Category: 2022

Jaws in 3D (1975 / 2022)

JAWS IN 3D (1975 / 2022) ****
When I first read the announcement Jaws 3D would be released to theaters in early September 2022, I mistook it for the Jaws 3-D from 1983 and I thought why in the bloody hell anybody would unleash that bloody awful movie once again … Just when you thought it was safe to go back in a movie theater … because there couldn’t be that much interest really in a third-rate Jaws movie.

I watched Jaws for the first time on the big screen in June 2020, sitting between my wife Lynn on the left and my mom on the right. We ate lunch beforehand at a place called Sharky’s Pub and Grub, and they might even have a Jaws poster. Just when you thought it was safe to go into a restaurant. My stepdaughter Emily and her friend watched E.T.

Jaws is another one of those movies that I would stop and watch every time I would come across it on cable TV, whether it played on TBS or TNT or part of a Jaws marathon 4th of July weekend on one of the premium channels.

Anyway, I decided to watch Jaws in 3D on Saturday, Sept. 3, which just happened to be National Cinema Day. $3 tickets for every showing, every showtime, every format. I had never seen the multiplex so busy; the theater had all hands on deck, and apparently 8.1 million people attended theaters across the nation on that day. Despite not being the biggest 3D fan, I thought why not bloody Jaws, of course a movie not originally in 3D, at that relatively budget price. There was a decent-sized crowd for this 47-year-old blockbuster pioneer, and they remained mostly quiet except for a couple of the most famous shock moments.

I thought it was a great experience, not only because I got to keep the glasses.

I long considered Jaws a very good movie, an ideal one to watch on cable TV when you just want to laze around and watch a movie, but after the last two times I’ve seen it in a movie theater, Jaws has dramatically increased in stature. It’s a great movie.

First and foremost, I appreciate Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, Robert Shaw as Quint, and Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper more every single time I watch Jaws.

Three great characters, three great performances, and they are something the other three Jaws films obviously lack. Scheider returns as Brody for Jaws 2, but it’s not the same.

George Burns (The Sunshine Boys) beat out Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Burgess Meredith (The Day of the Locust), Chris Sarandon (Dog Day Afternoon), and Jack Warden (Shampoo) for Best Supporting Actor at the 1976 Academy Awards, but none of them approach Shaw’s work in Jaws.

Shaw makes an unlikable character likable by not even trying to be likable, and we feel his death scene more than just about any other in movie history. It is truly a horrifying moment, and despite the fact that I’ve watched Jaws 50, 75, 100, however many times, I still don’t want to see Quint lose his grip and slide right into the mouth of that great white shark.

Recently, I mentioned the incredible chemistry between Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon in Tremors. Scheider and Dreyfuss have a similar chemistry as Brody and Hooper, and I’m glad Jaws made Hooper infinitely more likable, excised Hooper’s extramarital affair with Brody’s wife, and let him survive along with Brody in the movie.

Shaw and Dreyfuss are great together, especially when they’re landing jabs and throwing shade at each other.

At one point in Jaws, Hooper describes the shark, and he could just as well be talking about Jaws itself and its capacity to make thrills, What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating (thrill) machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks (thrills), and that’s all.

Of course, that’s not all with Jaws, a truly scary classic that also generates lots of laughter and lots of emotion.

Prey (2022)

PREY (2022) ***1/2
Even if you do not care for Prey, the latest entry and one of the best entries in the often-lackluster Predator series, you have to admit they cooked up one hell of a great idea for a new Predator movie: Have the action take place in the Northern Great Plains in North America in 1719 with Comanche warriors and French trappers up against the first Predator alien to arrive on Earth.

I’ll come straight to the main point: Prey left me gobsmacked because it far exceeded my feeble expectations for the fifth (or seventh) installment of not exactly my favorite series.

Prey approaches the 1987 original in overall quality, and I never thought I would ever say that because of the track record of the series other than Predator.

There were other significant areas that created trepidation before I sat down and watched Prey on August 15.

I watched The Predator, the previous installment, and wrote a two-star review of it back in 2018 which I closed out with At the end of the day, The Predator is not a bad movie, nor a good one, and I doubt that I’ll be able to remember it for too much longer. I’ll say that I’ve killed two hours of my life in worse fashion many times before and hopefully not as many times after. I was right, because I had to go back and read the review to even remember it.

Prey bypassed theaters and began streaming on Hulu in August 2022.

Prey received several enthusiastic reviews, and I seem to remember one or two or maybe a few voices saying that it’s even better than Predator.

Also, unfortunately I could not avoid garbage discourse like Prey is the most woke blockbuster in Hollywood and woke trash and Prey woke garbage. I don’t know, at this point in time, I bypass any writing or any opinion or any discourse that revolves around calling something and somebody woke. You lost me at woke, a word that has been overused to death in recent times and which I see as intellectual laziness.

A simple Google search returns 5,420,000 results for ‘prey woke.’

Oh, for crying out loud, I liked Prey because it hearkened back to Predator in some ways, staked out plenty territory for itself different than any other Predator film before it, and I don’t think it had one damn thing to do with racial and social justice.

Personally, I would love to see future Predator installments that give us samurai, ninjas, cowboys, bounty hunters, assassins, secret agents, saboteurs, and historic rather than contemporary soldiers.

The Comanche warriors and French trappers were so much more interesting than what passed for characters in The Predator, for example.

Prey worked because it had a strong central premise successfully executed more than not with a main character that we can give a damn about from beginning to end.

Twenty-five-year-old Amber Midthunder is the single best reason to recommend Prey.

I had never seen this actress before or at least I had thought so, but then again, I am not exactly a person who keeps up with the latest, greatest movies and shows.

Looking over her acting credits, Midthunder played Vernon Teller in Hell or High Water, a crime movie from 2016 directed by David Mackenzie and starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges that I love. I thought about it a little more, and I think I can remember Midthunder from that movie. Hell or High Water could be even more interesting on a revisit, given that I would be specifically looking out for one Midthunder.

Midthunder recently hit a little back at Prey haters.

I think a lot of people thought our movie would be some super woke, F-the-patriarchy kind of a story, and that’s not what it’s about at all. It’s not a girl defying what men say she can and can’t do. It’s literally an individual who feels called to something and the people who know her don’t think that is her calling. That is so much more personal and, I think, as the character, harder to deal with anything.

People don’t know a lot about native history. Period. So they don’t know what kind of warriors we were. There are people who don’t even know that there are different tribes or languages. So already that’s coming from a place of ignorance. Then you look at it and go, ‘Oh no, man. Comanche were really, really great warriors. They were known for being some of the fiercest warriors of all. And they did have female-warrior society, so there were women that fought and hunted. So yeah, I think you look at that and you just [tell yourself], ‘Alright, whatever, people are always going to say stuff.’ I’m proud of what we did.

Midthunder’s Naru works in the fine tradition of an underdog protagonist whose progress makes for compelling, emotionally involving entertainment for 100 minutes.

Right around the same time Prey came out the formal apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to Native American activist and actor Sacheen Littlefeather for her mistreatment at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony became public.

Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather. I’m Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I’m representing Marlon Brando this evening and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech, which I cannot share with you presently because of time but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee. I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.

Littlefeather passed away Oct. 2, 2022, at the age of 75.