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I’ve seen a few of these photos surfacing online the last few months, and they make me really happy because there’s a kind of absurdity going on. These are behind-the-scenes snapshots from JAWS, featuring actor Robert Shaw and “Bruce” the Shark, in between takes. Bruce, if you didn’t know, was the name lovingly bestowed upon the mechanical shark they made for the movie, which ended up not working half the time, forcing director Steven Spielberg to rely on implied-shots, shadows, oblique techniques and other ways of creating the sense that the shark was there without actually showing that the shark was there.Down the rabbit hole….

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Seventy-eight years ago today, the movie Anchors Aweigh was released. Anchors Aweigh might not be quite remembered as one of the classic musicals, but it’s a damned good one, if a bit overstuffed and overcomplicated in its story. The story: two Navy sailors, played by Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, are on leave in Hollywood. Kelly is a ladies’ man, while Sinatra has no luck with the ladies (you can tell right there the level of movie fantasy we’re engaging), and they strike out for a night on the town, with lots of implied debauchery (at least for Kelly). But they areDown the rabbit hole….

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Thirty years ago yesterday, Jurassic Park opened in theaters, after quite a lot of hype. I remember at the time the general reaction initially was “Pretty good, not Spielberg’s best, but a really solid effort, but too bad he didn’t have the kinds of technical difficulties on this movie that kept him from showing too much of the shark in Jaws because that created the film’s mood,” yada yada yada. I always found that criticism a bit wrong-headed, but I had to wait until the second time I saw the movie to figure out how I felt about it, because the first screening IDown the rabbit hole….

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Yesterday we saw Grease at a Fathom Events screening, for its 45th anniversary. Wow. I saw Grease in its original theatrical run, back when I was six or seven (depending on when it was out). I went with my sister, and I remember digging the movie quite a bit. After all, I was a kid and Happy Days was regular viewing so this 1950s-nostalgia flick was something I could understand, for the most part. There were cool songs and whatnot, funny stuff along the way, and toward the end two guys even get pies in the face! What wasn’t to like? When TheDown the rabbit hole….

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Yup, it’s that time again: When I look at Chrome and realize, “Wow, I have a lot of tabs open to stuff.” ::  On the oldest book in the world printed with movable type, and it’s not the Gutenberg Bible: The oldest extant text ever printed with movable type predates Gutenberg himself (born in 1400) by 23 years, and predates the printing of his Bible by 78 years. It is the Jikji, printed in Korea, a collection of Buddhist teachings by Seon master Baegun and printed in movable type by his students Seok-chan and Daijam in 1377. (Seon is a Korean form ofDown the rabbit hole….

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The Wife and I are going to dinner tonight, so I don’t have much time for insightful blogging tonight. So I’ll share something I randomly saw today in my social media perambulations: The entire Lord of the Rings film trilogy, edited down to every instance of Legolas speaking directly to Frodo: Make some popcorn! Two kernels oughta do it.   Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Roger Ebert died ten years ago today. I’m more of a mind to honor the anniversary of someone’s entering the world rather than their leaving it, but Ebert was such a force in the back of my mind almost all the time I knew of him, constantly shaping not just my love of movies but also my way of thinking about movies and relating to movies. And it’s not just movies: it’s the way he related to art. Here is what I wrote on the day he died: — I was trying to figure out something to write on theDown the rabbit hole….

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So, what did we watch in March? ::  We went to see Casablanca on the big screen, which makes it by definition the best thing we saw or watched in March. As Casablanca is my second-favorite movie of all time, the only way it could be bested for a month’s viewing is if we watched Star Wars in the same month, which we did not. I wrote about it on my Substack. (And I have got to stop letting so much time pass between viewings of this movie. It was about a year-and-a-half between viewings. Too long, man. Too long!) ::  Your Place Or MineDown the rabbit hole….

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It’s Oscar Night, which barely registers on my radar anymore…but I still notice that every year around this time the “Worst Movies To Win Best Picture!” listicles start making the rounds again, so once again I present my thoughts on one of the “poster child” movies for the “rightful” Best Picture getting robbed by a lesser movie, Dances With Wolves, which is always cited as having won over the real Best Picture, Goodfellas. I’m never going to win this argument, but I will speak for Dances every year. By the way, I thought I had written this relatively recently. It turns out that thisDown the rabbit hole….