When Harlem P.I John Shaft first appeared on the movie scene, he was a 'shut your mouth' detective to reckon with, a fact underscored by Isaac Hayes' Oscar - winning Best Original Song (1971). Richard Roundtree plays the hard-hitting, street- smart title role, hunting for a kidnap victim in Shaft (1971) and seeking a friend's murderer in Shaft's Big Score! - mixing it up with mob thugs each time. Finally, there's Shaft in Africa, with our hero bringing down a slavery cartel. Shaft's the name. Excitement's the game! Special Features: Behind The Scenes Documentary Soul In Cinema: Filming Shaft On Location Shaft: The Killing (1973 TV Episode) Theatrical Trailers
Judged entirely on its own merits, Jaws 2 isn't a bad film. It even has some passably scary moments (Brody discovering a charred body in the waves; the swimming boy racing the shark back to his dinghy). But it's absolutely impossible to judge this movie on its own merits. Despite being given a great big Panavision camera to play with director Jeannot Szwarc can't hide his TV-movie origins, nor can the script, both of which spend far too long landlocked with the bickering inhabitants of Amity Island. Where the original film boldly set out to sea with Robert Shaw's Ahab-like Quint, in a misplaced desire to attract a teenage audience this movie dwells at interminable length on the courting rituals of the local youth; where Spielberg's original is a masterpiece of pacing and carefully timed tension-building, Jaws 2 sags terribly whenever the plastic shark swims out of sight. Roy Scheider comes off best, reprising his role as Chief Brody, while Lorraine Gary's role as his wife is expanded (she must be a glutton for punishment: she also starred in Jaws 4: The Revenge). Taken as a sequel Jaws 2 is inferior in every way; taken as an unassuming TV movie it's a respectable, workmanlike effort; but looking forward at what was to follow, it begins to look like a minor masterpiece. --Mark Walker
Jaws 2 (Dir. Jeannot Szwarc 1978): Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is walking his beach beat a few years on from the horrible shark attacks on Amity Island. A missing diver's camera shows what looks like a shark fin but Amity''s cowardly Mayor (Murray Hamilton) plays down the incident. Brody raises a panicky false alarm from his observation tower and is fired for it. Suddenly the new killer shark attacks a group of small boats manned by teenagers which include his own sons... Jaws 3 (Dir. Joe Alves 1982): A deadly new attraction. The brand new ''Sea World'' complex in Florida offers visitors the chance to view the undersea kingdom from the safety of glass tunnels on the sea-bed. All seems well until a thirty-five foot Great White shark appears on the scene..... Jaws 4 - The Revenge (Dir. Joseph Sargent 1987): This time... It's personal. Lorraine Gary repeats her role of Ellen Brody widow of Chief Martin Brody in this suspenseful sequel starring Oscar-winner Michael Caine. After Deputy Sean Brody is killed by a shark off Amity Island she joins her other son Michael a marine biologist his wife Carla and their daughter Thea in the Bahamas. There she falls for Hoagie a carefree pilot and starts putting her life back together - until a Great White threatens Thea and Ellen knows she has no choice but to face her fear in a final fatal showdown...
Judged entirely on its own merits, Jaws 2 isn't a bad film. It even has some passably scary moments (Brody discovering a charred body in the waves; the swimming boy racing the shark back to his dinghy). But it's absolutely impossible to judge this movie on its own merits. Despite being given a great big Panavision camera to play with director Jeannot Szwarc can't hide his TV-movie origins, nor can the script, both of which spend far too long landlocked with the bickering inhabitants of Amity Island. Where the original film boldly set out to sea with Robert Shaw's Ahab-like Quint, in a misplaced desire to attract a teenage audience this movie dwells at interminable length on the courting rituals of the local youth; where Spielberg's original is a masterpiece of pacing and carefully timed tension-building, Jaws 2 sags terribly whenever the plastic shark swims out of sight. Roy Scheider comes off best, reprising his role as Chief Brody, while Lorraine Gary's role as his wife is expanded (she must be a glutton for punishment: she also starred in Jaws 4: The Revenge). Taken as a sequel Jaws 2 is inferior in every way; taken as an unassuming TV movie it's a respectable, workmanlike effort; but looking forward at what was to follow, it begins to look like a minor masterpiece. --Mark Walker
Jaws 2 (Dir. Jeannot Szwarc 1978): Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is walking his beach beat a few years on from the horrible shark attacks on Amity Island. A missing diver's camera shows what looks like a shark fin but Amity''s cowardly Mayor (Murray Hamilton) plays down the incident. Brody raises a panicky false alarm from his observation tower and is fired for it. Suddenly the new killer shark attacks a group of small boats manned by teenagers which include his own sons... Jaws 3 (Dir. Joe Alves 1982): A deadly new attraction. The brand new ''Sea World'' complex in Florida offers visitors the chance to view the undersea kingdom from the safety of glass tunnels on the sea-bed. All seems well until a thirty-five foot Great White shark appears on the scene..... Jaws 4 - The Revenge (Dir. Joseph Sargent 1987): This time... It's personal. Lorraine Gary repeats her role of Ellen Brody widow of Chief Martin Brody in this suspenseful sequel starring Oscar-winner Michael Caine. After Deputy Sean Brody is killed by a shark off Amity Island she joins her other son Michael a marine biologist his wife Carla and their daughter Thea in the Bahamas. There she falls for Hoagie a carefree pilot and starts putting her life back together - until a Great White threatens Thea and Ellen knows she has no choice but to face her fear in a final fatal showdown...
Shaft's Big Score is the first sequel to the super-hip 1971 original. When a pal of detective John Shaft is murdered in a bombing (and $250,000 goes missing), New York's coolest private eye finds himself caught in the middle of a power struggle between black and white gangsters over the numbers racket in Queens. Directed by Gordon Parks (who does a brief cameo as a croupier in an illegal casino) and written by Ernest Tidyman (both of whom made the original Shaft), this film lacks the pacing of its progenitor. Roundtree is at his best when he's questioning a woman he's just met about a suspect, while at the same time beguiling her into the sack (ah, those lazy, crazy days of the sexual revolution). The finale--a shootout in a cemetery, followed by a car-boat-helicopter chase through Queens and up the Harlem River--is preposterously drawn out: Shaft, impervious to machine-gun fire, winds up tripping, spraining his ankle and limping while running from the chopper; two shots later, he's sprinting like a halfback. Look for late Muhammad Ali-trainer Drew Bundini Brown as a wisecracking mobster. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com
The Incredible Hulk Returns: Dr David Banner works hard on the Gamma Ray Transponder that he hopes will rid him forever of his unstoppable alter ego. The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk is wrongfully accused of the murder of a bystander after going to the aid of a defenceless woman who was being attacked.
The original and hippest version of Shaft cruised onto cinema screens in 1971. John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) is an African-American private eye who has a rocky relationship with cops, an even rockier one with Harlem gangsters, and a healthy sex life. The script finds Shaft tracking down the kidnapped daughter of a black mobster, but the pleasure of the film is the sum of its attitude, Roundtree's uncompromising performance, and the thrilling, Oscar-winning score by Isaac Hayes. Director Gordon Parks (The Learning Tree) seems fond of certain detective genre clichés (e.g., the hero walking into his low-rent office and finding a hood waiting to talk with him), but he and Roundtree make those moments their own. Shaft produced a couple of sequels, a follow-up television series, and a remake starring Samuel L. Jackson, but none had the impact this movie did. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com Shaft's Big Score is the first sequel to the super-hip 1971 original. When a pal of detective John Shaft is murdered in a bombing, New York's coolest private eye finds himself caught in the middle of a power struggle between black and white gangsters over the numbers racket in Queens. Directed by Gordon Parks (who does a brief cameo as a croupier in an illegal casino) and written by Ernest Tidyman (both of whom made the original Shaft), this film lacks the pacing of its progenitor. Roundtree is at his best when he's questioning a woman he's just met about a suspect while at the same time beguiling her into the sack (ah, those lazy, crazy days of the sexual revolution). The finale--a shootout in a cemetery, followed by a car-boat-helicopter chase through Queens and up the Harlem River--is preposterously drawn-out: Shaft, impervious to machine-gun fire, winds up tripping, spraining his ankle, and limping while running from the chopper; two shots later, he's sprinting like a halfback. Look for late Muhammad Ali trainer Drew Bundini Brown as a wise-cracking mobster. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.comShaft in Africa, the second sequel to the original hit, foreshadows itself early on when Shaft, asked to go undercover in Africa to halt a modern-day slave trade, claims that he's not James Bond but strictly Sam Spade. Bond, however, is the operative model here, with John Shaft masquerading as an Ethiopian to infiltrate the slave business and bring it down. Yet everyone he encounters seems to know who he is and wants to kill him--but the string of dead bodies he leaves in his wake across two continents proves that no one is able to stop everyone's favourite hip private eye. Written by Stirling Silliphant, the film is long on action set pieces that are filmed with more energy than the previous movie, Shaft's Big Score. Given contemporary practices involving smugglers of illegal Chinese and Mexican immigrants, the plot isn't all that far-fetched. Roundtree, as usual, is the picture of unflappable cool--but don't get him mad. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com
Jaws 2: Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is walking his beach beat a few years on from the horrible shark attacks on Amity Island. A missing diver's camera shows what looks like a shark fin but Amitys cowardly Mayor (Murray Hamilton) plays down the incident. Brody raises a panicky false alarm from his observation tower and is fired for it. Suddenly the new killer shark attacks a group of small boats manned by teenagers which include his own sons... (Dir. Jeannot Szwarc 1978) Jaws 3: The brand new Sea World complex in Florida offers visitors the chance to view the undersea kingdom from the safety of glass tunnels on the sea-bed. All seems well until a thirty-five foot Great White shark appears on the scene..... (Dir. Joe Alves 1982) Jaws 4: Lorraine Gary repeats her role of Ellen Brody widow of Chief Martin Brody in this suspenseful sequel starring Oscar-winner Michael Caine. After Deputy Sean Brody is killed by a shark off Amity Island she joins her other son Michael a marine biologist his wife Carla and their daughter Thea in the Bahamas. There she falls for Hoagie a carefree pilot and starts putting her life back together - until a Great White threatens Thea and Ellen knows she has no choice but to face her fear in a final fatal showdown... (Dir. Jospeh Sargent 1987)
Jaws 2Jaws 2 is set four years after Jaws. Brody now finds himself in a race against time when a new killer shark attacks ten boats manned by teenagers, which include his own sons. Jaws 3The brand new 'Sea World' complex in Florida offers visitors the chance to view the undersea kingdom from the safety of glass tunnels on the sea-bed. All seems well until a thirty-five foot white shark appears on the scene. Jaws 4: The RevengeJaws 4 finds the now widowed Ellen Brody re-living the horrors of the past when she moves to the Bahamas to be with her marine biologist son Michael. The nightmares start when her grand-daughter is attacked by a Great White Shark.
Jaws 2 (Dir. Jeannot Szwarc 1978): Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is walking his beach beat a few years on from the horrible shark attacks on Amity Island. A missing diver's camera shows what looks like a shark fin but Amitys cowardly Mayor (Murray Hamilton) plays down the incident. Brody raises a panicky false alarm from his observation tower and is fired for it. Suddenly the new killer shark attacks a group of small boats manned by teenagers which include his own sons... Jaws 3 (Dir. Joe Alves 1982): A deadly new attraction. The brand new Sea World complex in Florida offers visitors the chance to view the undersea kingdom from the safety of glass tunnels on the sea-bed. All seems well until a thirty-five foot Great White shark appears on the scene..... Jaws 4 - The Revenge (Dir. Joseph Sargent 1987): This time... It's personal. Lorraine Gary repeats her role of Ellen Brody widow of Chief Martin Brody in this suspenseful sequel starring Oscar-winner Michael Caine. After Deputy Sean Brody is killed by a shark off Amity Island she joins her other son Michael a marine biologist his wife Carla and their daughter Thea in the Bahamas. There she falls for Hoagie a carefree pilot and starts putting her life back together - until a Great White threatens Thea and Ellen knows she has no choice but to face her fear in a final fatal showdown...
Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is walking his beach beat a few years on from the horrible shark attacks at Amity Island. A missing diver's camera shows what looks like a shark fin but Amity''s cowardly Mayor (Murray Hamilton) plays down the incident. Brody raises a panicky false alarm from his observation tower and is fired for it. Suddenly the new killer shark attacks a group of small boats manned by teenagers which include his own sons...
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