Jaws

I didn't get to see Jaws until two years after it came out, and I had already read the book, so I figured I was pretty well prepared for it, but I still flinched at some of the "surprise!" moments, and for a few nights afterward shadows in my bedroom looked enough like sharks to make my pulse race.

Now I've seen Jaws so many times in passing on TV that I'm desensitized, and it only comes across as a comedy.

If you've never seen the movie, though, Robert Shaw as Quint telling the story of the Indianapolis alone is worth the price of the DVD rental.

It's easily the least obnoxious of the entertainments my children like. I'll take techno & dancing and Mark Mothersbaugh teaching kids to draw and Biz Markie teaching kids to beatbox any day over the mindnumbing stupidity of Scooby Doo or the insipidity of Blue's Clues.

Oh, TONS more obnoxious shit out there! Tiny Planets comes to mind. But that could be because it came on in the wee hours of the morning when I would be unwilliingly awake with toddlers. At the end of the show, the two aliens would be snuggled in bed and all I could think was, "you total bastards."

Robert Shaw as Quint telling the story of the Indianapolis alone is worth the price of the DVD rental.

Huh. I still haven't seen Jaws, although I did read the Reader's Digest Condensed Book version of the novel (my mom got those).

There should be a movie about the Indianapolis. Would be kind of a downer, though.

I have a great book on the Indianapolis--you can borrow it!

ugh it's just so horrible. I like my violence in the "that could never happen" vein.

I have a great book on the Indianapolis--you can borrow it!

Heh. I have one or two myself....

I saw Jaws pretty soon after it came out, i.e., way too young (I went to the campus showing, which we fac brats often did). To this day, I am not happy swimming because in the back of my mind I think something's going to get me, even in a lake.

There's also a similar reasoning to explain why I always have a clear shower curtain. What can I say? I'm susceptible.

Good thing I didn't see much horror as a child. I do remember seeing the (I'm sure) god-awful It's Alive when I was about 10. I remember being freaked out for weeks afterward whenever I heard a baby cry .

Huh. The loss of the cruiser Juneau during WWII was almost as big a fuckup for the Navy as the Indianapolis (in both cases the Navy didn't launch the search for survivors until days after the sinkings due to bureaucratic fuckups). And that did get made into a movie, The Sullivans, about the five Sullivan brothers who all died on the Juneau. [link]

Ooh - it's available on DVD.

oh that's so sad. I didn't know The Sullivans died due to negligence. I used to walk by their poster every day when I worked in the library. It was all "Join the Navy! They gave their lives for their country and so should you!" (I'm sure my paraphrasing is a wee bit prejudiced) No mention of it being a total waste.

Robert Shaw as Quint telling the story of the Indianapolis alone is worth the price of the DVD rental.

I am on record (well, the BRQG, which is "record," right?) as hating Quint's long, harrowing story of the Indianapolis; by the time he was done with it, I was rooting for the shark to make Quint into a Hot Pocket.