Oliver Stone enjoys "staggeringly stupid" JAWS the Revenge
Just what does Oliver Stone, the Academy Award winning director of Platoon (1986) and Wall Street (1987), watch over summer? It turns out it's all four JAWS films.
The 1975 Steven Spielberg original is of course a stone cold classic, but this Stone commented that he liked the sequels as well, saying: 'They’re great fun after the terrors of the first."
He's even defended JAWS the Revenge (1987). So, to paraphrase Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas on Oscar winning form in Wall Street , JAWS the Revenge, for want of better word, is good.
Going from helming JFK (1991) to having fun with the Razzie winning fourth film in the JAWS series, we'd like to think Stone constantly rewound the banana boat scene, repeating "Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left" over and over.
As reported by Film Stories, the director has been posting some of his summer movie musings on his Facebook page, saying: “In my shark fever, I particularly enjoyed the last Jaws film – The Revenge."
That's despite him saying that the plot about the widow of Chief Brody, played by Lorraine Gary, senses the shark - which he suggests is the offspring of the original shark - tracking down the Brody family, is "defying logic."
Not bad considering Oliver Stone's directorial debut was The Hand (1981) starring Michael Caine as a cartoonist who loses his hand in an accident, only for it to come back and start murdering people. How's that for defying logic?
Stone then goes onto question Caine's appearance in the JAWS sequel as Hoagie, shame we don't get any conspiracy theories about his rapid drying shirt though.
Stone comments: "What Michael Caine is doing in the film as a cheery Brit boat captain certainly has no relevance to the plot except that he got paid well, but doesn’t get eaten."
He also complains that Mario Peebles doesn't either, clearly he hasn't seen the original theatrical release version where his character, Jake, does end up as shark chum.
No matter which ending he watched though, the response would have been very much the same, as it really is where the JAWS series jumped the shark, badly enough for it never to return.
Oliver Stone said: "The ending is staggeringly stupid, as these clowns somehow manage to blow up the equally dumb shark, evoking the original ending, which worked because of Spielberg’s technical genius. I think the older I get, the more I accept stupidity."
How do you feel about JAWS the Revenge? Let us know in the comments if you have become more accepting of it over the years.
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