Something in the Water

Jaws

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and a mechanical shark dubbed Bruce

Released: June 20, 1975

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

Best Editing (won)

Best Dramatic Score (won)

Best Sound (won)

This movie recently celebrated it's 50th (!!!) anniversary and what better time to review it? Jaws is a very revolutionary movie, being known as the first summer blockbuster. It really is that quintessential summer movie, being set on an New England island beach town during the Fourth of July with a killer shark lurking in the water. This was Spielberg's third movie he directed (well, technically fourth, but the very first movie he directed was only shown at a theater in Phoenix where he grew up called Firelight when he was only 17. (Yes, I got all this information from Wikipedia.)) Anyway, I'm not counting that one. 

I had only seen this movie once before. I think I was in middle school when my brother rented it. There were a few things I remembered, like the very first scene when the young woman goes for a midnight swim and becomes a midnight snack for the shark.

New York native Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is the police chief of Amity Island. We're never really told where Amity Island is, we just know it's off the coast of New England. We do know that the movie was filmed on Martha's Vineyard, a place I've visited! Now I was only in Oaks Bluff (shout out to Stephanie Wolf Designs, this amazing store with these beautiful earrings I'm obsessed with!) and the movie was filmed in a town called Edgartown which is just south of Oaks Bluff. Now I was thinking it was probably an hour drive from Oaks Bluff, but no, I just Googled the distance and it's an eighteen minute drive! Obviously my view was seriously distorted!

Back to the movie! Brody and his wife live in a cute little house by the water with their two young sons; Michael, who is around 12 and his brother, Sean who is four or five. They also have this really cute dog, who, I'm not gonna lie, I was really worried about. Yes, I'm the person who is more worried about the pets than the kids! 

The boy who was with the girl the night before called the police to report her missing. I'm kind of surprised he did this because he had passed out on the beach from too much drinking after she went in the water, so I don't think he even saw her get attacked. Wouldn't he had just assumed she made it out of the water? And it's not like this was his girlfriend and he hadn't heard from her the next day and that's what made him call the police. These two had just met the night before at a bonfire fire when she went frolicking by him and motioned for him to follow her. I'm probably giving this too much thought. 

On his way to the beach, we see Brody pass a big sign welcoming tourists to Amity for the "50th Annual Regatta." There's a painting of a girl relaxing on a floaty lounger in the water. This sign will have an amazing callback later.   

It doesn't take long before another officer finds the girl's remains that have been washed up on the beach. According to the sickened look on his face, it isn't pretty. We just see her hair and a hand and later we will find all that is left of her fits in a small box the size of a basin so there's not that much left of her. Brody puts her cause of death as "shark attack" in his report and buys supplies to make signs to tell the public the beach. is closed. 

It's almost July 4th and when the Mayor finds out that Brody wants to close the beaches, he's not too happy. Amity is a tourist hot spot where many people come to enjoy the beach and spend their money at the local stores (especially around the Fourth!) and he suggests that maybe the girl's body got mauled by a boat propellor instead of a shark. For some reason, the medical examiner is also present for this conversation (small town, I guess) and when Brody questions him about that, he says he was wrong and he'll amend his report. Why does the medical examiner care if the beaches are open/closed? Does the Mayor have something over him? The Mayor tells Brody if people find out about a shark, there will be a panic and no one will want to come to their island for the Fourth (and then they won't want to spend all their money!). This was the first moment I thought FOR SURE the mayor was going to become fish food for the shark.

So the beach remains open and Brody is there with his family with many other people. There's only a few people in the water. A kid around twelve named Alex Kitner who had just asked his mom if he can swim for another ten minutes, goes back out with his inflatable lounger, which, in my opinion, should only be reserved for the pool. How can you relax in the ocean on an inflatable lounger? A guy is on the shore playing fetch with his black lab, throwing a stick into the water for the dog to chase. I was thinking, Spielberg, I swear to God, if you kill off that dog...

Brody is just surveying everything and we get a few faux shark moments: 

-a woman is floating on her back with her eyes closed and something gray pops up near her, b
ut it's just some guy in a swimming cap who seemed to come out of nowhere. Seriously, where did he come from? 

-a young woman starts screaming, but then we see her boyfriend pop up from under her and she's on his shoulders. 

All of a sudden, a BUNCH of people go into the water and I'm thinking, all this splashing is going to attract and alert the shark to this area. I'll find out later I'm right about that. Brody's two sons also are in the water, or maybe it's just his oldest son, I don't remember. 

The guy with the black lab is calling for his dog and since we never saw the dog getting attacked, I'm going to tell myself the dog got thirsty and ran home to get a drink of water. Yes, that is totally what happened! The dog is okay! And anyway, if the shark had already had a doggie snack, why would he attack a human next (which is what he will do)? The dog is okay, folks! No body, no shark attack, is what I say! 

Alex Kitner, the twelve-ear-old kid, is the one who is viciously attacked. Now, if this movie were made today, they would have introduced him to the audience a little earlier, perhaps have him be a friend of Michael's so his death would hit a bit harder. Not that it wasn't horrific a young boy is attacked by this shark. There is A LOT of blood, it's like a fountain. If I were there that day, there's no way in hell I would ever set foot in any body of water ever again! Oh, yeah, did I tell you that this movie is rated PG? What kind of parent would take their young kids to see this? This was before the PG-13 rating was a thing (like a decade before), but this definitely would be a PG-13 if it came out today. 

Everyone is scurrying out of the water and there's a terrible moment when Alex's mother is calling his name, but of course he doesn't answer her and his ripped floaty washes up to the shore. 

Soon after, there'a a town meeting at the school for a discussion about what had happened and what they're going to do about it. Brody tells them they're going to put "shark spotters on the beach." When asked point blank if they're going to close the beaches, he tells them they are and everyone starts grumbling. Who are these people? A young boy is killed by a shark and they still want to go back in the water? The f***? He tells them they'll be bringing in an expert from Oceanographic Institute from the mainland. 

The Mayor tries to calm the people down by telling them this will only be for twenty-four hours and Brody tells him he didn't agree to that, but everyone ignores him. They're still pissed even about the twenty-four hours. These people really only care about their money and making sure people are spending money at their shops. 

While everyone is arguing, we get the introduction of  Quint (Robert Shaw), which is my least favorite scene of the movie because he gets everyone's attention by scraping his fingernails down a chalkboard and, ugh! I HATE that whole sensation/sound. It just mades me SHUDDER. That scene was way worse than any shark attack! Quint is a fisherman and tells them he can catch this shark. He'll find it for $3,000, but wants $10,000 to kill it. Okay, so of course I had to go to the conversion calculator! Three thousand dollars in 1974 (the movie came out in '75, but it's set the year before) would now be $19,608 (I rounded up) today in 2025. Ten grand would now be a whopping $65,360! (Again, I rounded up.) This guy would be making out with nearly $85,000 today! I guess thirteen thousand dollars was a lot of money back in the mid '70s! Too bad he won't be around to enjoy any of it (spoiler alert!)! He wants that much because he knows it's not going to be easy (spoiler alert: he's right about that!)! The Mayor tells him they'll take his offer under advisement.  

Later that evening, Brody is at home, studying a book about sharks at a desk when his wife sneaks up right behind him and leans in over his shoulder. He clearly sense something and jumps, startling her and she tells him that he scared her! Lady, why would you sneak up on someone like that? You clearly started him! 

Brody realizes that his youngest son is sitting in a boat tied to the dock while the older one is sitting on the dock (or maybe it's the other way around). He yells at whichever son to get off the boat and when he tells his wife he doesn't want the kids in the ocean, she replies he's not in the ocean, but on a boat. Lady, do you not realize that a shark could easily just tip this little row boat over? She looks at his shark book and sees an illustration of a shark crashing into the bottom of a boat and yells at her son to get off the boat. 

After the death of her son, Mrs. Kitner had posted an ad (that was put in the back of the newspaper) rewarding $3,000 for the person who killed the shark who killed her son. It's evening when we see two guys looking to collect their bounty. They have an idea to entice the shark with one of the men's wife's holiday pot roast. He says they better catch something since they're using it. (Something tells me the wife didn't give him permission to use it!) The other guy joke that $3,000 will buy him a lot of roasts. Side note: who the hell has a pot roast for the Fourth of July? That is a day reserved for hot dogs and hamburgers, grilled chicken perhaps. NOT a frickin' pot roast! That's something you have for Christmas. What kind of American are you if you're not eating grilled hot dogs on the Fourth? Look, I honestly don't care if you have hot dogs on the Fourth, but POT ROAST? The hell? Am I the only one who thinks that's weird? 

Anyway, the two guys have tied the roast to a buoy, then have tied the chain connected to the buoy around one of the dock's posts. Some time has passed and we see the buoy moving and the chain on the dock starts to uncoil so they know they have caught something. The shark is so strong that part of the dock falls off, taking one of the men with him. The guy starts swimming back, then we see the dock turn around (I guess to show that the shark is following him, even though it doesn't make sense why the shark would be attacked to the dock). I did laugh when his friend calls out to him, "Charlie, take my word for it, DON'T look back! Just swim!" I thought FOR SURE Charlie was going to be the main course after the little appetizer of the pot roast for the shark, but he manages to make it back unharmed. This guy doesn't seem like he's in great shape; there's no way he could out swim a shark, so the shark must have just been toying with him. 

The next day, on the docks, we see a bunch of people who have seen Mrs. Kitner's ad and are out hunting for the shark. We also meet Matt Hooper (a young Richard Dreyfuss) who is from the Oceanographic Institute. He wants to see the remains of the girl on the beach, the first (known!) victim of the shark. He reads the girls' cause of death as "probable boating accident" as the medical examiner takes her remains out. This is the scene I was referring to earlier when I said what's left of her fits in a small box. From what Hooper examines, he tells them this was clearly not a boat accident nor the cause of a propellor. 

We see many of the men who are trying to catch the shark out on their boats just being so careless and I thought FOR SURE at least one of them was going to become shark chow. They obviously didn't know what they were doing and weren't even equipped to kill it. One of these dummies didn't even know what "chumming" was. However, someone has caught a shark and thinks it's THE shark. This shark is pretty small and I know it's not our guy. (Plus, there's more than an hour left of the movie so of course it's not the shark!) Hooper takes measurements of its mouth and tells Brody that they don't align with the wound bites found on the victim. He wants to cut the fish open since the digestive system of a shark is very slow and if they cut it open, they can see what it's eaten in the last 24 hours (how long has it been since the boy was killed?). Speaking of which, Mrs. Kitner has arrived from her son's funeral, dressed in all black. She approaches Brody and slaps him, telling him she found out about the girl who was also killed by a shark and how he knew it wasn't safe to go in the water. The Mayor is standing next to him during this whole exchange and he seems to have no remorse because he knows he is the one who convinced Brody not to close the beaches. By now, I'm one hundred percent convinced this guy will be a victim of the shark's. (Spoiler alert: he's not! If this movie was made today, he totally would be.)

That evening, Hooper and Brody do cut the shark open to make 100% sure it's not their shark. All they get are some fish, a can, and a license plate. There's a joke about how it came up from the Gulf Stream in souther water because it's a Louisiana plate. 

They go searching for the shark at night (no, thank you!) and come across fisherman's Ben Gardner's boat drifting in the water. Hooper wants to check the under the boat. There is absolutely no reason for him to do that right this instance since they're going to haul the boat to the shore anyway. But he does and we quickly see why this scene is here: it's for the jump scare (which totally worked on me; it scared the sh*t out of me!) we get when Ben's ghoulish corpse pops out from the boat. This startles Hooper too and he drops the shark tooth he had collected from the boat. 

They both tell the Mayor about this great white shark. The Mayor still isn't budging about closing the beach and doesn't seemed all that concerned. As they're walking, we see them stop in front of the sign we saw earlier. The girl on the sign has painted on wide eyes and a painted on open mouth. There's a dorsal fin in the water near her and above her an air quote bubble with the words "Help!!! Shark". The Mayor is not amused by this and already he has people painting over it. He doesn't need any advertisement of a shark! 

Brody tells him they could still save August if they close the beach now and start shark hunting, but the Mayor just laughs at him and tells him they WILL be open tomorrow for the 4th. He adds that Brody can do whatever he needs to do to make sure the beach is safe if he's so concerned...just short of actually closing the beach. 

The ferry arrives crowded with tourists ready to spend their money and swim in the ocean! It's unclear to me if they know about the shark attacks. I don't think they were making the national news, much less the local news. 

On July 4th, the beach is packed, but nobody is going in the water. Hmm, perhaps these people know that humans can get attacked by sharks in three feet of water, about ten feet away from the shore; a fact that Hooper confirms for Brody in an earlier scene.

There's a reporter on the beach (played by Peter Benchley, the author of the book this movie is based on) who's talking about Amity Island and the shark. 

The Mayor orders suggests to somebody he knows (it looked like an older couple with their grandkids) to get in the water. The two adults, especially the woman look pretty scared, but they go in with the two kids. Once they go in, more people go in. There are several boats out on the water with men who have guns and are watching the water with binoculars. 

Brody sees Michael and his friends about to take a sail boat out and he tells them to use the pond instead...the pond that is connected to the ocean! How is that going to help? This is probably one of the dumbest things Brody does in the movie. 

We see the Mayor giving an interview of how he wants to reiterate that they "caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers." First of all, yes they caught A large predator, but not THE predator. Second of all what is this "injured" nonsense? That shark straight up ripped them apart and all his victims died. How did this a**hole not die (I'm talking about the Mayor!)?

There's a lot of underwater footage of legs thrashing around in the water which I'm sure look like a tasty treat for a shark. A dorsal fin pops up right behind two oblivious girls. Another girl sees the fin and starts screaming, causing a panic. The lifeguard starts blowing his whistle and Brody tries to get him to stop since the noise will just attract the shark (although I think any shark would already be attracted to this area with all the splashing). I guess there was no contingency plan for what to do if a shark appeared! But that whole scene reminded me when Sam Neill is telling everyone to stay still around the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.

Once it is revealed that it was actually two young brothers snorkeling underwater with a cardboard fin, I wondered if I was a terrible person for hoping the real shark would show up and make a snack out of one or both of them. But on the other hand (fin?), also kudos to them because these people do need to be scared out of the water. If you know there's a blood thirsty shark in the water, why would you go in the ocean? There is an amusing moment when the two boys look up and see all these guns pointed at them from the people on one of the boats. The little brother points at his older brother and tells them, "He made me do it." 

A girl standing near the estuary sees a fin and yells, "Shark!" Well, guess where it's headed for? That's right: the pond! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in! The very pond that Michael and his friends are in that is CONNECTED to the ocean! Well done, Brody, well done! :::slow clap:::

Michael and two of his friends are on the boat working on a sail. Some guy in a boat rows up to them and behind him you can see a fin. It's almost comical how obvious there is a shark in the water and nobody seems to notice it. The guy is asking the boys a question when he falls into the water and gets his leg bitten off and becomes the shark's latest victim. One hour and four minutes into the movie and this is the first time we see the shark. Previously, we had only seen his dorsal fin. 

Michael and his friends make it out of the water, but Michael has passed out from shock and is taken to the hospital. Now the Mayor realizes he's messed up and Brody wants him to hire Quint to kill the shark, which he does.

That was the first hour of the movie. Now the second hour of the movie will focus on our three main characters (Brody, Quint, and Hooper) out on Quint's shabby fishing boat attempting to find and kill their shark. 

Before he leaves, Brody's wife asks him what she should tell the kids and he replies to just tell them he's "going fishing." I mean, he's not totally wrong!

Once they're out to sea, Brody starts chumming the water to attract the shark. We get some foreshadowing when Brody accidentally unties the wrong knot (I forget what he was trying to do) of a rope that was holding canisters with compressed air. Hooper tells him, 'If you screw around with these tanks, they're gonna blow up." 

There's a passage of time (there will be a lot of these!) until Quint gets the sense that the shark is near. He straps himself into a chair that is bolted to the boat and hooks the pole to the contraption. Despite all that, I feel like that still wouldn't hold him in! He knows he has something and is reeling the line, but can't see anything. My question is, would a fishing pole really work on a shark? Especially one so big? 

Every time someone would get super close to the edge of the boat, I would scream at my TV, "What are you doing? GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Seriously, sometimes they would lean over, like they weren't expecting a huge shark to pop out from under the water. In one scene, that does happen and it made me jump a mile! 

There's more passage of time and Brody chums the water again. His back is towards the water as he's throwing chum in the water and this is that famous scene when the shark pops up right behind him. You see this scene in every retrospective or TV special about Jaws, so I knew it was coming, otherwise, it would have probably made me jump! I love Brody's reaction. He quickly stands up and stares at the shark, then walks to the cabin and tells Quint, "You're gonna need a bigger boat," unquestionably the most famous line of the movie. Hell, one of the most famous lines in cinematic history! 

Now they all see the shark swimming near the boat and Quint measures it to be 25 feet. Now, I Googled how big a great white shark gets and females are 15/16 feet while the males are 11 to 13 feet, so I guess this means this is a female shark? (Even though I constantly refer to it as a male.) Isn't one of the sequels one of this shark's offspring getting revenge on the people who killed its parent? IDK, that sounds pretty ridiculous, but I've heard the sequels are pretty bad. I've only seen the one that takes place at an aquarium (?) and even then I barely remember it. 

There is a very narrow strip of wood (it reminds me of a plank) at the front of the boat that looks very unsteady and is surrounded by a railing that doesn't look like it will keep you from falling into the water. From there, Quint shoots at the shark with a harpoon and a barrel is attached. I guess the barrel is so they know where the shark is. 

The barrel disappears under the water and more time passes as darkness starts to fall. The three men are in the cabin, having just eaten dinner when Quint tells a harrowing story of how he was on the USS Indianapolis during the war which delivered the Hiroshima bomb to the island of Tinian (yes, I had to look this up on Wikipedia!). After it was delivered, a Japanese submarine "slammed two torpedoes into [the] side" and 1100 men went into the water. The vessel sunk in twelve minutes and they didn't see the first shark, a thirteen-foot tiger shark, until half an hour in. Because their mission was top secret, no distress signal had been sent. The men huddled into groups and tried to fight the sharks away, but that didn't work and 100 men were lost after the first night. So if anyone has a vendetta against sharks, it's Quint! 

It's the next day and they have shot a second barrel at the shark. Brody wants them to lead the shark to shore instead of the shark leading them out to sea. The shark is so strong, it's able to tow the boat where he wants to go. Honestly, I'm not that surprised because Quint's boat is the shabbiest thing. It's not that they needed a bigger boat (though that certainly would have helped!), they needed a better boat. The Orca is a terrible boat for this kind of excursion. 

The shark had rammed into the bottom of the boat so now it's starting to flood and they cut the barrels away so the shark doesn't cause any more damage. They start heading towards the shore and the shark is following them.

One thing that baffled me is that when Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard, Quint takes the receiver from him and smashes the radio. Dude, what are you doing? The boat is flooding, there's black smoke coming from the cabin, the engine is about to run out of gas, and while you can see the shoreline, you're still pretty far from land. Oh, and let's not forget there's a very LARGE and very HUNGRY shark out there. (Actually, he was probably more vengeful.) Maybe he's thinking he won't get the money if the Coast Guard comes and this is his best shot to kill the shark. 

Soon half the boat is underwater because of the flooding. Quint gives the other men life jackets. Hooper wants to "pump 20 ccs of strychnine nitrogen into [the shark]." He won't be able to stick the needle into the thick skin, but if he gets into a cage underwater, he can get him in the eye or mouth. He makes it sound so easy! (Spoiler: it won't be that easy!)

The cage with Hooper is lowered into the water and here comes the shark, but it passes by him and disappears into the dark murky water. Hooper has a spear fashioned into a needle and is ready to jab the shark, but unlucky for him, the shark sneaks up from behind him and rams into the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear. Oopsie daisy! The shark is biting at the cage and bending the bars and soon Hooper is exposed. The shark's jaws are so huge he could swallow a person whole, no problem. Yikes! Hooper fights against the shark and manages to escape and hide behind some rocks while the shark is thrashing against the cage. The other two men bring up the cage and when they see it's all mangled with no Hooper, they think the worst. 

Now the shark has leapt onto the boat's stern like he's my cat leaping up on my bed. Quint starts sliding towards the shark's upper jaws and even though Brody is doing his best to hang onto him, he slips from his grasp and slides down towards the massive jaws of the shark. He's kicking his legs against the shark, but he is no match against the aquatic man-eater and soon everything below his sternum is in the shark's jaws. While I was watching this, I couldn't help but think, That looks like fun! Not the getting mauled by a shark part, but the acting part of being in this scene and having a mechanical shark thrash you around, back and forth. It really did look like fun! Okay, yes, there's blood squirting everywhere and Quint is screaming, but it's so obvious the shark is fake and the whole thing is ridiculous, it's hard to be horrified by it. They both disappear under the water and the boat is sinking even more. Not even a minute has passed when the shark pops up again. He sure ate Quint really fast! 

Brody throws one of the canisters (remember, they're full of compressed air) into the open jaws of the shark. For some reason, the shark is trying to chow down on this metal container. For a shark who's been outsmarting the humans for most of the movie, this is the one time where he's just an idiot for the sake of the plot. 

Brody has now climbed onto the the crow's nest, the highest point of the boat, which is now almost parallel with the water and aims his gun at the shark, trying to get the perfect shot. As he finds the perfect aim and shoots, he says, "Smile you son of a -", then the canister is hit and it blows up and the shark blows up. He's 100% dead. Hooper pops up and Brody is surprised but relieved to see him and they both laugh. I guess they're going to split Quint's reward money. Actually, I wonder if they even did get paid. I can see the Mayor or whoever was supposed to hand over the reward money, refusing on a technicality since they promised it to Quint and he's gone. 

They use the barrels to swim back to shore...which still seems pretty far from where they are. But I know Roy Scheider is in the sequel so at least we know Brody made it back! 

Baby Steps

What About Bob?

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Bill Murray, Richard Dreyfuss, Julie Hagerty, Kathryn Erbe, Charlie Korsmo

Released: May 17, 1991

I have seen this movie a couple times before, but it's been awhile since I've last seen it and while I remember the basic premise and it being a comedy, I had completely forgotten about just how dark it gets towards the end, and wow, does it ever get dark! I just remembered this being a laugh-a-minute riot.

The Bob in question is Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) who has obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic attacks, agoraphobia, hypochondria, germaphobia, high anxiety, and who knows what else. I almost feel bad for the guy (I easily become anxious, so I can relate), but my God, is he ever f***ing annoying! He also does some pretty abhorrent things, though many not as bad as what his therapist will do later on in the movie! 

Not surprisingly, with all his conditions and phobias, Bob has a therapist and in the first scene we see him (the therapist) calling Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), telling him he's leaving his practice and moving out of town and wants to know if he can take on one of his patients. He strokes Dr. Marvin's ego by telling him that Bob needs someone "brilliant" and assures him he is not psychotic. When he hangs up the phone, he grins and says "Free!" I think it's safe to say that Bob also drove his first therapist crazy like he will Dr. Marvin.

Bob meets with Dr. Marvin and their first session seems to go well. Leo gives him a copy of his book called Baby Steps, telling Bob he just needs to get somewhere "one step at a time" after Bob tells him he gets a bunch of symptoms of anxiety when he's out in public. We learn that he was once married, but divorced her because she didn't like Neil Diamond. (Or maybe it's because she did like him. I forget.) Yeah, I was a bit shocked to find out he was once married, but not at all surprised that he's divorced! When their session ends, Bob freaks out when his new doctor tells him he won't see him until after Labor Day when he'll return from his family vacation. He'll be gone for a month, which seems a little extreme to me especially since they're not going to Europe or any place far away. They're only going to New Hampshire where they have a house overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee. It's a quaint little town, but really, what is there to do for a month? Dr. Marvin assures him he'll be okay and if he does need someone to talk to, he can call one of the other psychiatrists.

Bob tries to get in touch with Leo through the operator but she tells him he is unavailable and can't forward his call. Bob tries to con her, saying that he was supposed to call Dr. Marvin, but lost his number. (Please. Who would fall for that?) She firmly tells him she can't give out the number, but when he asks her if she can call Dr. Marvin, then patch him through to him, she does, which I'm pretty sure is unethical. However, not as unethical as something Bob will do a few scenes later. Bob tries unsuccessfully to figure out where Dr. Marvin is, but to no avail.

In the next scene, the operator calls Dr. Marvin again telling him that his sister is on the other line with an emergency when actually its' a prostitute whom Bob had asked to pose as Leo's sister, then taking the pay phone from her once Leo answers (after thoroughly wiping the receiver with a cloth...after all, he IS a germaphobe!) Wouldn't his sister already have his phone number to his vacation house anyway? And this isn't even the unethical scene I was talking about. No, that comes in the next scene when Bob goes to visit the operator posed as a detective and tells her that he has "questions about a Bob Wiley" and that he had committed suicide, but had left a note mentioning Betty (the operator). First question - why didn't Betty recognize "the detective's" voice as Bob's? Bill Murray didn't change his voice during this scene. Second question - shouldn't Betty be suspicious that Bob supposedly mentioned her in his suicide note? If I were her, I would want to know why he had mentioned me. Obviously this is "Detective" Bob's excuse as to how he "found out" about Betty because that's who he needs the information from. It works too, because Betty immediately gives him the information he needs (I guess that badge he had looked legit!), telling him that a Bob Wiley had called, wanting to talk to his psychiatrist. When Bob tells her he needs his information too because he'll need to ask him questions, Betty says she can't give him his phone number, but she can at least give him a mailing address and that more than satisfies Bob. (Hmmm, I think Betty is going to get fired!) I understand that she can't give him the phone number, but why couldn't she just call Dr. Marvin herself (like she did in the scene two minutes earlier!), explain the situation, and hand over the phone to "the detective"? And if this was really legit and a patient of Dr. Marvin's had killed them self, I'm sure he would rather deal with it over the phone then having the cops come to his vacation home. But I digress.

So Bob takes a bus to New Hampshire and the town the Marvins are vacationing in must be the smallest town in the world because when Bob steps off the bus and starts calling Dr. Marvin's name, the whole family is coming out of a grocery store that is right where Bob is. Leo is surprised to see Bob because he thought he was dead (Betty called him to tell him about Bob). It's obvious Bob has no concept of personal boundaries and at this point I'm thinking they could have easily gone the horror/thriller route. This movie is the comedic version of Cape Fear (which also came out the same year). While both scenarios are my worst nightmare, I'd rather have annoying Bill Murray stalking me than scary Robert De Niro!

Leo is furious when he sees Bob and tells him he needs to get back on the bus and go back to New York. Bob starts freaking out and Leo makes a deal with him that he'll have a quick session with him in two hours, then he has to go back. Yeah, things don't go exactly as Leo plans! When he tells Bob to take a vacation of his own, Bob decides to stay and take his vacation at Lake Winnipesaukee as well. Leo's family does not help matters at all. They seem to encourage Bob to stay and are overly friendly to him. I don't have an issue with them being nice to Bob, but it seems they go out of their way to include him. For example, Bob's teen daughter, Anna (Kathryn Erbe) decides to take Bob sailing with her friends. Then he gets involved with helping Leo's young son, Sigmund (Charlie Korsmo) overcome his fear of diving. Leo's wife, Faye (Julie Hagerty) invites Bob to dinner. This is actually a pretty funny scene and one I remember where every time Bob eats something, he goes, "Mmm, mmm, MMMM!" He literally does it after every bite he takes. It's really annoying, but also really funny. His family should have known better and not interact with a patient of Leo's. At this point, I am 100% on Dr. Marvin's side.

There's a big rain storm the night Bob has dinner with them and Leo is in a rush to get him out because the next morning Good Morning, America is due to arrive and do a live interview (I understand why they want it live for the context of the movie, but a piece like this on GMA would never be live; they would have recorded it in advance). They're going to be there at seven, which doesn't make any sense. Doesn't GMA start at seven? So if they were doing a live story at Dr. Marvin's vacation home, wouldn't they arrive much earlier for time to set up? Unless they were going to do the story at eight. Who knows. I'm probably putting too much though in this, anyway.

So Bob spends the night (and sleeps in the same room as twelve-year-old Sigmund which seems highly inappropriate) and while Leo is trying to get him out of the house before GMA arrives, it does't work. (Of course it doesn't!) In fact, when one of the producers finds out that Bob is a patient of Dr. Marvin's, she wants Bob to stay and be part of the interview. By this time, you can almost see the steam coming out of Leo's ears. Right away we see why the show is aired live; otherwise we wouldn't see Bob having a panic attack on live TV! When he recovers, the hosts asks him how long he's been a patient of Dr. Marvin's, and he replies, "Three or four days." He claims that Dr. Marvin's book (the reason they're there to interview Leo in the first place) has been helping him, despite only being a patient of his for a few days! Bob ends up taking over the interview, even introducing the other Marvins.

Leo tricks Bob and drives him to psychiatric ward where the director tells him that she can only hold him for 24 hours, then she will need staff corroboration. Leo is not worried in the slightest, because he knows that they will see just how crazy and erratic Bob is, but Bob seems perfectly normal to the staff, telling jokes and talking easily and he is released. This is around the time the movie turns really dark. Since whatever he does to try to get rid of Bob doesn't work, Leo now turns into a murderer. Or at least an attempted murderer since his plan doesn't work. (Probably for the best for everyone). Taking Bob by gunpoint, he leads him into the woods where he straps twenty pounds of explosives to him, both of which he stole from a store (I told you it gets dark!). Bob thinks this is all part of Dr. Marvin's therapy and after Leo leaves after he sets a timer for ten minutes, he is talking it out to himself, thinking the ropes tied around him refer to the emotional knot he has inside himself and if he doesn't untie it, he will explode, hence the explosives. He manages to untie himself, and proud of himself, he walks back to the Marvin's home.

While Leo and Bob were gone, Leo's family had been looking for him and he happily reunites with them, telling them they won't have to ever worry about Bob again. But, surprise! Here comes Bob! Leo's screaming, "No! No!" He's not wearing the explosives anymore and tells Leo that he freed himself from the ropes. Leo asks him where the bags he was wearing are and not even five seconds after Bob tells him they're in the house, we see the house blow up. And it was a nice house. Luckily nobody was inside of it!

The movie ends with Leo in a catatonic state and the family is afraid he will always be this way, but when Bob marries Leo's sister, Lily (who he met at Leo's birthday party....guess they hit it off pretty well if they're getting married so quickly) and during the wedding when the priest asks if anybody objects to this union, Leo stands up from his wheelchair (wearing a robe...they couldn't put him in a suit? I know he's catatonic, but still...) and yells, "NOOOO!" His family, which includes Bob now, are all excited that he's back and can now communicate again.

It almost felt like they didn't know how to end the movie. To be honest, I was surprised that Faye decided to stay with Leo after he tried to murder a man. I feel like that would be a deal breaker! 

Prime of Their Youth

Stand By Me

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, Richard Dreyfuss, John Cusack

Released: August 22, 1986

Oscar nominations:

Best Adapted Screenplay - Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans (lost to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for A Room With a View)

I was six going on seven the first time I saw an R rated movie. Haha, see what I did there? Yes, Stand By Me was the first R rated movie that I ever saw. I know for a fact that I must have been six or seven when I first saw this because I remember seeing it on video in the basement of the first house I lived in. We didn't move into the second house I lived in until just before my eighth birthday and the movie had to be released on video when I was six. The only thing I remember from my first viewing was that the body of the dead kid really freaked me out, especially since his eyes were open. I think I was around 10 or 11 when I actually remember seeing this movie in its entirety and appreciated it more. I was kind of raised to love this movie because my mom loooooves it (her favorite scene is the "Train!" scene). It's set in 1959 and the characters would have been only a couple years older than her at that time. I'm sure other people of her generation love it too as it encapsulates a certain time period with the setting and music. This movie had to be marketed to the Baby Boomer generation, right? Preteen kids, as much as I'm sure they wanted to see this, wouldn't be allowed (I've never seen four young boys curse so much until South Park came along!)

This movie is based on a short story by Stephen King called "The Body" which I read about 15 years ago. I've only read it once and I don't remember much about it...I know they made a few changes to the movie. Obviously, the novella is set in Maine, as all King stories are, but they changed it to Oregon in the movie. I believe both still have the same small town name of Castle Rock. And I don't remember this, but I guess Chris was the main character of the novella. Being that I've seen the movie at least 30 times, you can probably guess which one I like better. I also think the movie has the better title. I would like to revisit the short story...I just need to locate the book! 

Stand By Me is the quintessential coming-of-age movie and one of the most beloved. It is in my top five favorite movies of all time and I have recommended it in the past to people who had never seen it and they watched it and loved it, naturally! If, for some reason, you have never seen this (blasphemy!!), I highly recommend it. Plus, you should see it before you read this because there will be spoilers. It is about four twelve-year-old boys who embark on a journey the weekend before they start junior high to find the dead body of a kid who was hit by a train named Ray Brower who was their age. ("You guys wanna see a dead body?") They follow the train tracks that will lead them to the area where the body is and along the way they encounter a "vicious" dog named Chopper and his even more vile owner, tell stories around a campfire, have the ultimate train dodge, fall into a lake with leeches (ugh!!!), and philosophize things such as what kind of animal Goofy is suppose to be. It is these four twelve-year-olds going on the ultimate adventure one last time before they drift apart as friends and it is their journey of self-discovering and realizing who they are.

Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton), is the main character who is narrating the story to the audience in the "present day" as a forty-year-old (Richard Dreyfus). He loves telling stories and wants to be a writer (as we see he does become later on). His older brother, Denny (John Cusack) died in a car accident four months earlier and his parents are overcome with grief and barely acknowledge Gordie's presence anymore. Gordie and Denny had a very close relationship even though you would think Gordie might resent him with Denny being the Golden Boy son what with him being a star football player. In a flashback, when Denny tells his parents they should read Gordie's new story, his mother seems interested for a second, but then his father turns the subject back to Denny and his football. Gordie has a brutal dream where he's at Denny's funeral and his dad tells him, "It should have been you." He has lots of doubts if his parents, especially his father, really loves him.

Out of the three other boys, Gordie's closest friend is Chris Chambers (River Phoenix) who is the heart of the movie and the unofficial leader of their little gang. Chris is the one to encourage Gordie to continue on with his writing when Gordie thinks it's a waste of time and tells Gordie he can't be held back by him and the other guys who aren't as smart as he is. Narrator Gordie informs the audience that Chris came from a "bad family", but all we know about that is his father drinks and can get on a "mean streak" and he has an older brother who hangs out with a bad crowd. Gordie's dad doesn't like Chris and calls him a thief because he stole the milk money at school, but Chris confesses to Gordie that even though he did steal the money, he did feel bad and gave it back, only to find that he was still accused of stealing it and the very next day the teacher he gave the money back to had a new skirt. It's a very heartbreaking scene when he's telling this to Gordie and starts to break down and can't understand how a teacher could do something like that to him. Because of his reputation, he tells Gordie, "I just wish I could go someplace where nobody knows me." I can totally see why the preteen and teen girls of the '80s loved River Phoenix. He was very swoon-worthy! This was his only movie I saw of his when he was alive, but I saw quite a few of them about eight years after his death and I think this one by far is is best and most iconic.

Teddy DuChamp (Corey Feldman) is a bit of a psychopath (just a bit!) and is predicted by Chris to not live past 20 (though when adult Gordie is telling the audience what became of his friends, he is still alive). Even though he has a father who beats him and once held his head against a stove and burned his ear, he still loves him. When they come across the vile man who owns a junk yard they trespass into and calls Teddy's father a looney, this angers Teddy immensely and he defends his father, saying he isn't a looney and that he stormed the beach at Normandy. It's no wonder Chris thinks he won't live very long because Teddy seems to have a death wish. He tried to dodge a train ("Train dodge. Dig it.") and we hear about a story where Teddy almost fell out of a tree, but Chris caught him in time. Teddy has the strangest laugh and loves to speak in military lingo. He has one of my favorite lines in the movie when he tells Vern, "Is it me, or are you the world's biggest p***y?"

The junk yard scene also involves a dog named Chopper who is the "most feared and least scene dog in Castle Rock". When I wrote my review for The Sandlot, I mentioned how that movie reminded me of Stand By Me and they had to have inspiration for the "mean and vicious" dog who lives in a junkyard from this film, right?? And just like in The Sandlot where the dog isn't as mean as they had perceived, Chopper is just a golden retriever who isn't as menacing as he is made out to be.


My favorite character is Vern Tessio (Jerry O'Connell). I. FREAKING. LOVE. VERN!!! I love all the characters and think they're all great, don't get me wrong, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Vern. Vern is HILARIOUS! I laugh every time he's on screen. He's the chubby naive kid of the group who gets picked on by the other kids, especially Teddy. Poor Vern! But without Vern, they would never have their adventure because he's the one who tells them about the dead kid. He's under the porch searching for his jar of pennies (his mom threw away the map he made to locate them...you think he would remember the general vicinity where he buried them, but this IS Vern we're talking about!) when he hears his older brother and his brother's friend talking about how they saw this missing kid, dead in the woods. His brother thinks they should tell the police, but the friend says they'll get in trouble since they "boosted" a car and they'll want to know how they got all the way out there. The kids decide they're going to follow the train tracks that will lead them out there to find the body themselves. They are excited about the prospect of getting their pictures in the paper and maybe being on TV if they find the kid's body.

Haha, here is one of my (many!) favorite scenes with Vern:

Vern is so obsessed with that comb! Later, when they're well into their journey, he asks if anyone brought any food and when nobody remembered to, he says, "What are you looking at me for!? I brought the comb!" And then when they all give their money to Gordie to buy provisions, he only has seven cents! Oh, Vern! ("Sorry Vern, a more experienced shopper could have gotten more from your seven cents.") And when they're crossing the bridge and Vern is crawling on his knees (so funny!) and the comb falls out of his shirt pocket and into the water below and he just looks so dejected and tells Gordie, who's behind him, "I lost the comb."("Forget it, Vern.") In that clip at the end you see Teddy punching his arm and giving him "two for flinching". This will happen again to Vern, but he finally gets to be the one to make Teddy flinch and he is so elated and is gloating that he was finally the one to make Teddy flinch, that in his excitement, Teddy punches him and Vern says, "But....you flinched!" and Teddy just smiles at him and says, "I know...two for flinching!" Oh, Vern, you adorable idiot!

Another one of my favorite Vern scenes happens when they've set up camp for the night and Gordie is about to tell them his story about the sabotaged pie eating contest (that always grossed me out so much when I was a younger, but I can handle it a little bit better now!) and tells them the main character is a kid named Davey Hogan and Vern interrupts and says, "Like Charlie Hogan's brother! If he had one." Then he interrupts Gordie once again after he says the main character of his story, nicknamed Lardass, is a really fat kid because of his glands and Vern says his cousin has something like that and is about to tell a story of his own until Chris tells him to shut up. Then once Gordie has finished the story, Vern says, "I like the story! But there's just one thing I don't understand...did Lardass have to pay to get into the contest?" The looks on the other boys' faces just cracks me up and Gordie tells him, "No, Vern, they just let him in" and Vern is like, "Ohhhh! Great story!"

While the boys are following the train tracks, the film cuts back from time to time to the older high school boys, which include Chris's brother, Eyeball; Vern's brother, Billy; and Billy's friend Charlie (that must be the Charlie Hogan who doesn't have a brother named Davey!) among others. The leader of their gang is Ace (Kiefer Sutherland). Both Billy and Charlie, who said they were not going to tell anybody about the dead kid, blab to Eyeball and Ace about him and Ace decides they're all going to drive out to find the kid and hopefully get a cash reward for discovering the body. Ace and his gang like to do things like play "mailbox baseball", get tattoos with razors, and torment the younger kids. Ace steals Gordie's hat at the beginning of the movie, the one that Denny gave to him before he died and threatens to burn Chris's eye with a lit cigarette. He's a real a**hole, that Ace! They reach the dead kid just minutes after the four younger boys have found him. It makes me laugh when Ace mocks Chris after Chris tells them, "We found him first! We got dibs!" and Ace turns to Chris's brother and says, "We better start running, Eyeball. They got dibs!"

The four twelve-year-olds stand their ground until Ace takes out his knife and threatens to kill Chris and Vern and Teddy scamper away. Right when Ace makes his move for Chris's throat, Gordie shoots off a gun. This gun was introduced at the beginning of the journey. Chris swiped it from his dad's drawer and shows Gordie it. We next see it when they're camping out and each kid is standing guard with it after they hear coyotes howling. (And Vern keeps pointing it at every little thing that makes a sound...I was a little scared he might let it go off accidentally!) And then it makes its next and final appearance at this moment. Ace and the others back off, but Ace threatens that this isn't over and he won't forget this. Except that this is the last we hear of the older kids in the movie. I'm sure in the book the younger boys got the s*** beaten out of them! In the end, neither group take credit for finding Ray Brower and they make an anonymous phone call.

There's a very melancholy atmosphere when the four kids return to Castle Rock and say their good-byes and that they'll see each other in junior high. It's like they know that this will be the last adventure they have together before they transition into young adults. Narrator Gordie even tells the audience that he and Chris saw less and less of Vern and Teddy as time went on. The scene where Chris vanishes from the screen after we learn that he had been killed a week ago in the "present day" is more poignant now because of what happened to River Phoenix. Gordie as an adult finishes his memoir by writing, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"

They tried to make the girl version of this movie about a decade later. It's called Now and Then and by all rights I should love that movie because I'm a girl and I would have been the right age to see it when it came out, but I remember disliking it immensely! I honestly don't remember anything about it, just that I hated it, so I should revisit it someday and see if I still hate it or if I was being too hard on it.

Stand By Me celebrated its 30th anniversary a month ago. I found this clip from five years ago when it celebrated its 25th anniversary. If you're a fan of the movie and have never seen this, you'll enjoy it, I promise.

Music Class

Mr. Holland's Opus
Director: Stephen Herek
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Glenne Headly, William H. Macy, Olympia Dukakis, Jay Thomas, Terrance Howard, Alicia Witt
Released: December 29, 1995

Oscar nominations:
Best Actor - Richard Dreyfuss (lost to Nicolas Cage for Leaving Las Vegas)

This film, about a music teacher, expands a time span of 30 years. Richard Dreyfuss plays Glenn Holland, an aspiring composer, who takes a job as a high school music teacher to make ends meet while he writes his composition in his spare time. He teaches at John F. Kennedy high school in Portland, Oregon. Okay, follow along with me here for a second: the first class he teaches is the class of '63, which means that he started in the autumn of 1962...JFK didn't die until November 1963 so they kind of jumped the gun on that! And I suppose they could have named the school after him while he was in office, but does that ever happen? I'm certainly not aware of any Barack Obama High School that may be lurking out there! And even if they did, the school would have to have been brand new since Kennedy began his Presidency in 1960. All I'm saying is that they should have chosen another president to name their fictional school after. The timeline just didn't match. 

He is not thrilled about being a teacher and is exasperated with his students because they fail the tests and are horrible at playing their instruments. His teaching method is just to have the students read the text book and give them a quiz at the end of each lesson, but soon realizes that's not working for them. He starts playing records for them and tells them that rock and roll music and classical music aren't so different from each other and plays cords from famous songs of both genres on the piano. His wife, Iris (Glenne Headly) tells him to hang in there for four years and then they'll assess their situation to see if he can work on his compositions full time so he can become rich and famous, except it doesn't exactly happen like that. 

Iris becomes pregnant and gives birth to their son, Cole (his full name is Coltrane as he's named after John Coltrane and he's lucky they could shorten it to Cole because Coltrane is a horrible first name!) who is deaf. It's not until he's well into his first year that they don't notice there's something off about him when they're at a parade where a loud siren goes off and everyone is covering their ears and babies are crying, but young Cole remains oblivious in his stroller, asleep. Unless Cole became deaf right that second, I'm a little confused. Didn't they notice there was something wrong with his hearing within the first week of his life? Even though babies can't communicate, they usually look at you if you're talking to them. My cat looks at me when I make a noise! They take Cole to a specialist who tells them not to use hand gestures with him. Obviously this was a time when sign language was uncouth and that specialist was an idiot because Iris finds it very difficult and frustrating to try to communicate with Cole while her husband spends most of his time busy with his work and students. 

We see a few of the connections he makes with his students. The first ever was with a student from the first class he taught, the class of '63. Gertrude (speaking of horrible names...) is a redhead (played by Alicia Witt) who needs help with the clarinet. I think he gives her good advice and bad advice. The good advice is when he tells her to just have fun when she's playing the clarinet after he plays her a record of "Louie Louie" and asks her what's the first thing that comes to her mind and she says, "They're having fun." The bad advice (and bad screen writing) was when he asked her what her favorite thing about herself was and she replied her hair because her dad told her it reminded him of the sunset and he said, "Play the sunset." What does that even mean? That doesn't make any sense. But maybe it wasn't bad advice because as soon as he said that, she nailed her solo. It was still cheesy, though. 

Another one of the students he mentors is a football player who has trouble keeping the beat played by a very young Terrance Howard...who would later star in August Rush, another movie about love and appreciation for music. 

When the '80s roll around, his son is now a teenager (and attends a school for the hearing impaired) and there are hints that he and his wife are having marital problems. Rowena is a girl from the class of '80 who is part of the spring musical production. She has aspirations of going to New York after she graduates (like, literally right after) to make it big there and she and Mr. Holland develop a near bordering creepy relationship. She invites Holland to run away with her and while he does meet her at the bus stop and give her an incredibly awkward kiss, he declines the invitation. He is working on a new composition that he has named "Rowena" and when his wife sees it and asks who Rowena is he makes up something about her being a mythical goddess and when Iris is at the school's production she sees the name of the main singer is Rowena and how many people are named Rowena? Plus Rowena is looking right at Holland when she's singing "Someone to Watch Over Me" so it doesn't take much for Iris to put two and two together, but she never mentions it to her husband. The movie is 2 hours and 25 minutes and if they had dropped this entirely pointless plot line, it would have been two hours. 

The death of John Lennon brings Holland and his son closer together. I was listening to a podcast review of this movie...one guy had seen it before and the other hadn't. The guy who had never seen it made me laugh when he commented, "Did people really treat John Lennon's death like it was 9/11?" Obviously he was exaggerating a tad, but I do see where he was coming from. It was all over the news, which was understandable...I remember the next morning after Michael Jackson died, the radio was playing a tribute to him, but the characters in the movie acted like it was one of their own family members who had died. Cole wants to show his dad something when he comes home from work, but Holland tells him he's not in the mood because somebody died and that Cole wouldn't understand and then Cole tells him he knows who John Lennon and the Beatles are and Holland realizes that despite his son being deaf, he can still understand and know about music. At a music function Holland puts on for his son's school, he sings a John Lennon and Yoko Ono song for Cole called Beautiful Boy. I had never heard of it until I listened to it on the soundtrack. Holland apologizes in advance for his singing ability and let's just say this song sounds better when John Lennon is singing it. It's a sweet sentiment, but I can't think of too many teenaged boys who would be thrilled to have their dad singing such a sappy song to them! At least Cole couldn't hear his dad's awful singing!

The make-up department did a great job with aging Richard Dreyfuss. He was 48 when he made the film. At the end of the film, Mr. Holland was 60, so they aged him down and up for the role. They didn't do such a great job with aging William H. Macy (or W.H. Macy as the opening credits has his name) who plays the assistant principal to Olympia Dukakis's principal, then the principal when she retired - he has the same buzz cut and glasses throughout the entire movie. It's as though the entire movie's make-up budget went into aging only Dreyfuss! When the movie wants to skip a few years, it will show clips of famous events that happened in those years. The only jarring part is when it skips from 1980 to 1995 without any clips. This is the biggest gap that the movie passes through and apparently nothing happened in the entire decade of the '80s! Nothing at all! I also have to laugh at how hard they're trying to make the 1995 class look so cool. Oh, look, there's two boys holding hands - we have gay students at our school now! It just felt like they were trying to hard to try to be cool with the times. At least in '95 it makes sense to have a school called John F. Kennedy High School! 

Mr. Holland is forced to retire because the school is taking away the budget for the music and drama classes. The school has put on a warm reception for him where many of his students from pass classes - including Gertrude, who is now the mayor, have come to perform one of his musical oeuvres. 

While a bit saccharine at times, it's an uplifting story. I would recommend watching it, but feel free to fast forward through all the scenes with Rowena!