Last night, Vicki and I watched a movie that we each had already seen several times: Jaws. I bought the 25th Anniversary DVD of Steven Spielberg's shark flick a few months ago, because I'm trying to get more DVDs into our collection that represent what I would consider to be the 'classic' films of my viewing history. It's nice to get copies of more recent films (as I often do, both on my own and as gifts) but you seldom know for sure that you're really going to want to re-watch them all that many times. With the older ones, though, anything that you've happily sat through on three or four occasions already is probably a pretty solid bet for having some long term appeal in your household. And Jaws fit into that category for me, to be sure.
The first thing I have to say about Jaws is that it was actually more intense, and more interesting from a cinematic point-of-view, than I'd ever given it credit for before. I've always considered it one of Spielberg's lesser works, and something of a one-note song: shark attacks, and people die... cue the unmistakable theme music. It probably helped that I hadn't seen it over a decade, but wow, was I ever impressed this time around! I noticed more of the clever photography and better dialogue than I'd remembered being associated with this picture. The Quint character, played by Robert Shaw, came across as much more multi-dimensional than the know-it-all, hard-edged Ahab-clone that I had always "chalked" him up to be (just a small pun on the scene where he makes his introduction, for those familiar with the film). And for once, I didn't even mind Richard Dreyfuss!
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the scene on the beach in which Roy Scheider's Chief Brody says, "That's one bad hat, Harry" to an octogenarian coming out of the surf, since we hear that line of dialogue at the end of House each week. (I should explain that we don't actually watch House, but it's on right before something that we do follow every week - 24, probably - and therefore we frequently see that 3- or 4-second Bad Hat Harry Productions clip that includes Scheider's line of dialogue!) The little bits of trivia that I didn't know... but now do!
As is so often the case, a positive viewing experience was made all the sweeter by the existence of bonus material on the DVD. In this case, it was mainly the 25th anniversary "Making Of Jaws" video that filled that bill, but it really did provide the perfect dessert to complement the main course of shark meat. (OK, maybe that's not quite the right metaphor!)
I still wouldn't put Jaws in my Top 20 Movies list, but it might just be in the Top 100 now.
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