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Allan Blye, an Emmy-winning writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” and “Van Dyke and Company,” died Friday morning at home in Palm Desert, Calif., a family spokesperson confirmed. He was 87.

In 1968, Tom and Dick Smothers convinced Blye to move to Los Angeles to serve as head writer and producer on their new variety show, CBS’ “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” There, Blye worked alongside young comedians such as Bob Einstein, Steve Martin, Rob Reiner and Carl Gottlieb. The show won an Emmy for best writing in a variety comedy television series in 1969.

Blye wrote and produced many shows throughout his career, including “The Andy Williams Show,” “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour,” “The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show,” “That’s My Mama,” “The Bobby Vinton Show” and “The Ray Stevens Show,” which he co-created with Chris Bearde. Blye also co-wrote several TV specials, such as Elvis Presley’s 1968 “Comeback Special...

Allan Blye, an Emmy-winning comedy writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and Van Dyke and Company, has died. He was 87.

Blye died Friday morning at his home in Palm Desert, California, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The cause of death wasn’t immediately available.

Born on July 19, 1937, in Winnipeg, Canada, Blye went from being a child soloist in his synagogue’s choir to becoming a featured singer on variety radio shows all across Canada.

In his early 20s, he eventually caught Fred Rogers’ attention and went on to originate the role of Captain Blye on MisteRogers (which later became Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) from 1961-65.

In 1968, Tom and Dick Smothers convinced Blye to move to Los Angeles to write and produce their new show, CBS’ The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It was there that he worked alongside young comedians such as Steve Martin, Bob Einstein, Rob Reiner and Carl Gottlieb.

Allan Blye, a two-time Emmy winner best known for originating the role of Captain Blye on Mister Rogers Neighborhood and writing for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, died Oct. 4 in Palm Desert, CA. He was 87.

Blye, a native of Winnipeg, Canada, appeared on Mister Rogers more than 200 times from 1961-65 before Tom and Dick Smothers convinced him to move to Los Angeles to write and produce their variety show. Blye helped assemble a remarkable writing staff, working alongside young comedians such as Steve Martin, Bob Einstein, Rob Reiner and Carl Gottlieb. With Blye as the head writer and producer, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour won an Emmy for writing in 1969.

Along with Chris Bearde, Blye went on to co-create, produce and serve as head writer for The Andy Williams Show and The Sonny and Cher Show. After penning a number of television specials, including Elvis Presley’s iconic “68 Comeback Special,...

You can't have "Jaws" without Quint, a modern Captain Ahab if he'd been hunting a great white shark rather than a white whale. It's difficult to picture anyone but Robert Shaw (in one of his last roles before his premature death in 1978) in the part, but the actor actually wasn't who director Steven Spielberg first had in mind.

In "Spielberg: The First Ten Years" by Laurent Bouzereau, Spielberg claimed his first choice for Quint was Lee Marvin. He wanted a big star and Marvin was famous for playing sinister tough guys. See: "The Big Heat," "Point Blank," "The Dirty Dozen," and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (directed by the man who taught Spielberg how to frame a horizon.) Marvin, though, said no. Spielberg recounted: "What I heard was that [Marvin] wanted to go fishing for real! He took his fishing very seriously and didn't want to do it from a 'movie' boat.

Steven Sodebergh loves Steven Spielberg. Maybe it’s just a Steven thing. Or maybe it’s because the latter indirectly changed the course of the former’s life with his breakthrough film, “Jaws.” As revealed in a conversation at the Toronto International Film Festival and covered by The Hollywood Reporter, the “Ocean’s Eleven” director shared further details on a previously announced book that he’s writing about the making of the 1975 shark thriller starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw.

“I’ve been working on this thing [the book] that is ostensibly about directing and uses, as its spine, an analysis of the making of ‘Jaws’; day-to-day,” Soderbergh said.

While this may sound like a thrilling read that could probably be adapted into its own film one day, Soderbergh described it as more of an educational tool than a gripping piece of entertainment.

“This book is not for general consumption. This...

Steven Soderbergh has opened up about a giant book on Jaws, the classic Steven Spielberg thriller he first saw in 1975, that he has been working on for nearly 15 years.

“I’ve been working on this thing [the book] that is ostensibly about directing and uses as its spine an analysis of the making of Jaws day-to-day,” Soderbergh revealed during an informal conversation at the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday.

Don’t expect his how-to Jaws tome to be sold at airports, however.

“This book is not for general consumption. This is for people who are interested in films, either as moviegoers or [who] want to do this job. Because if you’re going to do this job, you need to understand the job. This is the job,” Soderbergh said of his long-gestating passion project.

Do expect more than a scene-by-scene analysis of Jaws: “I’m going to walk you through the experience...

This September, Netflix is bringing you a lot of entertainment with the highly anticipated Nicole Kidman drama series The Perfect Couple, a Netflix original drama film starring Elizabeth Olsen, and the brilliant new animated series Twilight of the Gods. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Netflix this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 5 best films that are coming to Netflix in September 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Jaws (September 1)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Jaws is a classic survival thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay co-written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Based on a 1974 novel of the same name by author Peter Benchley, the 1975 film revolves around Sheriff Martin Brody as he teams up with a marine biologist and a local fisherman to hunt down a giant white...

At the end of Steven Spielberg's 1975 creature feature "Jaws," Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), Brody (Roy Scheider), and the grizzled Quint (Robert Shaw) have piloted a boat out into the ocean around Amity Island to apprehend a great white shark that has been eating the locals. Their initial plan is for Hooper to get in a shark-proof cage and shove a poison-tipped harpoon into the sea beast. The shark proves to be too powerful, however, and wrecks the cage. The shark also has the wherewithal to leap onto the stern of their boat, crushing it. The shark also eats Quint. Things are looking pretty bad. 

It's not until Brody drops a pressurized oxygen tank into the shark's mouth and shoots it with a rifle that the animal is killed. The tank blows up, and the fish is reduced to bloody chunks. Hooper and Body, the two survivors, begin paddling back to shore.

After taking a look back at House II: The Second Story (a favorite of mine since childhood), House of 1000 Corpses (which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year), the awesomeness of Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, the leg smashing in the Stephen King adaptation Misery, three separate moments from John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China, the “Jason vs. Tina” battle in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, the “all hell breaks loose” sequence from the start of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake, the opening sequence of Pitch Black, the “Burn” scene from The Crow (which not only turns 30 this year, but is also getting a new adaptation), the farmhouse raid and ending chase sequences in High Tension, and the climactic moments in the 1989 creature feature comedy Little Monsters, JoBlo’s own Lance Vlcek is continuing his The Best Scene video series...

From Olivia Colman’s fraught sojourn to the Greek Isles in The Lost Daughter to Jessie Buckley’s terrifying trip up the M5 to the English countryside in Men and M. Night’s bummer beaches in Old, taking a little “me time” away from home is often the single biggest mistake any movie character could possibly make. Horror, psychological drama, comedy, mystery, rom-com. The genre hardly matters. In film, the simple act of taking a vacation is rarely the relaxing, restorative interlude one hopes that it might be, placing uneasy personalities in uncertain—even harrowing—circumstances.

So with another holiday weekend upon us and the summer theoretically in full swing, it’s time to make peace with travel advisories being a moving target and hot spots foreign and domestic getting hotter by the minute. No surprise then, that many of us now eye these “escapes” with more than a little bit of skepticism.

Just a few days ago, we learned that National Geographic, Amblin Documentaries, and Nedland Media are teaming up to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest movies ever made, director Steven Spielberg’s classic Jaws, with a documentary called Jaws @ 50. Now Deadline reveals that Jaws @ 50 has some competition, as distributor Newen Connect is working with directors Olivier Bonnard and Antoine Coursat on their own Jaws documentary, Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood!

A Capa production for Arte France, Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood will feature vintage interviews with Spielberg and cast member Richard Dreyfuss, as well as new interviews with “Wendy Benchley, marine conservationist and widow of Jaws author Peter Benchley, Jaws screenplay co-writer and actor Carl Gottlieb, actress Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen Brody, Joe Alves, production designer of Jaws (he also directed the third Jaws film), writer Matthew Robbins, who contributed to the Jaws screenplay,...

One fish, two films.

The massive 1975 hit Jaws will get a pair of documentaries to mark the 50th anniversary of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster. One of them, Jaws: Making a Splash in Hollywood, tossed chum in the water at Sunny Side of the Doc last week – looking for a bite from potential buyers at the documentary marketplace event in France.

News of that film, from distributor Newen Connect and directed by French filmmakers Olivier Bonnard and Antoine Coursat, comes just days after Deadline’s exclusive report that National Geographic has greenlighted another documentary about the movie, under the working title Jaws @ 50.

‘Jaws’

Chloé Persyn, head of factual distribution for Newen Connect, says the cinematic ocean’s big enough for both films.

“I would strongly believe there is room for two different documentaries with a different angle,” Persyn tells Deadline. “We already know that now, being at Sunny Side where we...

1983’s Jaws 3 – or Jaws 3-D to its friends – is heading to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray for the first time in July – more details here!

The evolution of the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format has been such that, years after it launched, a large number of the big titles are now on premium physical media disc. Now? It’s time to get to the really good stuff.

Hands up out there those who sat through Jaws 3-D in the cinema once upon a time? Director Steven Spielberg had long gone by this point of course, and as we discussed in a previous Film Stories podcast, the idea of a 3D Jaws film wasn’t the original plan for the movie. There was an idea about doing a crossover with a bawdy teen comedy at one stage.

Yet fate gave us this: a film that crossed the majesty of Jaws with,...

It took nearly five decades for it to happen, but the tide has turned for Jaws 2. Not everyone has budged on this divisive sequel, but general opinion is certainly kinder, if not more merciful. Excusing a rehashed plot — critic Gene Siskel said the film had “the same story as the original, the same island, the same stupid mayor, the same police chief, the same script…” — Jaws 2 is rather fun when met on its own simple terms. However, less simple is the novelization; the film and its companion read are like oil and water. While both versions reach the same destination in the end, the novelization’s story makes far more waves before getting on with its man-versus-shark climax.

Jaws 2 is not labeled as much of a troubled production as its predecessor, but there were problems behind the scenes. Firing the director mid-stream surely counts as a big...

Is "Jaws" the greatest movie ever made? An impossible question to answer, but it's my favorite and the one I've rewatched the most as an adult. I've been lucky enough to see it in theaters a couple of times, including for the IMAX restoration in 2022. As gorgeous as "Jaws" looked in IMAX, the trailer for the restoration is downright uncanny. Almost 50-year-old footage is cut together with modern trailer editing rhythm, from the jumpiness to turning Chief Martin Brody's (Roy Scheider) "You're gonna need a bigger boat" line into the kind of funny stinger you might see in a Marvel Studios trailer.

Now, in the movie, that line happens right after the jump scare where the shark first appears, rearing up behind Brody as he's throwing chum off the stern of The Orca, Quint's (Robert Shaw) fishing boat. Brody's back is turned when the shark breaches the water,...

"Jaws" is an immortal classic, but decades on from its 1975 release, several of the movie's principal players have left us. Peter Benchley, the source novel's author and the film's co-writer turned shark conservationist, passed in 2006. Robert Shaw, who played the shark-hating fisherman Quint, died in 1978, a mere three years after the premiere of "Jaws." Shaw still left his mark on film history thanks to his masterful monologue about Quint's experience during the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Of course, the biggest winner of "Jaws" was director Steven Spielberg, who entered the production of "Jaws" as a scrappy young upstart and turned it into his first rung while climbing the Hollywood lader. Spielberg is the most influential American filmmaker of his generation and the ones that have followed. He's never lost his magic touch either, so we can only hope and pray he stays with us even longer.

In the years since then,...

Richard Dreyfuss thinks “Jaws” director Steven Spielberg and the film’s co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb played a factor in how he was portrayed in the new Broadway show “The Shark Is Broken.”

Dreyfuss made his remarks about the play during an interview with Vanity Fair, after he went to see the production earlier in October.

“The Shark Is Broken” imagines what could have happened behind the scenes during the classic film’s production and features character portrayals of the real stars of the movie, Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider and the late Robert Shaw. It was c0-written by Shaw’s son, Ian, who also stars in the show.

Dreyfuss said Ian never contacted him to gain his perspective.

“Ian, who has more than any right to write whatever he wants, never called me and said, “Give me some background,’ Or, ‘Give me your taken on this and this,’ and they just decided...

Jaws actor Richard Dreyfuss recently caught a performance of Broadway’s The Shark Is Broken, the comedy-drama about the making of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster. Despite the smile on his face in meet-the-cast photos, he wasn’t very happy.

In an exclusive Vanity Fair interview, Dreyfuss criticizes the play – written by and co-starring Ian Shaw, dead-ringer son of the late Jaws actor Robert Shaw – for what he says are inaccuracies and for making him look like “a big jerk.”

“I went to see it, to see if it really was gonna hurt,” Dreyfuss tells Vf‘s Chris Murphy. “And it did.”

The comedy, based in part on Robert Shaw’s diary, depicts the long-rumored feud between Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw during the film’s hurry-up-and-wait Cape Cod shooting as the the cast – Dreyfuss, Shaw and Roy Scheider – was all but sequestered on the floating Orca set. Dreyfuss, played by Alex Brightman,...

Unlike "Halloween," "The Exorcist," "Alien," or "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," "Jaws" is the rare iconic '70s horror franchise that has yet to see any sort of revival in the 21st century ... mostly because Steven Spielberg himself has gone all Quint with a baseball bat on Universal's attempts to reboot it. But more than that, Spielberg's original 1975 hit (itself based on Peter Benchley's pulpy 1974 best-selling novel) never really lent itself to being a franchise in the first place. There aren't any supernatural entities or unexplained other-worldly encounters in Spielberg's classic adventure, nor does it end with Bruce the shark flailing his fins and dancing a merry jig. It's not what one would call the most scientifically-accurate work of Sharksploitation to ever hit the big screen, but it is a grounded story with a clear-cut beginning and ending.

Nevertheless, "Jaws" was the recipient of three sequels back in the 20th century,...

It’s been nearly five decades since Jaws hit movie screens in the summer of 1975 and still the image of three men trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean at the mercy of a great white shark remains potent in our collective consciousness. A new play on Broadway, The Shark Is Broken, evokes memories of the classic Steven Spielberg blockbuster—minus the shark. The comedy drama, now playing at the Golden Theatre, relates the behind-the-scenes story of how the film’s three lead actors—Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Richard Dreyfuss—spent their imposed breaks in between takes over the long weeks when shooting was frequently stalled whenever one of the several animatronic shark models invariably malfunctioned.

The Shark Is Broken is the brainchild of Ian Shaw. His charismatic father, Robert, is the Oscar-nominated actor who’s best remembered for his portrayal in Jaws of Quint, the...

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thrillers and the supernatural, released today the trailer for the new documentary, Sharksploitation from filmmaker Stephen Scarlata. In the wake of blockbuster classic Jaws, a new subgenre was born. This new documentary explores the weird, wild cinematic legacy of sharks on film and the world’s undying fascination. The film features multiple interviews including of Roger Corman, producer of Sharktopus and Dinoshark; Joe Dante, who directed Corman’s Piranha; Carl Gottlieb, writer of Jaws 1, 2 and 3; Johannes Roberts, director of 47 Meters Down, and Mario Van Pebbles, who starred in Jaws the Revenge along with marine and environmental conservation advocate Wendy Benchley, who was married to late Jaws, author Peter Benchley.

Produced by Scarlata, Kerry Deignan Roy (Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist), and Josh Miller (Sonic the Hedgehog), the feature-length documentary examines the sub-genre of sharksploitation films, from...

"Suddenly society developed this massive fear of sharks!" Now available to watch - Shudder has debuted their official trailer for a documentary film titled Sharksploitation, a geeky cinematic examination of the Hollywood obsession with shark movies. Of course, it all began with Jaws, but that's only the start. The last decade has seen a ton of shark movies being made & released. In 2023 alone, we have: Meg 2: The Trench, Big Shark, The Black Demon, and Ninja vs Shark. The documentary explores the subgenre of shark horror films and humanity’s continued interest in the wild cinematic legacy of sharks. Featuring interviews with Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Johannes Roberts, Mario Van Pebbles, and many others. Are you getting tired of shark movies? Are they still as good as they have been before, or are they getting worse? Do all these evil sharks make you afraid of swimming in the sea?...

Stephen Scarlata, producer of the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, has now set out to tell viewers all about the shark thriller sub-genre with a documentary called Sharksploitation – and we’re just days away from having the chance to see the finished film! The Shudder streaming service will be releasing Sharksploitation as a Shudder Original on July 21st. The movie will be streaming in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. And just three days before it starts streaming, we’ve gotten our hands on a trailer that you can watch in the embed above.

Scarlata directed Sharksploitation and produced it with Kerry Deignan Roy and Josh Miller. The feature-length documentary will delve into the sub-genre of sharksploitation films, from Corman’s 1958 She Gods of Shark Reef to the release of Jaws and the subsequent knock-offs.

An alternative synopsis goes like this: In the wake of blockbuster classic Jaws,...

It’s officially Barbenheimer week, so expect the online discourse to be dominated by Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, two of this year’s most hotly anticipated movies. They’re both releasing in theaters this week, and the packed theatrical slate for the week also includes one of this summer’s brand new big screen horror movies.

Here’s all the new horror releasing July 18– July 23, 2023!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

First up, a pair of notorious YouTubers make a killer comeback in Screambox Exclusive Shoky & Morthy: Last Big Thing, which is Now Streaming on Screambox.

The Czech film balances laughs and thrills like Tucker and Dale vs Evil while channeling the absurdity of Dumb and Dumber with a modern twist.

In the film, Shoky and Morthy are best friends and successful YouTubers, but their fame is slowly beginning to fade.

Shudder is celebrating the shark horror movie this summer with brand new Shudder Original Documentary Sharksploitation, which is swimming our way July 21, 2023.

The doc will be available in the United States, Canada, UK, and Australia/New Zealand.

Exclusively watch the official trailer for Sharksploitation below!

In the wake of blockbuster classic Jaws, a new subgenre was born. This new documentary explores the weird, wild cinematic legacy of sharks on film and the world’s undying fascination.

Steven Spielberg’s horror classic Jaws celebrates its 48th anniversary this summer, the film credited for not only launching a wave of shark attack imitators that still continues to this day but also creating the modern day summer blockbuster as we know it. Hardly a year has gone by since 1975 where there wasn’t a new shark attack horror movie to consume, and this year is no exception. The Black Demon was just unleashed...

Almost two years have gone by since we heard that Stephen Scarlata, producer of the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, was working on a documentary called Sharksploitation, which will tell viewers all about the shark thriller sub-genre. Now we know when we’re finally get a chance to see that documentary. The Shudder streaming service has announced that they will be releasing Sharksploitation as a Shudder Original on July 21st! The movie will be streaming in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Scarlata directed Sharksploitation and produced it with Kerry Deignan Roy and Josh Miller. The feature-length documentary will delve into the sub-genre of sharksploitation films, from Corman’s 1958 She Gods of Shark Reef to the release of Jaws and the subsequent knock-offs.

An alternative synopsis goes like this: In the wake of blockbuster classic Jaws, a new subgenre was born. This new documentary explores the weird, wild...

2023 marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Jaws 2 (watch it Here), the most well-regarded of the Jaws sequels – and Universal is celebrating the occasion by giving the film a 4K Uhd release! The Jaws 2 4K Uhd will be available on July 4th, which seems like a fitting date since the first Jaws is a Fourth of July classic. Copies can be pre-ordered at This Link.

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc from a screenplay written by Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler, Jaws 2 has the following synopsis: It’s been four years since that marauding great white shark terrorized the small summer resort of Amity; but the shark that Police Chief Brody destroyed wasn’t the only one in the ocean! The same heart-stopping suspense and gripping adventure that enthralled movie audiences throughout the world in Jaws returns in this worthy sequel to that film classic.

The film stars Roy Scheider,...

Written by Joseph Nixon and Ian Shaw, the look-alike son of legendary actor Robert Shaw, the stage comedy The Shark Is Broken, which goes behind-the-scenes of the filming of the 1975 Steven Spielberg classic Jaws (watch it Here) and sees Shaw taking on the role of his father, made its premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe before moving to the West End’s Ambassadors Theatre in 2021. And now, Deadline reports, The Shark Is Broken is heading to Broadway!

Deadline shares the details: Directed by Guy Masterson, The Shark Is Broken will begin a limited 16-week engagement on Tuesday, July 25, at the John Golden Theatre, with an official opening on Thursday, August 10.

Shaw reprises the role of his father, who played Quint in Jaws. The stage comedy imagines what happened on board Quint’s boat (the Orca) when the cameras stopped rolling during the filming of Spielberg’s blockbuster.

This marks the Broadway debut for Shaw.

The Shark Is Broken, the Olivier Award-nominated stage comedy that goes behind-the-scenes of Jaws, will arrive on Broadway this summer with co-writer Ian Shaw playing his father Robert Shaw, who starred as shark-hunter Quint in the 1975 classic.

Directed by Guy Masterson, The Shark Is Broken will begin a limited 16-week engagement on Tuesday, July 25, at the John Golden Theatre, with an official opening on Thursday, August 10. The Broadway production was announced today by producers Sonia Friedman Productions and Scott Landis.

Ian Shaw as Robert Shaw, ‘The Shark Is Broken’

The play, which premiered at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and, following the Covid pandemic shutdown, transferred to the West End’s Ambassadors Theatre in 2021, is co-written by Shaw and Joseph Nixon, and imagines what happened on board “The Orca” when the cameras stopped rolling during the filming of Stephen Spielberg’s blockbuster.

War Horse actor Shaw will be making his Broadway...

2023 marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Jaws 2 (watch it Here), the most well-regarded of the Jaws sequels. So it seems quite appropriate that a cool Jaws 2 discovery had been made this year: The Daily Jaws has found a long-lost scene from the film, and the only known footage of this scene comes from a Brazilian VHS! This leads me to believe that the scene was probably always included in the Brazilian home video release of Jaws 2, but that’s not completely clear from the report on The Daily Jaws.

What we do know is that Jaws 2 begins with a pair of divers being attacked by a shark while checking out the sunken wreckage of the Orca boat from the first movie. Later in the film, Deputy Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer) is shown to have retrieved the underwater camera that was dropped by the divers. In this lost footage,...

Spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard" follow.

"Star Trek: Picard" season 3 has promised to be a grand finale for the "Next Generation" cast. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has finally reunited his whole bridge crew from Enterprise-d -- also appearing are Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) from "Star Trek: Voyager" and the Changelings, the antagonists of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

Despite running headfirst down nostalgia lane, the final season has some new characters too. One is Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick), captain of the USS Titan-a. Shaw is no fan of Picard or Seven because he has a grudge against the Borg. Why? He was at the Battle of Wolf 359, depicted in the classic "Next Generation" episode, "The Best of Both Worlds." A Borg Cube, led by tactical info gleaned from the assimilated Picard (aka Locutus), decimated the Starfleet forces. Shaw was part of the engineering crew on the USS Constance and...

There are some people who were clearly born to be movie stars, whose combination of looks, charisma, and talent are just undeniable. Steve Martin is one of them. His '30s-matinee-idol meets playful-imp face combined with his comedic sensibilities being both anarchic and intelligent is a combination so dynamite, it's almost like he was destined to be on screen.

Yet the man whose career has spanned several decades, up to and including his current well-received Hulu series "Only Murders in the Building," was at one time considered not bankable enough to matter to executives at Paramount Pictures. The studio was where Martin and his collaborators (primarily co-writer Carl Gottlieb) developed what would become Martin's feature film debut, 1979's "The Jerk." In a quirk of the movie industry commonly known as "stupidity," Paramount executives decided not to shepherd Martin to the big screen, instead giving Universal the chance to receive box office success,...

A new episode of our The Black Sheep video series has arrived online, and in this one we’re looking back at a rather unpopular sequel: 1983’s Jaws 3-D (watch it Here)! Many people’s appreciation for the Jaws franchise ends with Jaws 2, but in the video embedded above we’re letting you know why we think Jaws 3-D deserves a bit more love. Check it out!

Directed by Joe Alves from a screenplay by Richard Matheson and Carl Gottlieb (with Guerdon Trueblood receiving story credit), Jaws 3-D has the following synopsis:

After a young great white shark finds its way into a sea-themed park managed by Calvin Bouchard, workers try to capture it. But the facility’s attempt to keep the shark in captivity has dire consequences: A much larger mother shark appears in search of its offspring. Among those who must battle the angry aquatic killing machine are marine biologist Kathryn Morgan,...

Director Carl Reiner's "The Jerk" is a magnum opus of rampant, unfettered buffoonery. The tale of Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin), a white man raised by Black sharecroppers, is a snapshot of Martin at his clownish, "Wild and Crazy Guys" peak. Working with screenwriters Michael Elias and Carl Gottlieb, Martin fashions Navin's journey as the most ridiculous Horatio Alger story ever told. Navin gets his first taste of success when he finds his name in the phone book, and becomes a millionaire thanks to an invention that keeps people's glasses from sliding down their nose. It's a wildly quotable classic that launched Martin's big screen career, and, according to the folks who made it, is the beneficiary of many a happy accident.

One of the 1979 film's most uproarious elements is the Beverly Hills mansion Navin buys after hitting the big time. It's a gloriously gaudy sight gag that keeps on giving –- and,...

In modern parlance, a jerk refers to a cruel, mean-spirited, or hateful person. In 2022, "jerk" is synonymous with "bully" or "a**hole." In 1979, however, when director Carl Reiner, Steve Martin, and screenwriters Carl Gottlieb and Michael Elias were making their comedy film "The Jerk," the word referred to a fool or a buffoon, someone who was clueless. Navin R. Johnson, Martin's character in "The Jerk," is most certainly clueless, seemingly unable to fully perceive the world around him. In a long tradition of well-meaning comedic fools, Navin sees the world as a glorious place, even as he encounters crime and horror. He is a modern-day Candide, fecklessly roaming the countryside, hastily discovering success and love, then just as quickly losing them through his own hubris and idiocy. In his book "Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life," Martin himself compared "The Jerk" to Dostoyevsky's novel "The Idiot."

It takes a very...

Jaws Review — Jaws (1975) Film Review, a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley and starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Chris Rebello, Lee Fierro, Robert Nevin and Peter Benchley. Steven Spielberg’s classic 1975 killer shark movie, Jaws, [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Jaws (1975): Steven Spielberg’s Masterpiece Returns to Theaters in 3-D for an End of Summer Treat...

Now that it’s officially July, I am preparing for one of my favorite holidays - Jaws Day. Some people celebrate Independence Day, but I choose to use the time to celebrate the release of one of my very favorite films. It’s a summer movie, an epic adventure, and a terrifying piece of horror. I watch it every July the 4th, without fail. It’s the main event of the day, and I’ll usually pepper in other summer horror around the edges, but ultimately, it’s all about Jaws.

This year, I also had the privilege of augmenting that celebration with a new addition to the Jaws cannon - a performance of the brand new musical, Bruce. Produced by the Seattle Repertory theater and directed by Donna Feore, I got in on the world premiere run of a new play. A musical (!) about the production (!!!) of my favorite...

Few films are as influential as Steven Spielberg's "Jaws." It was Spielberg's breakout hit, it turned the summer into blockbuster movie season, and, alongside its novel source material, the film shaped public perception of sharks; author and screenplay co-writer Peter Benchley has his regrets there.

This fantastic success was a happy ending for a production so plagued by problems it inspired a stage play retelling. For a more direct behind-the-scenes look, there's "The Jaws Log," first published in 1975, the same year as the film. Authored by "Jaws" co-writer Carl Gottlieb, the book offers an inside view of the movie's production from beginning to...

The post All The Trouble That Real Sharks Caused The Jaws Shoot appeared first on /Film.

The litany of snafus experienced by the cast and crew of "Jaws" could fill a book. In fact, it did. It's "The Jaws Log" by the film's co-writer Carl Gottlieb, and if you love crazy behind-the-scenes stories, you should order it immediately. Also recommended: Rob Goldberg's dishy "Jaws: The Inside Story," which is currently streaming on YouTube. How dishy is it? Here's a taste.

You've probably heard the saga of the malfunctioning sharks that nearly kiboshed the production of Steven Spielberg's "Jaws," but did you know the Orca, the weather-beaten vessel that takes our trio of heroes out to sea, nearly sank as well?...

The post A Sinking Ship Sent Jaws' Crew Scrambling To Save Film appeared first on /Film.

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The “USS Indianapolis” speech impeccably delivered by the legendary Robert Shaw in Jaws is regarded as one of the finest monologues in motion picture history. However, the debate over just who wrote the moment creates some murky waters.

In the blockbuster film helmed by then-budding director Steven Spielberg, which swam into theaters 47 years ago today, Shaw’s Quint reveals to Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) that he is one of the 316 survivors of the actual World War II USS Indianapolis disaster. The Indianapolis sank in July 1945 after being torpedoed by an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine during the Indianapolis’ top-secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components.

There seems to be no debate that it was the late Howard Sackler who conceived (in an uncredited script re-work) the “Indianapolis” moment, which when he penned it was only two paragraphs, Spielberg explained previously in a making-of featurette.

The making of Steven Spielberg‘s horror classic will be told on stage in Bruce, an upcoming Jaws musical that’s based on Carl Gottlieb’s behind-the-scenes book, The Jaws Log. Today, it was announced that Bruce has found its Steven Spielberg. Tony-nominated leading man Jarrod Spector will star in the new musical at its world premiere at Seattle Rep’s Bagley […]

The post ‘Jaws’ Musical ‘Bruce’ Casts Jarrod Spector as Steven Spielberg appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The Seattle world premiere of the Jaws-inspired stage musical Bruce has reeled in its Steven Spielberg: The Tony-nominated actor Jarrod Spector will play the young filmmaker circa 1974 as he confronts various challenges while directing what would become the most ferocious of all summer blockbusters.

Not least of those challenges: the “highly dysfunctional mechanical star named Bruce,” as the musical’s synopsis states, referring to the robot shark that made filming a nightmare.

Based on The Jaws Log, a 1975 nonfiction behind-the-scenes account of the film’s production by Jaws co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, the musical, directed and choreographed by Stratford Festival’s Donna Feore, begins previews at Seattle Rep’s Bagley Wright Theater on May 27, with opening night set for June 8. The engagement runs through June 26.

“After watching Jaws the first time, for years I was so terrified of the water I could barely step foot in a swimming pool, let alone the ocean,...

It’s that time of year again. While some directors annually share their favorite films of the year, Steven Soderbergh lists everything he consumed, media-wise. For 2021––another year in which he not only released a new film, but shot another (and produced the Oscars)––he still got plenty of watching in.

Along with catching up on 2021’s new releases, he took in plenty of classics, including Jaws, Citizen Kane, Metropolis, The French Connection, and Lubitsch’s Ninotchka and Design For Living. Early last year, he also saw a cut of Channing Tatum’s Dog, which doesn’t arrive until next month. He also, of course, screened his latest movies while in post-production, with three viewings of No Sudden Move and three viewings of Kimi, which arrives on February 10 on HBO Max and the first look of which can be seen below.

Check out the list below via his official site.

Ever since Steven Spielberg’s career-launching blockbuster “Jaws” broke out in 1975, the world’s obsession with sharks has not slackened. Evidence of this is the glut of films – and TV series – about the much-maligned and misunderstood predator.

“The movie ‘Jaws’ had a massive impact on me becoming a filmmaker, and it began my lifelong fascination with sharks,” said director-producer Stephen Scarlata whose documentary “Sharksploitation” participates in the Frontières co-production market, organized by the Fantasia International Film Festival in tandem with Cannes’ Marché du Film.

Scarlata (“Jodorowsky’s Dune”) and his team recently secured an all-important interview with marine and environmental conservation advocate Wendy Benchley, who was married to late “Jaws” author Peter Benchley.

Benchley is known to have expressed his deep regret about the characterization of the shark in his bestselling novel that Spielberg adapted. “There is no such thing as a rogue shark which develops a taste for human flesh.

Bruce, a previously announced new musical based on Jaws screenwriter Carl Gottlieb’s 1975 memoir The Jaws Log, is resurfacing: Seattle Rep will stage the world premiere next May, the regional theater company announced today.

Featuring music by Richard Oberacker and book and lyrics by Oberacker and Robert Taylor (the team behind the 2017 Broadway musical Bandstand), Bruce tells the story of a virtually unknown 26-year-old director named Steven Spielberg who in 1974 sets out to film an adaptation of the best-selling novel Jaws.

Reads the musical’s synopsis: “While invading a sleepy fishing island off Cape Cod to shoot on the open ocean, he faced several challenges including weather, water, hostile locals, an exploding budget, endless delays, and a highly dysfunctional mechanical star named Bruce, to bring his vision to life in what proved to be one of the biggest success stories in film history.”

The musical, to be directed and choreographed...

Writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, and actor Larry Fessenden chats with hosts Joe Dante & Josh Olson about some of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Habit (1995)

Jakob’s Wife (2021)

Phantom Thread (2017)

The Last Winter (2006)

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)

The Crawling Eye (1958)

The Reptile (1966)

Peeping Tom (1960)

Casablanca (1942)

Jaws (1975)

Man Of A Thousand Faces (1957)

Scarlet Street (1945)

Suspicion (1941)

Rope (1948)

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Frankenstein (1931)

The Wolf Man (1941)

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Dracula (1931)

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Mean Streets (1973)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Playtime (1973)

The Thing (1982)

The Howling (1981)

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

An American Werewolf In Paris (1997)

I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957)

Ginger Snaps (2001)

The Terminator (1984)

The Wolfman (2010)

Van Helsing (2004)

The Mummy (2017)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994)

The Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (2020)

Amazon Women On The Moon (1987)

Wendigo (2001)

Fargo (1996)

Raising Arizona (1987)

Seven (1995)

Man Bites Dog...

Amazon Women on the Moon

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1987 / 85 Min. / 1:85

Starring Lots of Actors

Cinematography by Daniel Pearl

Directed by Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis, Robert K. Weiss

Mark Twain said “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.” That applies just as well to 1987’s Amazon Women on the Moon, John Landis’s unofficial sequel to Kentucky Fried Movie and the bastard child of Joe Dante and Jon Davison’s The Movie Orgy. Like those back-handed tributes to the disreputable entertainments of our youth, Amazon Women is a smorgasbord of comedy skits, some served up just right and others pretty half-baked—but a judicious use of the remote control and patience rewards; overall the result is a good-natured vacation for the mind with three or four laugh-out-loud vaudeville sequences and a couple of bona-fide short-form classics. The...

Writer Bruce Jay Friedman, who received an Oscar nomination for the 1984 comedy “Splash,” died Wednesday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 90.

His death was confirmed by his son Josh, who told the New York Times that the cause had not been determined.

Friedman, a native of the Bronx, emerged in the 1960s as a novelist specializing in dark comedy centered on self-involved protagonists with “Stern” and “A Mother’s Kisses,” followed by the plays “Scuba Duba” and “Steambath.” His short story, “A Change of Plan,” was adapted by Neil Simon into the 1972 movie “The Heartbreak Kid,” starring Charles Grodin, Cybill Shepherd, Eddie Arnold and Jeannie Berlin, with Elaine May directing.

Friedman found box office success with his 1980 Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder prison comedy “Stir Crazy,” directed by Sidney Poitier. He wrote the first draft of “Splash,” the 1984 romantic comedy about a love affair between Tom Hanks’ character and...

Summer has always been peak movie season and there certainly have been major releases before 1975. But a combination of elements came together in a perfect storm of entertainment that created something new: the summer blockbuster. You start with a stellar adaptation of Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel in the hands of a young, still-developing but promising director in Steven Spielberg, a strong cast anchored by Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss, and a fresh score from John Williams. Altogether, Jaws burst into the American consciousness. It rewrote the rules for Hollywood success, rules that only recently have been challenged.

Universal Home Entertainment is releasing a 45th anniversary edition, coming to 4K Ultra HD for the first time, complete in a combo pack with Blu-ray and Digital HD. The limited-edition packaging includes a lenticular cover and a 48-page booklet with a fine overview.

I am among a handful of Americans...

Universal City, California, April 17, 2020 – In 1975, acclaimed director Steven Spielberg created the first-ever summer blockbuster film and his first big hit, Jaws, the iconic and terrifying action-thriller that still makes audiences afraid to go in the water. Winner of three Academy Awards®, including Best Original Score, Jaws has become a cinematic touchstone for generations of moviegoers and one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment celebrates with the Jaws 45Th Anniversary Limited Edition available on 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever on June 2, 2020. This limited edition Combo Pack with lenticular packaging includes a 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and Digital code of the film along with over three hours of bonus features and a 44-page booklet with introductions, rare photos, storyboards and more from the archives. Dive into hours of bonus features including the making of Jaws, deleted scenes, outtakes from the set and much more!