Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with something that makes me smile. Even though it should be obvious by my cartoon and loopy seaman speak where my namesake comes from, I still get people sure I'm either A) Quentin Tarantino or B) Taking my name from Jeremy London's character in MALLRATS.
JAWS is my all time favorite movie. I've seen it on the big screen close to 10 times (which is quite good considering I wasn't alive when the film came out), I own a 16mm print of the film, a US one-sheet, an Indian one-sheet, some lobby cards and various trailers for the film in all film formats I can get my hands on. Everyone has their obsession film and since childhood JAWS was always mine.
So now we come to the year 2005 where the people of Martha's Vineyard (a rich island community off the coast of Massachusettes that was the location for filming JAWS) are putting together a 30th Anniversay celebration of the film called JAWSFEST June 3rd-5th. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO!!!
Right now they have many guests showing up from the film, including Carl Gottlieb (who co-wrote the screenplay as well as played reporter Ben Meadows), Jeffrey Voorhees who played Alex Kintner (doomed boy on a raft), his mom (played by Lee Fierro... "You knew there was a shark out there... you knew it was dangerous, but you let you people go swimming anyway!"), Jay Mello (Sean Brody), Ted Grossman (stunt guy that plays the dude in the bay that gets his leg bitten off... he's also the stiff in the Ice Cream room that falls on Chunk in THE GOONIES), as well as a lot of the guys behind the scenes, like production designer and future JAWS 3-D director Joe Alves and the people that helped build and operate "Bruce." Jeff Kramer (who played Brody's sidekick, Hendricks, is scheduled as well. Peter Benchley is tentatively scheduled.
Right now Richard Dreyfuss is also tentatively scheduled as well. No word on Roy Scheider, but I'd love it if they both came out and spoke about the film, being two of the three living shark hunters left.
On top of that, the community of Martha's Vineyard is still much the same as it was back when shooting took place. There will be many locals around to give their views on how the shooting changed the community.
I am tentatively planning on attending this event as I've never been to Martha's Vineyard before and need to make the trip at least once in my life. It is full of super geeky stuff... screenings of the film, meet and greets, tours around the island... the good stuff for JAWS fanatics like me and maybe a few of others out there reading this.
I, for one, hope we see a wide 30th Anniversary Re-Release of JAWS in theaters this summer (you listening Universal?) so the entire country... nay, the entire world can celebrate this awesome film and for another summer people will be afraid to go in the water.
CLICK IT HERE FOR THE FULL INFO!!!
-Quint
