Michael J(aws) Fox
Today is Michael J Fox's 59th birthday, many of us grew up with him in in the pretty much perfect Back To The Future and Family Ties, turns out he has a few links to Jaws as well.
Back to the Future Part 2
We'll start with the most obvious, which sees Michael J Fox, this time arriving in the (then) futuristic 2015. One of the first things he sees in the new Hill Valley is the Holomax cinema advertising Jaws 19, with the tagline of ‘This time it’s really personal' (riffing on the tagline for Jaws The Revenge released two years earlier in 1987).
Marty McFly has his back to the cinema, suddenly the Jaws music starts to play and a 3D image of a shark appears and seemingly swallows Fox whole. He screams only for the shark to vanish. He composes himself and shrugs proclaiming that the shark still looks fake.
The film in question was directed by one Max Spielberg, son of Steven. The latter also Executive Produced the Back to the Future trilogy.
And in 2015 the joke came full circle when Universal released a spoof trailer for Jaws 19…sigh, back in 1989 we still hoped it may have been actually possible, well a couple of sequels at least. A man can dream can’t he?
And that wasn't the only Jaws appearance in the film, it can also be seen in the 80s Café window in the guise of the Nintendo game.
Linking to Jaws sequels, we've also got Lea Thompson playing Marty's mum, Lorraine. Thompson made her big screen debut in Jaws 3D.
The Secret Of My Success
Michael J Fox’s yuppie comedy features one scene where he is preyed upon by an older woman, who just so happens to be his bosses wife...oh and his Aunt, but she doesn’t know it yet.
The scene culminates in a swimming pool where the Aunt goes in for the ‘kill’ removing Michael J Fox’s boxer shorts dragging him under the water screaming bubbles and arms flailing just like poor Alex Kintner.
Martha's Vineyard
The Amity Island filming location was once the seasonal home of Fox and his family. They were never classed as islanders, obviously.
Family Ties
Michael J Fox's dad in the hugely successful sitcom Family Ties was played by Michael Gross. Gross went onto have a huge blast (literally) playing Burt Gummer in the original Tremors - which is an alien homage to Jaws in many ways - and all of its sequels. He's even got more than a passing resemblance to a certain Quint.
A monster movie that doffs its hat (and it’s a rather fetching one worn by Kevin Bacon) in the direction of Jaws is Tremors. The monster comes from beneath, remains largely unseen, reacts to vibration and stays under the sand for much of the film. Fun, disgusting and tense it’s a great homage to old monster movies with a huge dollop of Jaws thrown into the mix with Kevin Bacon (no doubt wishing he had an EE phone on him) and Fred Ward less all at sea but more all at desert as they try to outwit their unseen assailant. Not seen it? Graboid yourself a copy if you can.
