I should've posted this last week, but we lost a fantastic actor when Roy Scheider died last week. Jaws (funny how I mentioned it in my last post--maybe it's just on my brain) is one of the best movies ever made, and Scheider was one of the reasons, probably the biggest reason, for its success. It's one of those movies that, if I stumble across it on cable, I'm watching it. Doesn't matter how many times I've seen it. Probably forty or fifty times by now. The writing is absolutely brilliant.

The Statesman did a piece on Scheider last week, and I was glad to see the recognition. The article said that Scheider's best line--"You're gonna need a bigger boat"-- was ad libbed. If so...wow. That's just magic.

He was the perfect hero in the movie. Courageous, but scared at the same time.

That Hitchcockian shot of him in the lawn chair on the beach was purely classic.

He made a bunch of movies, but if had only made Jaws, he still would've earned a place in history.