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I was supposed to see the 3D re-release of
Jaws last night with Tracy, but she had to bail. This time, it was because her sister tested positive for covid. Apparently her sister had not had it before, at least to her knowledge. Tracy is vaccinated and has also had covid back in February; she is likely still in a place with a robust immune response, but it was obviously still the best option for us not to go out until enough time has passed and we are certain Tracy won't also get sick again. I just learned she is scheduled to travel to Las Vegas on the 13th, so I actually hope just for her sake that she doesn't.
I still wanted to go see the movie, though, and this left me without a movie companion. I'm fine with going by myself, but I had more investment in going with someone in this case just because I already had a plan to. I actually texted Alexia to see if she'd have any interest. It sounded like she might have, but she is
also going on vacation next week and therefore has extra hours this week and so was unavailable.
Shobhit really waffled on whether to join me. To me, it really made sense for him to join me since just a couple of weeks ago he made the wild decision to watch all of the
Jaws sequels on cable, which they bizarrely ran in reverse order in a one-day marathon. He watched the truly awful
Jaws: The Revenge (1987); then
Jaws 3-D (1983), which I think I have only seen once and ironically was released in its time as a rare theatrical 3D release but of course was not 3D on cable; and then
Jaws 2 (1978). He didn't watch the original
Jaws that day, maybe because he knew he had already seen it? I was the one to introduce him to it,
years ago, as I have many super famous films from American film history he had no cultural connection to—I even remember it actually scaring him. I can't remember when that was, though; it could easily have been 15 years ago or more. [UPDATE: it was in 2009, hence
the link I provided, and just provided again.] In any case, I figured it would be a nice way for him to complete his reverse marathon, especially since the original
Jaws is a better movie than all of its sequels combined, and by a large margin.
I totally forgot to mention to Shobhit that in its time,
Jaws was actually
the most successful movie ever released (in unadjusted dollars, anyway). This was in 1975, and it beat the recent record holder
The Godfather (1972), and it held the record for only two years, until it was overtaken by
Star Wars (1977). I did mention to Tracy recently (when we had gone to see the recent re-release of
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) that Steven Spielberg has directed three films that once held the all-time box office record (
Jaws in 1975;
E.T. in 1982, which overtook the
Star Wars record; and
Jurassic Park in 1993, which overtook the
E.T. record). Just as a side note, which I'm sure Shobhit will appreciate as an avid
Titanic lover, James Cameron has held the record twice (
Titanic overtook the
Jurassic Park record in 1993, then
Avatar broke his own record in 2009).
Incidentally, I regularly hear people on podcasts call
Avengers: Endgame the "biggest movie of all time," which isn't really true. It was apparently once true for a brief period, but was later overtaken yet again by re-release of
Avatar in China
last year. At present, the
worldwide box office grosses rank
Avatar at #1;
Avengers: Endgame at #2 and
Titanic at #3. Given that
Titanic came out 25 years ago and these figures are in unadjusted dollars, that staying power is quite impressive.
Unfortunately there's no way to adjust worldwide grosses for inflation because so many nation's currencies have different purchasing power fluctuating over time, but on the domestic
all-time adjusted for inflation list,
Gone with the Wind unsurprisingly remans #1, and
Titanic still makes a stunning showing at #5, making it by far the most recent film in the top ten. (On the adjusted list,
Avatar ranks 15 and
Avengers: Endgame 16. And speaking of the inflation-adjusted list, the films in the top 5 include grosses for all re-releases over time, and with the exception of
Titanic, these have all had a
lot of re-releases. This places
Gone with the Wind ahead of
Star Wars by just over $226 million, which sounds like a lot but that's also 13.5% of
Star Wars's lifetime gross. In other words,
Star Wars is slowly but surely closing in on it, and with enough further re-releases over, say, the next decade, I would love to see it overtake it. Not out of any huge love for
Star Wars, but because it would be nice to see such a racist movie get knocked out of the top spot. (
Gone with the Wind has its value in context, but the people who scream "unnecessary wokeness" in response to legitimate criticisms are also abject dipshits.)
Oh and by the way?
Jaws is still in the top 10 in the list adjusted for inflation. It's basically the seventh-biggest movie of all time. Two slots behind
Titanic!
They really should do a theatrical re-release of
Titanic. I'd be all over that, even though a lot of the CGI looks dated. Digital effects look dated a lot faster than practical effects ever do. Although I did note in my
Facebook post about
Jaws that seeing it in 3D really made it easier to see how fake the mechanical shark was. Part of that, also, I'm sure, was just how many times I've seen it. Amusingly, the movie made Shobhit jump right out of his seat at least twice (the head in the broken hole in the hull of a boat, and when the shark suddenly jumps out of the water while Chief Brody is chumming the water).
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I just had my FaceTime lunch with Karen, which was lovely as usual. We caught up, and we talked a fair bit about how Shobhit will be booking his next trip to India soon, which will likely fill out the majority of the month of October. The bigger news about that, which I haven't mentioned here yet, is that he hopes to bring his mom back with him—for a likely
two month visit. The biggest shock about this is that she has apparently actually agreed to do it, even though for years she has resisted. I have no idea what is changing her mind about it now.
It's going to make the holiday season trickier than usual for me, especially if she is here over both Thanksgiving and Christmas. The two months part would shock most Americans but is no shock to me; her visit in 2006 was seven weeks long and her visit in 2008 was eight weeks long. The thing that gives me slight anxiety is just the awkwardness of having this woman around who can barely speak English and has historically resented my existence. On the other hand, she actually smiled and said hi to me over FaceTime when Shobhit was in India back in March; a massive amount of time has passed in which she has learned to accept my existence as a fact of life; and for all I know we'll actually get along just fine. In any case, with Ivan now gone since last May, we have the spare room open again.
I told Karen about how in Shashi's past visits, we took her many places, and she always clearly enjoyed the environments that were out in nature—from Butchart Gardens in Victoria to even Snoqualmie Falls here closer to home. I was concerned about being able to find enough such things to take her to over the fall and winter, but Karen set me straight: there's a bunch of outdoor holiday events she would probably be delighted by, namely things like ZooLights at Point Defiance Park. It then occurred to me that the new-ish "WildLanterns" at Woodland Park Zoo is something she'd probably be tickled to death with. I think there's a lot more options than I was realizing at first.
If she's here over November, then clearly we'll just do our own Thanksgiving dinner at home again. Christmas is likely trickier. Dad and Sherri would welcome her to come visit for Christmas, certainly, but I have a feeling Shashi might be intimidated by the idea of being surrounded by a large number of my family, all of them people she doesn't know. Then again, who knows? She hasn't been here in fourteen years and there's no telling what she might be open to.
That's another thing: 2022 is becoming a strangely random "2008 renaissance year." That year was when we last had Shashi visit. It was also the last time we went to Victoria, before our visit this year (in fact we took Shashi there that year). And although I have been to Vancouver B.C. many times in the intervening year, our visit there specifically for Vancouver Pride was
also the first since we were last there for Pride—in 2008. I should look up what else I last did in 2008 and see if I can squeeze that in by the end of the year!
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[posted 1:03 pm]
