Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel Jaws was an immediate success upon release and was subsequently adapted into the blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie of the same name the following year. But despite the book putting Benchley on the map and making him a millionaire, the author began to second-guess his work as time went on. “What I now know, which wasn’t known when I wrote Jaws, is that there is no such thing as a rogue shark which develops a taste for human flesh,” Benchley was quoted as saying in 2000. “No one appreciates how vulnerable they are to destruction.”
Furthermore, Benchley explained that he never would’ve written the hit novel if he’d realized how much damage it would do to the reputation of the great white shark. After the book’s debut, Benchley became a shark expert and spent the rest of his life advocating for the creatures he’d unintentionally demonized. “Considering the knowledge accumulated about great whites in the past 25 years, I couldn’t possibly write Jaws today…not in good conscience, anyway,” Benchley told the Cape Cod Times ahead of the premiere of his National Geographic documentary Great White, Deep Trouble.
The Author of ‘Jaws’ Became a Shark Conservationist After Learning the Truth About Great Whites
According to scientist Simon Thorrold of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jaws helped legitimize shark hunting. An estimated 50 to 100 million sharks are killed by humans each year, but sharks are only responsible for a small number of human deaths by comparison. “If you bought into the fact that you had this rogue, cold-blooded killer going around hunting humans, then obviously anything you could do to stop those sharks was good,” said Thorrold. “It provided cover for people who simply wanted to go out and kill sharks under the guise of somehow making people safer.”
However, Benchley, who died in 2006, insisted that reports of him regretting the book were untrue. “Regret is a waste of time in a case like this,” he argued. “There’s nothing I can do about it.” He eventually learned that stories revolving around sharks attacking boats and staying in a single area to feed on humans were implausible. As he tells it, things wouldn’t happen that way in real life because the animals have a tendency to spit people out.
The Party at Kitty and Stud’s is a softcore porno flick from 1970 that would probably be completely forgotten today if it weren’t for one minor detail: it happens to star Sylvester Stallone. The story, appropriately enough, revolves around a young couple named Kitty (Henrietta Holm) and Stud (Stallone). Despite Stud having his fair share of flaws, the two have a very active sex life, which sometimes ventures into sadomasochism. After Stud posts a party invitation on a bulletin board, a few people drop by the pair’s apartment, and their little get-together quickly turns into a full-blown orgy.
While speaking with Playboyin 1978, Stallone explained that he was destitute when he decided to take the part, which ended up being his first starring role in a movie. “I’d been bounced out of my apartment and had spent four nights in a row at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, trying to avoid the cops, trying to get some sleep and keeping my pens and books in a 25-cent locker,” the actor revealed. “That’s why I thought it was extraordinary when I read in one of the trade papers that I could make $100 a day,” he continued. “And the fact that I had to take off my clothes to do it was no big deal.”
Why Sylvester Stallone Agreed to Star in a Softcore Porn Movie Before He Was Famous
Though The Party at Kitty and Stud’s only appears to have had a limited release initially, the owners of the film, of course, tried to milk it for what it was worth when Stallone had his big breakthrough with Rocky a few years later. Stallone’s raunchy debut was subsequently reissued under the title Italian Stallion—a reference to Rocky Balboa’s nickname. “I can assure you that everything you ever wanted to see of Sylvester Stallone can be seen in this new X-rated movie,” editor Gail Palmer promised viewers in the trailer.
However, this was only after the film’s producers offered Stallone the opportunity to purchase the footage from them. “I think they asked for $100,000, but I wouldn’t buy it for two bucks, and my lawyer told them to hit the pike,” the Rambo star recalled. Looking back on his involvement with the project, Stallone said, “You know, when you’re hungry, you do a lot of things you wouldn’t ordinarily do, and it’s funny how you can readjust your morality for the sake of self-preservation.” He went on to say, “It was either do that movie or rob someone, because I was at the end—the very end—of my rope.”
The folks at the Goodrich Capital 8 movie theater in Jefferson City, Missouri, have some weird ideas for entertaining their patrons. For example, in May 2013, when Iron Man 3 premiered, reports said a man walked into the theater wearing tactical gear and carrying guns. As it turns out, the theater hired the guy to give customers a little more bang for their buck. Not everyone realized that, however.
“We had just finished watching Iron Man 3. We’re just getting into the car when I spotted a man in full assault gear, carrying what appeared to be a modified M4 and 9mm on his side,” John Morlock, a retired Army veteran who suffers from PTSD, told ABC News. Morlock didn’t tell the police, but according to JCPD captain Doug Shoemaker, the department received a series of calls pertaining to the incident. As a result, officers believed they were responding to an active shooter investigation.
The Time an ‘Iron Man 3’ Publicity Stunt Went Horribly Wrong
The theater manager, Bob Wilkins, later claimed the man with the guns was there for promotional purposes and that the stunt was planned months in advance. Wilkins also said only a few people were upset, but “hundreds were entertained.” When asked if he’d taken the Aurora movie theater shooting from the previous year into consideration while planning this bizarre gimmick, Wilkins replied, “Absolutely. That’s my number-one priority every day. It’s the safety and security of our guests.”
The theater quickly posted an apology on its Facebook page afterward. “We apologize and are sympathetic to those who felt they were in harm’s way with our character promotion for Iron Man 3,” it began. “We have worked with the Cosplacon group on many movies to dress up and help entertain our customers,” the statement continued. “We have had many complaints about the members dressed specifically as S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives carrying fake guns. We didn’t clearly tell our customers and some people didn’t realize it was for entertainment purposes.”
For the record, S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives weren’t even featured in the movie.
Mr. Lars von Trier is a self-proclaimed idiot. And he made the polarizing yet truly inventive film Idiotene (1998), or Dogme #2, for idiots and about a group of idiots. Idiotene, which I initially decided to watch after seeing that celebrity author Karl Ove Knausgård had given his endorsement, just might provoke your pearl-clutching indignation with (what may initially appear to be) its brazenly bad taste. During my first viewing, I had to keep pausing this graphic oddity because I was laughing so hard it hurt. But in the end, the profound meaning, which is revealed by way of the absurd, earned my tears in streams. (Von Trier has a knack for making women weep, as his previous masterpiece, Breaking the Waves, caused Georgia Brown of The Village Voice to run out of its 1996 Cannes screening crying, with rock-star journalist Janet Maslin of NYT following to comfort her.) The outrageous shenanigans throughout Idiotene make sense and are justified when one considers what Mr. von Trier, the auto-diagnosed “best film director in the world,” truly had in mind. I could discuss this milestone and what I take away from it endlessly. However, that is a rant for another time…
In 2025, I watched a film by a different notable Nordic director responsible for another one of my favorite movies… In infinite respects, it was thoroughly insufferable — a big empty, albeit ambitious, slab of rubbish, or what one might call ego fuel for those vanilla and undiscriminating normies wishing to pride themselves on their self-perceived depth, sensitivity, and rarefied nature. Needless to say, the film failed to activate a single one of my facial muscles, except to yawn. Alright, I’ll admit: I couldn’t resist a solitary smile upon seeing a Danish veteran actor step in to make a cameo of sorts. Having been a script reader and knowing more than a bit about acting, I could dissect the audio-visual banality in question bit by bit. And yet, since it is genius that isn’t typically received kindly in its own time, this contrived two-plus-hour pretext for adults to pat themselves on the back for the feat of having endured it would garner comparisons to the work of the immortal Ingmar Bergman — as if there were any modern-day Bergmans, Dreyers, or Tarkovskys. (And where are the genuinely fascinating characters like Agnès Varda?)
Hollywood Needs More Weirdos Like Lars von Trier
I came away from this-since awarded soporific with a sense of sadness, resulting both from now having to bear the memory of one of my favorite actors participating in something so worthless as well as disappointment in the director. Granted, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised that the now-Conformist Without a (Much of a) Cause exposed his true (gray and beige) colors, as his loss of edge even predated his perilous transition to fatherhood, which can either dull or enrich a person’s perspective. Yet, fortunately, there is a silver lining: My respect for Scandinavia’s true reigning king, “The Boss of It All,” was renewed. Thank you, Lars von Trier, for your completely uncompromising, incorrigibly obnoxious (in a real way, not a pandering marionette way), and forever utterly brilliant approach to cinema. Von Trier does not seem to have lost an ounce of that childlike wonder with which he animated his first short film as an 11-year-old, Turen til Squashland (1967), and he continues to impart that same unshakeable, (ir)reverent, wide-eyed awe in audiences. His titles aren’t messy and outlandish because they are flawed, but because they are human and impregnated with the (oftentimes manipulative) unpredictability of life. Von Trier delivers raw emotion, transformative power, and everlasting cinematic images. In short, the rogue Lars von Trier is everything that the vast majority of prevailing filmmakers are not — an auteur genius, brave, inspired, inventive, chokingly hard to swallow. These are the elements missing from the contrived, derivative, and meaningless cesspit that cinema has become.
Whereas von Trier co-founded Zentropa, his own production company, in 1992, in part, so that he could take risks and embark upon endeavors that might lose money, other filmmakers and the systems they exist within are obviously too money-oriented, which is especially unfortunate given worsening consumer taste (You are what you’ve been fed, so the loop continues…). The entertainment business generally does not award opportunities to the best directors, actors, writers, etc., and can make it difficult for more innocent souls to persist. True (as in challenging) individualism and eccentricity (as opposed to superficial outward weirdness) are discouraged. I’m not a fan of today’s Hollywood’s workings and releases (and I sigh because the American influence has quite clearly had a corrosive effect on foreign offerings, creeping into matters as minute as the way actors hold themselves, as annoying and fake little behavioral Americanisms have infected people across the world)… State funding can allow uniquely gifted creators to emerge, but it comes with its own problems.
What’s Wrong With Modern Movies? Too Many Filmmakers Are Afraid to Take Risks.
The fact that hardly anything is well-written, well-directed, and well-acted can also, to an extent, be attributed to professors and pedagogues. A shocking number of prestigious institutions claiming to teach film and the dramatic arts have degenerated into sad jokes — the useless humiliation rituals frequently required of aspiring thespians can, indeed, be even worse than one might imagine, as I can well attest. Let it be understood: Great performances don’t always come from “professionals,” as demonstrated with especially moving effect by the French giants of yesterday like Louis Malle. Poor training is even more disadvantageous than none at all — the awkward results of the former, with its telltale signs, and (the even worse menace that is) a lack of talent are presently reflected in most recent motion pictures. Cringe-inducing and artificial are the words that describe most popular actors… and civilians. Part of the charm of old movies lies in the fact that a good percentage of our ancestors were more poised and better dressed than us — I am of the view that Western civilization, for one, has been on the decline, and the state of cinema is naturally symptomatic of that.
Most casting directors need to do a better job, yes. While we are all aware that nepotism is running rampant and is responsible for some unfairness, there are certainly countless bad and bland actors who haven’t earned their places and yet do not come from positions of privilege. (I would like to acknowledge that some so-called nepo babies are incredible, hardworking, and natural talents, and there are obviously cases where it makes sense for family to work with family.) Blaming casting agents too much can be problematic, however, as they don’t call all the shots, and their efforts can be undermined by their collaborators’ stubbornness. Moreover, sometimes, a movie is just so dreadful that even a superb actor will just fail in their role.
Along those lines, films frequently suffer from having too many cooks in the kitchen, some of whom are literally scribbling over each other in counterproductive manners. I once heard a writer reveal that he never had the experience of feeling proud of his work because, by the time it hit the screen, it no longer remotely felt like his. It can be especially irksome when those on the business end decide to give nonsensical input or hire more writers than necessary. The sense of cohesion in productions can feel almost nonexistent, especially since industry egos seem to be constantly inflating. Not to mention, heavy-handed editing or forced sanitization can destroy so much.
Women’s rights and more aren’t a way for your grubby paws to make money to spend cheating on your wife, pal.
Returning to the truth that an actor can’t save a drowning ship, I have observed a disappointing related phenomenon: Especially as skilled performers age, they might become more susceptible to flattery and/or the thought of helping out, as in signing on to a passion project by a subpar filmmaker who really admires them. Thus, you can have established titans eagerly involving themselves in utter garbage. Critics will then be even more likely to join in, lending a hand to the ceremonious w*nking festivities. While there are still some amazing reviewers, a decent portion have either become afraid or discouraged from penning what they truly mean, lest they offend a bigwig by attempting to hold them accountable for wasting the public’s time and money. Have you ever noticed that a lot of reviews aren’t reviews at all but rather synopses?
Let’s explore another culprit behind the decline of cinema. Why is James Ivory’s Maurice (1987) a memorable film? Not only did it feature true talents and was it based on a 1971 novel by the same name by E. M. Forster, but this romantic drama, which focuses on the relationship between two men, was directed by a gay man and produced by another, Ismail Merchant, with music by yet another, Richard Robbins. The product of their shared labor is heartfelt. On the contrary, I’ve overheard dissolute producers giddily expressing that they thought pursuing topics like feminism and gender identity would lead to commercial gains because they considered them “trendy.” Women’s rights and more aren’t a way for your grubby paws to make money to spend cheating on your wife, pal.
Such thinking can backfire at the box office, as a fair share of viewers are actually hoping to be entertained and can see through the (ab)use of social issues as mere selling points by, in many cases, the last cretins, or (regardless of gender) serial sexual harassers, who should be taking on such subject matter. In a similar but less insidious vein, maybe you’ve seen a lesbian sci-fi flick or two made by a possibly decent, but aging and bored, man, attempting to connect with a younger audience while quite obviously lacking any connection to the characters and their struggles, hence giving the story the profundity of a car commercial (a reminder of the kind of work they used to do)? That said, if one dives into an area they have no first-hand experience in with enough care, then admirable outcomes can be achieved, and distance can be turned into a perspectival plus in gaining insight. The point, however, is that I think we can all agree that in desiring to be “current” in themes and practices, certain disingenuously preachy filmmakers have spawned results worthy of South Park and Ricky Gervais’ mockery. Now, I’m fully aware that there are plenty of exceptional human beings in the entertainment industry, so, for their sake too, let’s call the pretenders what they are.
As far as I’m concerned, Jessie Grant of Movie Magick gives excellent takes. I mention him here because he reminds us that Orson Welles posited that the cinephiles were ruining cinema by their excessive copying, or, as some might put it, homages. “In short, filmmakers should be more in love with ideas and philosophy than they are with movies,” Grant stated when summarizing Welles’ views. These words are very true. Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Emigrants (1971) by the underrated genius Jan Troell, Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror (1987), Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum (1979), and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), as penned by director Paul Schrader with the now-late Leonard Schrader, all epitomize respect for literary tradition. As such, they provide unbelievably rewarding food for thought. I will say that some degree of on-screen worship for one’s cinematic forebears can be fruitful too: If a director is brilliant enough, their nods to their idols won’t come across as that odd mix between sycophantic and hollowly pretentious that we regularly see, but rather as genuine and clever acts of love, refreshing little caprices even.
If screenwriters took more instruction from fine and ennobling literature (and were encouraged by their bosses and colleagues), then perhaps their scripts wouldn’t be so impossibly formulaic.
The fact that our filmmakers need to be more erudite (and scrupulous) routinely comes across in period pieces, as they are not always accurate enough to warrant our belief. (Just as today’s filmmakers often seem to despise the authors they adapt, they rarely properly appreciate the nuances of past eras.) On a related note, historically, spirituality has played a massive role in art, and it simply isn’t incorporated enough in (at least, Western) cinema these days — there is no modern-day Andrei Rublev (1966), Ordet (1955), or Babette’s Feast (1987). It’s been 20 years already since Pavel Lungin’s religious triumph The Island (2006), which starred the eternally reposing one-of-a-kind master Pyotr Mamonov.
Speaking of Mamonov, if I may be a bit tangential, Nordic actors may be among the most dazzlingly natural gems, but Slavic cast and crew have taken commitment to another level. For example, child actor Aleksei Kravchenko was nearly killed during the filming of our lost hero Elem Klimov’s anti-war classic Come and See (1985), not to mention his hair temporarily lost its color due to starvation, and yet this gentleman, whom I used to see dutifully walking around The Moscow Art Theatre, still acts — almost any actor of a younger generation would have run away to the cops, but I digress…
If screenwriters took more instruction from fine and ennobling literature (and were encouraged by their bosses and colleagues), then perhaps their scripts wouldn’t be so impossibly formulaic. During a recent screening of a brand-new atrocity, I whispered, “Now he gets a call that his brother died,” approximately two whole seconds before the destined ring occurred. I can usually look at the time on my iPhone snuggled in my purse and have a pretty good sense of what is coming next.
In short, cinema has become infested with talentless morons with, behind, and in front of cameras, trying to impress us with the sense and sensibility they wish they possessed… But what we really need are more playful idiots. Idiots not only like von Trier but also Paprika Steen! Vibeke Windeløv. Molly Malene Stensgaard. Bodil Jørgensen. Jens Albinus. Nikolaj Lie Kaas. Anne Louise Hassing. The sadly deceased Mogens Rukov. And the other bouquet-worthy Danish trolls who made Idiotene, which correctly prophesied that idiots are the people of the future, the cerebral tour de force it proves.
If you haven't figured out the deal with Elon Musk, yet, a blockbuster documentary is on its way to explain it in detail. Filmed by Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) and scheduled for release on October 9, the "definitive and unvarnished examination" of the world's richest person was years in the making and was well-received at its premier at the Venice Film Festival. — Read the rest
The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) is one of the classics of the ‘Golden Age’ of porn films. It was written, directed and produced by Gerard Damiano one year after the success of Deep Throat. The film takes inspiration both from Sartre’s No Exit – a play length exposition of the existentialist’s famous claim that ‘hell is other people’ – and from the Marquis de Sade’s Justine – whose titular character embodies the ideal feminine virtues of the 18th century, and is repeatedly punished for it; her innocence, piety, and honesty rewarded by a series of violations, as well as the torture, death, or betrayal of everyone she trusts (its sequel, Juliette, tells the story of Justine’s sister, who rejects both God and virtue, embraces corruption, and thrives).
The Devil in Miss Parton was released towards the end of a quiet period for angel film. After a glut of releases over the 1930s, 40s and 50s, barely anything was released between 1956 and 1968, when the genre gets going again with a series of films which deliberately play with its well-established cliches. If you’re familiar with angel films as a genre, it’s clear that The Devil in Miss Jones is written as a knowing parody of the standard tropes. The film’s protagonist Justine – having lived a perfectly virtuous life – dies by suicide, only to awaken into an afterlife where heaven is forbidden to her, yet she has not sinned enough to truly merit hell. The only solution, she is told by the angel Abaca assigned to judge her, is to go back to earth and earn her eternal damnation. She doesn’t seem enthused about the opportunity for theft, robbery or murder. What about lust, she asks?
Most of the rest of the film plays out as a series of explicit sex scenes, beginning with Justine’s encounter with ‘the teacher’ whose role is to cure her of her inhibitions, so as (he says) to make his work easier and hers more pleasurable. In each of the scenes – involving various other people, animals, and objects – the focus is on Justine. Both her pleasure and her voice are centred. At the end, she returns to Abaca, asks to be allowed to stay, only to be told that no such thing is possible, and to find herself, in the end, trapped in a small white room with a man (played by Damiano) raving about flies as she begs him to touch her.
Many of these narrative moves are easily recognisable from earlier angel films: a person awaking after death to find themselves with a lowly functionary responsible for overseeing their time in the space in between death and final judgement (Outward Bound (1930), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941); wishing to make up for the opportunities they had missed in life and hoping to do enough to be granted passage through judgment into everlasting life (Liliom (1934), remade as Carousel (1956), Angel on my Shoulder (1946); being tempted by the charms of the world they have temporarily been sent back to (The Bishop’s Wife (1947), The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945)). What’s striking about The Devil in Miss Jones is that it brings together these familiar tropes into a new format which seems, in turn, to become the template for two later angel films: 1990’s Almost an Angel, starring Paul Hogan/Crocodile Dundee and 1996’s Unlikely Angel, starring Dolly Parton. Both films share with The Devil in Miss Jones a very precise formula, here inverted: a protagonist whose entire life except for the manner of their death would seem to destine them for one of heaven and hell, and an opportunity to return to earth so as to make good on the promise of that very final moment, a moment of realisation about the kind of life they missed out on whilst alive, and then a final glimpse of their passage into their eternal destiny.
In Almost an Angel, Paul Hogan’s Terry Dean is a career criminal whose first move on getting out of prison is to try to rob another bank. As he does so, however, he spots a small girl about to be hit by a car and dies whilst saving her, only to find himself in a meeting with God (Charlton Heston), who describes himself as Dean’s probation officer, and tells him that while his entire life he never did anything but take, his final act of selflessness means that he’s earned a chance at heaven by dedicating his life to others; by giving instead of taking. While it takes him some time to unlearn his bad old habits, he manages to perform a series of selfless acts: befriending a terminally ill man named Steve and helping out the youth centre he runs with his sister Rose by clearing out some local drug dealers, convincing a tight-fisted evangelical that God is calling him to greater acts of charity, and comforting Steve as he dies. Whilst his attraction to Rose makes him regret the fact he cannot stay on earth, the film ends with a cross miraculously lighting up, Terry discovering that he cannot die, and a voiceover assuring Rose that Steve is with God now.
The sins of Dolly Parton’s Ruby Diamond are never quite as clear, but seem to be related to singing in bars, flirting with men, dating men who cheat on her, and never settling down to get married or have children. Driving home from a gig one night, she swerves to avoid hitting a death, and dies, only to find herself in a meeting with a man in a white suit who introduces himself as Peter and tells her that she’s lived an entirely selfish life, and that it’s only because at the very end she sacrificed herself for another living then that she will get a chance to make up for it. She’s then sent back to earth where she has to reconcile a family in the wake of their mother’s death by helping the father to recognise that his children need him and need a proper Christmas, helping the children to forgive their father, and pushing the father to marry his secretary, all while resisting her own desire to stay and take her place in the family home. As the film ends we see Dolly walking through the pearly gates, receiving her wings, and joining in the angelic chorus singing praise to God.
It’s interesting how precisely Almost an Angel and Unlikely Angel invert the plot of of The Devil in Miss Jones, itself a much looser parody of the angel film genre. While I can’t find any existing scholarship which connects the three the parallels are so precise – and The Devil in Miss Jones such a classic – that I’m convinced it must be a relatively direct influence on the two later films. The Devil in Miss Jones relates to Almost an Angel and Unlikely Angel like Justine to its sequel Juliette, mirrored narratives of virtue and vice, reward and punishment whose precise inversions reflect, however, a much more conventional moral universe than that of de Sade. It’s Unlikely Angel which more perfectly parallels The Devil in Miss Jones. Whereas Terry Dean ends by walking off out into the world, the promise of both further earthly adventures and of possible romantic consummation hanging in the air, both Justine and Ruby return in the end to their previous condition, albeit transformed by the lessons they have learned during their brief return to earth. Justine is only now able to fully appreciate the horror of the lonely, untouched life she already hated enough to want to kill herself; Ruby only now unable to sing in praise of God and in service of the middle class nuclear family rather than the dive bar circuit which she came from. Both films ultimately offer us a vision of the pleasures of sexual liberation once more safely enfolded into a narrative which sets desire against the care and self-sacrifice by which the white family is made and remade, in which sex can be recuperated as long as we do not acknowledge, as de Sade did, the pleasures of power, pain, and violence.
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