Jaws (1975) Bluray

Synopsis: When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist, and a grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.

What can I possibly say that hasn't already said? And how many countless reviews start out with that sentence? It's true, this is arguably one of the greatest movies ever made. (Depending on your genre preference of course) If you go to the YouTube comments for that trailer above, someone mentions that out of all the genres of movies there are out there, Jaws absolutely owns the Giant Man Eating Shark genre. I have to agree. The majority of the movies, if not all of them, have their heart set in Jaws. Even the really really bad ones take cues from the master. (The Jaws shot for example) It's just impossible not to. We've all basically grown up with this killer shark movie and it's so hard not to have it on your mind when watching other killer shark movies. (or making them)

If you haven't seen this movie you are sorely missing out. The tension is great, the scares come at you from every angle: Jump Scares, Psychological "scared of the water" scares, Sexy Teen Midnight Romps gone awry scares, little helpless kid in the middle of the water scares, and being absolutely helpless and dying the worst way fears. (Thanks Quint.) This movie has it all and there really is no other way to put it. It is the master of its craft and anything else is but a shadow.

The one thing I found funny while rewatching this movie is that Quint's boat is called "Orca". And in Jaws the shark destroys the Orca but in the movie Orca: The Killer Whale, an Orca destroys a great white shark! Ha!

Now on to the Bluray!

Universal is celebrating 100 years of movies by releasing 100 of their classics on Bluray. For Christmas this year I was begging for the Jaws Bluray. Much to my surprise, my persistent whining paid off and I got it!

You thought Jaws was great on it's own, the Bluray experience elevates it to a level not ever felt before.

The Video

I'm no technical expert so I don't know all about codecs and all that jazz (but you can certainly read all about that here), all I know is what my eyes tell me. And my eyes are very happy. The picture is as clean as it ever has been. This is what I like to see out of my Bluray restorations. A clean, crisp picture. No lines, no dirt, no little black film specks flipping about the screen, just a really great HD presentation. I watched the Restoration extra feature on the movie and when they transferred the original 35mm to digital they scanned it through a machine that pours water on the film and that water makes the majority of that stuff disappear. Interesting little fact for you.

The color in this movie is so vibrant. I watched this on a 50" Plasma and those ugly orange 70's bathing suits just POPPED off the screen. The yellows, reds, blues were all very appealing. The ocean looked fantastic. The sun glare off the water was so gorgeous.

What I was most fond of was the twilight scenes. The beginning skinny dipping scene can only be described as incredible. (Visually speaking of course. Ok, that death is awesome too) The fact that you can see everything is amazing but it's all so clear and the tones are dead on. The contrast isn't set so far off that it looks like it was filmed during the day and just darkened later. It's amazing.

The Audio

This new Bluray is mixed in 7.1 audio. It was pulled from the original mono track, so they pulled from 1 track of audio and turned it into 7. And it sounds amazing. I only have 5 channels of audio but I can't imagine how mind blowing 2 more could be. This is a movie about tension and sitting in the middle of a musical tornado is awesome. This movie puts a lot of tension in its musical score and this new mix just adds even more to that. And the last half of the movie with the splashing and crashing of water will blow you away.

So in short, the Bluray is worth it. Even though you've seen the movie a hundred times, it feels like you're watching it again for the first. The comparisons are so drastic that you won't be sorry you bought this.

They don't call this the trendsetter for nothing.

Shark Attack in the Mediterranean (2004)

Synopsis: Devastated by the violent death of his wife, helicopter pilot Sven Hansen helplessly watches as his personal life and business unravel. He finds renewed hope on the exotic island of Mallorca until the day his peaceful life is rocked by the appearance of a gigantic 35-foot shark. When Hansen learns that this is the same monster that killed his wife, he teams up with attractive marine biologist Julia Bennett. Together they battle the beast in a dramatic fight for survival. Filled with nonstop, hair-raising surprises, SHARK ATTACK IN THE MEDITERRANEAN takes deep ocean terror to new depths!

I COULD FIND NO TRAILER FOR THIS MOVIE. ANYWHERE. I WILL MAKE THIS UP TO YOU IN A FEW PARAGRAPHS WITH 1 OF THE BEST MINUTES EVER RECORDED IN SHARK MOVIE HISTORY.

I'm starting to see a pattern here: The longer the synopsis for a movie, the higher your chances that you're about to watch a bad movie. Shark Attack in the Mediterranean is a shining example.

So you pick this to watch...thinking that maybe it has something to do with the amazingly terrible Shark Attack trilogy. It doesn't, we aren't that stupid. But you're kind of hoping for something along those lines. In a lot of respects, you do get just that.

I was immediately surprised that this movie was overdubbed in English. (apparently this is a German movie called Shark Alarm) And it's really poorly done English dubs. We're talking Riki-Oh levels of bad overdub. Like there's maybe one man and one woman overdubbing the entire movie for all the characters and they really don't bother to try and be separate characters. It honestly made me laugh a lot of the time and made this movie shoot up the "so bad it's good" ladder. Like this for example:

Ladies and Gentlemen, the greatest minute in shark movie history. Use it wisely.

Something that is SHOCKINGLY good is the directing. Maybe it doesn't all flow together the greatest but the director really has a knack for working in the small things to make the bigger thing that much better. Like a dude is about to be gloriously eaten and the camera zooms in on his eye and we get to see the shark launch out of the water at him from the glare on his eye. Stuff like that really made this movie interesting to watch.

Then there's scenes showing a rich fat man going on and on about his expensive grill to a pool full of bikini clad hot chicks while at the same time there is a car chase that results in the lead character launching off a cliff, jumping out of the jeep a la Fast 5, and then landing right in the pool.

THEEEEN there's the matter of the shark itself. So here we have another Megalodon, a supposedly extinct super shark. In the synopsis you read that they discover this shark is the shark that killed the lead character's wife. They find this out because he has a tooth from that attack and he finds a newer BIGGER tooth this time around that matches it exactly. Seriously, this tooth is about as big as your face. And the shark, even though the synopsis says it's 35 feet, looks more like 60. (YES!) And it's all CGI baby! Bad CGI? Compared to what I've reviewed lately, no not at all. It's not theatre bound quality of CGI but for a movie that no doubt went straight to DVD, it's excellent. (I would go so far as to say it's better than Deep Blue Sea) And it's refreshing at this point to watch something that isn't chock full of stock footage, especially stock footage of a regular shark when it's supposed to be a mega shark.

There's just so many aspects of badness to love in this movie. If you're looking for something good here, walk away right now. Not worth your time. But if you're looking for something that will just keep throwing eye rolling scene after eye rolling scene at you while at the same time getting crazy with the camera work...Shark Attack in the Mediterranean is for you.