Nigel Andrews on Jaws: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide (Bloomsbury Movie Guides) [Paperback]

Nigel Andrews (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bloomsbury Movie Guides | Publication Date: November 20, 1999

The Bloomsbury Movie Guides feature scores of entries on all aspects of the making and meaning of movies. Each guide includes historic, cinematic, and literary references; profiles of actors and directors; and interviews.

Jaws, the epitome of suspenseful 1970s action-drama, was directed by Steven Spielberg. (Indeed, this is the film that put Spielberg on the map in Hollywood.) In these pages, Nigel Andrews provides a readable and meticulous critical analysis of a movie that has fascinated him for more than twenty years. He provides the reader with insightful behind-the-scenes stories about daily workings on the set, while also examining the importance of every actor/character and evaluating his or her contribution to the movie.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bloomsbury's new Movie Guide series looks like being easily the best idea to have assaulted the cinema bookshelves . . . Exhaustive, affectionate, commited, intelligent, flip, provocative, and, above all, personal . . . Having read them it's guaranteed that the next time you see these movies, something will have changed, and changed for good."—Uncut

From the Publisher

"Bloomsbury's new Movie Guide series looks like being easily the best idea to have assaulted the cinema bookshelves. Exhaustive, affectionate, committed, intelligent, flip, provocative, and, above all, personal.... Having read them it's guaranteed that the next time you see either of these movies, something will have changed, and changed for good." --Uncut

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (November 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582340420
• ISBN-13: 978-1582340425
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,047,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't bite, August 26, 2000

By 

M. Ritchie (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nigel Andrews on Jaws: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide (Bloomsbury Movie Guides) (Paperback)

This is one of the most disappointing movie books I have ever read. The author rehashes the same old stories without adding anything new of any real value. If you've read the books that came out in the mid-70's on the making of Jaws, then you definitely don't need this book. The number of errors is astounding for a professionally published book; most of the lines from the movie that he quotes he gets wrong (and it's a "land shark," not a "ground shark" in Saturday Night Live's famous parody). At one point, he sets up an analogy that even a ten-year-old could see doesn't work: behavioural scientists are like Chinese food because "soon after inventing one, you want to invent another." Neither scientists nor chinese food invent one another. I read the whole thing because I was stuck in an airport, but I'm throwing it away now. If you really must read it, use the library.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is an embarrassment, August 11, 2000

By 

S. Altobello (New York City, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nigel Andrews on Jaws: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide (Bloomsbury Movie Guides) (Paperback)

I eagerly bought this book the moment I saw it. The cover--front & back--is marvelous, and though it's outrageously (I'd even say snobbishly) priced, Jaws is my favorite film and I believe there isn't enough solid criticism on 70's cinema. So, I scooped it up.

Pretty quickly I was ashamed. Mr. Andrews style renders trite his frequently astute observations, and he frequently lacked follow-through. For example, his section entitled "Ben Gardner's Head: the Untold Story" (pg. 99) hardly provides exactly that; instead, he merely poses the same questions my associates and I have been asking for 25 years, ending with another one of his 'jokes'--"Ben Gardner: The Movie". For this I paid 14.35?

Worst of all, the fact that renders this book 'defective': 10 mis-quotes in 9 pages! (These happen from pages 71 to 79.) Did he write this book out of memory? Perhaps two of Jaws's most famous lines--"You're gonna need a bigger boat." and "For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing"--are incorrect as well as some sloppy oversights. An intern and a VCR for a half hour's work could have saved Mr. Andrew's and the whole Bloomsbury Film Guide series from being a disreputible waste of time.

Just because this is a 'Film Guide' doesn't free them from the fundamentals of journalism, in this case accuracy.

If you've already fallen prey the way I did, I suggest you mail the damn book back. I did, with these complaints, only to be refused. If more people try, perhaps the second printing will relfect the negative attention and have corrections. I just want a comapny to assume responsibility for their product even if it is just popular culture sociology.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rip off? Yes!, September 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Nigel Andrews on Jaws: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide (Bloomsbury Movie Guides) (Paperback)

A pedestrian rehash of existing materials, and no mention of THE JAWS LOG (soon to be reissued by Newmarket Press!), which is the source of much of Mr. Andrews' lightweight book. It's full of dialogue errors, misreadings of the film, and lots of chatty disinformation.

In all, a disappointing package. Some nice art, an excellent cover, and slickly published, but on the whole, not worth the money.