Have You Ever Seen "Jaws" On the Big Screen?

If not, don't miss your big chance Thursday night!

Bruce & Steven. True Love Always

Many readers think I'm anti-Spielberg -- when you're critical of any sacred cow people think you hate him/her -- but I love the early stuff as much as anyone. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is amazingly "open" in a way too few films are, Raiders of the Lost Ark is about as fun as adventure films can be, and the blockbuster that created Summer Movie Season, Jaws, is impeccable.

Cinemark's Classic Series is a Thursday night moviegoing option in dozens of cities, large and small (sadly it doesn't play in Manhattan though I can't really complain about our access to revivals). The fall series, which you can buy individual tickets to or in bulk for $30, features:

• August 23rd, Jaws
• August 30th, High Noon
• September 6th, Doctor Zhivago
• September 13th, Chinatown
• September 20th, The Bridge on the River Kwai
• September 27th, The African Queen

Oscar buffs will need to have seen all six at some point, so if you haven't, why not cross them off your list ASAP? I hate The African Queen (yes, it's true) but the rest of the series looks delicious and the films have been digitally restored for the occasion. Jaws, Chinatown and Doctor Zhivago in particular strike me as perfect options to seek in revival houses or in screening series like this because they're all slow boil movies paced in a way that pays off enormously in the long haul but is absolutely unlike how movies play out these days so it's best to see them on the screen without the interruptions that you'd get at home.

I wish I could see Jaws tomorrow night! 

It may have scarred me as a child (even though I didn't see it until the 80s) but I love it anyway. See it for me tomorrow night! Or for yourself if you've never seen it all blown up real good. 

Stripper of the Day: Jacy Farrow

Michael C here. I think it's safe to say a lot more people can relate to Cybil Sheperd's striptease in Bogdonavich's The Last Picture Show than they can to Magic Mike.

Strippers in movies usually hit the stage with the confidence of Greek Gods and the choreography of Madonna's back-up dancers. Rarely do movies strippers capture the truth that even for people as stunning as a young Cybil Shepherd, the idea of undressing in front of a room full of strangers is the stuff of nightmares.  The Last Picture Show Bogdanovitch captures that feeling in excruciating detail.

In one of those scenes impossible to forget once seen, Sheperd's small town heartbreaker Jacy Farrow has given her sweetheart the slip and run off with doofy Randy Quaid to an out-of-town party where it's rumored there will be skinny-dipping. Cut to a record player and a dozen naked Texas teens arrayed around an indoor pool, filmed by Bogdonavich with a matter-of-factness that must have left jaws on the floor in 1971. 

come on in, the water's fine

One of the ringleaders delights in informing Jacy that newcomers have to undress out on the diving board in full view of everybody. Jacy feebly agrees, and it's here that the tension spikes...

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Another "Prometheus" Mystery: Will There Be Oscar Play?

Ridley Scott's Alien franchise prequel Prometheus should probably be a film I take great objection to. The first reason I ever loved the series (beyond Lt. Ellen Ripley, queen of all action heroines) was how it doubled as an ever evolving adventurous launch pad for young auteurs. It's got the same premise virtually every time so you sit back and immediately see the director's vision in sharp relief against each previous or subsequent film. Even the lesser entries in the series have this to recommend them and in the 90s, even after Alien Ressurection I wanted them to keep making Alien films so we could see it through the different set of rising auteur eyes each time. I didn't really want Ridley Scott to go back for this reason. I especially didn't want him to go back back. Backstory and prequels -- conceptually, they are like safety nets for the imagination. Don't be afraid of wondering... we'll catch you!

Where is the mystery? Or rather, why don't people want more of it. Why do you they want so many answers?

Thankfully, Prometheus doesn't rob the Alien franchise of all of its mystery and magic. It's not midi-chlorian level obnoxious. And given the screenplay and execution, for better and worse, the new film creates its own mysteries. Some or these are intentional and some surely not, some internal some external. What did David⁸ say to The Engineer in the penultimate scene? Is the MPAA's request that Ridley Scott remove the entire abortion sequence -- not so coincidentally the strongest sequence in the film -- the dumbest thing they've done since Blue Valentine's NC17? Or is it just the thousandth priceless example of how aesthetically stupid they remain and or the millionth piece of case evidence that they should never be allowed anywhere near art!

This week since I know I desperately need to update the Oscar predictions I've been thinking of another Prometheus-specific mystery. Will it have an awards future? [Aliens & Oscars after the jump]

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Last Dance for Donna Summer (RIP)

Goodbye to disco queen Donna Summer who died yesterday at 63 of cancer. She was one of the rare through lines in popular music of the 70s and 80s -- doesn't it seem like disco had its inordinate share of one hit wonders? But not Donna. Hit after hit and her voice defined the era: I Feel Love, Macarthur Park, Love to Love Ya Baby, No More Tears (Enough is Enough) and so on...

Donna was a "special guest star" in the movie, but promoted to top billed for the DVD release despite her small role.

Donna wrote or co-wrote some of her hits but not "Last Dance", the Oscar-winning one. Still, you can bet her indelible vocals helped win songwriter Paul Jabara that naked gold man. As you can see in the image up top Donna became the film's most important selling point retroactively on DVD but in the original poster, she only has a small frame to the bottom left of the poster (also excerpted above). She played a disco diva naturally. It was her first and last appearance in a motion picture.

Here's Donna Summer performing "Last Dance", the Oscar winning song from Thank God It's Friday (1978). I love that opening speech for its sheer retro wtfness... $12 a ticket, Donna? Different era! But if tickets were really only $12 she was working hard for the money. So hard for you honey.

Which song have you been playing in her honor since you heard the sad news?

Related: Barbra Streisand reacts to the news and here's a fine Advocate piece on Donna Summer's complex relationship with the gay community who were the first to embrace her sound.

P.S. Speaking of the gay community. "I Feel Love" with two gay trailblazers after the jump.

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "The Exorcist"

The Hit Me With Your Best Shot series is deceptively simple. Choose a single shot from a pre-selected movie that you think is best, best being in the eye of the beholder. Tonight we're looking at The Exorcist (1973). And for me at least, it's the first time I've looked at it. That's not quite as shocking as your 12 year old daughter's head spinning 'round 180º, but maybe it's close.

Nearly every horror classic I've seen I've resisted in some ridiculous way: I saw Halloween at a sleepover movie marathon but it took my horror-loving friend five holidays to convince me; I first saw Silence of the Lambs because I had five nightmares about it beforehand and wanted them to end; I can't remember what prompted Rosemary's Baby but I'm willing to bet that I rented the video five times before actually watching it. And so on. 

If I was ever going to watch The Exorcist, the power of blogging would have to compel me. And so it did.

And here we are in the haunted upstairs bedrooms of actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her daughter Regan (Linda Blair). The first thing that impressed me about the  movie was how rooted in character it was. Director William Friedkin and the novelist screenwriter William Peter Blatty spend more than half hour with the four main characters before the devil (The Devil?) crashes the party. The first shot that I truly loved foreshadowed the horrors to come in a wonderfully lived-in nonchalant way. After Chris MacNeil unleashes a stream of profanity on an angry phone call (including, pointedly, several "Jesus Christ!"s) we cut to the middle of the night when she's woken by a phone call. I love that the shot starts in the dark and when Chris flips on the light the only face that's really illuminated, given her bleary banged face, is Regan's in a photo on the bedstand; the young girl looks actively worried for her mother which is a brilliant set decoration move. Chris hangs up the phone and the camera tracks her movements to the right until we and she realize that her daughter has crawled into bed with her. It's the first time Regan is essentially split in the film, surrounding her anxious still oblivious mother.

Chris: What are you doing here?
Regan: My bed was shaking. I can't get to sleep.

Here in a sweet mother/daughter moment, Regan's telling us where all the horror will be found. The next voice we here, overlap edited over the end of this shot but just barely is the devil's if you want to get metaphoric about it is Captain Howdy's (The Devil's) who is banging about in the attic. Oh Chris, soon to be overwhelmed Chris, it's not rats. 

The Exorcist builds beautifully towards its truly grotesque last act but at least half of the reason it's so effective is that it never forgets who is terrified while it's terrifying us. My second favorite shot in the film is a beautifully quiet character beat for the title character(s) in the "intermission" of the exorcism. 

The Exorcist(s): Father Karras and Father Merrin

One of the movie's most disturbing famous images is "Help me" scrawled on Regan's stomach from the inside.  If Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) were to remove his clothing, wouldn't we see a similar cry for help from his private hell?

It's these quiet glimpses of internal terror that really sell the movie for me, whether it's Ellen Burstyn's increasing impotent understanding (when no one else has accepted it -- not even the priests) or Father Karras's personal doubts. This silence, this vacuum, lets the terror flood in, often courtesy of the Oscar winning sound work. In the shot above we still hear Regan's possessed wheezing from inside the bedroom, less shocking but even more unsettling than her loud profane outbursts.

This push and pull between external and internal terror, room-shaking chaos and sudden absences of sound but for Exorcist chanting to fill the void powers, for me, the most hypnotic shot in the film. The room suddenly goes quiet and we see Regan lift off the bed in crucifix pose until she's nearly touching the ceiling. A simple familiar image, yes, like you'd see in a magic show. But somehow alien and unnatural, too. Only the exorcists can break this unholy spell.

The Power of Blog Compels Them
Movies Kick Ass is Hollywood the devil?
The Tomas Experience "as sure as the sun rises, you can find evil anywhere"
Film Actually the mysteries of faith and science
The Sketchy Details Regan split in two
Antagony & Ecstasy a single mother's personal hell
Cheerful Cynicism the slow burn is the best part 
Cinesnatch has mixed feelings about the movie 
Okinawa Assault colours and threats 
Encore's World is moved by the mother/daughter bond 
Beau McCoy "The Exorcist and Nothingness" 
Stranger than Most find horror in the hospital
Pussy Goes Grrr "body and soul" and Linda Blair's eyes

Next Wednesday: Edward Scissorhands (1990)... will we catch you dancing in it?
Previously: Pariah (2011), Raise the Red Lantern (1991),  Serenity (2005)