FILM

Every Friday and Saturday night at 11:55pm, it's another Midnight Movie Classic at the Landmark River Oaks Theatre.

Friday-Saturday,  September 23-24:   Jaws

In the 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind puts the blame for Hollywood's blockbuster mentality at least partially on Steven Spielberg's box-office success with this adaptation of Peter Benchley's bestselling novel. But you can't blame Spielberg for making a terrific movie, which Jaws definitely is.

The story of a Long Island town whose summer tourist business is suddenly threatened by great-white-shark attacks on humans bypasses the potboiler trappings of Benchley's book and goes straight for the jugular with beautifully crafted, crowd-pleasing sequences of action and suspense supported by a trio of terrific performances by Roy Scheider (as the local sheriff), Richard Dreyfuss (as a shark specialist), and particularly Robert Shaw (as the old fisherman who offers to hunt the shark down).

The sequences on Shaw's boat--as the three of them realize that in fact the shark is hunting them--are what entertaining moviemaking is all about.

PG, 2 hr. 10 min.
Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Written By: Carl Gottlieb, Peter Benchley, Howard Sackler
In Theaters: Jun 1, 1975