SMC Pod#185: Steven Spielberg's JAWS & Why it's the exception to the rule

As everyone and their cousin is telling you these days, it's the 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's classic monster movie blockbuster Jaws (1975). Directed by wunderkind Spielberg when he was only 28 years old (yet had already been a professional director in the TV & movie game at least 8 years), Jaws set the template Hollywood is still chasing: promising young director, huge recognition with a pre-existing IP (intellectual property), massive opening weekend on the most amount of screens, etc. Yet Jaws is still a classic 50 years later (unlike the majority of summer blockbusters) because of how it differs from the rules it established. Secret Movie Club programmer Craig Hammill waxes rhapsodic and caustic about the moviemaker, the movie, the team, and the phenomenon that casts a shadow on the ocean floor over everything so many decades later.