routine. And was she listening in on his private conversation?
Now Derek’s wife had the aide position before the guy Lisa is filling in for.
Lisa smiles, she stops in the office. She gets the boss a bootleg of his favorite band.
The company Christmas party is coming up and it apparently is open to temp workers, but not spouses, even if they are former employees.
Derek uses the bathroom before going home, but is suddenly pushed into a stall by Lisa, who tries to seduce him. He runs out.
The next day, clad only in sexy underwear, she jumps into his car. He screams at her to get out.
Derek decides he better tell wifie about the events, but she feels down because her sister found out her husband was cheating. Derek decides that isn’t the best time to talk to her about Lisa.
Like in any cliché movie, Derek thinks Lisa is out of his life, but she never is.
When he goes on a retreat with his boss and fellow workers, there she is and this time she slips into his room and takes an overdose of drugs.
Wife learns about it and shows up at the hospital with Derek and a police detective, who takes an unusual interest in the case. Are there places police investigate for days suicide attempts?
Larter and Elba are pretty decent actors. They keep the suspense up and the drama flowing. Beyonce needs a little work in the believability factor.
But there are big problems. If Elba’s character acted smart like he is portrayed and reported her actions, the problems would have ended.
And the ending is not only stupid but it builds to a climax and then doesn’t really deliver.
All of the characters act like they are supposed to in order to advance the plot of a Grade B movie.
It isn’t terrible but another revision or two would have helped with “Obsessed.”

OBSESSED
• Directed by Steve Shill
• Written by David Loughery
• Runtime: 108 minutes
• Rated PG-13 for sexual material including some suggestive dialogue, violence and thematic content
• 3 stars out of 5

Dead Ringer

Film has twice as much Bette Davis

BETTE DAVIS with, well, Bette Davis in "Dead Ringer."

Bette Davis wasn’t what you would call a great beauty.
Sure she had her glamor roles, but what made her a star was she would take on any meaty role, even ones other actresses refused to take, because the roles didn’t fit their images.
And as Davis got older, she started to take the so-called ‘hag’ roles.
She did horror films like “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.”
Lesser known but a typical mid-60s romp was “Dead Ringer.”
This film was double the fun, because Davis plays twin sisters, Margaret DeLorca and Edith Phillips.
Nearly two decades before, Edith dated a wealthy man, Frank DeLorca. They planned to marry.
But at the last minute, Margaret announces she was pregnant with Frank’s baby. So Margaret marries the rich dude and Edith moves away.
But Edith eventually returns to Los Angeles and a few years later, attends Frank’s funeral. After 18 years, she reunites with her rich sister.
For the technology of the 60s, the scenes with the two Bettes work pretty well. Edith looks older, more wrinkly, more warn. She also smokes, while Margaret says she quit because of what it does to the skin.
Edith runs a money-losing, cramped nightclub where she employs young talent, even though she can’t afford to.
Edith learns from the chauffeur on the way out of the massive grounds of her sister that the couple never had a child. Uh-oh! Now Edith really hates her sister!
And gosh, if the two are twins, why don’t their names rhythm.? Margaret and Edith?
Anyway, so Edith is going to lose the bar because she hasn’t paid the rent. She dates a cop, played by Karl Maldin, who is in love with her.
So she gets a nifty idea. Lure her rich sister to the apartment above her nightclub, shoot her and make it look like a suicide. To be sure, leave a suicide note.
Then make authorities think Edith is dead, then Edith takes over Margaret’s identity.
You would think that would be a stretch for her to get away with it. But this was a 60s suspense film and there’s no DNA. She gets away with it.
There are some delicious twists and turns in this treat of a movie.
Malden finds himself drawn to Margaret, who is really Edith. Peter Lawford plays the young lover of Margaret, who becomes suspicious of this new Margaret.
So how did rich husband really die?
This was a worthy vehicle for Davis, who stayed a star until her final film, “The Whales of August.” She is also the star of the TV film “The Dark Secret of Harvest Home,” filmed in Kingsville and Conneaut.
It is filmed in crisp black and white and has that early 1960s feel to it.
The story is difficult to buy, but it’s still worth the ride.


DEAD RINGER • Directed by Paul Henried • Written by Albert Beich and Rian James • Runtime: 115 minutes • Too violence for young children, lots of period smoking • 3 stars out of 4

Dad's in Heaven with Nixon

‘Dad’s in Heaven’ great family documentary

TOM (left) and Christopher Murray from "My Dad's in Heaven with Nixon."

“Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon” is a documentary of a typical American family that is, well, not that typical.

Of course, you could argue any documentary about any family can’t be too typical.

First-time director Tom Murray chronicles his family in his first movie.

As you settle down to watch this movie, which includes a lot of grainy old family films from the 1920s to the 60s, you realize the narrative feels disjointed and uneven. Perhaps because it is the work of a novice filmmaker.

But by the time the movie is over, you discover his approach works pretty well.

Tom Murray comes from a big, somewhat well-to-do family that spent its summers on the beach at Long Island in the 1960s. Every day the kids tackled the waves, played on the beach, had a great summer.

They lived in their own beach house. And if you had checked 40 years before that, the Murray family then enjoyed the beach and beachouse, with Tom’s father as the youngest member of his family.

Hence all of the footage of children frolicking on the beach.

And we do get the obligatory family photographs of the so-called typical American family.

Ah, but wait, youngest brother Christopher, born in spring 1960, was deprived of oxygen as a child and developed more slowly than the rest.

He couldn’t walk until he was 16 months. He couldn’t speak until he was 4. He went to a parade of child psychologists and developmental specialists before he was diagnosed as autistic.

While there are other siblings, Christopher is on camera more as he stammers to get his point across. He’s friendly, he has a sense of humor. He doesn’t have an inferiority complex.

Their aging mother, Janice, spends her life working to make sure Christopher is independent and can live on his own when she dies.

So there we have it. The story of a unique family in which one sibling has autism. But brother, that isn’t the whole story.

Suddenly the perspective changes from to their father, Thomas E. Murray II, and then his father.

His father had dozens of patents dealing with electricity. He worked with Thomas Edison to get electricity into peoples’ homes. He was good friends with mayors and governors and other politicians. The family had money.

But Grandpa Murray also ignored Thomas E., the filmmaker’s father. When their father got home from a trip, the children lined up on the steps for a gift. But he told Thomas E. he was undeserving of a gift.

Grandpa Murray also drank from morning to night, dying of cirrhosis of the liver at a young age.

He left a mark on Thomas E. he could never lose. He was a failure at real estate. He was a failure on Wall Street. The family possessions disappeared to satisfy the debt.

And as the story of the family patriarch plays out, we suddenly find ourselves back to the story of Christopher.

Christopher has a measure of independence. He no longer lives in a group home. He can cook for himself. He knows how to take buses where he wants to go. He has jobs at a hospital and a grocery store.

But then we discover yet another talent of Christopher’s, as well as the origin of the title of the movie.

Suddenly it dawns: this young autistic boy who was given little change to succeed in the 1960s is more of a success than his bright father, more secure, happier.

And during it all, the filmmaker, Tom, the eldest brother, learns more about himself.

This is a monumental film anyone who has brothers and sisters can relate to. It is a story about a real American family
DAD’S IN HEAVEN WITH NIXON • Directed, produced and written by Tom Murray • 4 stars out of 5