When a film shoots on location, it’s normal for the production to use people from the surrounding community as extras or maybe even as minor players.   But when 27 year old filmmaker Steven Spielberg brought three mechanical sharks to Martha’s Vineyard to shoot an adaptation of the best-selling novel Jaws, the island was so remote that he had no choice but to use locals for many spots in the cast and crew.  Because of this necessity, Jaws isn’t just a film about a killer shark, but is a snapshot of this small vacation destination in the 1970s.  Similarly, Titan Books’ new release, Jaws: Memories from Martha’s Vineyard by Matt Taylor, is not only an extensive look behind the scenes of this seminal summer blockbuster, but also reveals for us the experience of the locals who gave the film such a colorful pallet of personalities.
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I get a lot of PR emails, but when one about the restoration of Jaws for its August 14th, 2012 Blu-ray release date popped in my inbox, I had to check it out. Jaws is my co-favorite movie of all time, along with Jurassic Park, and I’ve been waiting for it to come out on Blu-ray for years. Luckily, it’s Universal’s 100th Anniversary this year and Jaws is getting the extra-special treatment. They put together this surprisingly good behind the scenes video of their restoration process, and it looks like they’re doing everything right.

I want to show this to my wife and say “We’re going to need a bigger TV” and see if that works.

Even though this film will be lost on the the average Johnny-loves-Transformers this summer movie season, Super 8 looks like it’s on track to be the best genre film of the year. The J.J. Abrams directed, Spielberg influenced and produced movie appears to channel the classic 80’s Amblin movies we all grew up with.

If so, that means we can expect a great character-driven story taking place in Everytown, USA, and most importantly, children casually swearing, which I think we can all agree has been lacking in the cinema of late.

This trailer is showing before Battle: Los Angeles tonight (which I hope is good), and I can’t wait to see it on a big screen.