#4 JAWS

Overview:  Remember the Great White Shark from “Finding Nemo” who claimed he was a vegi-ma-tarian?  As it turns out that shark is a big fat liar face, because now he’s embracing his true self at the beaches of Amity, where he has an affinity for human flesh.  Meanwhile the local aqua-phobia Sherriff has to deal with all the shark attacks, which brings him into a “Street Fighter” match with the oversized fish.

The Good:  I remember when I was 5 or 6 and I rented this movie, it was the first Horror movie I had ever seen and it scared my pre-crohnsy self half to death!  Whenever the shark would kill someone I would run to my mother, have her hug me and let me know everything will be fine, then un-pause the movie and finish it.  There are several different aspects of this movie that contribute to its success, first of which is the music.  The music is seriously 3-notes played over, and over, and over again.  Instead of shooting myself in the face, the music actually brings the creepy eerie feeling into the water, it’s especially creepy when the music gets louder as the shark gets closer to someone.   Every actor in this film has perfect chemistry with each other, and you don’t get the feeling that it's a competition to see who gets the spotlight more (although I did think Richard Dreyfuss was the best).  This movie was famous for keeping people afraid and out of the water, and that’s what it did to me.  Whenever I get the crazy idea to swim in a green lake, I imagine that JAWS is in the water with me, so when a gubbie or tiny fish touches my feet I scream about as loud as I did when I first 

came out of the womb; I don’t remember that but I’m sure it was traumatic.

The Bad:  The bad part of this movie are it’s sequels, because although they’re fun, I usually try to forget that there was any connection to the first movie; It’s like the “SAW” movies where they should have stopped at the first one. 

The Ugly:  Unless you’re a 5-6 year-old ginger kid, then you might want to think twice about watching this movie, or else you’ll never want to go swimming again… at least not with the same confidence.  This is a classic that never gets old because it’s fun, scary, and all the characters are memorable; this is a SHARKING good time… Oh that was a good punch-line, and I can use that in almost any context and it still works!

4 1/2 out of 5