Jaws (1975)

“Jaws” is the “Godfather” of beach movies. There is nothing better or scarier, even with all the sequels (3-D!) and rip-offs and homages (“Piranha” and even “Alien”). All the “Gidget”-like fun flicks from before? “Jaws” killed ’em. New to BluRay, “Jaws” is better than ever in crisp, glorious widescreen with sound racketed up so every thump of John Williams’ score booms inside your gut. The picture is so clean one can see the horizon miles past the shaken trio of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw as they battle a killer shark in the waters of New England. I need not discuss plot, right? Everyone knows it. And no wonder: Steven Spielberg, in his mid-20s, out of his league, and working with physical special effects that barely functioned, pulled out a masterpiece that can never be duplicated. Not with all the CGI in the world. The panic and confusion off screen spills onscreen where anything can happen. The shark doesn’t appear for an hour, but by then Spielberg has pulled us in with brilliantly drawn characters and intense trickery. Shaw rules as the doomed shark hunter and has the best intro ever in a movie. A+