There's more to Jaws than I realized
Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster is more than an iconic pop culture scary monster flick
When I was 7, I was spending part of the summer with my relatives in Tel Aviv as I did every year. My mom and I would stay at my grandmother’s apartment and my many aunts, uncles, and older cousins would take turns taking me with them to do fun stuff. One night my Aunt Clara, who was probably about 15 herself, took me to the cinema. We saw Jaws, which was, in retrospect, a terrible idea for a 7 year old. I had nightmares afterwards and, for the rest of the trip, I wouldn’t go in the water when we went to the beach.
I was also strangely attracted to the movie, however, and I especially coveted the posters for it that were plastered on city kiosks everywhere. I tried a few times to peel one of them off but they were glued on too well.
Fast forward four and a half decades and Jaws now resides on my personal Top 100 Favorite Films list. About once a year I find myself clicking “play” to give it another look, and every time I do I immediately get sucked right in. Some movies are just like …
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