jriddle73 — 9 months ago(June 20, 2025 05:24 PM)

Golden Anniversary Dept. - Released 50 years ago on this date–20 June, 1975–Steven Spielberg's horror epic JAWS.
What can one say about JAWS that hasn't already been said a million times? It was the point at which the kind of b-movies Roger Corman and others were making were picked up by the major studios and taken upbudget. It became the biggest box-office moneymaker of all time (though it has been superseded many times since). It launched the Summer blockbuster season. Every Summer when Hollywood bombards you with tentpole pictures? JAWS is where that began.
JAWS was so influential that any effort to cataloque that influence is bound to fall laughably short. On top of that whole Summer blockbuster phenomenon, it inspired 3 direct sequels, all of which were terrible, and an entire universe of rip-offs, knock-offs and "homages," many of them quite good. Its healthy post-Watergate "malevolent authority" theme quickly broke the bounds of the horror genre and bled into nearly every broad class of movie being made. In the CGI era, shark horrors became a genre unto themselves. Every element of JAWS writing, direction, editing, score ripples off into the cinema since.
Not bad for a monster movie, eh?
As I said before, what can one say that hasn't already been said? It's a great, great movie.
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/