Okay, We'll Drink To Our Legs!

From the looks of things, I'm not the only one with a Jaws fixation. I'm a fandom kind of gal. If it's highly dramatic, slightly fantastical and full of engaging characters, chances are that I've shown up to at least one opening day party and spent time in at least one internet group discussing it.

Jaws fandom is more subtle. There's really only one movie of note, although Jaws 2 does have Teens In Peril a la Friday The 13th. But only Jaws has that charismatic trio of men doing battle with nature. And only Jaws has One Of The Finest Men To Have Walked Planet Earth. Robert Shaw. I've raved on here about Shaw before, so I don't need to repeat myself. But he does make the movie. Without him it'd just be an extremely damp episode of Thirtysomething.

We Jaws junkies have very little to amuse us and keep us happy. There's not a new movie coming out every two years, there are no Amity Shark comic books and the only shipping involved is....actual boats. We can't argue about whether the Shark ends up with Brody or Hooper. (Duh. Everyone knows it's Brody. Hooper is just his really good friend.) But I know we're out there.

The first time Tim and I saw The Usual Suspects I started freaking out. All the way home I kept insisting that the producers HAD to be Jaws junkies, because of their company name. The minute I saw "Bad Hat Harry", I flashed to Scheider on the beach trying to shake a whiny townie to keep his focus on the water. "That's some bad hat, Harry." Tim thought I was nuts. And probably scared to be married to a woman who has the entire movie memorised. Then came House, where the production card has an animated version of the scene. It's just as Herman Hesse said in Siddharta. Wait by the river long enough and your geeky intuitions will be proved right.

So, yes. There are other Jaws geeks out there. But keep one thing in mind. Saying any version of "You're gonna need a bigger boat" doesn't count.