It’s 2 AM and you wake with a jerk, alone in your fully-lit apartment and still on the couch. On TV, the credits of some movie you’ve already seen a billion times are scrolling by. It feels like rock bottom. And we know, because we’re just like you: single.
Need a movie to keep you company until you literally can’t keep your eyes open? Join us tonight when we pass out to Jaws [starting @ 10:45 a.m. on Action Max]
Why we’ll try to stay up and watch it: Last week we saw an Empire Magazine interview with David Fincher, where the director was asked to scribble down his favorite films of all-time. It got us thinking of our own list, something we’ve obsessively edited and adjusted in our heads for the better part of forever. Ordering our favorite movies is like counting sheep. Does Goodfellas beat out Pulp Fiction? Should The 40-Year-Old Virgin rank ahead of Annie Hall? Do we like Rushmore more than The Royal Tennebaum’s? It’s an ever-evolving list that changes almost daily. Still, there is one constant. No matter how many times we rethink it, Jaws invariably cracks our personal top-five.
Everyone loves Jaws! In fact, we don’t think we’ve ever met another human being who didn’t think it was a great movie. (Predictably, Mr. Fincher lists Jaws as one of his favorites as well.) We won’t bore you with endless patter about why it’s our favorite Steven Spielberg film, an expert mix-and-match of Hitchcockian suspense and Spielbergian mawkishness, because frankly, you’ve read all that before. What we will say is that Jaws is one of the real transformational movies to be made in the last fifty years. It proved that a great popcorn flick could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its more esoteric pursuits. It’s high entertainment as high art. Without Jaws, we would have never seen something like The Dark Knight.
When we’ll probably fall asleep: Whenever we watch Jaws, we anxiously wait for Robert Shaw’s USS Indianapolis speech like a kid on Christmas Eve hoping for morning. And when it finally arrives, we’re immediately riveted by its occurrence, as if we are hearing it for the first time. So since we’re still in a post-election hangover and fairly exhausted, we’ll stick with Jaws until 11:50 p.m. when Mr. Shaw’s Quint tells us what happened to his friend Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Farewell and adieu our fair Spanish lady…
