The Close-up Poster Answer

Now that's more like it! I think I really found the sweet spot this week--about 20 of you guessed and about a third of you got it right.

And lots of fun guesses. In fact just as many people incorrectly guessed The Abyss as named the right film. Meanwhile, some of those who did get it right said it was "too easy." And yet... So from my point of view, a perfect contest.

Aaron Wood was first with the correct answer--Pat, Nick, Jason Jennings, Matt Doman, Larry P, and Michelle also got it right. Congrats all of ya!

So what movie's poster is this image from?

 

I really thought it was a no-brainer, but then it IS from my favorite movie of all time, so I'm biased. Let's pull back a bit and I think most of you will have it:

No problem now, right? Follow me over the jump for the full poster.

 

Like I said, one of my favorite films of all time. (Technically it's always and forever tied for Number One with The Lion in Winter.) I even used to show it to 10th graders in my English classes to teach them about story structure, conflict, protag-antag, etc. Partly because it is such a beautifully constructed tale, but mostly because I love the film so much and love talking about it. (One of my students became a very good friend and still gives me Jaws-related gifts every holiday and birthday, and another, Nate Kaeding, kicker for the San Diego Chargers, went on to also become a part-time film critic... thanks, I like to think, to everything I taught him about analyzing film. And kicking field goals.)

So I'll refrain from going into my whole, long jabber about how great Jaws is and why it's such a near-perfect film (even with the very fakey looking shark). But I will leave you with some of my favorite Jaws quotes. (And believe me, you do not want to pour some drinks into me and get me started quoting Jaws. It gets out of hand.. fast. And yes, I can recite the entire Indianapolis speech. Yay me. Win a dream date, ladies.) But one thing about all these quotes, they remind you of Jaws's true strength: it's characters. If you've heard me say it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Characters, not effects or gore or jump scares or amazing stunts, make a great action or horror film.

"Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down the pond chasin' bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin', little tenderizin', an' down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back your tourists, put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, Chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's just too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing."

"That's some bad hat, Harry."

"Fellows, let's be reasonable, huh? This is not the time or the place to perform some kind of a half-assed autopsy on a fish... And I'm not going to stand here and see that thing cut open and see that little Kintner boy spill out all over the dock."

"I'm not talkin' 'bout pleasure boatin' or day sailin'. I'm talkin' 'bout workin' for a livin'. I'm talkin' 'bout sharkin'!"

"You have city hands, Mr. Hooper. You been countin' money all your life." "All right, all right. Hey, I don't need this... I don't need this working-class-hero crap."

"Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all. Now, why don't you take a long, close look at this sign. Those proportions are correct."

"You know, you oughta let that breathe a little... nothing, nothing!

"What are you? Some kind of half-assed astronaut? When I was a boy, every little squirt wanted to be a harpooner or a sword fisherman. What d'ya have there, a portable shower or a monkey cage?" "Anti-Shark cage." "Anti-shark cage. You go inside the cage?" "Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark's in the water. Our shark... Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain..."

"Yeah, that's real fine expensive gear you brought out here, Mr. Hooper. 'Course I don't know what that bastard shark's gonna do with it, might eat it I suppose. Seen one eat a rockin' chair one time."

"Your husband's all right, Mrs. Brody. He's fishing. He's just caught a couple of stripers. We'll bring 'em in for dinner. We won't be long, we haven't seen anything yet. Over and out."

"You're certifiable, Quint! You know that?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah..."

"I don't have to take this abuse much longer!"

"Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him."

"Chief... don't you worry about it, Chief. It won't be permanent. Wanna see somethin' permanent, boom-boom-boom?"

And of course:

"Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week.

"Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named 'The Battle of Waterloo' and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces.

"You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again.

"So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb."

Comments

[Matthew S.]

Oh...

*face palm*

Thank you Locke for reminding me that sleep is very much needed in my nights...

[CHRIS GORE]

You forgot the most important line in the whole movie!!!
"I think your gonna need a bigger boat"

[Trevor L.]

Foiled yet again!

[Locke Peterseim]

Didn't forget it, Chris--or "This was no boating accident." Just wanted to steer clear of the easy, obvious ones that everyone has heard a million times :)