******UNIDENTIFIED FLYING SPOILERS!****** I’ve been a fan of director Steven Spielberg since my family and I waited hours parked outside a drive-in theater waiting for the filled parking lot to clear so we could squeeze in and see “JAWS” back in 1975. Two years later, seeing “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (CE3K) at the…
Tag: Steven Spielberg
A few thoughts on UFOs/UAP and extraterrestrial life…
******SAUCER-SHAPED SPOILERS!****** Growing up in the 1970s, UFOs (as they were called then) were wildly popular. I watched alien visitation/invasion movies, such as “The War of the Worlds” (1953), “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers” (1956), and “Invaders from Mars” (1953)–that last one really scared the hell out of me watching it alone on late-night TV…
My on-again/off-again love for the theatrical experience…
The Old Days One of my favorite pastimes as a kid was going to the movies. It was a safe trip into a darkened realm of imagination, where larger-than-life stories shadow-played before my eyes and ears. I even remember taping newspaper ads for my favorite movies to my bedroom wall. As the late film critic…
“Paul” (2011) is Simon Pegg & Nick Frost’s cheeky homage to Spielbergian sci-fi…
******UNIDENTIFIED FLYING SPOILERS!****** British actors/comedians/writers Simon Pegg and Nick Frost broke geek ground with their memorable, short-lived fandom comedy “Spaced” (1999-2001), which was cowritten and co-created with costars Edgar Wright and Jessica Hynes. Pegg, Frost and Wright would follow with a George Romero inspired horror-comedy “Shaun of the Dead” (2004), which is where they first…
“The Shark Is Broken” (2022) brings the drama behind “JAWS” to the stage…
******GREAT WHITE SPOILERS!****** “The Shark Is Broken” (2022) is an enjoyable play chronicling the collision of egos between actors Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider during the troubled extended production of “JAWS”(1975); the Steven Spielberg blockbuster-crowdpleaser which inaugurated the summer blockbuster movie phenomenon. The play, which premiered in the UK and Ireland before coming…
“You’re gonna need a bigger display”: JAWS: The Exhibition opens at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles…
To any longtime readers, I swear that barring any unforeseen circumstances, this should be my final word on the 50th anniversary of “JAWS,” which happens to be one of my favorite films of all time. I’ve already published prior columns on my personal “JAWS” 50th anniversary celebrations and of recently revisiting the movie in 2D-IMAX,…
“This shark…swallow you whole!” Seeing “JAWS” (1975) in 2D-IMAX…
******THREE BARRELS OF SPOILERS!****** From Drive-In to IMAX For clarity, this will not be a review of “JAWS” (1975), which I reviewed the hell out of five years ago, and revisited again earlier this year for the movie’s official 50th anniversary celebration back in June. This column is about rewatching a movie I’ve seen countless…
Revisiting “Jurassic World” (2015) ten years later…
******T-REX SIZED SPOILERS!****** While I’ve not yet seen “Jurassic World Rebirth,” I sated my summer dinosaur cravings with a rewatch of 2015’s “Jurassic World,” which initiated the second wave of “Jurassic Park” movies; a franchise that began 32 years ago, and which refuses to go extinct. As a dinosaur fanatic from childhood who grew up…
“Smile, you son of a bitch!”: Celebrating a half-century of “JAWS”…
******GREAT WHITE SPOILERS!****** Fifty years ago, in that long ago summer of 1975, eight-year old me was piled along with my siblings and parents into our family’s Volkswagen bus, headed to a local SoCal drive-in to see “JAWS”; the blockbuster flick from the as-yet-unkown Steven Spielberg (hard to remember a time when he wasn’t a…
Retro-Musings: “Duel” (1971) was Steven Spielberg’s road-rage fueled precursor to “JAWS”…
******TANKER-FUELED SPOILERS!****** When I was a little kid growing up in the 1970s, most made-for-TV movies (with a few notable exceptions) were usually talky police procedurals, murder mysteries, courtroom dramas or thrillers. 1970s television wasn’t the typical venue for balls-to-the-wall, high-octane action flicks. However, the medium of television is where future cinematic legend Steven Spielberg…
Watching 1975’s “JAWS” with a young first-timer…
******THREE BARRELS OF SPOILERS!****** Last night, we had our friend Kathy and her 12-year old son Joshua over for another ‘garage theater’ movie night at our humble abode. Continuing young Joshua’s ongoing film education into “the classics” (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Jurassic Park,” “The Princess Bride,” the “Star Wars” & “Back to the…
“Close Encounters of the Third Kind”; introducing Steven Spielberg’s 1977 UFOpus to fresh eyes…
*****MOTHERSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!***** “If everything’s ready here on the dark side of the moon? Play the five tones…” When the COVID pandemic happened, my wife and I invested in a cheap Vankyo digital projector to keep up on our movies since movie theaters were shut down for months, and arguably, still haven’t fully recovered. Without the…