A little over a year ago, I opened the Freeville Literary Society — it’s right there on Main Street of my home town of Freeville, NY (pop. 505).
[My old-timey desk at the Freeville Literary Society]
On Friday nights, I show movies on a screen along the back wall. I have a pretty fancy projector and a license to screen movies, and … well, what can I say? I open the door and people come in. Instead of paying for a ticket (everything is free), they bring food and drink to share. They sit on my leftover church pews, comfy Naugahyde chairs and couches, and around the big wooden table.
I have one recliner with a foot stool for anyone who is ailing or needs to rest their broken bones, because it seems like someone in my crowd is always recovering from a broken foot, ankle or hip. A typical audience is around 15-20 people.
One HUGE advantage of owning and operating my tiny cinema is that I handle all of the programming (as well as everything else).
This means that every Christmas, I WILL screen Die Hard and Meet Me in Saint Louis.
… And every summer, Jaws.
For me, the quintessential summertime movies are Rear Window, Do the Right Thing, and Jaws.
[My favorite home-made poster …]
There are certain movies that seem to attach to a fan’s consciousness. Once embedded, these films will take that person on a lifelong ride aboard the fandom express.
I could probably write an entire book about Jaws, and my book would be a rambling and insane love letter to a movie that hit me at the perfect age (I was 14 when it came out) and which continues to resonate in different ways and for different reasons.
Steven Spielberg’s movies seem to hit people that way. Maybe that’s why they attract and inspire super-fans.
I’m talking about next-level inspiration + obsession.
There were the 12-year-old kids who, in 1982, decided to recreate Raiders of the Lost Ark in their backyards. They actually remade the movie, SHOT FOR SHOT. It took them seven years, and the result is incredibly charming.
Click below for a trailer for the wonderful documentary about this effort:
In fact, Spielberg (or someone) should make a fictional feature film about a group of kids who reshoot a famous film, SHOT FOR SHOT. In the years it takes them to complete the project, the young filmmakers grow and change — they way we all do.
The Plot: These kids suffer the slings and arrows of being a normal human on the planet, and yet — summer after summer — they come back to their hometown to work on their film. They squabble and make up (or drop out). They get drunk and revisit old wounds.
They proudly wear their battle scars (… the way Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw do in the incredible “show me your scars” scene in Jaws).
OMG. GET ME REWRITE!
But … I digress.
I was TODAY years old when I learned about
QUINCY JAWS
Where has Quincy Jaws been all my life? Mainly in Quincy, Mass.
Quincy Jaws is the creation of three adult Jaws super-fans who were definitely drunk when they decided to remake their favorite movie — NOT shot-by-shot, but scene-by-scene. The effort took them seven years, and their film came out just in time for Jaws’ 50th reunion, last summer.
What I absolutely love is how this drunken notion got completely out of hand, and how this group of hometown friends basically learned how to cast, stage, shoot, act (sort of), score and edit their feature-length home movie, essentially taking a nothing notion and making it into … something. The effort itself has major middle-age DAD energy.
And every single character has an endearingly thick Boston/Quincy accent.
[The filmmakers/actors/best buds: Timothy Lynch, Robert LaMonica (who directed), and Timothy DeGust. All men played multiple roles/parts in the film.]
My intention was to watch the first few minutes of Quincy Jaws and then move on.
The first scene — a recreation of the famous late night “clambake” scene that sets the film in motion — is SO HILARIOUS, intentionally and otherwise, that I was immediately hooked.
Spielberg’s version features gorgeous college kids partying on the island for the summer.
Here are a few seconds of that scene as recreated by the Quincy trio, featuring a beer-bellied middle age “Tom,” who is too drunk to take a midnight skinny-dip with the hot girl “Chrissy.”
(30 seconds)
Quincy Jaws is … patchy. But the film really and truly takes off when the action moves out to sea. On the boat, the three friends seem to have figured out how to interact on camera.
The grossest scene in Jaws, and the one that made me scream out loud when I first saw it, is when Quint gets [SPOILER ALERT] eaten by the shark.
[47 seconds. Watch to the end … it’s worth it!]
The Quincy Jaws version of this famous scene is … pretty great!
OK — so the shark is made of rubber roofing material. Its teeth are plastic. But the whole endeavor is held together by a friendship bond that transcends their amateur film making efforts.
Quincy Jaws tacks on a scene at the end of their film that Spielberg doesn’t have in the original.
Spielberg leaves the two survivors at sea, paddling toward a very distant shore, but in this version the characters make it all the way to shore.
We see the survivors climb out of the water and onto the rocky beach of Quincy, Mass.
The neighborhood’s houses line the shore, and it’s easy to imagine these guys heading into one of these houses, cracking open a six-pack, and sitting down to plan their next adventure.
*****
The Quincy Jaws crew: Robert LaMonica, Timothy DeGust and Timothy Lynch, want fans of their film to support Harveys Saltwater Vets, where a donation can help to treat a disabled veteran to a day of ocean fishing (hopefully, Jaws-free).
So let’s do this.
For every “heart” on this essay, I’ll donate $1 to Harveys Saltwater Vets.
For every comment answering the following question, I’ll donate $2
“If you could, what favorite film would you spend 7 years to butcher/remake?”
I’ll cap the upper limit of this offer at $500. BECAUSE HEY. I’m not made of money.
** Dear readers - I sent all of us in a two week hiatus where I paused payment for this newsletter.
I’m back - and so is your subscription.
And …. have I thanked you lately for supporting this work? It means SO MUCH to me, and I am very grateful.
Xo
Amy
Me and Pirate Pete at the local mini-golf range (a vital part of my summer hiatus).
I would remake Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The results would be terrible but there would be much hilarity making it!
Sound of Music! Absolutely would spend 7 years recreating this!