Tag: Spielberg

Summer strolling

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

Even in the Spielbergian suburb, an idyllic vista of tidy yards and shiny cars, odd things can strike, eliciting a gasp or a giggle. 

I was strolling the neighborhood on the cracked, buckled sidewalks and practically stepped on the words, fat and all-caps, “STOP FASCISM” scrawled in pink hopscotch chalk. I snickered. Then, about a block further, I stumbled on banana yellow chalk that declared “FUCK TRUMP,” hot and mean. I actually muttered “Ha!” before ambling on. It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

I wondered who, even in this admittedly progressive area, would chance such bulletins. It’s unlikely some precocious kids wrote the prickly imperatives. Or is it? Either way, the seditious slogans won’t last. The hood maintains a certain decorum. Just look at those coiffed lawns and perfect shade trees, boys shooting hoops and pups wrassling in the dog park. No, the chalk will go. (Within days, it was gone.)

The skies are ashen, the humidity stifling. The air is jagged with the farts and crackles of a revving chopper, straddled by a guy with a beard in a sleeveless red t-shirt whose faint smile says he savors the vroom-vroom grumble. He glances at two tween boys walking by. They look past him, unimpressed. Me too. 

When I suddenly hear tinkling chimes, I think either someone is taking advantage of the breeze or Rush is playing nearby. I peer over a fence and catch a summer solstice sound bath in progress, a half-dozen women lying on yoga mats for an immersive meditation session marking the longest day of the year. Says the web: “Practitioners use soothing vibrations from crystal or metal singing bowls, gongs and chimes to align the mind and body, promote deep relaxation and set intentions for the new season.” 

Dismissing it as well-intentioned harmless hooey, I move on and immediately run into the friendliest dog in the hood, big ole Bo, a sturdy white labradoodle with a smile wider than Julia Roberts’ and the tail-wagging neediness of Jimmy Fallon. Bo seems to be everywhere and he walks without a leash so he’s always bounding right at you as eager as a campaigning senator. I call him the mayor of the neighborhood. He knows all his constituents and he gets things done. Like making our days. 

A sprawling park and playground is right there, right next to Bo’s house, and it teems with tykes and their tired mothers, who push the kids on the swings and chat with each other about who knows what (school, summer vacations, bedtime, food, doctors, streaming shows — I’m spitballing here). 

The children are boisterous, alive and weirdly screechy. They are smart and smart-alecky, creatures to pay attention to. Maybe, possibly, they’re the ones with the colorful chalk and the big ideas. Tiny geniuses. 

How ‘Jaws’ ate me alive

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

Today was a two-errand day. I was picking up a modern classic potboiler at the library — the one about a ginormous great white shark that terrorizes the bejesus out of a New England beach town — and I was getting my periodic pedicure at the salon. I dubbed the day “ ‘Jaws’ and claws” to amuse myself. (Mission accomplished.)

The book I got really is “Jaws,” Peter Benchley’s 1974 blockbuster that spawned Spielberg’s famous film and a million petrified beachgoers around the world. As a kid, I lived in beachy Santa Barbara when both were released, and I fantasized about flesh-shredding teeth and ominous dorsal fins to unhealthy degrees. It terrified me, and I loved it. 

First I worshipped the movie, which I saw at age 7, then I snatched my parents’ mass market paperback of Benchley’s novel and gobbled it up at age 8. I savored those pages, slashing with vivid, violent writing that helped turn me onto reading for a lifetime. 

I still own that cracked, yellowed paperback, but it’s packed away with other mementos. So, on a whim, I hit the library up for its copy. I quickly located some of my favorite passages, ones that haunted — and excited — me as a young reader.

Just like my own copy

Can you handle it? This horrifying scene is from the opening of the book, when a young woman — recall her from the movie — takes a skinny-dip in the moon-dappled ocean. 

“The fish smelled her now, and the vibrations — erratic and sharp — signaled distress. The fish began to circle close to the surface. Its dorsal fin broke water, and its tail, thrashing back and forth, cut the glassy surface with a hiss. …

“At first, the woman thought she had snagged her leg on a rock or a piece of floating wood. There was no initial pain, only one violent tug on her right leg. She reached down to touch her foot, treading water with her left leg to keep her head up, feeling in the blackness with her left hand.  

“She could not find her foot. She reached higher on her leg. Her groping fingers found a nub of bone and tattered flesh. She knew that the warm, pulsing flow over her fingers in the chill water was her own blood. Pain and panic struck together. The woman threw her head back and screamed a guttural cry of terror.

“This time the fish attacked from below. It hurtled up under the woman, jaws agape. The great conical head struck her like a locomotive, knocking her up out of the water. The jaws snapped shut around her torso, crushing bones and flesh and organs into a jelly.” 

Now, as a young boy, this was about as stupendously visceral as prose could get. (And I omitted the rest of the violence for reasons of taste and space.) “A nub of bone and tattered flesh” — I reread that line over and over, shocked, thrilled, gobsmacked. 

Even today, these opening pages stun. Getting the book at the library, I was hoping Benchley’s eloquence would strike me again, and it did. That’s why I shared some here. 

Call him a hack or a mercenary, but you’d be wrong. Benchley’s a savvy craftsman, expert at tension and thrills, not to mention a vibrant stylist with a painterly (think Francis Bacon) flair. His humans, from Quint to Brody, pop off the page even if the world he confects for them occasionally brushes pulp.

I’m not going to reread the entire novel, which is remarkably short at 278 pages, but it was fun revisiting a book that so influenced my cultural life.

Why “Jaws,” why now? Well, I’m reading an excellent new book about the history of Hollywood and the Academy Awards called “Oscar Wars,” and I’m deep in the chapter focusing on the making of “Jaws” (as well as “Barry Lyndon,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Nashville” — 1975 was a hell of a year in American film.)

The lore is notorious: Making the movie “Jaws” was a prolonged ordeal and near-disaster for all involved, including a 26-year-old Steven Spielberg, who was sure his nascent career was finished. We know how that turned out.

If the movie “Jaws” remains one of my all-time favorites — in a crowded field that includes “Heat,” “All About Eve,” “Sweet Smell of Success,” “Manhattan,” “City Lights,” “Seven Samurai,” “Duck Soup” and on and on — the novel “Jaws” is more of a sentimental gem. It’s dear to my heart for reasons that go beyond art. On a nostalgic level, it has — yes, I’ll say it — sunk its teeth in me. And it won’t let go.

Oscar mired

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t seen, and will not see, James Cameron’s latest self-regarding epic of glorious wonderment and spine-tingling astonishment “Avatar: The Way of Water.” I loathed the first “Avatar” — its stupefying clichés, cornball story and embarrassing gravitas gave me the willies — and I have no need for three more hours of blue-hued pablum and pixie dust.

Still, the movie — which The Guardian torpedoed as “a soggy, twee, trillion-dollar screensaver” — is of course making bundles and is, Christ, nominated for Best Picture at the upcoming Oscars. It’s all so predictable, and so terribly depressing.

Cameron’s mammoth, mystical, magical 3-D cartoon joins nine other Best Picture contenders, a few of which look interesting. I’ve only seen four and a half of the 10 films, but I know what I like — and what to shun. 

The list isn’t totally offensive, yet it’s certainly not in the league of, say, the Best Picture roster of 1976: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Barry Lyndon,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Jaws” and “Nashville.” (Top that.) 

Still, I did enjoy Martin McDonagh’s chatty, touching tale of a foundering friendship, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” as much for its shattering performances (led by Colin Farrell, all knitted brow) as for its emotional fragility. Baz Luhrmann’s typically over-caffeinated “Elvis” biopic was fine if rather pat and conventional considering its Visine-demanding razzle-dazzle.

I could not finish the highly (and curiously) lauded metaverse mess that is “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” its great and fitting title aside. I don’t know who this steroidal video game is aimed at (yes, I do: freaks and geeks) and I found it incoherent, unfunny and frenetically unwatchable. The baffling part: It will probably win Best Picture. Seriously.

I long ago stopped trusting Steven Spielberg not to bow to bathos, and his latest, the autobiographical melodrama “The Fabelmans,” looks like a hot, bubbly bath of bathos. Respectable reviews apart, I’ve heard it’s dreadful, only confirming my hunches. Michelle Williams is up for an acting award and I hope she gets it. She’s terrific and is likely one of the few watchable things in this movie I will not watch. I don’t even like the title.

Nothing against that elfin egomaniac Tom Cruise — I happen to think he’s an underrated actor — but I also won’t be squandering two and a half hours on “Top Gun: Maverick,” a popcorn flick without the laughable high-minded pretensions of “Avatar.” How this show about penises with wings got nominated I will never know. Because I won’t be seeing it. But good for it!

In Todd Field’s “Tár” a commanding Cate Blanchett plays the titular classical conductor, an imperious and imposing figure, the artist as viper. A chamber piece cum character study, this coiled drama entrances with theatrical flair and a seriousness that lends it a sheen of prestige. I like it.

Based on Erich Maria Remarque’s famous anti-war novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” is a huge German production directed with gloomy zest by Edward Berger and starring piles of mutilated war dead. It’s grisly, affecting and deeply human. The film shimmers with ghastly beauty and unstinting realism — irresistible Oscar bait. 

Snubs? While I’m happy Noah Baumbach’s irritating “White Noise” was dissed wholesale, the rejection of delirious Indian action orgy “RRR” for Best International Feature Film is scandalous. (Though it is — whoopee — up for Best Song. Watch it on Netflix. Please.) James Cameron, self-proclaimed King of the World, was denied a Best Director nod for “The Way of Water.” I bet he’s having a seismic hissy fit.

Finally in the Best Picture race are Sarah Polley’s #MeToo-ready drama “Women Talking” and Ruben Östlund’s dark international satire “Triangle of Sadness,” neither of which I’ve seen yet. Critics love them. They are probably good, maybe even superb, and for that they will win nothing.