Category: Keith Gordon

JAWS 2

By Marc S. Sanders

The last movie, the masterpiece of masterpieces, told us that a great white shark is rare for the kinds of waters that surround the New England area of Amity Island.  Well, Jaws 2 disproves that fictional theory as Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) ascertains that another man eater has arrived with a large appetite for chomping on swimmers, scuba divers and water skiers.  It’s ridiculous but it’s an entertaining sequel with a supporting cast of young actors ready to effectively tremble and scream while trying to survive the clutches of a hungry great white.  

Things appear tranquil yet prosperous for Amity.  A developer has completed a large Holiday Inn hotel that will magnify tourism profitability.  To Martin’s chagrin, his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary) works for this guy.  Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) somehow got reelected following that terrifying Fourth of July weekend from a few years ago.  (Well…his kids were on that beach too.) Chief Brody’s biggest concern though is his oldest son Michael’s penchant to laze around sailing with his friends for the summer when he should be getting a job.  Michael just wants to score with the new girl in town.

All is well until an abandoned boat is discovered off shore with an underwater camera dropped on the ocean floor, near Captain Quint’s shipwrecked Orca.  Thereafter, is an explosive water skiing accident.  The most hideous eyesore must be the beached, partly devoured corpse of a humongous killer whale.  The bite sizes are enormous.  Chief Brody is getting terribly suspicious, but once again his intuition is being disregarded until the truth reveals its blood in the waters. 

Jaws 2 is effective suspense.  The teens are straight out of familiar slasher movies, but this film actually released ahead of Halloween and Friday The 13th fare.  Director Jeannot Szwarc captures good close ups of the whole cast and magnificent pace with a speeding fin that slices through the ocean surface.  These kids are mostly nameless but the director gives them good moments to put their greatest fears on.  When the sailboats capsize and the kids topple into the water, there’s a nervous tension all the way to the end of the picture.

It’s no secret that Scheider hated making this movie.  Universal contractually beheld him to it after he dropped out of Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter.  Nonetheless, I like the direction the character takes with returning script writer Carl Gottlieb.  Brody’s job is in jeopardy and maybe his marriage, along with the paternal strife he gets in the way of his eldest boy.  Roy Scheider does fine with the material.  Perhaps his personal frustrations lent to the performance.

What doesn’t work is Bruce II – the shark.  To this day I’m still stricken with fear of the shark from Spielberg’s film, even after we finally get to see it.  It truly is a scary monster.  In Jaws 2 however, the animal looks like something you buy at a beach novelty store for your grandson to play with in a kiddie pool.  The texture of the shark never feels authentic particularly after it survives a fire.  I am not fond of how it swims or raises its head above water.  Even when a helicopter gets in its crosshairs, the shark looks small and literally mechanical, never seeming strong or powerful enough to kill, maim and destroy. The magic trick just appears entirely too transparent.  Fortunately, I bought into how this town’s worst fears eventually come true again.  The perception of Brody and the kids is the mightiest strength of the film.

A brief mention is given to Matt Hooper (famously played by Richard Dreyfus in the first picture).  That always left me curious with why Universal did not pursue a sequel based on his character instead of Brody.  It’s hard to swallow that another monster shark is terrorizing Amity again.  Wouldn’t it have more plausibility for the actual shark specialist to pursue another brutally unforgiving Carcharodon Carcharias elsewhere in the world?  I think a story moving in this direction could have opened a lot fresher possibility.

Regardless, Jaws 2 is a fun summertime escape with one of the most familiar taglines in cinematic history: “Just when thought it was safe to go back in the water.”

Only watch Jaws 3 & The Revenge when you’re ready to get your itch for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 kick to commiserate with some friends on a Saturday night.  Save Jaws 2 for when you want more shark chum after having watched the classic original for the five thousandth time.    

THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN

By Marc S. Sanders

Growing up as a teenager, in the dog days of summer, and living in a new town with few friends at the time allowed a lot of binge watching of movies on Showtime.  Top Gun must have been shown twelve times a day.  So was Back To School.  The other movie on constant repeat was The Legend Of Billie Jean – a movie of few merits and yet the heroic sweep of the fugitive rebel on the run with her trailer park gal pals and her little brother was addicting.  It’s a brisk ninety-minute film, but each time I’d watch the movie it felt like the title character raised even more awareness and support for her cause than the last time I watched, which was likely four hours earlier in the day, during breakfast.

Helen Slater is Billie Jean.  Her younger brother is Binx played by Christian Slater, in his first film.  NO RELATION!!!! 

Under a hot sun-drenched setting in Corpus Christie, Texas, the siblings are bullied by Hubie (Barry Tubb).  Binx gets beat up.  Even worse, his shiny maroon motor scooter is stolen and trashed.  When Billie Jean approaches the bully’s father, Mr. Pyatt (Richard Bradford), to collect the six hundred dollars for the cost of the bike, she narrowly escapes a rape after Binx shoots the scumbag in the shoulder.  Now the kids are on the run with Ophelia and Putter (Martha Gehman and Yeardley Smith – eventual voice of Lisa Simpson).

A firestorm starts to spread with a loyal underground following for Billie Jean and her band, and they receive assistance from the District Attorney’s (Dean Stockwell) son Lloyd, played by Keith Gordon.  The cop on their trail is played by Peter Coyote.  Wait!  I’m not being fair.  This cop is never on their trail.  Somehow every kid in the state of Texas can find and help Billie Jean, except the cops.  Even with the DA’s son in tow, these fugitives cannot be located by one single, solitary police cruiser.  Yet, the kids on the playgrounds make no effort to find Billie Jean, Binx and the others.  Yes.  You shake your head at the whole thing.  When you are age fourteen though, you get caught up with Helen Slater, one of your first celebrity crushes, and the accompanying soundtrack of Pat Benatar’s rebellious anthem “Invincible.”

The Legend Of Billie Jean is a stupid movie.  I don’t think anyone can argue with me.  I mean think about this for a second.  Peter Coyote’s cop finds their getaway car with Putter and Ophelia.  Still, he doesn’t choose to search the vehicle for a significant clue to the hero’s whereabouts until the next day.  Isn’t this sloppy investigative fieldwork?  As well, during the climax a brushfire is started by Billie Jean and no one runs or calls for a firetruck.  The DA, the cops, the kids – they all just stand there watching in deep thought like they were directed.  I can only imagine the director with his megaphone yelling out the command to stare straight ahead at the growing flames.  Mind you, this isn’t a control burn firepit.  This is a BRUSH FIRE with hay and wood and clothes as accelerants.

Nevertheless, the movie is an only slightly embarrassing guilty pleasure.  It’s not as hokey as it looks on the surface.  The acting isn’t terrible because the young cast is embracing the absurdity of the whole situation.  It stands, albeit wobbly, on the same plotline of an eventual and exceedingly better film called Thelma & Louise.  More importantly, Helen Slater makes for a good lead role and heroine.  When she tells Mr. Pyatt “No,” and cries her anthem of “Fair is fair” you root for her.  Slater’s performance is far grander than the script she is working with. 

The Legend Of Billie Jean performs like an afterschool special without dubbing out the cursing. The cause of these kids’ plight enhances as the film progresses.  What starts out as a simple bullying story and a demand for monetary damages of only six hundred dollars turns into a fight for respect and honor from the adult males within a small, southern local community.  However, there is little to feel inspired by, and I’m afraid Billie Jean’s supposed legend unfolds into only a slightly miniscule smidgen of Legendary.