The movie poster of the original Jaws movie in pristine condition sold for $18,750 in 2024 at Heritage Auctions. Jaws came out on June 20, 1975, and we’ve all been scared of great white sharks ever since. It’s one of my favorite movies ever, especially because of Robert Shaw’s Quint. It’s also the summer movie for me, way above American Graffiti and Roman Holiday. Jaws and its shark have impacted popular culture so much that collectibles were inevitable. PAPERBACK PREDATOR Not everybody knows this, but Jaws is based on the novel by the same name, released one year prior. I…
Author: ANGadmin
Three years removed from The Batman, there’s still no clear indication when a sequel to the Robert Pattinson Batman movie will appear in theaters. It’s also not clear how or if this movie will connect to the new DC Universe overseen by James Gunn, that didn’t even exist at the time The Batman premiered. Gunn previously announced a separate Batman and Robin film called The Brave and the Bold, but that movie has been slow to come together as well.To summarize: That’s two potential Batman franchises and zero actual Batman movies. This is a huge problem, and according to Gunn himself, it’s currently…
Ezrom Legae (South African, b. 1938), Chicken Series , 1979, graphite and pastel on paper, Skinner Collection, Johannesburg. (Photo courtesy of the High Museum of Art) Ezrom Legae: Beasts, on view at the High Museum through November 16, marks the late South African artist’s first solo U.S. museum exhibition. Featuring 40 drawings and two sculptures, the show lands with quiet power, like a heavy stone in still water. The power here comes not from monumentality but rather from intimacy. Graphite and charcoal shapes take the forms of bulls, chickens, horses, goats and dogs — the beasts of the title —…
The Italian collector and arts patron Nicoletta Fiorucci can’t imagine a home without art. “Art is domestic. I like to be surrounded by art—it is my comfort. I don’t understand how you can live without considering art as a companion in your life, without collecting or going to museums,” Fiorucci told Artsy. Her eclectic collection of more than 2,000 artworks is spread across her homes in the U.K., France, and Italy.Visitors to her Venice apartment that overlooks the Grand Canal are greeted with art before they’ve even walked through the front door. Two trompe l’oeil works decorate the staircase: Sylvie…
It’s a joy to hear Ossie Davis tell the origin story of his 57-year partnership with Ruby Dee. “I married for money,” he states with a glint of good humor in his eyes. The tale, which he regaled for the Archive of American Television back in 1999, begins with the two of them appearing in a touring production of “Anna Lucasta” in 1946. Dee would eventually play the lead in Philip Yordan’s all-Black play before embarking to New York City to make a film with boxer Joe Louis. Davis stayed behind to finish the play’s run so that he could…
For those of us old enough to have been there to experience it firsthand, 1989 was a pretty glorious year for film. A great number of filmmakers were experiencing a creative renaissance in the late-1980s; thankfully, at that time, Hollywood studios were more apt to give many of them the greenlight to make their passion projects. That wise investment yielded a treasure trove of modern-day cinematic classics that continue to strike a chord. Tim Burton gave the world his bold take on the Caped Crusader in “Batman,” starring Michael Keaton & Jack Nicholson. Oliver Stone made the second installment of…
There’s something about a crime family saga wrapped up in betrayal and recklessness that makes it hard to look away. Netflix’s “The Waterfront” capitalizes on it. Premiering June 19, the eight-episode series serves up a Southern-fried gothic tale set in the lovely but nefarious fictional coastal town of Havenport, North Carolina. Think of it as a throwback to the nighttime soaps of the ’80s and ’90s, like “Dallas” or “Falcon Crest,” but updated for our streaming era. Comparisons to “Succession” might arise, but it’s more like “Melrose Place” on the seas, with less snark, more sharks, and a slice of…
In the final episode of the second season of HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” the van Rhijn family almost lost everything. The victim of an elaborate scam, Oscar (Blake Ritson) lost most of the family’s money, leaving his mother Agnes (Christine Baranski) fearful that the family would have to sell their belongings and move out of the glorious society she helped build. But, they were spared at the last minute by the money that her sister Ada’s (Cynthia Nixon) late husband Luke Forte (Robert Sean Leonard) left for her, introducing a shift in the family’s dynamics. Despite this, a tight-knit bow…
“Cooley High” opened at two theaters in Manhattan on June 25, 1975, less than a week after “Jaws.” Both theaters, the Cinerama in Times Square, and the RKO Twin on 86th Street, were known for showing Blaxploitation movies. Whether Michael Schultz’s classic dramedy can be classified as a Blaxploitation movie is debatable, but my answer is “well, yes and no.” On that same day, “Cornbread, Earl and Me,” another film about Black teenagers that may or may not qualify as Blaxploitation, opened in the NYC area, including at the Stanley Theater in my hometown of Jersey City. This heartbreaking drama…
Watching the 2025 Oscars was supremely irritating for a variety of reasons, but what aggravated me the most wasn’t the random James Bond tribute or even the Best Original song winner (although that comes close)—it was the Academy’s embrace of “Anora,” a dramedy about a stripper who has a whirlwind, doomed romance with a Russian oligarch’s son. It underscored just how little has changed in the four years since “Zola,” another critically acclaimed, darkly humorous tale about a stripper who gets in over her head, was completely ignored. “Anora” won five Oscars, including Best Picture, while “Zola,” a superior film…
