Jaws

Jaws recently had its big 40th anniversary, and since I’ve never seen it, I decided to check it out. Jaws is one of those classic movies that has a lot of hype to live up to. When a movie is older than you are, and you’ve heard nothing but praise for it your entire life, you can pretty much guarantee it’s going to be a let-down.

Fortunately, Jaws holds up pretty well. It’s not an amazing film, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s pretty solid. It’s the movie that made Steven Spielberg an A-list director. You can tell that he’s developing his style, and he’s a little rough around the edges still, but the Spielberg magic is definitely there.

The thing that is both a benefit and a hindrance to Jaws is the pacing. It’s incredibly slow. It’s good because it builds tension and creates atmosphere, but it’s bad because it takes way too fucking long to get to the climactic battle with the shark. At 124 minutes, it’s about 24 minutes too long. I literally fell asleep while the crew was on the ship, talking, before the shark showed up.

Everything else about the movie is pretty good. The acting, the cinematography, the music, the directing, and even the story. Yeah, it’s a little thin, but it’s a play on horror films, so it’s good enough.

What probably made this film such a classic was the era it was released. The 70s had its fair share of great films, don’t get me wrong, but there was a ton of shit from that era, too. Jaws was probably so different, such a popcorn spectacle, that it immediately endeared itself to people. And those people who became so enamored with it on their first viewing haven’t forgotten their nostalgia for it. That’s why it’s considered a classic today; much more so than any truly amazing quality of the film itself.

Ultimately, Jaws is not the unstoppable film behemoth it’s purported to be. But it’s decent enough to watch once or twice. It’s a fun film. I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll give it a score of…

Verdict: Good

Brik Hates the Academy Awards: 90s Edition

It’s no mystery that I hate the Academy Awards. Hollywood spends half the year binging on cocaine and hookers and the other half praising themselves for it. No other industry exerts so much energy and spends so much money on self-congratulatory masturbation than the film industry. These sick fucks have the cushiest, easiest jobs in the world, and they act like what they do is some kind of goddamn accomplishment. “LOL OH LOOK I JUST RECITED SOME LINES SOMEONE ELSE WROTE FOR ME AND SHED A TEAR AT THE SAME TIME! I’M A FUCKING ACTING GOD! QUICK SOMEBODY GIVE ME FIFTY AWARDS LOL!” In theory, I could get behind the awards if they actually awarded things that were deserving. You know, giving a Best Picture award to the best movie of the year. But the Academy rarely gives that award to the best movie of the year. Hell, they don’t even give it to the most popular movie of the year. Usually, they give it to whatever cool person produced the movie, or to the most obscure, independent, foreign piece of shit they can find. Typically, no one in the mainstream public will have even seen the winner. They’ve been pulling this shit for years. So, I decided to analyze the past years, offer my own nominees, and declare new winners. Best movie isn’t the one that makes you cry or makes you think. Best movie is the one that you want to revisit over and over again. A movie you watch once and never again isn’t good. It’s only good if you can’t help but watch it a million times. Rewatchability is the hallmark of something great.

This time around, I’ll be taking a look at the Best Picture winners from the 1990s.

I Lost My Combination to The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker poster.

The Hurt Locker is a 2008 film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. What is it about? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that it is overrated as hell. Supposedly, this movie is about a three-man U.S. Army bomb squad operating in the Iraq War. That’s what all of the movie’s scenes revolve around. However, it would be a stretch to say this movie is really about anything. But that’s not for a lack of trying.

In fact, The Hurt Locker tries to be about a lot of things, but fails at all of them. You know that old saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none”? Well, that’s this movie in a nutshell.

It tries to be an honest look at the Iraq War, but it isn’t realistic in the slightest. It tries to be a suspense-laden thriller, but the suspenseful scenes are few and far between. It tries to give us an in-depth look at the psychology of the men who experience war, but it doesn’t know how to pull that off. At best, The Hurt Locker could be described as schizophrenic. At worst, a piece of shit.