It’s “everybody out of the water” and up onto the lawn, as ‘Jaws’ returns to Riverside Gardens for a Tuesday night showing. The original ‘Back to the Future’ materializes on Wednesday at the Count Basie.
Calling all discount Don Juans: the season for cheap-date movie nights continues this week in Red Bank, with the re-appearances of two favorites from the Steven Spielberg filmography.
First up, tonight, is the thriller that started the whole modern summer-blockbuster industry as we know it, in addition to kicking off something of a local tradition in recent years. We’re talking about Jaws, the 1975 smash that put director Spielberg on the map, spawned a fishy franchise (Middletown’s own Billy Van Zandt would have a featured role in the 1977 sequel), and drew inspiration from a real-life 1916 shark attack near Matawan.
The film returns to the big inflatable screen at Riverside Gardens as part of the summer schedule of outdoor screenings by Shore Flicks. Despite the familiarity of the almost 40 year old picture, series host T.J. Brustowicz has drawn crowds as large as 1,500 to showings in communities all over Monmouth and Ocean counties. The Great White bites again this evening at sundown, with attendees encouraged to bring nonperishable food items (for Lunch Break and other local charities) along with the folding chairs and beach towels.
Did somebody say, “We’re gonna need a bigger screen?” The Count Basie Theatre has it covered — with the latest in a long-running monthly series of film classics, shown free of charge at Monmouth County’s oldest continuously operating movie house. Wednesday night at 8 pm, the former Carlton Theatre takes it Back To The Future, with the 1985 Spielberg-produced sensation playing in the Basie’s new futurama digital surround-sound system. Admission is free as always, although patrons will be required to obtain tickets in advance here or through the Basie box office.
Check the Basie website for updates on the ongoing free movie series. Check here for a complete schedule of Shore Flicks events on the greater Red Bank green (including Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, coming to Riverside Gardens next week) — then follow Shore Flicks on Facebook or Twitter for up-to-the-minute information on weather-related cancellations or other schedule changes.