JAWS vs JAWS 4 - What Makes a Great Screenplay?

We were so pumped for today. I was, I was telling people at work. I'm like, dude, I'm going on. I'm going to be in a fucking Australia. I'm talking to Australia. And they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, shut up and listen. I'm going to be in Australia. That's me. I'm worldwide now. You are listening to a very special edition of the Silver Screen of Happy Hour. I'm Chris Wiegand, along with my brother Jerome and our buddy Leigh.

Leigh hosts Lights, Camera, Rant out of Melbourne, Australia, and he was gracious enough to have us on his show to talk about what makes a truly great screenplay versus what makes a shit screenplay. Lee originally put this up November 3rd. of 2023 and he was gracious enough to give us the audio so we could put it on our platform as well. If you'd like to watch this video instead of listening to the audio, you can check out Lee's YouTube channel. I've linked to it in the show notes.

Well, without anything else from me, we're going to jump right into the conversation. Uh, I think we start off talking about our drinks and because of the extreme time difference between the West Coast in the U. S. and Australia, uh, I think Lee stuck to coffee while my brother and I were enjoying something for happy hour. I just clicked it, yeah.

Okay. Uh, just, just coffee at the moment, I, I still have to go out later today and I think If it was a little bit later, I'd already be down too, for this. Wait, we don't judge, right? I mean, we don't count drinks either. So it goes both ways. I don't know. I've seen you count my drinks before offensively, almost aggressively. Yeah, exactly. Uh, so how you want to do your, uh, do you have an intro? Do you want to start with, uh, I do, I do.

I was just about to say my first, before I started doing video, uh, I think my first 50 or 40 episodes, my podcast, I'm not sober for any of those episodes. There. There you go. There was just a mic in my garage and I was like, just drinking, because I was stuck in COVID time. If you don't mind, I'm going to give it one more shake before you talk, I don't want to drown out your words. And then I'm going to pour, this is a blue lagoon, so. I am not a cocktail person.

But, hold on, let me get it to the camera. Woo! It's, it's disgusting. That's not disgusting. No, it's disgusting. Blue raspberry lemonade vodka. With some blue lemonade. And blue, uh, Caraco. Blue Carissa. Kurt, is that how you say that? Yeah. So, anyways, um, I also, because I'm drinking this, I also brought something for that. Oh, he's gonna add drugs! We're gonna add drugs to the show! No, I said no. Because the first time Oh, now this is a potty.

This marks the first time in Silver Screen Happy Hour history we're mixing poppers with our drinks. It's a naproxen, come on. Yeah, you're gonna grind it first and then pour it in. Let me get up, I gotta get my fentanyl and then we'll get this party started. Anyway. Now look, it's easier to drink it compared to shelving it. Cheers. Cheers, uh, to this first, uh, first time for us being on somebody else's show. Yes, thank you. for having us. No, of course.

You guys have a great show, and me and Chris have been talking for a while now, and I can't think of any better guys to talk about these two films. Yeah, so, um, what piqued our interest is, on our show, we generally will pick two films and compare and contrast the script structure. Um, and we follow, for anyone that's listening that's interested in screenwriting, we follow the Blake Snyder Save the cat ideology. Blake Snyder, uh, passed away, I believe in 2009.

He's considered on the Mount Rushmore of screenwriting teachers, uh, along with Sid Field and, uh, uh, Charles McKee. And, um, he, uh, he wrote three books. Uh, they're in the Save the Cat trilogy, and they basically, uh, lay out beats. What every writer should know how to hit these beats. He also puts a page number where they should come. Now as we all know in screenwriting, a minute is a page. So 120 pages is about a two hour film, 120 minutes. And where these beats should hit.

Remember, it's always tools, not rules. So we don't try to stick to it as much as possible, but you should, as a, as a screenwriter, you should always try to hit these beats and hit them in order. It doesn't necessarily, the page doesn't necessarily matter. Although I kind of think it does cause it works with pacing, but anyway, so we would compare two movies on our show. And, uh, Chris, uh, sparked our interest of, uh.

What did we, what if we compared what, what makes a good script compared to what makes a crap script, right? Or a crap film, right? Shit film. What makes shit film? And how do you know the film is shit, right? Let me jump in. We, we did, we did a whole bunch. Well, a whole bunch. We did several podcasts where we just loved both movies and that's why we were picking them. And then one time we picked, uh, it was a Mel Gibson movie. Um, What was it called? On the line. On the line.

Talk. And we paired that with a 1980s film called Talk Radio. Right? Yeah. And, um, and the Talk Radio. Which is an Oliver Stone film. Yeah, that's a great, it's a great screenplay. And the Mel Gibson one was a freaking turd. And we had so much fun destroying that movie on our podcast. It was so much fun. So I was like, that's kind of a good model to, you know, pick a great movie. Shitty one. And talk about why, why, why did the one just suck? Yeah. Good to pile of crap.

Yeah. Yeah. And we're going to do that today. We're going to do that today. Wish we could not pick a more distant of great to, should this actually been released. Right. Greatness to excrement. That's right. And and the funny thing is, you don't even have to watch the movie. You just have to look at the shark. Yeah. Well, Yeah. Right. Well, we'll get into that. Don't get ahead of ourselves. We, we got a lot, we got a lot to get to before we get to the shark.

Yeah. So how, how would you like to lead us softly? Would you like to like, maybe talk about our experience with the movies? Uh, like, like what? Like you, you shared off the air before you started recording, before Jerry even got in the room. Um. Your experience with the movie. You want to start with that and kind of go around? Nah, that sounds good to me.

So, like, as I was saying before we started recording, this, I haven't seen Jaws since I was a very little, like a little kid, and I only remember Flashes. So when I went to go re watch it the other week, I remember looking, This is horrific! This is such more of a horror film than I remember being a monster film. And I forgot how long they sit on the water for as well, which we'll get into later.

When they're trying to hunt the shark, but, when, like, when did you guys first, obviously, age difference for all three of us, but when did you guys first see Jaws? Like, did you guys see it in the theaters? Who, who is the elder here? Is, Chris, Chris, are you the elder? Oh yeah, by far, I'm sure. Well, at least, I don't know how old Lee is, but I know I'm, how many, five, five years older than you? Something like that? I was born in 75, the year this movie came out. Came out, yeah.

So yeah, so the Year Jaws came out, I was born. So, needless to say, I did not see it in the theater. I don't think I saw it either in the theater, I mean, 'cause I remember some movies from the mid seventies seeing it. Like I saw star Wars at a drive in. I know that. Um, and, uh, but I don't remember seeing, I don't remember, honestly, I don't remember the first time I saw it.

Um, it's just been part of the culture that I grew up in, but you know, um, so because I was like, what, four when it came out, I doubt my, our parents took me to see Jaws cause, but I remember it's so funny cause I do recall watching Saturday night live cause our parents would let us stay up. Kind of late, or I maybe me because I was older than my brother and sister, but I would stay up until the band came on that. They would let me stay up until the band came on to watch Saturday Night Live.

And I remember that with the shark, the weekend update is right after the commercial break after the first band act. That's the only reason why I watch SNL anymore is weekend update. Yeah, so, but anyways, um, but yeah, no, I've, but I've seen it countless times on video over the years, and it was fun re watching it this week, so. So, for me, uh, the very, again, I was born in 75 the year it came out.

I want to say my first experience with Jaws was Jaws three, when it hit cable, when it hit cable in 3d, when it hit cable, that must've been, shoot, uh, what was that? 80, 83, 84, maybe. Um, and I remember it hitting cable and that was my first, uh, uh, film of the, of the entire saga was. And I liked it so much because that's so corny and cheesy now when you watch it, but when you're like eight years old, it's like, this is awesome, right? Yeah, it's 3d.

The literal jaws come out to the screen after they blow its head off at the end, like the teeth literally come to the screen. And when you're a kid, you're like, that's awesome. And when you're an adult, you watch it. You're like, what? Fucking cheese, man. That is so, so cringe, so cringe. It's so cringeworthy. And then so, but, but I'm actually going to plug another show here. Uh, or another movie. There's an early eighties movie called terror in the aisle with Donald Pleasance.

It's actually a. Sort of like a documentary of horror films and they go through all the gamut the Friday 13th's the Halloween It's a really good if you can find it. I have it on blu ray because I bought it off Amazon or DVD And it's really cool. But in that they show a bunch of clips from Jaws And that was sort of my intro to, wow, I really got to see the first one. I've been watching this lame ass 3d one my whole life.

I, so I might've been nine by the time I finally watched jaws and I was just blown away. I was like, Holy crap, that's way scarier than jaws three. And yeah, so that was my, and I've loved it ever since. And you know, that's kind of what started my love for Spielberg was getting into jaws and of course, et.

So I do recall when our kids were little, they are, uh, local, uh, parks and rec department or something, um, they play, they had a movie night for the community at the beach cause we, we lived in Lake port, Michigan, right on the, right off of Lake Huron and so they had the, the screen set up on the beach and everyone was on, on the sand and I believe there were some people in kayaks and stuff out in the water and they played jaws and that was really fun and. You know, cool and everything.

But so that was, that was another cool experience that I've had with the movie. But I was older when Jaws 4 hit theaters and I want to say I saw Jaws 4 in the theater, which means I actually gave it my fucking money. And when you're a. You know, when you're a teenager and like, you scrape together your friggin lawnmower money and you go to see a movie like Jaws 4, it's, it's really depressing. It really is. So, I can say the first time I saw Jaws 4 was yesterday. I just never saw it.

Same for me. I've only seen clips. And obviously the infamous thing with Michael Caine saying, I've never watched it, but I do love the house it built. Yes! That was, dammit Lee, that was one of my trivia I was going to tell you later. Michael Caine's interview is hilarious. He's like, people ask him all the time, have you seen it? And his, yeah, his response was, I've never seen it, but I saw the house it built because he bought that house for his mom.

Well, I was just looking on IMDB's Trivia Facts. And one of the true facts was that the only reason he signed on for that film was apparently for the first two lines was like, this will be shot in the Bahamas, or the scene opens in Hawaii, and he's like, salt. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great interview if you watch it. And the funny thing is, I got more we'll talk about later, the director's interview is also telling. Like, everyone knew this was a pile of shit!

But they, but they did it anyway! That's It was a paycheck for a lot of people. Yeah, for a lot of people. Um, alright, so how do we want to kick this off? Let's go, let's dive into the first one. Let's go with Jaws. Straight off the bat. First one. Stardoll, 1975, and considered the beginner of what started the summer blockbuster. Yes. Yes. Kicked it all off. Yep. Cause this is usually before this. I think when films got released this time, it was the dead zone. It was what you wanted to flop.

Yeah. That's crazy to think about now, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. But, but think about that. This film changed Hollywood as we know it. Yeah, like this movie directed by a friggin no namer at the time and who, who, who was afraid he was going to get fired every day on the set every day the producers came to the set Spielberg will be like, uh, today's the day I got to talk about a fire in me. They're here to fire me. I got to talk him out of it.

Like, I mean, and, and now and to think about, uh, today's era of, of Youth, they have no idea about this movie. All they know is Transformers and Marvel shit. And, and that's all And it's all I should Okay. I'll tell, I don't wanna be, uh, branded. Like, uh, Scorsese was, I'll take the word shit off. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I did not mean to say, I didn't mean to say Marvel shit. I just meant Marvel and Transformer shit there. That that's better.

I agree you with the Transformers that that needs to die a little. But, but I mean, my, but my point is. Today's kids wait for the summertime. That's their bread and butter for movies, right? And it's all started because of this. Like you said, man, back in the 70s, before Jaws, a studio would, would put all their weight behind, like, uh, One Flew the Cuckoo's Nest. Or, Apocalypse Now, or, you know what I mean?

Like, that's, these were their big movies that were gonna get all the Oscars, and back then, Oscars meant money. There was no summer blockbuster, there was no popcorn film back then, you know? And people say, oh, Star Wars. Jaws beat Star Wars by two years. So, you know, it was actually Jaws that started all that shit. So, interesting. It was, and I just will just say for everyone, like, this, the tech, just the synopsis.

Was just, when a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it's up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seaf seafarer, seafarer, to hunt the beast down. Like, that's, that was all the tagline, like, synopsis was. I'm glad you read the logline, because here's what's important for writing, that we're right off the bat now on what separates good movies from bad movies.

The logline, for all you writers out there, or aspiring writers, your logline is basically your act two. Right. That's when act two starts. Um, the act one is all set up. It's, uh, basically your main character is kind of stuck in their life, how they are. Right. And then there's an inciting incident. Something happens, which causes them to be faced with the decision, whether or not to jump into act two. Remember that's important.

A lot of people, a lot of beginning writers will write a script where their main character is forced into act two. And that's, that can't happen. Act 2 has to present itself, your main character has to, has to deal with it, has to be forced to deal with it. So I have a hot take here, okay? Yeah, I have a hot take. Are you ready? Ready. Uh, we're gonna talk about Chief Brody's arc. Chief Brody Is lazy. There's your hot take. All right.

So here I caught something in this this watch Something i've learned to do lee after doing this with my brother for a little while because i'm You can tell he's the talent when it comes to screenwriting and all this stuff. I'm a fan. I'm a fan I like being called I like stroking his ego too because it makes him funny. I'll be expecting my paycheck Just let me pump you up a little bit more.

Yeah, right But, but what it's done for me though, watching these movies, I actually start picking stuff up that I used to just not even pay attention to, so, um, yeah, so, uh, you, you mentioned Brody's, uh, art. Yeah, so, okay. Because I noticed there was like a line in there at the very beginning about how, um, uh, he came from New York City, right? Yes. He moved there from New York City to get away from whatever. It was hard work. Right.

Being a cop in New York City, I absolutely that from, from that line. And then he comes to this quiet little island, you know, to kind so forward in So here's so island. Exactly. So, so let's d dive into that a little bit. So, uh, I, I wrote down here, maybe lazy is, uh, harsh word. He avoids responsibility. That's his, that's his theme, right? He avoids responsibility, uh, like you said, he is. Certainly explains why he would leave New York City, right?

And go to this beach town, even though he doesn't like the water. He's not a fan of the water. A lot of people think Brody's arc is that he's afraid of the water. And by the end of the movie, he's not, that's not his arc because like five minutes in, well, maybe more like 10 minutes in he's already on the ferry. going across where he's talking to the mayor and everybody. And there is no scene there where he's like, Oh my God, I'm on a ferry. What am I going to do?

He's not, you know, he doesn't like the water, but he's not afraid of it. Okay. People misconstrue that as his theme. His theme is he avoids responsibility. That's his problem. Right. So, and, and usually we say, okay, about five minutes in, uh, is when. Oh, by the way, I, I wrote down you. The film is littered with examples of him avoiding responsibility. The opening scene he yells to his kids. Don't play on those swings. I haven't fixed them yet. Right. right off the bat.

That's a good, I missed that one. No. And then later around the midpoint scene, when the orcas getting ready to set sale and, and Ellen comes to give him a kiss goodbye. He tells her, then I have it written down here too. Don't use the fireplace in the den. I haven't fixed it yet. He says that at the big boy. So like, and then, and if you watch the opening, the whole first act is a townspeople keep coming to him with their problems. Oh, they're karate chopping.

And he's like, Hey, Hendricks, his Lieutenant Hendricks. I get it. Take care of this. Will you? Yeah. He bucks responsibilities. Even when he wants to close the beaches. Have Polly do the printing put up the signs that say close the beaches have Polly do the printing and then you go hammer him in This guy doesn't intend on doing anything while he's here, right?

Like so and so a lot of people will say that the inciting incident is where Brody finds the body of the girl on the beach there is a moment where he does turn and look at the ocean like what the hell did this but He's not pushed yet to deal with this. He's looking for the easy way out. Well, I'll just put signs up that say, close the beaches. Simple, right? The real inciting incident is when the mayor and everybody gets on his back on that ferry and says, you can't just close the beaches.

Right, right. Yeah. We, we, this is how we make money. So now, but what does he do? Although he feels guilty about it. What does he do? He says to the medical examiner, you'll stand by that, that it was a bow propeller. He's like, yeah, I'll stand by that. He's like, all right, Right? That's, that's what you messed up. Which, yeah, that's where we go.

Which actually, that, uh, that scene I was all, uh, that scene where the arm sticking out of the, uh, ocean, sorry, uh, the beach with a dead gill. That's actually not a prop. That's actually a real, uh. Cast member, female cast member. They got to do it because the arm looked too fake. Here's your shining moment of your career is your arm. Okay. So go ahead, go ahead, Chris. Well, I was just going to say, man.

So this movie, one of the things I love about Jaws, the first movie, literally I looked at the time code four minutes in Chrissy goes down in the water. She's the one that dies from the shark. Four minutes in the movie and she's dead. Yeah. So, yeah. So, okay. So if you want to follow the beats for you writers, write this down, here's your beats and we're going to lay them out in order. All right. The very first one is opening image.

Now the importance of the opening image, not a lot of films do this. You catch it every now and again. You're like, ah, that guy must be a Blake Snyder guy. The opening image and the closing image are supposed to contradict each other because of the journey that took place in between. So the opening image of Jaws is danger underneath the water, right? The opening image is done. Right, we're seeing the sharks kind of POV as it's lurking, right? It's danger underneath the water.

I'm going to skip ahead real quick here. What's the closing image? We already know the closing image of Sean. Love water and they're safe. So it's a Contrast, right? Below water, danger, above water, danger is eliminated. So that's a closing, opening and closing image. You'll find if you really look at movies, keep that in mind when you watch, when you go watch your next movie. Keep a, keep a little file of opening and closing. So for instance, let me see.

Uh, uh, the opening of, I don't know, Top Gun. What's the opening of Top Gun? Planes landing and taking off from an aircraft carrier, right? The grounding process. Taking off and landing. The closing image of Top Gun are planes already in flight doing aerial moves as the credits go. So, sort of like, you know what I mean? Like, there's, uh, so again, that's abstract. But if you think about it, like, there's a telling point there of Maverick's journey in the movie Top Gun.

From where he is at the beginning to where he is at the end. That's not an accident, right? That's Tony Scott. He knows what he's doing. So, uh, so think about that the next time you watch, you know, your favorite movies. Yeah, look for the op Godfather's another great one. Opening image of Godfather is the Don in his office, accepting. Uh, requests, right?

The closing image is the Don, Michael, getting his hand kissed as the new godfather and they close the door on Diane Keaton as she's staring at him. Like, boom! You alright? Two major contrasts, right? So, uh, alright, so we're getting a, uh, kind of, kind of, Oh, by the way, Lee, I have to tell you ahead of time, We go off the rails a lot and we start ranting about other shit. And that's why our shows last so long. That's fine, that's entirely what this show's built on, is ranting. Yeah, right.

So, opening image, okay, below the sea, uh, danger, so the mirror flipped to the closing image, that's for you beginning writers. The next is, the theme stated. Five or six minutes into the film is when somebody should tell your lead what their problem is. Now, Ellen doesn't necessarily tell him what problem he is, but she does say, Listen, Chief, be careful, will ya? And he laughs and says, Ha, in this town? So he's, that's six minutes in, right?

So he's basically stating, I don't have to do shit in this town. I can avoid responsibility all I want, nothing happens here. So, set up, okay, body washes ashore, medical examiner says it was a shark, he figures, close the beach. Simple, not a lot of responsibility. Um, there's a lot of setup between pages, uh, or I should say minutes six to 11, where they established this small town nature where everybody has these little problems and he bucks responsibility on pretty much all of them. Right?

Nah, no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. You take care of that. You take care of that. Okay. So 12 minutes in catalyst inciting incident, the town leaders, including mayor Larry Vaughn urge him against closing the beaches. Now we have a problem. Because it was an easy fix. Now he's got complications, but as I stated already, he's quick to say. Eh, okay. If the medical examiner's willing to say it was a boat, then fucking guess what? It's a boat. Right? I don't care.

I don't really give a shit, as long as I don't have to deal with it. I'm avoiding responsibility. So, you know what? To your point on that, uh, Jerome, the, one, one of the things that blew my mind, and his wife got on his ass, about the kids being in the water because, because he knew there was a shark attack. And she didn't, he didn't tell anyone. Not even, not even his family. Right, because again, he doesn't think it's that big a deal. He doesn't know what he's dealing with yet, right?

That's true, but I mean, he knows there was a shark attack. So the next, well, he, well, yes, he believes it was a shark attack. The medical examiner is now saying it was a boat propeller, right?

So the next beat It's called debate begins that generally happens minutes between twelve and twenty five and it's where the main character has that catalyst but has to now decide whether or not they want to jump into act two so something has to happen in star wars it's not enough that, uh, Luke sees the hologram of Princess Leia saying help me Obi Wan Kenobi you're my only hope he says. I can't go with you. I have a, I have a moisture farm to run. I can't go with you.

It's not until he goes home and finds out that, but I believe Boba Fett, fried Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru that he then decides, yeah, extra crispy. Did you hear that hot take? He believes it was Boba was Boba Fett. I will argue this to the day I die. Boba Fett, remember, because Vader tells him no disintegrations. That's Boba's thing, man, he sets people on fire. Well, since when do stormtroopers set people on fire?

They can't even hit a barn, you know, the side of a barn with their lasers, so how the hell are they going to set people on fire? It was Boba. That's a good point, like, and it makes perfect sense, because they can't hit anything, but Boba, dang it, yeah? Yeah, remember, they can't hurt this elderly family on this, on the planet, you'll be fine. They show, they show Boba and Tatooine earlier in that movie in the special edition, right?

After, uh, we see we're going off again, we're going, we're falling off the resume. No, it's fine, it's fine. Anyway, but anyway. So, uh, so, okay, so the debate begins. There's a lot of shit that goes on to get Brody to think, um, Ah, man, I'm really uneasy about just accepting this and rolling over. So a couple of things happen. Pippet the dog dies. Alex Kittner dies. I felt that. Yeah, sorry. I was like, not the dog. Yeah, the dog. The dog. The dog. The shark ate a dog.

And then And a Kittner dies. Now everyone's like, Whoa, you're just going to gloss over Alex Kittner dying? Yes, because he's just sorry to say one of the numbers, right? He's now the second human casualty. This is important. He's the second human casualty. We have our intro to Quint, but we haven't hit our, our, our break into two yet. And I'll tell you why, because the shark up until this point still isn't a problem for everyone on the beach. They're just thinking, What's going on?

So now I wrote this down. We had one human death. Now we have two human deaths and a dog. So let's keep the tally going. Um, Mrs. Kittner puts out a nationwide reward of 3, 000. Today's money, that's 17, 000. That's 17, 000 by today's dollars. Thank you for adjusting for inflation. Yeah, I adjust for inflation. We do that a lot here. So, uh, and that's what leads to the jump to act two, because again, beginning writers, your break into two is the mirror flip to act one.

So if act one is your setup, your act two is the upside down world. It's where shit's now out of control and the very next scene, we got fucking boaters coming in from all over the country. So the town is flipped upside down. And what does Brody say to Hendrix? These are your people. Go talk to them. I don't want to deal with this, right? Like all these fucking people are all over the and what does Hendrix say? These aren't my people. They're coming from all over the place.

Look at those license plates. So now Brody's got a problem. So now we're in act two because now he feels like he has to. At least try to deal with something. Um. He's weighing over his head though. So that's your break in the diamond. One goes, right, right, right. So, so here we go. So the B story, what is the B story, right? And most romantic films, the B story is where, uh, the guy meets the girl, right? Or you meet the love interest or whatever.

The B story is supposed to be the calming influence of the protagonist problem. Somebody that could be a partner, somebody that can help you, right? They're usually introduced about a half hour in. This is the funny enter. Quint. No, no, no, no, no, no. Quinn's already been introduced, but he hasn't done anything. He just said, I'll do it for more than 3000 bucks, chief. I'll find him for three. His fingernails on the chalkboard scene, man.

Okay. But that's in that's I started screaming at the TV when he did that. That's still the debate. That's still in the debate. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that the same, like, is that the one that starred that parody? All, all that time. Is that the original one where you're seeing every other TV show, everyone scratches on the chalkboard? I mean, probably. It's, it's very effective in this film. Very effective. So, so here's what I wrote down.

Literally 30 minutes in, at the 30 minute mark, this line of dialogue is uttered. Hi, I'm Matt Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute. Oh, yeah. So Richard Dreyfuss enters the picture 30 minutes in, so he, and again, this is important as the B story because finally somebody is giving relief to Brody, somebody, an expert that can come and deal with this because again, Brody is avoiding responsibility. So now he finally meets him. What does he say when he meets him? Oh, I'm so glad you're here.

He basically sucks him off, right? Because he's so happy. He's so happy that he's there with somebody to take care of this problem for me. Thank God you're here. Yeah, thank God. So now I can go back to sitting in my office with my feet up. So, fun and games is another beat. This is a Blake Snyder beat called fun and games. This generally happens from, uh, your 30 minutes in to your Uh, an hour in now, right?

This takes you to your midpoint and what fun and games is supposed to be is what you mentioned your log line, right? So it's supposed to be act two, although the log line for this really hints at the midpoint, but for most, you know, for most purposes, when you think about a movie and you read its log line, that's generally the fun and games part. That's when shit starts to go crazy and you're in act two and they're trying to, uh, deliver the premise, right? Because what is the premise?

The premise is why we went, it's why we went to the theater. It's what we want to see. That's the stuff they show in the trailer a lot, is the fun and game scenes. So our fun and games here, Hooper examines Chrissy's remains, the tiger shark is caught, which Brody loves. You see Brody how he's in great spirits when they catch that tiger shark? Because what is he thinking? They got it! Hey!

Look at me, I'm gonna be fuckin chief of the century with, uh, my people, my people now, not Hendrik's people, we caught the shark and blah blah blah, he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. Then we get the Mrs. Kittner with the slap heard around the world, dinner at home with Hooper, cutting open the tiger shark, finding out Kittner's not in the belly.

And they go looking for the shark in the middle of the night, and they find human victim number three, Ben Gardner, when they find his boat looks like a toothpick. Yeah, there you go, nice. So, that all happens, that's your fun and games, and that leads to your midpoint. Now, what is your midpoint? So the midpoint scene in most films is where the protagonist gets his tangible goal. This is importantly, this is one of my hot buttons.

Some screenwriting instructors will tell you that the promise of the premise is, is what you need to do. You need to keep delivering the premise, right? If it's a movie about Top Gun, you need to show planes. You got to show planes. That's what people came there for. Um, me, I'm a goals guy.

A tangible and spiritual goal and the emotional shifts that get you there for your listeners that want to really dig into our show, go back and listen to the, I think it was called the promising young Thelma episode where we did promising young woman versus Thelma and Louise, the Thelma and Louise script. Nails this as far as emotional shifts where Thelma is becoming a completely different person by the end of the film, but it's not just a night and day switch.

There's constant back and forth where she is a baby Thelma, where she's getting ridiculed by Louise and she's got kind of got her tail between her legs. And then the next scene, she's alpha Thelma again, wielding her gun around, you know, putting her gun to a cop's head, shooting up a rig filled with oil of rocket fuel, blowing that up. So. And it's almost every other scene where she's baby Thelma and then alpha Thelma until you get to the end.

Michael Corleone from the Godfather is another perfect example where your alpha has completely consumed the baby version of you and that baby version no longer exists. Um, but anyway, that's your, that's your, uh, the emotional shifts to your spiritual goal. Okay. So here's the important thing, Lee, the difference between the two, Chris, what is your tangible goal? What is my tangible goal? No, not yours personally. What, what is the tangible goal?

Chris is like, well, I'd like to buy another car, I guess. No, what, so what is the main character of any film? What is their tangible goal? The tangible goal is to solve Whatever problem is presented, it's what they want, right? Yeah, what it's what they want and they generally in good scripts. They get that at the midpoint scene because they think they think the movie's over now, right? Yeah. So in silence of the lambs, that one's coming out. We're in, uh, on Halloween.

We already recorded it, but we talked about Clarice's back and forth and, and her, her, uh, her tangible goal was she just wanted to be involved. She just wanted to be included. She just wanted to help. She just wanted to help. The Silence of the Midsummer, which I did love the title. I loved the title when I saw it pop up on my Spotify. I was like, Yeah. Yeah, that was a fun one. You gotta listen to that and hear how giddy we get on that one. I did. Especially, especially me.

I listened to the first, I think, 20 minutes of it and you guys were already, Off. Yeah. We're, we go off and running now. That's such a disturbing movie. And for the listeners, my, my mother's messaged us both today and said, oh my gosh, I listened to that, that episode. And I, she was laughing because my brother took her to see Midsummer, and I couldn't believe he did because it's such a disturbing movie. And anyways, but well, and you'll hear on that podcast.

I've taken our mother to see some messed up movies before. So this is my love for my mother. I've taken her to see, uh, the whale. I took her to see leaving Las Vegas when I was 20 years old. That's a horrible movie where a drunk tells a prostitute about. Coming in her hair or something like I'm with my mother. I'm with my mother in this anyway. Anyway, anyway, anyway, we're getting off track again We're getting off track back to jaws back to jaws, so So the tangible goal is what they want.

Yeah, the spiritual goal is what they need and Generally, what they need is to conquer that theme that was presented to them at the beginning You already know if you've seen jaws, you know where I'm going with this, right? So his tangible goal is to Get somebody to deal with this shark, somebody, anybody, anybody, but me to deal with this shark. So he's avoiding the responsibility as much as he can.

I've heard, uh, uh, critiques of jaws that say, Oh, once he makes the decision to go out on the Orca, he is. Conquered his fear of the water and fuck that he's still a pussy. Wait till we get on the orca Brody's got a laundry list of shit that still makes him the weak link of the three, right? But anyway, we're gonna hurt ourselves.

Okay, so, uh b story fun and games midpoint scene So the scare at the beach on the fourth of july is the midpoint scene and why this is hugely important Not just because it lands an hour into the movie, but It's coincidentally the fourth human fatality as they're a guy in the boat meets his maker. He's the guy that loses his leg and then dies. Usually what we have here for you, Blake Snyder fans, it's called the false victory because the main character gets his tangible goal.

He got what he thinks he wants. So to him. Problem solved, right? Of course, we all know the second half of the film, everything goes to shit, and it's all the bad stuff that happens, so, and again, we're forcing the protagonist to deal with his inner theme, his inner problem. So why is this a false victory? Because even though a guy died, Brody gets to corner the mayor in the hospital and say you're gonna sign this waiver to hire Quint to kill the shark, right? Right now. Right now.

Right now, you're gonna give me what I want, which is we're gonna hire somebody to deal with this, a real expert, to deal with killing the shark. That's a false victory. And quick side point. He also, the man also lights a smoke in the hospital, I'm like, yeah, they can really feel this is a different time, lights up, I'm like, Jerry, didn't I send you a picture of that?

Yeah. Yeah. I took a picture of the screen when he lit the cigarette or when he's hitting the cigarette in the, in the hospital. And I said, how come more hospitals didn't explode in the seventies? So, so now they're out on the Orca. We already nailed the part where he said, he tells Ellen before he goes, don't, don't use the fireplace in the den. I haven't fixed it yet. Just another little moment where he's avoiding responsibility.

I'm going to give you a quick laundry list of moments of Brody still fighting against his spiritual goal of dealing with this problem himself. Okay. I'm just going to give you a quick bullet points. Are you ready? You're going to need a bigger boat. Adlib. After they talk about Yes, yes. After they talk about how big the shark really is, he says, We're gonna go back and get a bigger boat, right? Hooper wants him to go to the end of the pulpit so he can get a picture of it to scale.

And terrified, Brody says, Scale my ass! He's just not going out there, right? Moments later, Quint is trying to tag the shark with a barrel. Brody's yelling, Kill it, Quint! Kill it! Now! Kill it? Kill it? Like, Quint is just trying to tag it with those yellow barrels. He's not trying to kill the thing right now, he's just trying to tag it. Brody's up there, you know, like, Kill it, Quint! Let's kill it and go home! Like, what the hell are you talking about?

So when things aren't working out, Brody laments, What do we do now? We're quitting, right? He literally says that. Then, later, why don't we lead him into shore instead of him leading us out to sea? Again, I'm a f I don't want to deal with this, let's, how about we just kind of get closer to home? And then maybe if we get close enough, you can just drop me off and you guys continue to go taking care of this.

Let us not forget the doomed distress call to the Coast Guard where the radio is met with Quint's bat. He's calling for help! And Quint comes in and beats the shit out of it with the bat. So these are all, yeah, these are all moments where Brody is avoiding responsibility, still hasn't learned his lesson yet. That's the main thing. So that's the whole second act there, or the second half of the second act, which is bad guys closing in. That's another beat for you Blake Snyder disciples.

Bad guys closing in is where all the things I just mentioned Uh, uh, quit keeps berating Hooper and his equipment, you know, Oh, your city boy with your city hands, you know, Yeah, they all Um, they had their first real encounter with the shark um He eats through the fishing wire They have that scene with the matching scars and of course the indianapolis speech which I think we posted on the silver screen Happy hour page one time. Is this the greatest monologue in film history?

Now, people might not know this. It went through several drafts of writers before Robert Shaw himself said, let me have a crack at it. And what you see on screen is Robert Shaw's version. So they even brought in John, John Milius, who wrote, uh, uh, Red Dawn. Wrote and directed Red Dawn. I think he wrote the script for Apocalypse Now, I think. They brought him in to write the Indianapolis speech.

And his version was the one they were about to shoot, and Robert Shaw pulled Spielberg aside at the zero hour and said, let me do it. Let me do it. Just let me give my version. And see if you like it. And the version you see on screen is Robert Shaw's version. That's amazing. I love that. Yeah. Um, all right. So now we get to the all is lost again. Major beat point. This is huge for all you writers. The all is lost. Okay. That means shit hits the fan.

Everything we've wanted to do up until this point is gone. And we're basically screwed. And there's no way out of this, right? Uh, think of your favorite movies. What are some of the all is lost in some of your favorite films? Um. Infinity War. What? Infinity War. I was going to say Infinity War. It's a tough one. Oh, yeah. Big time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, here's the problem with Infinity War. Well. Infinity War and Endgame is all one big movie, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So that's more the midpoint scene, I guess, because you get to the end of three hours and the credits roll and you're like, well, we got three more hours to go when the other movie comes out. So it's, that one's a tough call, but, but usually it's where, and I told my brother this story. I was in a hotel room. Uh, my parents come out to visit. By the way, Chris lives in Michigan still. I was born in Michigan, but I live in California now.

My folks, our folks come out and visit me twice a year. And sometimes we'll go to somewhere like Santa Cruz or Monterey. We get a hotel room. Once we get the girls to bed, I'll go to my parents room. We'll play cards and drink. Right. That's what we do. One time I come in and my mom's watching a Hallmark Channel movie. You remember this, right, Chris, when I told you this story? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, and, and, and I already, I sit down, I haven't watched a stitch of this movie, I don't know what's going on, but I sit down and I go, how far are we in on this? She goes, Oh, it's been on for over an hour. I go, okay, something bad's about to happen. He goes, what do you mean? I go, who's the main guy? She goes, that guy right there. I said, okay, whatever's going on with this guy. Shit's about to hit the fan and you Mazel roll the credits. Cause the movie's basically going to be.

In the gutter. What happens? The girl and the guy break up. She moves out of town or whatever. I mean it's just like a complete shit show. And she's like, How did you know that was gonna happen? I was like, It's standard. All is lost happens around, Right, about 75 percent into your film. Right? 75 minutes in to say a 100 minute film, but when, uh, uh, the Terminator, when was the all is lost in the Terminator when Reese died or so for that? No, I think that's more part of the finale.

Um, I would say that all is lost is when the Terminator shoots up the police station because at that point she feels like. Oh, it's great. I'm safe. Yeah, she was, she had a false victory. She was safe in the police station. Reese was insane. I'm safe. I'm surrounded by 30 cops. Everything's good. And then the Terminator comes in and single handedly annihilates the entire police station. Lights that place up. Not only does he just come in, he drives in. To get rid of everybody. Right, right.

So, so that, um, yeah. So that, and then of course that leads to this Dark Night of the Soul where she's in, that, by the way, follows the, all those laws. When everything hits the fan, shit hits the fan, you have this moment, it could be 30 seconds. It could be five minutes. It's the moment where the protagonist has to consider, what are we going to do next? What am I going to do next? And it's that scene in the tunnel in the Terminator, by the way, we've jumped off a jaws for a moment.

Anyway, anyway, um, it's after they, uh, avoid the police station that gets them into act three. But anyway, let's get back to jaws. So the, all is lost. A lot of people think it's Quinn's death and it's not, and I'll tell you why. Because there's no time for, for him to. Lament or think about anything after Quint dies. The reason why people think it's Quint's death is because generally the all is lost, somebody dies. Um, where you're obiwan dying, right?

Like there's usually somebody dies and you're like, where do I go from here? I'm fucked. And they call it the whiff of death. All is lost, is considered whiff of death. It doesn't have to be a person dying. All of lost, all is lost in jaws is the orca, the ship. Blows up the engine basically blows up now. They're stranded. They can't swim to shore because there's a shark.

They can't move the boat anymore The boat's now taking on water and they can't call anybody either They can't call anybody because quit beat the shit out of the other radio They're fucked and the shock attack the Bart. They're fucked. They're fucked they're literally all sitting on like the the the dock part, you know the boat the deck and Uh, Hooper, Dreyfuss, is just sort of staring off like, Quint, uh, Shider, right? Shider is Brody. He's just standing there. I don't know what the fuck to do.

And then, and then Quint comes out with the life jackets. Now remember, he already said in the speech, the Indianapolis speech, he'll never put on a life jacket again. He throws the life jackets to the other two. And he zips up his jacket and he just sort of sits there with his arms crossed. All three of them are fucked. They don't know what they're gonna do. Right? Now that's the dark night of the soul. What are we gonna do to get out of this? Right?

In this film, it's only about 30 seconds, because Quint then says to Hooper, Hooper, what can you do with this equipment of yours? No, we're not there yet, we're not, we're not there yet. But he says, Hooper, what can we do with this equipment of yours? And Hooper tells him, well, if I can get inside of this cage, I can maybe stick him with some poison and blah, blah, blah. Now, remember, people say, well, that's Quint. Not Brody jumping into act three.

I thought this was Brody's story and it is because what does Brody say? That shake, that shark will eat that cage apart, right? He's already given up on that. That's not going to work. And Hooper turns around and says, you got any better suggestions? The very next shot, even the, even John Williams score picks up. Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan. Well, they're building the cage, right? Yeah. So we're now in act three writers. Listen to me. Your act three has five points.

It is called the five point finale. And all good scripts have a five point finale. Because most people think, well, when I get in act three, Uh, the bad guy kills the good guy. Oh, sorry. Scratch that. That blue curacao is kicking in already. The good guy kills the bad guy. And the movie's over. No, no, no. To make it interesting, you need to have a five point finale. I'm gonna read them off to you. Are you ready? Part one, gathering the team, right?

It's usually in the movie, a lot of action films have this where they're like, they get all the guys together and they're gearing up their guns, right? And they're putting a, uh, a commando Schwarzenegger in a commando getting off the beach, putting on the vest, zipping it up, cocking all his guns, putting on the paint that's gathering the team. Right. Uh, in this film. Uh, they're building the cage. They're building the cage. Executing the plan. Point number two of your five point finale.

Hooper is in the cage. He's ready to stick the shark with the poison. That's the plan. Okay? Third point. High tower surprise. Your plan has now gone to shit. Okay? So, again, in Commando, he gets found out too early. They see him and all the alarms are going off. He's like, shit, they're gonna kill my daughter now that they know I'm here. Right? Just, just to jump back to that one real quick. Anyway, Hightower surprise. Uh, the shark makes quick work of that cage, by the way. Oh, straight away.

Right. Presumably kills Hooper. He does kill Quint. That's the Hightower surprise for Brody. Because now, his two people that he expected to solve this problem are now dead. Or presumably dead. Right? One of them you watched in front of his eye. One for sure that he watched in front of him. So now you have your fourth point, which is the dig down deep moment. That's where, uh, uh, uh, John McClane and Diehard. The Hightower surprise is, fuck, I'm out of bullets, I got two bullets left.

And the guys that were here to help me, the FBI guys are dead. You know, shit, what do I do? Dig down deep. Figure out a way. He sees the tape that says season greetings on it. I got it. I'll tape the gun to my back. That's, right? That's his dig down deep. Brody, just in fear of trying to save his own life, tries to hit the shark in the face with the air tank, and he throws it in his mouth. And he remembers, wait a minute, these things are sensitive, they could blow up.

Which I think he's told like twice. I feel like twice, and he's like Oh, don't touch that. 'cause they could explode. Don't touch that. 'cause it could explode. Yeah. You would be surprised. You would be surprised how many times those tanks actually appear when they're flipping through the book earlier. There's a picture of a shark with a tank in his mouth. Oh wow.

And then as they flip through the pages more, when Brody's like investing, you know, really researching, there's a shot of, uh, sharks that are attacking a boat and all the divers have the tanks on. They keep showing the tanks over and over. In fact, that picture you have up right there. Of Quint dying? How did he fall down there? He went to grab onto the ledge, and that tank rolled over onto his fingers! Boom. And he's all, AHHHHH!

And he lets go, and that's what slides him down into the death, death spot. So, the tank is brought up a lot. Yes, Hooper does give the, Damn it, Brody! You mess with these and they're gonna blow up! This is compressed air! So, yeah, that's Spielberg's way of constantly Just shoehorning this into the script, any chance he can get, so that the audience is ready for the tank is now in the shark's mouth. That's his dig down deep. He's got nobody left, he's forced to do something.

Fifth point, execution of the new plan. He knows what the new plan is now. He's gearing up his rifle. He grabs a little poker and he's, he's climbing to the top, right, of that mast. So, right, there you go. So that's the execution of the new plan. Um, the, and that's the climax. The execution of the new plan is your climax. Shark's coming at him, smile you son of a bitch, boom! Blows his head off. Now, after the climax, obviously after the crowd's cheering, Yay! What a great movie!

You have your resolution, yes, you have your resolution. Okay, that, uh, comes and it's Brody achieves his spiritual goal. He finally stopped avoiding responsibility and dealt with the shark himself. He was forced to deal with the shark himself. And that's what a lot of times your main character, by the end, they are forced into dealing with their spiritual goal. They avoid it the whole movie and they get it at the end.

Flight, Denzel Washington, another textbook script they could teach in schools. Right? If you've ever seen Flight, he's an alcoholic, he saves the lives of this, uh, plane crash, but he was drunk and high when he did it. So, he's afraid, I'm gonna lose my license, they're gonna blame me for the people that did die, even though I did a miracle, sully type of move to save the lives of everybody else. But what is his spiritual goal? He does confess at the end, and they put him in jail.

But that's what he needed, that was his spiritual goal. Sorry, I should have said spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen Flight. It's fine, it's fine. Sorry, I just fucking ruined it. Anyway, so, yeah, spoiler alert if you haven't seen Flight. But, watch it, screenwriters, watch it for this reason. At the end, when he finally has his moment of truth.

You know, they're trying to pin the alcohol that's missing on the stewardess and he's all, Trina didn't drink the vodka because I drank the vodka. And he comes out and he starts confessing everything. They throw him in jail. And the resolution is his son actually wants to meet him again because his son has disowned him because he's a drunk. But now he got his spiritual goal. I'm in jail, but I'm clean and I get to repair my relationship with my son. He never, the point, here's the point.

Does your main character. Change. Meaning if you were to pull your main character out of the end of the film and put him at the beginning, are they making different choices? Right. Denzel and Flight is a completely different person. Mm-Hmm. Brody. If you were to tell him at the beginning of the movie, you're gonna shoot a shark tank or you're gonna shoot a tank to blow up a shark's head. While if you, by the way, if you miss. You're dead, right? He would have been like, fuck, no, I'm not.

I don't want nothing to do with that. Get the deputy to do it. Right. Let me get anybody else, anybody else. He spent the whole movie avoiding this responsibility. He's forced to deal with at the end. It's a great shot. You got up, by the way, because that's him dealing with his spiritual goal. Final image above the sea. Danger has been defeated and they swim back to shore. Happily, mirror flip of the opening image. Even though it was the fourth shot, I think.

I think it was the fourth, fourth shot he tried it. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. Right, but if it happens on the first shot, that's That's lame, right? You need the conflict. You need the conflict of I'm down to my last bullet, and this thing is raging on me, and I keep missing, I got one more shot. They do something Go ahead. I was perplexed about that scene, cause, is that a bolt action rifle? Um, Chris, do not get technical, because I didn't see him, I didn't see him putting new bullets in.

Nobody wants to hear your bullshit, all right? I'm just saying, man, I'm looking at it going, that looks like a bolt action, that's one shot at a time. He used the wrong rifle to do this. If you think that's bad, if you think that's bad, there's a personal vendetta a lot of fans have with Mythbusters. Because it turns out, tanks don't explode when you shoot them. Well, it, uh, regular compressed air, right, but if it was an oxygen tank, that's different.

Well, the Mythbusters apparently tried it. So, here's my problem. Fuck Mythbusters, right? Because, how dare you ruin our childhood with this shit? Um, in fact, another podcast, I wanna say it was those Writers Blockbusters guys talked about. It was like, such a letdown that Mythbusters ruined it. Fuck, fuck. We should give them a shout out. So a, a podcast, I don't know if you ever heard of these guys, um, uh, Writers, blockbusters, writers, a blockbusters podcast.

It's, it's ran by Bob Reuters. Yeah. These guys are screenwriters and, uh, they're, they're, it's a great podcast. And we found them after we started ours. And I tried not to listen to the shows because they, didn't they just do Jaws? Um, no, they did Jaws a while ago, but what they did, what turned us on to it, is we had just done our Silence of the Lambs episode, and so did they. Holy shit. So we found it. August the 27th. Yeah. And we recorded ours before we listened to that, thankfully.

By the way, By the way, we're firing up number two here. Yeah, I should ask, how long do your podcasts usually go? And, uh, you know, I mean, And do you mind cutting this up into like five episodes? Is your afternoon free? Usually when I'm by myself, the episode goes for about 45 minutes. The longest I've had, I've done episode with a guest. I think we did two and a half hours. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I know you're ready to break your record.

Well, I can say this, the next one, we shouldn't spend nearly as long. No, the next one, but anyway, I'm gonna go through some trivia first. So before we do the trivia, let the listener and the viewers know.

Um, something we do on our podcast, and we're going to do it at the end of this one, um, I, I just want to throw this teaser out because, um, we always do this game of six degrees of separation where we pick two actors that were in both from each of the movies, and my brother, um, will Try to figure out if you can connect these two actors by connecting them to other actors that were in movies with them, uh, within six degrees, six movies.

Um, and, but the trick is, the caveat is, we can't use the two movies that we're talking about today. So he'll have to pick movies that they were in and there's a special twist for today Um, I haven't told my brother which two actors I've picked He's gonna make me do it on the spot. Do it on the spot.

So normally on our show I'll tell him the night before or even the day of and he'll look it up and he'll figure it out before the show starts Because remember it's here's the thing before you say well, that's cheating. This isn't stumped Jerome All right, the six degrees is we just want to Are there two actors that can't be connected now? This all started from the six degrees of kevin bacon game, which i'm sure you've heard of.

Hey, he's the best spelling actor today That was good Um, so but but because of that game Uh, and by the way Those guys that created that book that wrote that book the six degrees of kevin bacon where any actor can be connected with kevin Bacon within six degrees a degree being a film connection. They use directors and they use tv shows We don't use none of that shit. You have to be onscreen in a feature length film. Yeah. On the big screen. Uh, on the big screen to be included. Which is fair.

Which is fair, and which makes it a little bit more difficult. And again, like, like my brother said, we can't use the films that we're talking about today. So, so we added a level of difficulty. Normally you would use any film that was on the big screen, but our, our most famous connection is Chaplain to Carrot Top. You can, those actually connect within six degrees. In fact, I think it's in four, isn't it? I think you did it in four. Yeah. Charlie Chaplin, the carrot top.

So, so, uh, because I know you want to know, Lee, so I'll just tell you. I do. So Charlie Chaplin's last film was called The Countess of Hong Kong with Marlon Brando, which Chaplin also directed, but he appears in the film as well. Marlon Brando, um, was in The Godfather with Al Pacino. So, uh, Countess of Hong Kong, The Godfather. Pacino is in, uh, is it Injustice for All with Jack Warden? Jack Warden is in Chairman of the Board with Carrot Top. God damn. Yeah, so we're gonna do that game.

I haven't told my brother, and Yeah, so now he's gonna make me do this one on the fly like I'm some friggin expert. No, I told him, he can look at IMDB if he needs to, which I think I would have to look just to see what other movies they were in. Yeah, okay, so we'll try that. But anyway, so let me do some quick trivia before we move on to the shit version of Jaws. Okay. So, so, so just my opinion about Brody being lazy.

But if you knew if you read the book, okay, so there is a book written by Peter Benchley called Jaws, and it was loosely inspired by Peter Benchley's interest in this fisherman named Frank Mundus from Montauk, New York. Right? So he investigated his exploits and everything. He's a big fisherman, and that's how he got the inspiration for Jaws. Um, they struggled with the name, the publisher, Doubleday. They wanted to call it like Jaws of Death or Jaws of Danger and all this shit.

And they finally just settled on Jaws, um, in the end of it. But in the book, there's a lot of crazy shit which really speaks to Brody's laziness. First of all, Ellen, his wife, she has an affair with Hooper. When he comes into town, so yeah, Dreyfuss's character, right? They have an affair and none of that shit made it into the script, obviously. But there's also other crazy shit about like, there's a mob influence that the mob owns the town.

So when the shark is threatening, when Brody wants to close the beaches. It's not just the mayor saying we depend on these dollars. The mob starts to give pressure to Brody. You know what I mean? Like, Hey, yo, you know, you're gonna sleep with the fishes, you know, like, whatever. Yeah, so This is a shock. Yeah, we knew it. Yeah, we know he's on the payroll.

So anyway, so, um, so Uh, so Brody's laziness is kind of what drives, because when Hooper comes into town, he's young, he's rich, he's a guy that likes to take action and get things done, and that's what drives Ellen to him, because her husband's a lazy, avoid responsibility slug, right? So, um, so anyway, so that's the book. But anyway, there's a lot that was cut out, obviously. Hang on, really quick, really quick. I gotta, I gotta mix my second one. Thank you. Hold on, wait.

I, I, it's so sweet, I gotta cut it with some soda water, cause I'm a wimp. It's just sweet, I don't like sweet. Because I'm out of ice, I'm switching to beer after this. Oh, I, I don't mix. By the way, he always has the thing about mixing. I don't, I don't have a problem with mixing. I can mix, I can mix shit all day long. I don't care. Ugh. I have Irish, Scottish, and German blood. Alright, cool. Yeah. You're built for it. Irish, Scottish, German blood, that's 1. 8%.

Yes. Um, alright, are you ready? One last trivia before we move on. No, I have a couple more trivia. So, um, there is a funny story about, uh, when, uh, when they were shooting Jaws, uh, the shark, uh, kept not working. Right? Try to get it to work. It wasn't working. There you go. There you go. That's a great picture. They built several sharks, by the way, for the many different shots. But there's, uh, at one point, the orca, the set of the orca was sinking.

And, uh, the sound department guy had to hold up like the nagra, which records the sound. And he's holding it over his head as he's like in the waist deep in water. And everybody is rushing to the set to get the actors off. It's like, oh, oh, Mr. Dreyfuss, oh, Mr. Scheider, let's get Mr. Shaw. And the guy with the holding of his head, he's like, fuck the actors, save the sound department. Because if you lose the nagra, you lose all the shit you just recorded.

So, so that's a nice little, uh, Spielberg anecdote there. He told that story. Um, let me see. I got a couple other ones here, real quick. Uh, in the closing credits, you'll see Michael Chapman's name as a camera operator. Um, he was also the camera operator in The Godfather, you see his name in the closing credits of The Godfather. Um, he went on to be an Oscar nominated cinematographer. He did Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Lost Boys, and The Fugitive. Couple other fun little trivia tidbits.

Alex Kintner was played by an actor named Jeffrey Voorhees. Of course, five years later, a character named Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame as a child who also died in the water, uh, in the film, bad Santa, the uncrackable safe that Billy Bob Thornton's character, Willie is tasked to open is called the Kintner boy readout. A little homage to Jaws. When Mayor Vaughn says, I, for one, will not stand here and watch that shark cut open and see that damn Kintner boys spill out all over the dock.

So, anyway. Also, filmmaker Brian Singer, his production company is called Bad Hat Harry Productions. An homage to the line in Jaws where Brody says to the old guy on the beach, that's some bad hat, Harry. So, that's my trivia for Jaws. Now, before we move on, you see the script structure and the beats, right? Yes. Okay. Jaws 4 does none of that shit! None of that shit happens!

Before we get forward to Jaws, I'm actually still at one trivia, which I thought was, look at IMD, which was interesting, was, um, Matt Jaws was Originally, Steven Spurrier was not the director of Jaws at the very start.

The first director was Dick Richards, who was fired after meeting with the producers and the studio executives in the meeting he said that his opening shot would have been the camera come out of the water to show the town, then the whale, instead of the shark, would come out of the water. The producers said that they would not make him Moby Dick, and they would not work with someone who did not know the difference between a whale and a shark.

Wow. Which is probably why Spielberg was concerned, knowing someone else was already fired. Now, what's funny is that, hold on to that piece of nugget there, because we're going to talk about it in Jaws 4. With this shark POV shit, where, in Jaws 4, the shark's POV keeps coming out of the water like it's looking around, and then goes back into the water. Now it's really the camera, the director's choice to show the audience what the shark sees. They do it several times in the movie!

How many sharks pick their head up out of the water like, Yeah, this looks about right. That's good. Yeah, that's where I am. And then puts his head back down. They do it several times! There's so much about this movie. All right, are we ready to crack into it? Yeah, let's crack into it. Let's crack into something terrible, which All right, so now you know So now you know what it takes to write a good script. Now I'm going to tell you all the things to avoid.

Okay. Well, let's set the, let's set the scene for, probably most people haven't seen this, like me, until yesterday. So, what's Jaws 4 The Revenge about? So, Jaws 4 The Revenge, first of all, uh, Lee, you wanna take this? You got the log line there? Yeah, you got the log line. So, Jaws 4 The Revenge. Chief Brie's widow believes that her family is deliberately being targeted by another shark in search of revenge. Yeah. That's, and she's right, apparently.

So, so by the way, a lot of people don't realize this, or maybe they do realize, and they just don't care. All Jaws films center on this family, even Jaws 3. So, Jaws 1 and 2 obviously is Chief Brody dealing with a shark. Jaws 3 is the kids have grown up. And one of them, the oldest one, Who is just for is played by lance guest as a marine biologist is played by dennis quaid in the third film that's michael brody he's a marine biologist and the younger brother sean.

Is the doofus in Jaws 3, who's kind of, I think he's Leah Thompson plays his girlfriend, um Was that Leah Thompson? I miss, how did I miss that? That was Jaws 3 though. Oh, Jaws 3, yeah. Yeah, Jaws 3. So, uh, so Jaws 4 is kind of a continuation. The, the sons are older again, only now Sean is a cop. He might have been a cop in Jaws 3 and just like on vacation, I don't remember. But he's a cop in Jaws 4, and the older brother's still a marine biologist, only now he lives down in the Bahamas.

He's not just a cop, but he's a cop on the same island where his dad was. Yes, he's basically the new chief Brody. Okay. And the mom lives there because she's lived there, you know, since they moved there. And, um, and yes. So it starts with. The opening image under the water again, right? Um, oh, uh, again, just a real contrast. So we talked about the opening and closing image in Jaws, how they're complete opposites of each other. Um, but they have meaning, right? One's below the water, danger.

One's above the water, no danger. Here's your opening and closing image of Jaws 4. Opening image is under the water, again, danger. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. The closing image is they're all getting on a plane. Okay. Yeah, that's nothing to do with the opening image. So whatever, whatever director's choice, director's choice. Uh, so we intro to Sean and Ellen establishing the family. Uh, they do all this shit, you know, where they're establishing family dynamic.

The older brother lives in the Bahamas with his daughter and blah, blah, blah. Here's about the time you'd have a theme stated. I can't think of any moment where there's a theme stated to Ellen Brody, who by the way appears to be the lead, and this will be important later when she's not the lead anymore, but she appears to be the lead, and there's no theme. At one point the oldest, the youngest son calls her a slave driver, which might set up.

A theme, but it never, there's no follow up to it, so that's, that can't be the theme, so, um, It, you know, oh, I wrote here, that might work if the whole movie, she was a demanding person, right? Cause that might fit with that theme and that art, but she's not ever demanding, so it doesn't work. Yeah. Uh, so the emotional shift of not being so bossy, she's isn't. Uh, Ellen is just Ellen. No problems that need fixing. No themes stated. I wrote that down. Inciting incident.

Sean goes to fix an issue in the water and he's attacked and killed by the shark. All right. Inciting incident. A cute little boy from the first Jaws movie that he, that, that, that Brody was making faces at with his little boy. Yes. Yes. Let's have a flashback. They make him get eaten by a shark. Yeah, like what, five minutes? I forget how many minutes it was, but he was gone. I feel like, I feel like when they made the movie Lake Placid, they stole scenes from this movie.

Because every time somebody leans over a boat in Lake Placid, the crocodile comes up and takes off a head, or an arm, or something. And that's precisely what happens here. To think that somebody would steal from Jaws 4, that's a stretch. And for anyone who's watching and listening, At the point, if you're watching it and you've just seen this scene, this is where you click off. This is where you should have turned off. Yeah, just save yourself some time. How terrible the special effects was.

He's like, no, he gets delayed too. He's like, oh, oh. Yeah, I gotta say though, it was fun watching a horrible movie. Before that, before that, the shark, as I said, lifts his head above water and says, oh, there's the boat I want to attack. And then goes back under the water again. Like, Like a periscope! Like a periscope! This shark has a built in periscope, by the way. Um, alright, so, the second act, you would think the break in the two starts with her going to the Bahamas.

But remember, the second act is supposed to be her log line. And her going to the Bahamas, she doesn't think anything that the shark is after them yet. In fact, here's the sick, here's the stupidest part. Uh, the older brother comes up for the funeral. Which, by the way, there's a lot of stupid shit that happens between men in it. So, like, Michael's walking on the beach with his wife. And he starts talking about his brother, Sean. And then he just runs! He just kicks off!

Like, is this supposed to be the emotional moment? Is this supposed to be She's like, where you going? Yeah, where you going? He's just sprinting. Like, we don't know what he's running to. And Ben, in the sound effect The sound effects is his feet are hitting like tile floor, but he's running on a beach, but he's just running like not running and crying like I can't even tell the story about my brother just running.

He's just running for no, well, and the whole idea of them taking mom to the Bahamas after her son was just killed by a shark, I'd be like, let's take mom to the desert. Let's get her out of the, let's get her away from the water. No, let's get her on the beach. So, so I, yeah, well, I actually wrote that down. If Act Two is supposed to be that Chief Brody's widow believes her family is deliberately being targeted by another shark, um, that, none of that happens there.

In fact, when they say, why don't you come to the Bahamas for us? She literally goes. No, I can't leave here. And they go, please. And she goes, okay, okay, sure. Let's go to more water. Like that's like the director on set going on. And we got to speed this up here. Just fucking say yes. And let's get on with it. So, um, yeah, there's no pushback at all. Um, quite a reversal by contrast, Jaws one's log line.

When a killer shark terrorizes beach community, it's up to local sheriff to hunt down the beast. Boom, we exit, you know, we jump into act two when when the shark becomes a problem. Uh, I wrote here jaws for Yeah, so there are moments too that are supposed to be dramatic that come off as funny Here's what I wrote down. Michael's running on the beach when Carla asks, where are you going? He has no idea um, uh What else is that right here?

Well, that's the thing because it wasn't just a bad script. I mean you had I mean arguably some pretty good actors that have So, I mean, that tells me though, uh, the director wasn't trying to pull a good performance out of them either. We'll get to his interview after, but is, is, uh, Ellen, so Ellen gets on the ferry, right?

To go, uh, to head to the Bahamas, to go to the airport, to head to the Bahamas and, and just out of control, just start sobbing and crying hysterically and nobody does anything or says anything or tries to comfort her. She's laughing with the granddaughter. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! And nobody fucking says anything. She just sort of trails off by herself. And it's uncomfortable. It's like, What? It's It's not Lorraine Gary's finest acting. That's for sure. And it's her last acting. Yep. That's right.

She has not been in a movie since Jaws 4. So they get to the Bahamas, intro to Hoagie, played by Michael Caine, who's presumably the B story, right? The love interest, supposed to take some pressure off of the main character, so he's the B story. He's supposed to drive her, he drives Ellen to her spiritual goal. Just kidding, Ellen doesn't have a spiritual goal. But, um, so, but Hoagie is in fact a really bad pilot, right? He's a pilot, but he's fucking reckless.

Like, he does all this crazy shit. Here, let me grab the granddaughter. Here, fly the plane. Like, what? Yeah, and we gotta, eventually, I mean, we're gonna probably talk about him landing on the water where a shark attack just happened. Don't, don't worry, that's gonna happen later. He lands on the water in a boat not equipped to land on water. Like, he's fucking sully. Right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, um, but again.

And again, him having this recklessness, you know, could be part of his character arc, right? Just kidding, he doesn't have a character arc. So, uh, so a couple other things are going on here to make it hard to determine if this is act two or not, I wrote down. Ellen scolds the children for playing near the water. She's also terrified that Michael's wife sculpts her, which, by the way, from one angle looks like a shark, and from another angle looks like a large metal vagina.

Oh, so it's how the camera is like, Ooh, it's a shark. And then they shoot it from behind. It's like, that's not a shark. That's a vagina. That's what I thought too. I was like, it's just like, oh, it's a shark. I'm like, that's a weed. Yeah, that's like a guy looking at it going. Yeah. I see a shark. 100 percent shock week. I can see it. So weird. There's blood in the water.

So, so, and then of course, there's this moments where she wakes up in a cold sweat, which by the way, anyone that's woken up in a cold sweat, this is ridiculous. She wakes up almost like they dumped water on her and said, yelled action. Like she's completely doused more doused than Ripley and aliens when she wakes up from her nightmares, which I always thought that was bad in that movie. As much as I love aliens, Bri, he's never that soaking wet like I don.

I mean, I get the point you're trying to make, but, which is actually funny 'cause Michael Kane, when he got out of the water after he landed the plane, his shirt is dry, his shirt's dry. And I didn't notice it until I saw like the scene had just happened and I saw it and then I was looking on IM DB and I saw the trivia and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so hilarious. That don't, don't worry, we're gonna get to that There's way more problems than just that. Did you say what it said after that too?

The reason why he was dry? Yeah, cause he's wait, it's taken so long to shoot and just Yeah, the takes took too long. Yeah, he draws his clothes just dried and stuff. He was off shooting another movie by the time they said, Alright, you need to come back and finish this shot. So, alright, so now Mario Van Peebles is introduced as Michael's biologist partner, Jake. For some reason, he's in a real big hurry when we meet him, okay?

That's never explained and never talked about, but his very first scene, Michael's at the bottom in that little thing. Right there. They're doing like research on the bottom of the ocean. And for some reason, Jake is a, come on, man, Michael, man, let's go, man. Hurry up, Matt. Like, what the fuck? Why are you in such a hurry? They don't say anything about maybe you're running out of air. Make an accent. That was, and it's like, I mean, it was all right. So if you're like, you're like, okay.

We're gonna set up that maybe there's tension here like he's running out of air. That would be one thing. That's not happening here. It could be, uh, we have a visit coming from the people that are paying our grant. Which, by the way, he says in the Bah in the Amity, he's like, I can't move up here. We just got grant money. Yeah. And we need to continue our research. But when you get to Bahamas, he's all, we're out of money. What are we gonna do now? You just fucking said you just got a grant.

A grant. But anyway. That doesn't matter. That's a plot point. That doesn't happen here. Um, alright. So, uh, there's no reason why he's in a big hurry. And of course, we're pulled out of the scene by how bad his Jamaican accent is. Um, oh, by the way, I noticed at this point, we've already had characters stare off to the ocean seven times. That picture you have up right now, that happens seven times before we even get to this point. They're just like, I'm looking at the ocean.

There's something out there. By contrast, Jaws 1 does it once, and it's when he first finds Chrissy. That's the only time he sterns and stares like pensively or thoughtfully out to the ocean. That's it! It doesn't happen after that. The only other times that people look at the ocean in Jaws is when they're hunting the shark. But in this film, seven times By the way, we haven't even hit the log line yet. She doesn't even She's in the Bahamas now. She's safe, right?

And we've got seven times where people are staring off into the ocean. Alright, still in Act 1. Jake and Michael talk about how they need money, right? I just talked about that. How do they need money? He just said they got a grant. Hoagie takes Ellen to an outdoor festival called the Junkanoo, where people are singing and dancing in the streets with costumes, and Ellen pulls a complete 180 on her tangible and spiritual goals. Just kidding, she doesn't have any Spiderswallow Tangibles.

Um, one moment she tells Hoagie her belief that the shark is after her family. She tells him in that scene. By the way, she has no proof that the shark is even there yet. Um, but, then he says, one moment, uh, they dance a little bit, and then she's over it. Like that. She's just literally over it. She learns to just let it go within a moment. Right? Quite the character growth. Alright, so, 35 minutes in now, which is late for an hour and a half movie to be jumping into any sense of Act 2.

If there is a sense of Act 2. Uh, we reach what could only be described as break into two, and the main character realizes the promise of the premise, which is he realizes the shark is indeed in the Bahamas for the revenge. Before we get to that moment, they literally shoot a scene. A shot of the shark traveling to the Bahamas. Like, he might as well have luggage. He might as well have, you know, his fucking carry on bag.

He's, they show the shark swimming like, I'm going to the Bahamas, I'm going to the Bahamas. I know where you are, I know where you are. I don't know how, I just fucking know. You're just in the Bahamas. I overheard you the last time I stuck my head above water to look around. I heard you say you're going to the bottom. This is what I mean. This is what I mean though. Watching a horrible movie like this. It's actually fun if you, I mean, get some buddies, put it on, and just laugh at it.

Because, you know what I mean? So, you can have a good time with a horrible movie like this. So, here's now for script, real script structure problems. Ellen now, basically disappears. She's in like two scenes until you get to It's now Michael's story. The shark attacks Michael and Jake, and he's like, Oh my god, look how fake that looks. I know, that's what I mean. Look at the gums on that thing! You know what I'm talking about, right? You all met that one girl that's got more gums than teeth?

That's that shark. That's that's that girl. Look at her. Look at her. She's smiling. All right. So, um, I'm just kidding. There's guys like that too. I don't mean to pick on you ladies. There are guys that have more gums than teeth. Yeah. Butthead. That's how they smile. Exactly. But, all right. So now, uh, again, now it's Michael's story. Now he and Jake Mario Van Peebles are trying to figure out. Oh man now We've have to research the shark man now.

We'll sell this for money now That'll solve our money problems the money problems you didn't fucking have because you just got a grant, but okay fine Whatever you have money problems. You spend it all on you know hookers and cocaine whatever and now you have the Bahamas Right, and now you gotta study a shark that just attacked your boat, and you're not gonna tell mom about it, because that would worry her, but whatever. He says that too, he's like, oh, don't tell my mom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't tell my mom, this shark followed us from fucking Amity Island. And ate my brother. And ate my brother, but don't tell mom. Yeah, it's bad. Okay, so, and then there's these two weird scenes. Michael's irritated that Hoagie is hanging out with the mom. Like, he's almost like he's jealous. Like, and sort of like, and What is that, what is that, uh, uh, the Oedipus, uh, thing? You know, syndrome where like the Don't call your dad.

Right, right, like, just like, why is he taking you out? Like, you should be happy, your mother is going through a traumatic moment, and now this guy who can't fly a plane properly wants to take her dancing, let her take her, you know, let him take her dancing, what the fuck? And then there's this weird casino scene, and that's where Ellen, Ellen has full on achieved her spiritual goal of letting go and admitting that there's no shark. Just kidding, she doesn't have a spiritual.

But, but, in that scene, she's like, accepting, like, Yes, I was crazy this whole time, there's no shark following us. Even though it is there, Michael knows, but he's not telling her. Right, the son knows, but he's not telling her. Uh, okay. There's no false victory or false defeat at the midpoint scene, they just sort of changed their plans to study the shark. Now it's Michael's story and not, uh, uh, Ellen's. Um, so the second half of the film now, actually, I wrote this down.

Anyways, we're now in the second half of the film, I guess, and it's day one of shark studying. They stick with the sonar equipment, right? They stick the shark with the sonar equipment, which is important because I'll give it this one prop to Jaws 4, and this is a stretch. I'm even giving this as a prop. But John Williams, in the first movie, you always knew the shark was near because of the right. This didn't wanna copy that for obvious reasons. They wanted to try to be original and new.

So by sticking the shark with a sonar, you hear the shark's heartbeat whenever it's close. Mm-Hmm, So that is one attribute that they're like when there's, when the thing, the monitor starts going. Like oh shit, it's like the motion trackers in aliens, right? Like oh shit Yeah, it's coming. It's coming like and it was really effective in aliens.

Yes an alien actually There's a motion tracker alien alien and aliens, but so that's the one thing That's what gives this movie, uh, an F, uh, plus instead of an F minus, is that they do have this one thing with the heartbeat that tells when the shark is coming. Um, as shitty as that is. So, okay, so, sonar equipment, this is meant to be the superior, uh, position for us as an audience. We know when the shark is coming. Uh, day two of shark studying, we have our first jump scare.

Keep in mind, this is a shark horror film. And our first jump scare is one hour and six minutes in, and it's not even the shark, it's an eel that swims towards the camera. They're trying to wake you up. Yeah, exactly. They figured at this point you're asleep an hour in, so let's give them a jump scare. I'm still watching the movie. Uh, Michael presumably is the new protagonist now that mom has answered her climactic goal. I wrote, just kidding, she doesn't have one.

Uh, is now having, um, now Michael is having the nightmares. You see the switch now? Now Michael's having the nightmares, not Ellen. He's waking up in the cold sweat being doused with water. Uh, okay, all is lost. Ellen is at Carla's presentation, uh, when she sees the shark for the first time. Keep in mind, you read the logline, right? The all is lost near the end of the film is the first time Ellen has seen the shark in the Bahamas. Right.

Okay. Uh, he eats the swimmer, he scares Thea, uh, oh, oh, this is great. The shark literally stands straight up out of the water, so everyone can see him eat this dude. Right? Or is it a chick? I can't remember. I think it's a girl swimmer. Whatever, it's a victim. The shark literally stands up out of the water while it eats Yeah, we kind of like that. While it eats a person.

So my wife was in the other room, she didn't want to watch this, and I She, she must've been cracking up at me because I'm laughing my ass off in the living room when all this is going down and I'm like, Oh my God, this is, you know, I'm yelling at the TV. So this is the fun you can have with some bros, just get them together, put this on and get ready, you know. Do a shot every time you laugh. That would be good. Yeah, you could do a drinking game with this easily. Yeah, drinking game.

Do a shot every time you laugh. Okay, so, so now we have the Dark Knight of the Soul. She's now at the Alla's Lodge. She sees the shark has followed her there and it's a terror. Blah. All, uh, Dark Knight of the Soul, she has to contemplate what she's gonna do next. What does she do? She takes a boat and takes it out to sea. Why? We don't know. She doesn't have a gun. She doesn't have a bazooka. She doesn't have a hook to fish the shark. Nothing. She's just gonna take a sailboat.

Hijack the boat. But she's gonna bart. And that's all you need. Yes, yes, yes. So, so, it's almost like, um, we are, We are left to think that maybe her goal, if she had one, was maybe if I let this shark eat me, it'll save my family, right, it won't bother my family anymore, what it wants is me, it's here for revenge, promise of the premise, it's here for revenge, and if I let it eat me, uh, that came out dirty, that's Michael Keen's job, um, then maybe the movie will be over.

Okay, well, there's other, there's other weird things that are happening. So Thea's in shock, but she's resting at home. Contrast to when Michael was in shock in the first movie. Hang on, let me fix my headphones here. When Michael's in shock in the first movie, he goes to the hospital and he spends the night there. But now his daughter is in shock and it's, oh, just. Cuddle her up in front of the TV. We'll put on Moana. Everything will be fine. Um, yeah. So, uh, good time to mention.

Okay. So I put it here. Good time to mention the POV shots. Cause here the shark again, keeps lifting its head out of the water. Like, Oh, there's Ellen. She took a boat. Well, I'll get right on that. Right. So I'm going to go after that boat now. Uh, These last, are we in the last scenes yet? Cause there's so many things. I mean, All right. So break into three. Five point finale. Are you ready? Yes. This is the end of the film, and it's gonna follow these five points, I hope.

Okay, one, gathering the team. Yes, it does this. Michael gets Jake and Hoagie to, uh, to go get mom, right? They're gonna go get in a plane. Crash land on the water. Wait, we're not there yet. We're not there. We haven't done Sully yet. Right now, we're just gathering the team, right? We're just getting the guys together. Two, execution of the plan. If the plan is to find Ellen, then yes, they do that. They land a plane on the water. It's not designed to land on water.

And before they, uh, I actually wrote this. Before they get all Sully, Hoagy does this intentionally. He literally says, I'm gonna land this on the water. You know, it's, whatever. Three, Hightower Surprise. The shark eats Hoagie's boat and presumably Hoagie. Uh, certainly Jake as he is seen in the shark's ma Oh, so Mario Van Peebles Okay, this is possibly the worst part of the movie. Mario Van Peebles, right? Literally gets eaten by the shark. The shark has him in his mouth. Is crunching him.

There's blood spraying out. He's dead, right? Yeah. Right? You would, you would, yeah. You would think. The fact that he came back, I was laughing my ass off. I'm like, come on. Four. Four. Dig down deep. After Hokey emerges from the water. I wrote this down. Shirt completely. Right, I might add. Michael decides he will SHOCK the shark into submission. Because of the thing that Jake put into his throat right before he died.

By the way, he's back to being the lead again because Ellen is just ballast now on the ship. She's just on the ship. She's not doing anything. Michael's now back to being the lead. And he's going to shark the shark! He's going to shark, my god. Shark the shark. He's going to shark the shark. This sharkarita is hitting me a little too hard. So, execution of the new If anyone is listening, these sharkaritas look so good. Yeah, they do, don't they? Well, mine mostly tastes like lemonade.

But, I'm afraid to see what my poop's gonna look like. Mine tastes like tequila! It'll probably be blue. Alright, so, Execution of the new plan. The shark appears to roar like a lion every time Michael shocks it. It sticks its head out of the water going, ROOOOOAR! Which, that roar You got some trivia on that, Lee? Yep, that roar is actually, they didn't re record or use anything from the original film. It's actually from a Tom and Jerry's episode. How lazy they were to do it. That's hilarious.

Okay, so, so, here's, here's an important part. Uh, uh, uh, part five of the execu uh, of the five point finale, execution of the new plan. Now, while the shark is shark is roaring, Ellen now becomes the main character again. Because she is now like, I'm going to steer this boat into the shark. Somehow she knows it's gonna stand up out of the water again. So she can spear it with the front of the boat? I don't know. But anyway. Perfect spot.

So, in the climax, Michael shocks the shark and stands up clear out of the water. And just so, the broken, uh, the broken bow spirit, which was broken when Jake was eaten, impales him. Right? She stabs the shark with the boat. And then it appears to explode? Yeah, I don't know why it exploded. Like, shouldn't it just be, you know, shivved and like, just dead? It just blows up. It just blows up for no reason at all. Um, so here's the funny part too, like, leading up to that.

The smile you son of a bitch flashback comes back to Ellen as she's about to impale the shark. But wait, it gets, it gets better. It gets better. It wasn't her flashback. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's better than that. There is a, uh, an original ending on YouTube. You can find it. And in that moment, she has flashbacks of scenes that she's in, in Jaws 1, where she is running to little Sean's aid.

Yeah. And then there's a flashback of her in Jaws 2 where she's holding the one swimmer that got attacked, nurturing her. Okay. They replaced those. They replaced them with flashbacks of scenes she's not in! Yeah. She has a flashback of her oldest son Sean being eaten by the sharks. She's not there! She doesn't know how that happened, and then there's another flashback of Smile, you son of a bitch. She wasn't there! We were. How did she flashback to a scene she's not fuckin in? Yes. Magic.

And then, magic! Movie magic! And then she impales the shark, and it blows up, and then if you want to talk laziness The shot, my headphones keep sliding, I'm getting so, I'm getting so animated. Are you gonna talk about the painted sky and the fact that they're in a pool? No, no, no, no, no, no, whoa, wait, no, this is way worse than that. The shot they use of the shark's blown off head sinking to the bottom of the ocean is the shot from Jaws 1. It's the same shot. It's the same shot.

They just stole it. And before you say, well, how can they do that? Well, because the production company owns the rights to Jaws 1, not Spielberg. So they're allowed to do whatever the fuck they want, and they literally took the shot from Jaws 1 and implanted it here, as the shark is drifting to the bottom of the odor, minus head. Now, that might have been, that's why the shark blew up, by the way, because they're like, how are we going to make that shot work?

Because the shark From Jaws 1, had a head, has, has, his head exploded. And they're like, Well, when you impale a shark with the front of the boat, It's common knowledge that their heads explode. So let's just do that. Right. Right? All right. So, resolution. Jake survived! Mario Van Peebles comes out of the water. No shark bites. At all. Fun. He's fine, just he's all, help me man, I'm sinking man, I can't swim man, whatever. And they save him.

I even wrote, Jake survived how, who the fuck knows. I wrote that down as a note. Um, and he has no wounds on his chest. Uh, uh, there's some playful banter, and then Ellen goes back to Amity. She said that's how it ends, is she's getting on the plane. So, character arc. What character arc? Plot structure. Script structure. Emotional shifts. Tangible and spiritual goals. But as a drinking game, from laughing, every time you take a shot, every time you laugh, I give it five stars.

So, writers You aspiring writers, if you really want to know what makes a script good, and what makes a script bad Just watch these two movies, just back to back. But yes, make Jaws 4 into a drinking game. Alright, so I have some trivia on this too. Alright, uh, okay, so I actually mentioned one of them and that was the flashbacks. Hold on, before you get to trivia, you didn't even mention I said something about the painted sky. That was so obvious to me.

And that, one of those final scenes, they're in the water, and they show the sky. And it was like Cause they had just shown a sky that looked like a real sky, then they show this painting, hanging up in the sky, and you can tell the water looks like it's in a pool. I was like, oh my gosh. I mean, but why not? We've gotten to this point, right? I know, I know. We've made it this far, like, yeah, we need to release this.

Yeah, um, by far, before I get to any more trivia, by far my favorite shot is the shark traveling to the Bahamas. They actually have a shot of the shark just, I'm going to the Bahamas! Going down the, going down the east coast. It would have been so much better if he had luggage with him. Like, just like strapped to his back. You know? Like, that would have been great. On his back, ready to go.

So, Director Joseph Sargent, I said in an interview at the time, of course, uh, he said this, everyone knew it was a ridiculous premise, but because they had just come off of Jaws 3D, and the studio was dying for something, right, they had nothing in the tank, no pun intended, they had nothing to like put out there, so they're like, well, let's reboot Jaws, so they go to this guy, this Joseph Sargent, and they're like, alright, we need to come up with something, we have to make another Jaws

movie, but we want it to be different and fresh and new, so they came up with the idea, and That the shark follows the mom from Amity Island down to the Bahamas. And you know what the director says? Okay, like, like he knows it's a shit idea. He knows it's ridiculous, but he's like, but we weren't going with that. We were going with something mystical and fantasy and something that's different from the other films. So that's why we did that.

Yeah, um, Lorraine Gary also admitted she only did it for the money. Michael Caine, of course, the famous line where he, you know, I'd never seen the film, but I saw the house that it built. Um, so this really needs to be a lesson to, to writers. Um, man, what, uh, look no further than these two films. Really. Sarfar. Sarfar on the spectrum of each other. Yeah, there's, uh, exactly. Like, they're not even close. Like, some people are like, I like Empire Strikes Back more than Star Wars.

I like Godfather Part 2 more than Godfather Part 1. I like Aliens more than Alien. There's literally nobody that says I like Jaws the Revenge better than Jaws. If they are, they're insane. I was gonna say it's Lorraine Gary or Joseph Sargent, the director and the actress that played the lead role. Wait a minute, she's not the lead. I forgot Michael's the lead. I can't, I can't even remember who the lead is. It was the shark. Right.

Now see, if you could, you could probably come up with a three act structure based on the shark's point of view. And he's the lead. And these asshole humans, they're the antagonist. We should go with that. They killed my dad, they killed my brother, and now I'm getting my revenge. Dude, I mean, really? This is so bad. And I've seen bad movies before. I always tell people Have you seen The Room? But The Room is classically bad. Like, it's bad for a fun way, right?

Like, it's fun for Like, when they show that in the theaters, every time they show spoons, the audience members throw spoons at the screen. Uh, my brother doesn't know this. You have to look up The room, Chris, you have to look up the room. It's so classically bad. Yeah. Yeah. I remember. It's become a novelty. It's become a novelty. I remember that was a thing. I didn't see it. You're right.

Yeah. It's just tearing me apart, Lisa, or the fact that they, you, they have three different sex scenes, but still the same sex scene with three different people. And he has sex with her belly button each time. Oh, no. Yes. At no point is he actually anywhere near her vagina. No. And also one of the main characters gets, uh, gets recast halfway through the film. Which is great. No one says anything. Uh, I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me, Oh, hi, Mark.

Just for no reason, like for fun. Well, par more. He doesn't. Oh, hi, Mike. Um, alright, so, generally, uh, before we get into Six Degrees, Lee, do you have any feedback on Jaws vs. Jaws 4? Thanks for giving him the mic back, Jerome. Yeah, so, so I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have to stay, generally, on these shows, I just go off, and I don't give anyone a chance to breathe. No, that's perfectly fine, I'd rather you do that, cause it, you know, it just keeps it going.

I just, I know, I heard this film was bad, I just didn't realize how bad it was, and it's like, this is a giant pile of shit, and The Jaws is such a, is always a textbook film, it's fantastic, it's, besides the CGI. Still stands up today, but number four like, you know, like this is a franchise killer This is what I've never done another one ever and you know, what's funny you mentioned the special effects So I was recently watching the climax of so okay.

So let me has a full disclosure I have a seven year old and a five year old both girls and in sort of a Bad father trying to toughen them up kind of way. I show them clips from diehard. I show them clips from alien The chestbursters being an alien right because I don't want them to be afraid of things. So I Expose them to this shit early. I showed my kids the matrix when they were little Yeah, so their favorite scene, by the way, from this movie is Quint getting eaten by the shark.

By the way, their second favorite movie scene is the bear, uh, attacking Leo in the revenant. Like, that's the, so, so this is the kind of shit I show them on YouTube. That's what he had to do to get that Oscar. He had to get hauled by a bear to get it. Great scene. But I show my kids this, the, the alien bursting out of John Hurt's chest, an alien, right? Like I show them this so that they, uh, they don't fear things. But, uh, so one time I was showing somebody, they're like, no, you don't.

I said, yeah. And I showed, I said, Vivi, uh, that's my seven year old. Let's, let's show, it was a neighbor or somebody. And I put on the Quint being eaten scene. And the first thing that person said was, God, that shark looks so fake. And I'm like, Motherfucker? Like, no. You wanna see fake? Watch Jaws 4. Yeah. Lay off Bruce, okay? Which was the, lovingly the name they gave the shark while shooting Jaws 1. Um, but, but anyway. Steven Sparrow, he's a lawyer or something, wasn't it?

Some, uh, yeah, something like that. Are you ready? All right, here we go. Yeah. So I've officially ran out of ice, so I now had to crack into what I call my lightsabers, which is my tall can, my 25 ounce beer can. I don't drink regular beers, I drink mega beers. Why the hell not?

It's funny actually, I'm just scrolling through trivia, and there's so many ones that are saying This, uh, this person declined to return, declined to return, declined to return, declined to return, declined to return, declined to return. Yeah. And here's the best part, we, the three of us, All three of us, we could make Jaws 5 and improve greatly on what was left behind. I need, I need, I need The Rock to play the main character. That's, that's how you're gonna make the money.

No, no, I'm gonna tell you something about The Rock. You wanna hear some trivia about The Rock? I had this argument with somebody before. They're like, The Rock is the new Schwarzenegger. And I said, stop, stop, stop, stop. Arnold, first of all, had charisma and screen presence. But here's what, here's the real big difference between Arnold and The Rock. I love The Rock, he's fun. But did you know that The Rock has in his contract, that he can never lose a fight.

Yep. And he can never ever, uh, what was it, he can't be like defeated, or be the site of defeat, or something of that nature. What makes Arnold great, is the moments he gets shit kicked out of him by the Predator, and he still has to figure out how to win!

You know, screen presence, your hero can't be infallible, your hero has to get the, look at John McClane, what makes the Die Hard movies so great, is that guy gets the living fuck kicked out of him, for two hours, in every movie, and he still wins in the end. Yeah, the walk on glass. Oh, that's sick. Yes! Imagine Brody being in Die Hard. Oh, no, I get someone else to do it. It's not. Yeah. Right, right. I'm not doing it. Where's Quint? We can't get Quint to jump off this building?

Like, you know, like, but, but The Rock won't do none of that shit. I love The Rock, but he can never, he hasn't his contract. His movies are fun. I love them. They're fun, but he hasn't his contract. I don't lose a fight, and I don't ever, like, have to deal with adversity. I'm, I'm always great. I'm infallible. Question, like, how, I think it's great. How would you, off the top, how would you make Jaws 5? Like, how would you go back to Amity Height Island? Would you do it somewhere new?

Would you do it somewhere fresh? How would you craft the story in this day and age? or, or here's a 50 bucks thing. Do what a lot of films are doing right now. Legacy sequels. It's the grandkids that go back to the island. Yeah. You, well, what? Yeah. What you could do is you make it Jaws five, but you don't call it Jaws five. You call it jaws. Jaws the revenge two. Put a rifle in my mouth right now. No, if you did it today, it would probably be a prequel.

Well, no, no. Well, you can do a prequel. Yeah, yeah. You do a prequel of, it's like a, like a Finding Nemo meets Jaws, where it's like, he's a guppy and he's learning how to swim with his one fin. He watched his mom be attacked by some fish. And that's why he's so pissed. Right? And that's why he wanted to eat people. Oh my God. I just realized why the shark in Nemo is called Bruce. Yes. Because. Right! You didn't know that? No, I didn't. I never put the two together.

That's, yeah, that's why it's not Bruce. I love Bruce. But anyway, uh, oh yeah, he's off. That's so good. Anyway, um, no, no, no. But, but, but, but, but, but, You could do a direct sequel to the first one where, you know, they do that now. Where like the, the Halloween Was it 2018? Halloween was supposed to, like, shit, can Halloweens two through five and it's a direct sequel to that. Um, well, uh, super, uh, Superman returns. The one that Brendan Roth was, the Superman was the same thing.

They were, it was basically a direct sequel to it Ignored other movies and they ignored Superman three and four, like they never existed. So you could do it direct week, but New Ghostbusters did that. Yeah, Afterlife. Ghostbusters Afterlife, which is actually a really good movie. It's a direct sequel to the first movie. It's like the other ones never existed. I thought it does touch on the second one. Doesn't it touch on the fact that the second one did happen?

But very, very like very just ignored the third one, I guess you want to know here. All right, we like to go off on tandem. So I know a little trivia about that. When they first did Ghostbusters one, the script, uh, Ernie Hudson's characters, uh, Winston was, was in 65. No, I think it was more than that. It was like 70 to 80 percent of the script. He was introduced on page eight. The reason why is because Eddie Murphy was supposed to play him. It was all SNL guy. It was all SNL guys.

And Eddie Murphy was supposed to play Winston, but Eddie Murphy dropped out to do Beverly Hills cop. So then they rewrote it. And by the way, uh, uh, what's his name? Uh, Ernie Hudson, he got the script, his agent gave him where he's introduced on page 8, and he's like, Oh, fuck yeah, this is gonna be my breakout film. I'm gonna be a big star now. He shows up on set, and they're like, here's the revisions, and he looks at the script, he's not introduced until page 65.

It's like, it's like, what the fuck happened? They're like, well, you're not Eddie Murphy. Well, look at him now, he's the only one that's still going in the franchise, and he's the richest. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure now he doesn't care. He did say in an interview that broke his heart as a, as a starting out actor. He was like, dude, I had it. I was telling my mom and my grandma and everybody, I'm going to be a huge star. And I get to the set and I find out I'm just the also ran guy.

Like I just, yeah, I'm tacked on at the end. Um, so little side trivia there on Ghostbusters, but, uh, but to that point. So if we were to do a Jaws five. We should probably do a direct sequel to Jaws. The problem is everybody's dead. Yeah for the most part. That's why you do a prequel. Martin Brody, Chief Brody as a New York cop, as a young age, avoiding responsibility and the movie ends with him deciding to move to Amity Island. That's a great movie, Chris. Let's do that. Let's do that.

I can already see the last shot. I can seriously see the last shot saying, Start new, somewhere safe, or you wanna start something peaceful, move here. You could actually make it, he, uh, Brody in New York City. Accidentally, he kills, um, the shark's mother and moves to the island and it follows him down there with his luggage, with his luggage. He's driving, you know, um, but, uh, but again, that's pretty much what Abrams did with, with star Wars.

The force awakens is just a rehash of a new hope. Oh, right. It's the same fucking movie. So if we were, if you were to tell me, okay, I'm tasking you to do a new Jaws movie. I would just rehash the first one, but create new actors and new characters or whatever. So people could say, this is just like the first and I'll be like counting the money going. Yeah, it is. Yeah, that's like the first. What was that? Just like the first. Yep. Same character arc and everything. Funny how that works out.

Doesn't it? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to fold up. When I was in the force. I'm gonna fold, right, I was just gonna say I'm gonna fold up my J. J. Abrams money here, and I'm just gonna put it right in my pocket. Whatever. Short attention spans. Um, anything else on Jaws 4 vs. Jaws 1? Well, I'm out of trivia, do you guys have anything else?

Well, I'm chomping at the bit, getting ready for the six degrees, because I want to see how long it's gonna take you, uh, To do this on the fly, that's fucked up by the fly, you have no idea what's coming at you here. No, I don't. Not at all. Nah, the little trivia nuggets that I can see here, they're not interesting at all, just more people going decline, decline, decline. Um, oh, well, actually, here's a little good trivia thing that I did see.

So, Jaws 1, on a budget of 9 million, made 476 million at the box office. Jaws 5 was 23 million dollars to make and only made 51 million dollars at the box office. You mean, you mean 4? No, 51. No, you said Jaws 5. Oh, sorry, Jaws 4. That's the movie we're gonna make! That's the movie we're gonna make! Yeah, sorry, Jaws 4. Wait, so how much did it make, Jaws 4? Uh, 51 million dollars on a 23 million dollar budget. So it still made money. It still made money. Nothing. Yeah. Alright, so.

Six degrees of separation. So, do you have something to write with, Jerome? Um, no, I don't. Okay, you want to write this down, or, or on your, type it out or something? I'll just, I'll text it to you and I'll read it. No, just, just, just tell me. Just tell me. Okay. So, from Jaws, we are going to connect Chrissy, who dies in the first four minutes of the movie. My God, Susan, Susan, back, back line, back leaning. It's a, it's back a leanie, back a leanie.

So we're going to connect Chrissy with Thea, whose career was almost as short as Susan's because sadly, but she wasn't, she died. Thea, Thea's dead in real life. Yeah, she's, but she's done other movies. No, she has not. No, she does. She has. You can then I told you, you have to look it up. So Thea's name is Judith Bar Cy. You wanna know real quick while I'm looking her up? Who played the little girl? Yeah. Did you know how she died? Yeah, it's tragic.

This is a piece of, this is a piece of trivia. I didn't know if we were going to touch, but it's really sad. So the little girl in, in, uh, Jaws, the revenge, um, she was sadly murdered by her, by her father. Her father lost his mind and killed, I guess, her and her mom. And yeah, you can read all about it. There's in the, in IMDB, Um, actually, I don't remember. I think it's in, um, in, uh, Thea's IMDb page.

It, it's all written out about what happened, and it's like, so, it's dark, and sad, and, uh, yeah. But, uh, but, it also means she wasn't in a lot of movies, and I wanted to stick Make my brother work for this one. Okay. So how convenient that your career got short. It's so sad. It's so sad. Yeah, um. Okay. So, I think I got it. I can hear the ticking. So, um, But I can't use JAWS, right? Can't use JAWS.

Yeah, he's gonna have to think so and and chrissy wasn't in a whole lot of movies either the one no Chrissy yeah, she's she's not um bacalini bacalini. So, um Hmm I got it. This is four. I got it in four, but I yeah, but you you got to research I researched and I looked at imdb and everything but I know by my when my brother looks at what?

If he just looks at the movies that these two actors are in, with his encyclopedia brain, he'll probably know, he'll be able to make connections that I couldn't make. I had to actually dig a little. Man, that's a tough one. Uh, okay, so. I wish I had teeth music. Off the top of my head. Uh, uh, I know that, uh, Susan Bacalini was actually in also, she was also in the Great Muppet Caper. Okay. Right? Mm hmm. Yes. Uh, which was loaded with people. Of course, Charles Grodin's the star of that.

So it was the Great Muppet Caper, Charles Grodin. I'd say maybe Midnight Run De Niro. Uh, Heat Pacino. Scarface, F. Marie Abraham. Uh, that's too far. That's Amadeus is Tom Hulse, who was in, uh, Slamdance with Judith Varsity. So that's five, but it's gotta be less than that. So you got it in five. I got it in five, but it's gotta be less than that. So let me see. But you got to invest in it. I'm not investigating. I'm going on the fly here, you fucking prick. Alright, so let me see here.

Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. She was, the Great Muppet, Jack Warden was also in the Great Muppet Caper. Okay. So that's, uh, so Great Muppet Caper. Yeah. Jack Warden, who's in, and Justice for All with Pacino.

Scarface, with F. Murray Abraham, who's in I'm a dance with tom hulse and still file five slam dance with can i can i can i tell you what i did i'll just tell you that i started with judith judith you started with judith yeah i started with her now look at what movie she was in. Now you're not using the animated ones were she just as voice no no voices to feature film. Yep. It was, uh, it was, she, she was on the big screen in a feature film. Okay. Uh, are you seeing Gary Busey? I did not.

Okay. Uh, okay. Uh, what movie did you use? Eye of the Tiger. Okay, with Gary Busey. But who else was in that? Uh, Yafet Kodo. That's who I used. So, Eye of the Tiger. Uh, Kodo? Well, the immediate movie, when I saw his face, I knew what movie I was going to use with him in it. Which one? Alien. I'm helping him. I'm so disappointed right now. No, but it's so much fun. Aren't you? Chris? Oh, Harry Dean Stanton. Harry Dean Stanton. I'm putting him. Oh, no, I got it. I got it. You look so stumped.

Yeah. It's like you're waiting for the penny to drop. Yeah, I, it's, alright, so, I don't know, I don't know, I've been drinking, what do you got? Alright, alright, Judith, uh, Barsi was, um, she was in Eye of the Tiger with Yafit Koto, is that how you say it? He was in Alien with Sigourney Weaver. Okay. Sigourney Weaver was in Ghostbusters. With Dan Aykroyd, who's in 1941 with Susan Backelund. So I did it in four. Fucking prick. That was fun though.

See, now again, this whole, this isn't a stump, Jerome. He does shit like this. He does shit like this. Where he is making it a stump. I know it's my fun though, but you're right though. We've never, Lee, we've never, um, not gotten one in within less than actually, I don't even think we've gone to six degrees. Have we, have we, I mean, usually by five, I think five is the longest one we've ever done. Uh, I thought another trivia because of these, uh, actors and actresses.

The lady that plays Mrs. Kintner in Jaws, the one that slaps Brody in the face, I think, I want to see, she's only been in two movies. You know what the second one is? What? Jaws 4. Oh, she was in this one? Yes. So when, when, uh, Sean dies from the shark attack early in the movie, the first 10 minutes or whatever, there's a scene of, of Ellen out by the ocean, staring off into the ocean, and there's people that come to the house to see how she's doing. Mrs. Kintner's in the living room.

Because why not? They both have lost a son to a shark. So she's one of the few actors that. Okay, I'll be in it. She's one that was like, trimming her rose bushes, and they're like, hey, you wanna make a quick 50 grand? And she's like, okay. Wow, you are not kidding. She's literally, Jaws, Jaws the Revenge, Jaws deleted scenes video documentary in 2000 and then The Mist uh, Mist Overtale in two twenty sixteen. That is it. Wow. That's funny. Yeah. Wow. That's like it. That's it.

And one of those is a documentary. Yeah. Yeah. Of of the same footage. Of the same footage! Of the same footage! Right! So she's not even really in it. Yes. She she had to do no extra acting for that. Yeah. Like. Oh. So, several decades after filming The Jaws, Lee, who plays Mrs. Kintner, walked into a seafood restaurant and noticed that the menu had An Alice Kittner sandwich.

Ehh. She She commented that she had played his mother many years ago and the owner of the restaurant went out to meet her, none other than Geoffrey Foys who played her son. Who then No way! This was the original movie was shot. That's interesting, I didn't know that. Holy shit! That's a good trivia. That's crazy. The chances of that, right? You know, the funny thing is when you mentioned Susan Bakalini, I was good.

I was actually thinking about 1941 because I think she's only been in a couple of movies, but you know, her scene in 1941. It's a spoof on her scene in Jaws. 1941 opens with her running out naked into the water. And instead of being hunted by a shark, this Japanese submarine comes up out of the water and she's on top of it naked. She's like, oh my god. I forgot about that. It's a complete spoof. Which, of course, it's a Spielberg movie. 1941 is a Spielberg movie.

I've seen it, but it's been a long time. Yeah, they spoof, they spoof, the opening scene is a spoof on her part in Jaws. That's funny. So, yeah, so when I, when you first said her, I was like, I bet you 1941. But then I thought, yeah, Aykroyd and John, John Belushi and I don't know. And I was thinking about The Great Muppet Caper because Grodin was in so much stuff. And, and there's a lot of stars in The Great Muppet Caper. So that's where I went first.

When you said Judith Barsi, I'm like, wait a minute. She's like, she's dead. She's only done like two things. But there's big names in those movies. And again, not to make light of it, but this is really weird. Spielberg has sort of like a curse with children. Oh, with child actors, yeah. With children in his movie, like the Poltergeist kids. Yeah, that was crazy. But they're all like weird. Like the teenage daughter of Poltergeist was strangled by her ex boyfriend.

Yeah. The whole cast have Like, didn't the whole main cast have a car accident, die, or sick in something else? Well, the, the son is fine. There's, there's a rumor that the son died too, but he didn't. The, you're talking about Poltergeist, right? Poltergeist 1. Carol Ann, of course, died after Poltergeist 3. She had a weird one too.

She had these, these, uh, sores on the inside of her large intestine that, uh, Uh, as the feces would go through, her intestine was leaking into her bloodstream, her blood. Yeah. So she died. She died of septic shock. Wow. That was weird. Yeah. Yeah. That's a fucking weird one, right? Like, that's just weird. And then, um, and then, what was it? The, uh, so Judith Barley, of course, you think she contracted something when she was in the spirit world? From, from older.

Older guys, possibly either that h rv, you know, sorry, contract. But, but, uh, so Judith Parsey, Judith Parsey is not really technically Spielberg's cause it was Jaws 4, it had nothing to do with that. But yeah, her, her dad, uh, there were, uh, immigrants. He was an alcoholic. Yeah, he was an alcoholic. He was abusive. He lost his mind, and he killed both her and the mother, and then killed himself. Yeah, it was horrible.

But it was crazy, yeah, it was like, uh Like that wrestler, what was that wrestler's name that did that shit too? Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Chris Benoit. And you know the weird thing about that one is? They found out Chris Benoit died. That was the headline. Chris Benoit is dead. That night, like, Vince McMahon and all the wrestlers were like, cause it was like Monday Night Raw or something, they're like, let's have a tribute! Oh no, yeah.

So they go and start having all this great tribute and like, Five minutes before they go on, they're like, Fuck, we just found out how he died! He killed his whole family and himself! And they were like, Do we do the tribute? But he like, Oh no! He's on a panic at the last minute, Like, oh my god! Yeah, that's horrible. I think also if you go onto like the WWE Network, I think that episode has fully been taken out. Like there's no mention. Really? It is no mention.

I would, yeah, I would, I would imagine. You know where I saw it? There's a documentary that has a bunch of episodes called The Dark Side of the Ring. Yeah, that's really good. And they talk about it on that one. That's a really good one, because they talk about everything. They do, uh. They do Owen Hart's. Owen Hart's, uh, they do Owen Hart's, uh, Owen Hart's death, uh, in the, uh, Montreal Screwjob, and then they, uh, they have the, the, the ill fated flight where, uh, uh, what's his name?

The Ride from Hell? The Ride from Hell, where they're like a sexually assaulting stewardesses and shit. I mean, you get these, all of these wrestlers coked up, you know what I mean? And then you put them on like an 11 hour flight from Europe to L. A. or New York, and they're just losing their minds! They didn't have to strap one guy down, like, one wrestler, they had to like, duck deep to his seat or something, like, it's crazy. There's a whole bunch of stories about that fly.

Yeah, um, but don't get rid of it. We're getting way off subject here. Way off topic, way off topic. But, um, look guys. That's why they call it Rant. We got the lights, we got the cameras, there's only one thing left. So, so, Lee, I hope you get an example, you're getting a little idea of how our shows go. So anyone that's listening, listening to this, if you guys are fans of Lee and you like, uh, lights, camera rant.

And you see, like, how we interact, we drink while we do our show, we go off on rants and tangents, and we talk movies and all kinds of crazy shit. The Silence of the Lambs episode, the, the Midsommar, the Silence of the Midsommar Part 2 that we're gonna release on Halloween. Halloween. He damn near killed me. He said something that my brother almost died. He almost died. He broke me. I may have pissed my pants. I'm not going to, I haven't said that anywhere. Maybe I just now said it to him.

I know, but Oh my God. I was laughing so hard. And so. Anyways, it was so much fun, but. Everyone needs to go check it out. And how you guys only have 14 episodes amazes me. I thought you guys would have so much more. No, so this started out, I mean it's still, it's just a hobby. Um, I've, so my brother and I have done this. All our lives, and there's episodes that we didn't even post, right? Because in the beginning, the audio was so bad, we just shitcanned them.

Yeah, the very first episode we, we tried to record was horrible. We didn't have, we didn't have the microphones plugged in right or something. That was like 12 Angry Men versus, uh, Chicago 7. Yeah, that was a, and I had a, that was a good episode. That was a, we actually should re, we should reboot that one. That was a good episode.

But anyways, but yeah, we've been doing this all our lives and not, and we just decided a couple of years ago, I was like, man, we should record, we should just do this and record our conversation. Cause I look forward to it and I'm glad we have. So we've gotten to a groove where it's coming out about once a month. And actually we're, I'm getting better at the editing and everything.

So now we might up it to twice a month because we're, we're going to see, we're going to see how that goes, but, um, but at least it's a regular thing now. And, and before, like, if you look at the first year, it was kind of sporadic and we were just trying to find our legs, but, um, this is our second full year. Um, and yeah, we've been going. We, I think we've averaged one a month since May and, uh, actually it's, I think December is going to be too. And so, yeah.

So, so Thanksgiving, our Thanksgiving episode. Uh, if you'll allow us to plug right now, Lee, our Thanksgiving, uh, silver screen, happy hour, um, the funny thing is that logo is taken from a real photo that was taken of us. We took a. Isn't it two photos, or is it the same one? Yeah, no, no, it's two different photos. Two separate photos of us. The picture of you is different. The picture of me, I took that picture with mom at a movie theater, by the way.

So anyway, um, which, by the way, I look, I look awful. You know what movie that was? You know what movie that was that you took mom to see? Uncut Gems, I think. Yes, it was Uncut Gems. So again, so here's the list of shit I take my mom to see. Leaving Las Vegas, Uncut Gems, The Whale, Midsommar. This is dark, man. My poor mother, I swear to God, I subject her to all this crazy shit. And she still loves me because I'm the baby.

But anyway, so, um, so we, uh, so our Thanksgiving special is, uh, a war, we're doing a war theme. Yeah, it's actually going to come out the week before on, uh, what, Armistice Day or Veterans Day in America? Veterans Day, Veterans Day. So we're going to release it on Veterans Day, and it's the thin red line and all quiet on the Western Front, the new version. Yeah. Um, yeah, the one that was just up for Best Picture recently. Yeah. So we're doing those two.

And then our Christmas special, which we are fuckin pumped for! Well, what are you guys doing for Christmas? This I gotta know. So, again, we're doing sort of like what we did today. We're doing, pick a shitty one versus a good one. There's a, what is it Chris, is it 2019? Uh, there's a movie that Mel Gibson was in called Fat Man. Another Mel Gibson turd. Another Mel Gibson turd where he plays Santa Claus. Fatman, yeah. It's all one word, too, if you look it up. It's Fatman. Yeah, it's Fatman.

And Walt, Walt Goggins, who I love. Oh, that was 2020. Is it 2020? Okay. I, uh, Walt Goggins is in it, who plays the assassin. You heard me right. And I, I love him because I loved how, The Shield was one of my favorite shows. I used to watch The Shield religiously. And, uh, Walt Goggins plays the assassin in Fat Man. Yeah. A Christmas movie. He's come to take out Kris Kringle. Right, so the What the fuck?

So, so what happens is this kid is spoiled, Brat gets coal for Christmas, so he hires a hitman to take out Sam. That's, that's the, that's the storyline. Believe me A rowdy unorthodox Santa Claus is finally saying he's declining business, meanwhile Billy, a neglected and precious 12 year old, hires a hitman to kill Santa after seeing a lump of coal in his stocking, and it's still got a 5. 9 on IMDb. My daughter, my oldest daughter told me to watch it. Are you sure it's not negative 5. 9?

No, she My oldest daughter actually loved it. She, maybe it was so bad. She, she's not on a plane. Lindsay, Lindsay watched it on the way home. Lindsay did not love this movie. She did. I swear to you, she did. You know, I watched Solo with Lindsay for the first time. I love telling that story. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, pause for station identification. All right. So anyway, so at least like, Jesus, it's like 10 a. m. on my time. Yeah, I know. It's long past happy hour here. It's like 8 o'clock.

Yeah, long past. Eastern time. It's 519 p. m. on Friday night, where I am. Jerry's right, Jerome's right in the middle of happy hour. I am right in my sweet spot, baby. Right in his sweet spot. Go for it. So, um, uh, so, oh, by the way, so we're contrasting that. We're doing Mel Gibson's Fat Man versus the 1988 Christmas classic Die Hard. Yes. Oh, yes. And the episode will end. Here's, here's the, here's the hook for those of you that are thinking, well, I don't know if I'll listen.

You'll want to listen because here's the hook at the end. We debate. Whether or not diehard is truly a Christmas movie and I will give points for and against What it is a christmas? I'm, not gonna tip my hand No, you gotta you gotta watch it. You gotta you gotta listen. You gotta listen You gotta listen to our podcast. But anyway, but but we have a great slate for 2024 right out of the bat January we're gonna do legally blonde versus liar liar Yeah.

And then in February for another one of my daughters wanted me to do, want us to do legally blonde. And I'm like, what other comedy, you know, slash legal themed movie could we do? And liar, liar was a great one. I loved that one. And then Valentine's day, we're doing a little time travel romance for, for February's Valentine's we're doing about time starring Rachel McAdams, which is a more of a recent film. Right. And we're comparing it to like an early eighties movie.

Somewhere in time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. So Have you seen that one? Yeah. No, I've seen, I've seen clips of that. Yeah. You know what? It takes place in Michigan, Lee! You gotta watch it! That's our home, that's our home state! Gotta watch it. So also in, uh, about, have you seen About Time, Lee? No. So, uh, the male lead in that is, how do you pronounce his name, Dom, uh, Domhnall Gleeson? Uh, Domhnall Gleeson from Force Awakens. Yeah. Well, he's been in other things, too.

Well, he's been in a shitload. Actually, he blew up for their, for like two years. He was in like every movie that you saw on screen. Yeah, like he was in everything X Martina. That was, yeah, he was in X Makina too. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So yeah. Anyway, this, this was a ton of fun. Lee. I am so glad you invited us on here. And we should, it's kind of late in the show, but we should plug, um, how we met on the clubhouse, uh, the empowered podcasting house and they have the, uh, yeah.

Yeah, and they have the, uh, a podcast morning chat every Monday through Friday at 7 a. m. Eastern time. And what time is that for you? 7 a. m. Eastern time. Well, it's actually now, because it's, uh, Daylight Savings, it's actually 10 o'clock when you guys start. Oh, geez, yeah. So I always listen to it the next day. Yeah, we miss you. No, but anyone, anyone who's like being an inspiring podcaster and is just looking for some new. Tips and tricks. I highly recommend it.

Like a lot of the stuff that I use now is all because of everyone chatting in that group. Yeah. Um, which seems to be constantly expanding. Yeah. Yeah. And the meetup, I'm so jealous about the meetup. Yeah. The meetup in Detroit. Yeah. Well, and it's not nailed down yet, but we're hoping, uh, you know, so maybe, maybe you can figure out a reason to come to the, to the States. Is it, is it like a meeting of mob bosses? Like they always have every Mob boss movie?

Yeah. All the mob families are getting together. All together. This is what we're gonna do with this meat. This is how you act with this meat. Um, but no. And then a rival podcaster will take everybody out. Yep. Another clubhouse. It's a, it's a great community, it's a great community though. There's no rival podcasters on that, in that clubhouse group because they're all there to support other podcasters that are trying to figure it out.

And like, like Lee, I've learned a ton, um, and Lee, you've been doing this, um, I think longer, but also more often. So you've got way more experience than we do. And I've seen you, I mean, I've seen your game go up so much in the past year, even since we met, uh, just because of things you've learned. And probably not just from the morning chat, but, um, but yeah, you've, you've implemented so many things that you've picked up over the last year or so. It's been really fun to watch.

Oh, thanks man. And like it's all from that A lot of that's from the morning chat and always picking Mark's brain, as well, of like, how to do this, how to do this, and not to mention, like, it has so many AI tools, like the title of this episode, I was, I was stuck, and I was like, all right, how do you make something, and this came up, and there's even with, I forgot what it's called, um, uh, Adobe Audio Cleaner 2.

I'm like, I wish I found that when I started podcasting, instead of me sounding like I'm in a, in a warehouse. Yeah. Well, we're trying to get my brother an actual studio and I'm, I'm in an attic that we actually finished. So this is turning into a decent studio, but my brother's in a closet. Yeah, I'm in a closet right now. I'm in a closet. I got the sound panels up. I was wondering where you were too. I was like But I'm in a fucking closet, Lee.

I'm in a And someday I want to come out of the closet. I just want to come out of it. It's acceptable today. Right. Right. There's nothing wrong with that. And I want to come out of the closet and I'm actually planning on in my garage. Uh, we have a three car garage and I'm gonna build a recording studio where I have actually some room to like have a desk and a real camera and a real everything and it's just right for it. Yeah. Dude, I'm so cramped right now.

I'm cramped and I'm not, I'm not exactly the skinniest guy in the world. So like, like I, I command this space. I feel like I'm filling it out right here, so I need a little bit of room to write shit down. Yeah. So that's why when my brother was like, hey, do you have a pen? Do you want to take some notes? I'm like, I, I can't. I'm, I'm, I'm like, I, uh, I'm, I have alligator arms right now, so. But it's good enough to hold a beer and that's all I need. That's the main thing.

I wish I, I wish I had the space to build a studio. This is, this is as far as I've got so far. And then my partner's like, you talk so loud. I'm like. It's because I'm just excited. Yeah, yeah. Well, he tells me all the time. My brother, my brother's biggest criticism. Can you step away from the mic because you're hitting red a lot. It's like up here constantly. It's spiking red. Well, that's me. I spike red. That's what I do. It means you're passionate.

It means you love what you're talking about. Right. Right. Right. So, so, so we hope that some of your fans, some of your listeners and followers will, will also, uh, pipe into the silver screen happy hour. Please do. Uh, yeah. Yeah. We, we, you know, our, our shows run about an, uh, about an hour if we're lucky. Sometimes they go over. Yeah, sometime.

Yeah. So they, they, but so if you have a long drive, like coming up in mid November, I have to drive down to LA again, which from where I am, it's about a six hour drive. I will replay all of our episodes just to pass the time, you know, like I will listen to some of our episodes. Thankfully, you're learning, uh, you're finding some other podcasts like the, uh, the writers, blockbusters guys, and now Lee.

So you got other guys to listen to, cause it's, it's just gross when we nerd out about ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I never, I know. Yeah. Go ahead. I was gonna say, I do the same. Every time I get in the car with someone, I was like, Oh, do you want me to change something? Sure. I have my podcast. Oh, this just came on. Right. Well, it's funny cause, cause Chris does the editing and sometimes he'll text me like, Hey. Midsummer's ready. And I'll be like, Oh, I'm so excited.

You know, like what's funny is that I remember in the nineties, I used to watch a show called the Larry Sanders show with Gary Shandling playing this, uh, uh, Nate, uh, late night. Talk show host. He was kind of like a David Letterman type. He was playing in the role, you know, and on the show they recorded in the afternoon, like, like they all do, you know, like the tonight show and all that shit, they all shoot it in the daytime and then they air at 11 o'clock at night.

Uh, that's why when they, when Letterman used to go out on the street, it was always daylight. You know what I mean? It's cause they shoot it in the day. But the funny thing about that show was. Gary Shandling's role, his character, he always watched his own show. Like, that's what he did every night. He would sit on the couch, put his feet up, and watch the show that they just recorded. And I remember thinking, That's a little, like, narcissistic, isn't it? That you're watching your own show?

But now I get it! Because now, when I hear that one of our shows is released, I'm like, I'm fucking listening to that! I gotta hear how funny I am! I'm like, that's what we do. And I gotta hear how much I drink. Yeah, I think that was three cracks in the can. Yeah, I should have done one more. Yeah, yeah. I can't, you know what, next show I'm going to go for one more. I'm going to go for one more. Oh, no, but look guys, thank you for this has been a blast.

And, uh, for both looking at Jaws and Jaws 4, and I will make sure that, uh, all your details and links will be in the show notes. Uh, do you guys have any final words before we send off? Uh, just thank you and we're going to replay this on our, you, you offered to let us use the audio and video or whatever for our podcast. So I'm going to tell our listeners, um, look up Lee and listen, you know, follow him and um, lights, camera rant.

You're going to, you're not going to be disappointed, especially what series you're doing right now. Um, are you doing Loki? We're doing Loki and Gen V. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good. So yeah, you, you got, and you got quite the catalog too, so Yeah. Um, check 'em out. There's lots of stuff to binge. Yeah. A hundred. I wish I can about 128 episodes now. That's awesome. That's great. I, I, I will say like, um, a again, a, a lot of our show.

Uh, is geared towards, like, uh, beginning writers, uh, that are trying to, like, figure out script structure and kind of get examples from films. That's perfect. If anyone that really wants to dig into our, our archive on any, any podcast, uh, app that you have, uh, we have some good ones, like the, uh, the, what was it, the Ethan Hawke Day is one of my favorite ones. Yeah. We, we, we compare Training Day and Dead Poets Society.

Two films where Ethan Hawke is the supporting role, but we feel he's the lead in both films, So we argue while he gets Chaptered on the billing because he's always billed as the supporting role, but he's the lead in both of those films. Yeah. And so, you know, from a writing standpoint, that's not, not Robin Williams. Not Denzel, nah. Ethan Haw. It's Ethan Hawk. I was skeptic. Awesome Guy. Gets no love. Hey he, Hey. He was great in moon night.

He did really good in Moon Knight, for being a villain. Yes! Uh, oh wait! I didn't see that one. What about, um, oh my god. Oscar Isaac and The Blackphone! He was in Blackphone too! Where he plays the serial killer, right? Oh jeez. That's right. And I think that was the same year too, so he went from being A Marvel movie into a horrific horror film. Yeah, yeah.

But, uh, but yeah, so, you know, beginning writers, uh, I think you'll dig our podcast because we, we, you know, we, we kind of pick apart scripts and that's kind of what we do. And we drink while we do it. Mike, what's, what's not fun about that? No, not when it's nine o'clock in the morning. For me, usually every episode's got a drink in my hand. Well, this was a lot of fun, and I just, you know, let's do it again sometime. I'd love to be able to revisit this idea. This is fun.

And my brother and I are, we've been experimenting with some video. Uh, so we're gonna see, cause I'd love to start doing video, at least for reels and things, you know, for social. But, um, this is a fun way to, to To do it that way your audience can get to see you and get to know, you know, what you look like and everything. So yeah, it's it's you got that. Yeah, so we're we're experimenting with that. We were fired up for this leaf. We were fired up for this show. I'm glad you guys came on.

We haven't been Yeah. I mean, we, we were pumped for the Midsummer Sons of Lambs episode and we were pumped for the Star Wars anniversary, which I think got the most hits. Is that the most, the one that got the most watches? Yeah, like, like our Star Wars anniversary show had the spiked, like that was like the one everyone wanted to listen to. Cause we really dug into Star Wars. Uh, we're all Star Wars geeks. We're Star Wars geeks. We love it. But, but aside from all of that.

We were so pumped for today. I was, I was telling people at work. I'm like, dude, I'm going on. I'm going to be in a fucking Australia tonight. I'm talking to Australia. And they're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, shut up and listen. I'm going to be in Australia. That's me. I'm worldwide now. And I'm glad that this could be your first international one. I'm really, I feel privileged. Thank you. Yes. I, Hey, thank you. My wife's been to Australia. I've never been, but I cannot wait.

I want to go to Australia. I hear nothing but great things. Good morning, Australia! It's Friday night here, but good morning, Australia! And, uh, yeah, man, we, we, I can't wait. I definitely want to check it out. It's Alright, guys, well, as always, until next time Happy ranting. Well for my brother and Leigh, I wanna thank you for hanging in there to the very end with this one. Uh, this was so much fun to record. I can't wait to do it again.

I know Leigh, uh, said that he's gotta have us back and we would be happy to. Again, thank you Leigh, for giving us the audio to put on our platform. And I want to encourage all you listening, uh, go check out Lights Camera Rant on, uh, wherever you, uh, find podcasts, but I think you'd really appreciate his YouTube channel, especially. He's got some great video work that he does on that channel as well. And go ahead and look him up on his socials, uh, we're buddies, we met on, uh, Instagram.

So go look him up on Instagram as well. So for Lights Camera Rant and the Silver Screen Happy Hour, I'm Chris Wiegand. Go support your local cinema.