Justice for All

I know I might upset a lot of Academy Award voters with this statement, but here goes: I'm not that big a fan of Steven Spielberg.

Sure, his early stuff - Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind - are classics, and everybody who has seen his early thriller The Duel tells me that it's a movie I need to watch. But as good as Jurassic Park was, was it REALLY one of the best the year it was released? Are E.T. and Schindler's List REALLY among the best movies of all time? I say no. I believe Spielberg is one of the industry's more overrated directors, one with a certain amount of talent and an eye for the cinematic but lacking a consistent storytelling ability. Look at last year as an example; War Horse was a bloated, over-hyped mess that would have been shunned had anybody else been in the director's chair. Instead, it was nominated for Best Picture over more deserving fare such as Drive, Bridesmaids and even David Fincher's solid adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Spielberg's name can still move mountains, even if his movies more often move me to boredom. It's why I don't look forward to his products, even when they are Lincoln and feature the inimitable talents of Daniel Day-Lewis.

Ah, the days of smaller cabinets...

Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography Team of Rivals, Lincoln focuses on one of the most crucial battles for our sixteenth US President, one that had (almost) nothing to do with the Civil War. The Battle of Gettysburg has ended, and the disastrous Civil War is coming soon to a close. Lincoln (Day-Lewis) has just secured reelection, and makes it his priority to add an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery. With public support at an all time high, now is the time to get the amendment ratified by Congress. But even with all his strength, he doesn't have the majority vote necessary to guarantee victory. And so Lincoln and his allies must convince his Democrat rivals that approving this measure is more important than petty political machinations.

As Jessica Rabbit's evil clone would say: "A Man!"

First and foremost, let's get the obvious statement out of the way: Daniel Day-Lewis is simply astounding. an almost guaranteed lock for this year's Best Actor categories, Day-Lewis does far more than simply emulate the recorded character of arguably our most revered President. As the stovepipe hat-wearing politician, the actor embodies Lincoln's persona, from his easy command of an audience to his sensitive compassion to his ability to speak on any given subject. That he does this convincingly comes as no true surprise; that it seems to arrive so easily is what makes Day-Lewis the outstanding performer he is. There isn't one moment in which he is on the screen that he does not demand your attention, respect and awe, and he also appears to garner those same responses from his erstwhile costars.

It was Mr. Booth, in the Theater, with the Revolver. I win!

But he doesn't have to carry the whole movie on his own back, as Day-Lewis is surrounded by some of the best actors Spielberg could cobble together. You can't fire a musket without hitting any of a number of talented character players, from David Oyelowo to Walton Goggins to Jared Harris to Lee Pace to the amazing Michael Stuhlbarg, and those are just the small cameo roles. Tommy Lee Jones, who had been regressing in the quality his performances the past few years, leaps back to relevance with his portrayal of Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens. His is an Oscar-worthy performance, a far cry from more Men in Black sequels. More strong performances come from David Strathairn, Hal Holbrook and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and it was obvious a lot of research went into making their relatively obscure characters as true to life as possible. Watchmen's Jackie Earle Haley manages to steal a few moments (opposite Day-Lewis, surprisingly) when he is allowed on screen, putting a much-appreciated face to the Confederate government. And some of my favorite moments in Lincoln involved the banter between John Hawkes and James Spader, playing Republican lobbyists tasked with garnering Democratic support for the amendment. Spader especially is one of the film's best additions. Certainly he's the most entertaining, and while his witty repartee won't likely be enough for Oscar considerations, I'm surprised he's not getting mentions in that regard.

No Oscar for you!

Of course, no Spielberg film is without significant drawbacks. Like most of his work, the director tends to spell everything out in no uncertain terms. Subtlety isn't his specialty, and he's not above using blatant humor, cliched situations and imagery, and telling rather than showing to get his point across. It's not as bad here as it was in War Horse, and the director is helped by his performers in not allowing these weaknesses to get too out of hand. One actor that doesn't really help him however is Sally Field, who plays Lincoln's mentally fragile wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. Spielberg has said that he only saw Field in the role, and that's likely what blinded him to the fact that her performance was typical of what we expect from the character. I frankly wasn't impressed; I've seen good Fields roles over the years, and this wasn't one of them. One scene in particular between Lincoln and his wife didn't quite fit, thanks to a decidedly theatrical take that I'm not entirely sure wasn't intentional. And Spielberg has issues with keeping all of his details straightforward. At times he uses subtitles to effectively introduce new characters or locations that we had only heard of before; at others he leaves us to our devices, confused as to the latest turn of events.

My favorite performer of the whole show.

Besides Day-Lewis and the mostly-amazing cast, what I liked most about Lincoln was the history behind it. For many audience members, this is the first we've heard of many of the details leading up to the ratification of the thirteenth constitutional amendment. The reasons behind each character's actions are closely scrutinized, and Spielberg actually does a good job of showing us both how things have changed in the last 150 years and how much they've remained the same, from the gullibility of the public to the divisiveness of Congress. Again, at times he makes things a bit TOO clear cut (especially with politicians perpetually shouting "What's next: black voters? WOMEN voters?" Yeah, we get it), but this is still likely the most authentic look at Lincoln's political career you're going to see on the big screen. The director's ability to capture a scene on camera is one of his greatest strengths, and likely the main reason he has maintained his foothold atop the Hollywood hierarchy after all this time.

I wonder if he has "Old Man" written on his business cards?

Despite my early reservations, Lincoln is a fine film, and one of the better historical dramas of the past decade. It's not perfect, and Spielberg's inability to get over his own hype slightly sabotages any chances of a Best Picture win. But Daniel Day-Lewis is more of a sure thing than anything else in theaters right now or at any time this year. This is a film that - warts and all - is worth watching for his performance alone. If you want to see a master at work - and really, who doesnt'? - then you simply must give Lincoln a shot. It's easily Spielberg's best film in two decades, and is a much better than most of his critics will ever admit.

Equus Rex

When the Golden Globe nominations were announced in December, there were more than a few surprises. Sure, I was happy to see nominations for the likes of George Clooney, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Ryan Gosling, all of whom deserved to be recognized. Sure, I was certain that most of the deserving nominees would get their just rewards (and with a few upsets, I was right), but there were still some interesting picks to ponder over. One of those was War Horse, nominated for Best Drama (won Sunday night by The Descendants). First brought to my attention by my equine-loving friend Adrianne, I was struck by the professionalism of the product, even if the content wasn't entirely to my liking (or comprehension, as the teaser had almost no actual plot information, only a horse running around WWI trenches and under fire). Then his name popped up, "Directed by Steven Spielberg", and it all made perfect sense. Only a few directors could center an entire film around one horse and get away with it, and even fewer could go the family-friendly route in doing so. Spielberg, who doesn't really make "amazing" movies anymore, still lives mostly off the nostalgia of yesteryear, and thoroughly okay to good movies like Saving Private Ryan and Jurassic Park are seen through rose-tinted glasses as classics. Because his movies are so successful, Spielberg is given massive budgets by film companies so he can continue to do the same mediocre things over an over again. That's what made his animated debut The Adventures of Tintin such a pleasant surprise, even if it didn't quite grasp the attentions of American audiences. So now I'm reviewing War Horse in the vain hope that it will at least compare favorably with Spielberg's other December release and, alongside producing the great Super 8, present a renewed sense of quality from this director during 2011.

"They can never know of our secret love..."

Devon, England in the early twentieth century is a boring place. It's apparently so boring a place that Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) has nothing better to do with his time than watch horses play in the fields near his home. When his drunken sot of a father brings home Joey, a young horse too small to do the plow work the farm needs, Albert trains Joey and the pair defy the odds, allowing their family to try and keep hold of their farm a little longer. Then England goes to war with Germany, Albert's father is forced to sell Joey to the Army, and an adventure is clinically rigged in place for Joey and Albert to find one another, over the war torn remains of Western Europe during World War I.

Enjoy your new owner Joey; he won't last long

If I sound a little cynical in my plot synopsis above, it's because War Horse brings out that reaction in me. "Best Drama" indeed; War Horse is a derivative tale of the human spirit and the torments of war, with the only unique characteristic being that it's largely told through the eyes of Joey. That would be remarkable enough IF it had been an original concept. No, the film is actually based on the 1982 children's novel by Michael Morpurgo and the 2007 Tony Award-winning stage play, both of the same name, meaning that any mental strain the filmmakers had to exert to bring this story to the big screen was minimal at best. Sure, there are some beautiful shots (Spielberg might be called lazy, but he's not blind), but for the most part even great cinematography can't help but be overshadowed by the fact that you're watching a movie in which a horse is not only the central character, but the most interesting one. Spielberg and company do what they can to "humanize" Joey as much as possible (including what I'm certain were especially bad CGI eyes in some scenes), but when you limit yourself so much, there's only so much to be done. Joey is easy to root for, but eventually you wish there was something else to distract you.

One of War Horse's better moments...

Don't get me wrong, there are a few scenes in War Horse so wonderful that they momentarily fool me into thinking that there's a better movie sitting just below the surface. As Joey and Topthorn (another horse) move from owner to owner throughout the course of the film, most are boring enough to dry up any of the potential emotion the scenes could have had. That's true until the pair wind up in the windmill of an elderly French grandfather (Niels Arestrup) and his precocious granddaughter Emilie (Celine Buckens, in her feature film debut). It's a sequence that is entirely too short, but manages to do everything right that almost the rest of War Horse gets dead wrong. One helpful aspect is the actual depth in character that these two possess, while their respective acting talents rise above many of those lesser in the cast. They are also helped by being in one of the few parts of the film not entirely shrouded by war and darkness, sometimes light-hearted and funny, with only a few emotionally down moments moving onto the next part of the story. Another great scene has Joey alone and trapped in barbed wire in the middle of no-man's land between the German and British trenches. In this one, a British and German soldier both brave the war zone to work together to free Joey, and their conversation powers the scene and drives home the point that there is very little difference between soldiers in war (or at least in this war). If every scene in the film could have lived up to these two standouts, War Horse would have been my #1 film of the year.

No, thank you, we don't need any horses right now...

Unfortunately, they don't, and the blame for that equally falls on the wooden character models and the creative directors who failed to accommodate for that. Most of the people depicted in the film, from German teen soldiers who go AWOL to the officers of a British cavalry brigade, have no personality beyond their basic motivations. Even the supposed human heroes are dull as dishwater, with Irvine playing Albert as a typical awe-struck teen and Peter Mullen playing his crippled, alcoholic father without stretching out even in the slightest. And if he's such a booze hound, why does the mother (Emily Watson), the strong leader of the family, even let him do ANYTHING? Tom Hiddleston, who wowed us with his talent in Thor, barely charms us here as a young cavalry officer. With the exception of a few people, most notably Arestrup and Buckens, there really aren't any standout characters who can help carry the story forward. Irvine is the worst, and when the story occasionally shifts to his narrative (which is thankfully kept to a minimum), it's among the worst War Horse has to offer. He's way too much Samwise Gamgee to Joey's mute Frodo Baggins, if you get my meaning.

Ah, soldiers of war, ready to die for their country. And then there's the men riding them.

Characters are not the film's only problems, naturally. While Spielberg has all the money in the world to create great sets and imagery, the story is as boring as it is pointless, as any number of films over the years could come up with similar tales. On top of that is the music of another legend, composer John Williams. Yes, Williams is a film score hero, with legendary themes to Star Wars and Jurassic Park on his resume. However, he never ventures far from what works, a fact especially true these days. You can always tell when he is scoring a film because the music you hear is unique to itself while at the same time annoyingly similar to his previous works.

Hey, no peeking!

When War Horse was nominated for Golden Globes, I wondered what made this title so awesome that it attained that honor. Today, I still don't get it. War Horse is not a BAD film per se, but it appears only Spielberg's name keeps this title afloat as one of the most overrated titles released in 2011. Even horse enthusiasts should be wary, as while a couple of scenes full of wonder do make themselves known, it's not enough to ever allow me to recommend it, even as a family trip. If you're lucky, The Adventures of Tintin might still be playing at a theater near you. If it is, that's the Spielberg movie you want to take your kids to see, or even enjoy all by your lonesome. But not this. Never this.

Animation Nation

Well, hey, if Martin Scorcese can make an excellent family film on his first go around, who's to say that Steven Spielberg can't make an equally great animated film in his first attempt? December has proven to be a big name for the iconic director, whose live-action War Horse has already been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture and will surely be have been considered when the Academy Award nominations roll around. Beyond that, he released his first animated film (alongside another epic filmmaker, Peter Jackson) The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which has received a Best Animated Film nomination and will likely be the pick for what has become the Academy's annual nomination of an animated feature to the Best Picture category. Based on the classic comic book series by Belgian artist George Remi (or as he's more popularly known, Herge), Spielberg has owned the rights to make Tintin since shortly after Remi's death in 1983. For one reason or another - whether due to unacceptable scripts or other responsibilities - Tintin did not make it to the big screen, and we would never see a live-action version of this international sensation in movie theaters. Enter Peter Jackson, who had used motion capture technology in creating amazingly lifelike nonhuman characters for films King Kong and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Suggesting that Tintin could be made into an animated film using motion capture equipment, he and Spielberg set out to do something never before accomplished, and for the most part they got it right.

A Library? Don't you know all good adventures start in a tavern??

When renowned Belgian reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) purchases a beautiful three-masted ship model at an outdoor market, he doesn't think anything of it. He doesn't know that simply purchasing  the ship may present him with the story of a lifetime. He certainly doesn't expect that it will set him on a globetrotting mission to uncover the secrets of a lost treasure, restore the legacy of a cursed family tree, and suffer through disasters on land, sea, and air to survive by the skin of his teeth every time. Escorted and aided everywhere by his white fox terrier Snowy and new friend Captain Archibald Haddock (Andy Serkis), Tintin is in a race against time to find a sunken treasure before criminal mastermind Ivan Sakharine (Daniel Craig) can steal it to fund his nefarious deeds.

Yes! Saved from a life of glorious adventure!

The stills I've compiled don't do enough to show how brilliantly animated this film is. The Adventures of Tintin possesses the most realistic depictions of human characters I've ever seen in a non-live action film, and anyone who's seen what bad human characters look like know how big a deal that is. Never has Uncanny Valley been so conspicuously absent, and several scenes are so realistic they look as if they were shot with live actors instead of their digital counterparts. This is especially true of the main character, whose likeness to actor Jaime Bell helps connect him to the viewers, but who also must be believable in every scene. And since he's in just about EVERY scene there is... well, what's important is that the animation not only doesn't detract from the adventurous aspect of the film, it actually assists in making it more engaging to the audience. In fact, I'd say that should Spielberg become interested in doing a line of films in this vein, it would make for a natural progression of the Indiana Jones series, which shares many similarities with his variation of Tintin. After all, there's nothing that could cleanse the palette of Crystal Skull better than to reboot the franchise with computer animation, in my opinion.

No, really! I always do the crossword in the blood of my enemies!

Another step in the right direction is the breadth of characters made open to us, thanks especially to Spielberg's faithfulness to the source material. Though we learn little about Tintin himself (a byproduct of Herge, who developed all his secondary characters more than he did his hero), his visual demeanor and Jamie Bell's reading of the role make him instantly likable, as Bell gives Tintin a youthful exuberance in which you can't help but get caught. Also a lot of fun is Andy Serkis as Tintin's friend Haddock, an alcoholic and self-proclaimed failure who rediscovers his sense of adventure and self-respect of the course of the film. Playing the role of crowd favorite, it's the most fun I've had seeing a Serkis performance since he played Gollum in Lord of the Rings and even that thirty seconds of awesome that was Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Daniel Craig rises above his so-so no-Bond 2011 with his best performance of the year, and that's mainly because it's the only one in which you're not sure it's him until the final credits. As the film's main villain, Craig comes off as devious, cruel and completely lacking in compassion, which is exactly what was needed. A nice addition to the cast are the comedic duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thomson and Thompson (yes, two different spellings) as identical policemen who are allies with Tintin. While not deeply ingrained to the main story, their sporadic appearances do provide quite a bit of levity to the story, which occasionally needs it when gunfire is present at regular intervals. Finally, one of the film's better roles might be for a non-speaking part, as Spielberg takes his love of furry animals to the ultimate level with the rendering of Snowy, who is as fleshed out a character as can be, despite the dubious distinction of walking on four feet.

Aye, he's an angry Scotsman

If there's one problem with Tintin, it's that it's directed by, well, Steven Spielberg. Don't get me wrong; in his early years, Spielberg was a genius director for whom the sky was the limit. However, he hit that sky more than a decade ago, and these days seems to settle his business quickly and efficiently, resulting in some underwhelming and overrated titles that survive mainly due to his name and the talent he attracts to his side. One major problem with his work is that the message of the film or even a single scene is placed out there in the open, and he can't help but constantly point to it and figuratively say "See? See? Aren't I clever?" It's less present in Tintin, but still present a bit too often; Spielberg must have heard the moviemaking manta "show, don't tell", but if he has it has no presence in his work, with characters espousing plot devices and any important information instead of letting us work it out for ourselves. That's what makes him such a mediocre (and ironically, popular) director; his films these days rarely make you actually think, allowing you to turn off your brain and not ponder what you see or hear. Most people like that, but as a regular film-goer, I prefer subtlety and intelligence to rule the day.

Hey, don't you know it's impolite to eavesdrop??

Despite this, The Adventures of Tintin is an exciting, fun film for the whole family that is a modern miracle in human engineering. I was not bored one moment throughout the film, and while some quiet moments would have been welcomed, I can't help but feel this is a more trivial quibble than a real critique. Some moments, such as an amazing chase through the streets of Bagghar, Morocco, count among the greatest feats of cinema in 2011, and it's that visual spectacle alongside some real human heart that rates this title so highly in my eyes. It's no Arthur Christmas in terms of overall film quality, but Tintin is still one of the best animated films I've seen recent years, and it's lack of inclusion in the Top 10 is by no means meant as a snub. A very good film that you should see in the theater, this is by far my favorite Spielberg film this decade. With an attempt to try something different on your part, it could be yours too.

Production Value

When the teaser trailer for Super 8 began appearing, it was clear that we as a people would not be receiving any detailed information about the film in question. When you're touting a big name like J.J. Abrams as your director, that's hardly a surprise; the creator of television shows Lost, Alias and Fringe, Abrams has long been known for withholding precious information from his audience to create a sense of mystery, under the assumption that it would bring more people in to explore the worlds he creates. To a high degree, his success on television is a testament to that idea. However, this isn't something he's done so far in the films he has directed. Both Mission Impossible III and his reboot of Star Trek were more or less straightforward stories with simple twists, and nothing was really kept secret leading up to their releases. Super 8 changed that, however. Playing out as an homage to the early works of Steven Spielberg (who also produced this title), later ads gave us little more than we had originally, including some recognizable cast in Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning and Ron Eldard. Still there is little information about what the people of a small town in the 1970's is facing, as any images of the alien/monster/whatever remained hidden from view. I'm not afraid to say I was of two minds about whether I might appreciate Super 8 when it finally hit the big screen. On one hand, like many others I've been a fan of Abrams's work, and having loved his take on Trek I wasn't going to say no to more from this talented artist. On the other hand, I can think of better inspirations than Spielberg, who has gotten more cliche in his filmmaking in the past decade or so. Sure, if you want to be inspired by his early work (Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind), go right ahead, but this is a man who has gotten used to living off the merits of his name and not necessarily his talent since these early films, and even when he he is credited as a producer you can tell the exact moment when he unofficially takes over from the director, his style obvious, obtuse, and unoriginal. His name alone is enough to make me wince these days, as reminders of how he ruined the last Indiana Jones film still ring in my mind. It would take a lot to prove to me that he couldn't ruin this particular title, despite the high levels of anticipation radiating from my friend Southland Dan. The two of us decided to take in the midnight opening, and now that I've sufficiently woken up, I can say that this film wasn't at all what I was expecting.

Well, there goes the neighborhood.

Helping his friends compose a short film for a local competition, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) witnesses an enormous train derailment near his hometown of Lillian, Ohio. After somehow escaping the insanely destructive crash with his life, Joel sees SOMETHING escape the wrecked train, but does not tell the others, who all swear to not tell anyone about what they saw, lest they get in trouble for being where they shouldn't. Soon, strange things start happening around town. At first it's just property damage and theft by unknown parties. That's bad enough until dogs start running away en masse, people begin disappearing and the military arrives to clean up their wrecked train with a an agenda that they don't plan to share with the locals. Soon Joe's Deputy father Jackson Lamb (Chandler) is butting heads with the soldiers and the teens realize something that had been on that train was responsible for what was happening to their small town, and decide to do something about it.

Is "movie within a movie" the new "dream within a dream"?

To describe Super 8 as E.T. meets Cloverfield with a dash of The Goonies tossed in would be perhaps oversimplifying things a bit. Yes, there is a group of kids who stumble upon a mystery involving conspiracy and an alien, and the alien is anything other than the Reeces Pieces-loving predecessors we're familiar with, hearkening back to the Abrams-produced 2008 film. Like many earlier genre films,.the creature barely makes an appearance on screen and is more a means to tell the reunification story of divided father and son Jackson and Joe. The scenes where it attacks are fairly classic, with the "victim" often turning to face it (off-screen of course) and screaming before they are taken away. It's hardly anything breathtaking, but the effectiveness of these scenes is based in Abrams's abilities as a director to make sure you're looking at the wrong place so that you're not expecting when something shocking comes to pass.

The military takes to confiscating any copies of subversive material... like this copy of "Princess Bride"

Of course, what makes the film so indelible is the sympathy of its characters. While many of the people portrayed in the film are really one-note parts, it's the quality of those notes that set the stage for the film's enjoyment. You expect strong performances from career actors like Chandler and Eldard, who are experienced character actors who play a Sheriff's Deputy and a drunk malcontent, respectively, and their animosity towards one another is one of the driving forces of the film. Their children, played by Courtney and Fanning, are even more impressive. Elle Fanning has done nothing but impress me since I first saw her in last year's Somewhere, and it's really scary to think that she will turn out more talented than older sister Dakota, who is already one of the best young actresses in Hollywood. Courtney also proves himself extremely talented, and while not as strong as Fanning acting-wise, he more than handles one of the few complicated characters in the film. The retinue of young actors cast as their friends are fun and funny, but are slightly hampered by being simplistic, such as Ryan Lee as a young pyromaniac obsessed with blowing things up. Riley Griffiths is the best character-wise of them as Joe's bossy best friend, but they all have their charms and provide many of the laughs that keep you smiling at the film even through its slight narrative flaws.

When describing this film to friends, be sure to mention all the perplexed stares

Those flaws are few and far between, however. Amazing special effects are in play here, with the amazing train wreck only the highlight of an overall well-done SFX team that makes everything look good even when they don't have to. Combined with the director's talents for creating amazing shots, that ability transforms the film to a whole other level. Still, that department is one of the few (besides acting) which came out flawless. Besides some confusion as to why the creature is kidnapping people and damaging property when it would probably just be better off simply going into hiding is never fully understood (except for the fact that without that, there would be no movie), the overall design of the creature when it is finally revealed will likely be disappointing to anyone who has already seen Cloverfield's beast. Perhaps it would have been a boon to bring someone else in and redraft some of Abrams's script (yes, he wrote the film, too) to work out some of the kinks, as the creature's motivation was lost to me on most issues.

Those looking for a new Goonies movie apply within

That doesn't hurt Super 8 for long, however, as the film manages to be charming, funny, and scary at all the right times, even if brains weren't necessarily in the Wizard's bag to begin with. With great acting, amazing effects and a commendable effort to take the sci-fi genre back to its heyday, it scores high as the #4 film of 2011. I'll be the very first to admit that I didn't have such high hopes for this release, and to be fair it's far from a perfect film. But it is a VERY good one, and one that you can't help but be charmed by. I had a smile on my face for about 90% of the film's run time, and the movies this year that have done that can be counted on only one hand. Abrams's ability is certainly trending up, and I'm already looking forward to the next film that he pulls from his sleeve.

We've Got a Bite!

So what has a head full of saw-blade teeth, sneaks up on you without warning, and has an unending appetite for whatever it can reach? If you said Great White Sharks, you can congratulate yourself on getting pretty close. Still, the answer we were looking for here at Hello, Mr. Anderson is far more insidious than any mere meat-eater: Steve from Stevereads and I are teaming up once more, this time to look back at one of the all-time classics of film and a former #1 literary bestseller, Jaws. The famous Peter Benchley novel spent an amazing forty-four weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List... but I'm not looking to move in on Steve's territory. Since he likes to sink his teeth into the literary arts stuff, I'll let him focus his beady eyes on the original novel. I don't need him going into a frenzy, and I'm a chummy sort anyway. All I needed to see was supplied by a Netflix account and two-plus hours of free time, and while this was far from my first go-around with the granddaddy of summer blockbusters, I was still excited to view this old film with fresh eyes and an open mind.

Hey! Seafood!

The first major release by future Hollywood stud Steven Spielberg, Jaws takes place on the fictional vacation island of Amity, off the coast of Massachusetts. After a young woman disappears into the ocean one night only to reappear the next day torn to shreds by an unknown animal, new Amity Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) wants to close down the beaches to protect the people on the island. The Mayor and town selectmen fight against this action however, as shutting down the beaches so close to the Fourth of July weekend would be disastrous for the island's tourist industry. Not wanting to scare off the potential visitors, those in power wanted any whispers of shark attack to be suppressed, and so when more attacks terrorize the small island, Brody finally goes after the monster, hiring an eccentric shark hunter named Quint (Robert Shaw) and helped by an ichthyologist by the name of Hooper (Richard Dreyfus). Together, the three very different men must hunt down one of the most ferocious predators ever to patrol the blue depths.

Echo!

Let me start off by saying that it feels good to be able to say something nice about Steven Spielberg. Before the director tackled important topics and historical events in films like Munich and Schindler's List, Spielberg was a young up-and-comer being handed the reigns of a brand new franchise. Before his films were marred by cliches, self-importance and mediocrity - a cursory glance of his filmography reveals some of the most overrated films in the industry - he simply focused on telling stories. The Opinioness has told me in the past of Duel, a thriller featuring car chases involving tanker trucks and feats of awesome. I have yet to see the film, but its simplicity is on full display in Jaws. While I had forgotten some of the film's early events, it's surprising how once the three men get on the Orca, there's not one bit that I've forgotten over the years. This is when the film TRULY begins, three men against the elements and a force of nature. The ultimate man vs. beast tale, Jaws was more about the men than the actual animal, and seeing them interact from varying points of view almost makes the finale unimportant, though I still wouldn't miss it for the world.

A SI Swimsuit shoot gone horribly awry

Part of the film's success came not only from the premise, but the talented actors they got to play the big parts. Between the twilight of Shaw's career and the dawn of Dreyfuss's, Roy Scheider played the perfect outsider, a New York native who moved to the tiny island because it would be easy, only to be presented with the more serious pandemic of his life. In the role of Chief Brody, Scheider has been given perhaps his most legendary role; it's almost a shame that he's overshadowed by just about everyone on the set, including an animatronic shark. Robert Shaw had maintained a long, healthy acting career before coming aboard the set of Jaws; The Sting and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three were among his legendary films. Yet just about everybody who's anybody KNOWS Captain Quint, the fisherman and shark hunter with his roguish charm, foul mouth and deadly instincts for the sea. Shaw succeeded in creating not just a character, but an ICON, and his memory will long outlast those of many of his contemporaries. Richard Dreyfuss, fresh off a Golden Globe nomination for his role in George Lucas's American Graffiti, amazes just in the fact that he's such a young man in Jaws, and that's before he puts on a good face as the scientist Matt Hooper, who constantly finds himself at odds with people who he doesn't think are as smart as he. Hooper can be pretty arrogant, and a bit much for the other characters to take sometimes, but he gets to redeem himself in the end. A great job making the character sympathetic, and for that matter the three men together work wonderfully, helping especially to make the film's final act so engaging. Lorraine Gary does some good work as Brody's wife Ellen, but can't hope to put on the same level as her three co-stars.

Rub a Dub Dub

The special effects have held up nicely in the past thirty-five years, especially the shark effects. When the creature lunges out of the water for a snack, it's always a surprise, and looks extremely realistic. Spielberg's underwater shots, though cribbed to death by others, really did a great job of setting the scene for mayhem, letting you know when your favorite sea killer was looking for a new meal. Brilliant pacing early on meant you were never sure who was going to get attacked, and this made for one of the more intense experiences you can have watching a movie. Only an early scene featuring one of the victims being strewn back and forth across the sea looks less than perfect, with many jump cutting, but otherwise the SFX is perfect. John Williams's score is also legendary, though only his classic Jaws theme is really timeless. Many of the other songs on the soundtrack sound remarkably similar to his other work, so much that you can imagine him twisting a few passages around and BAM... Star Wars music.It's fairly easy to ignore, however, as you're rarely focusing on the music long enough to detract from the film quality.

In the fight of Shark vs. Boat, Shark is a bit ahead at this time

Jaws is rightfully known as one of the greatest films ever made, hearkening back to the days when Spielberg could make a great movie without it having to brim with importance and superfluous messages. Those kinds of films can be fine, but so often we as audience members want to sit, stare at a screen, and get terrified. Jaws did this not by creating aliens and monsters to frighten its viewers; the creature depicted was real, dangerous, and plentiful enough that to this day beach-goers will not risk treading the tide. Never a dull watch, Jaws might not be one of my all time favorites, but like a light beer goes down easy on any given evening. After seeing it, however, you might get a hankering to grab Peter Benchley's novel and see how it inspired the film. If you're interested, check out Stevereads. Steve will be glad to see you; just don't get close enough to see his pearly whites, if you catch my meaning.