It's a good thing that Steven Spielberg's Jaws is a film that gets watched over and over again by generation after generation, because that means Roy Scheider has now become immortal. Sad news, movie fans: Roy Scheider, star of Jaws, Klute, The French Connection, All That Jazz, Blue Thunder, 2010, Marathon Man, and a whole bunch more, passed away earlier today at the age of 75.

According to The New York Times, "Mr. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma for several years, and died of complications from a staph infection, his wife, Brenda Seimer, said."

Born in New Jersey in 1932, Mr. Scheider made his big screen debut in 1964's The Curse of the Living Corpse. From those inauspicious beginnings he became one of Hollywood's most unlikely leading men. Although his later career was peppered with lots of low-end product, the actor left behind a lot of excellent work*. He was nominated twice for an Academy Award (The French Connection and All That Jazz), but to millions of movie-lovers he'll always be remembered as the uncomfortable, no-nonsense, oddly lovable Police Chief Martin Brody, the island cop who hated the water.

* I'm sure you have your favorite Scheider moments, but here are a few (relatively) lesser-known titles that you might enjoy checking out: The Seven-Ups (1973), Sorcerer (1977), Still of the Night (1982), 52 Pick-Up (1986), and Naked Lunch (1991). One of the actor's last quality jobs was providing the narration for The Shark Is Still Working, a Jaws documentary that he endorsed quite happily. Fans will definitely want to check that one out.

Rest in peace, Mr. Scheider. I'm about to go grab my Jaws DVD.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

Check out this cast: Roy Scheider, Daryl Hannah, Eric Roberts, and Sean Young. In an indie flick, for which each is probably earning about $30/day, plus meal money. How crazy is that? I mean, if it was, say 1987, this would be a huge studio picture, complete with lots of posh trailers and personal assistants, glamorous magazine layouts for the ladies and talk show appearances for everyone except, possibly, nutso Sean. Ah, memories.

Anyway. This new, cheapie-flick is a thriller called Dark Honeymoon, and sounds like it could easily be either over-the-top terrible, or subtle and creepy. The story is about a man who marries a hot woman he barely knows, only to "[uncover] the terrible truth about her as those around them begin to die mysterious and violent deaths." Me, I'm worried mainly about the men here: despite the fact that Scheider played a nearly impossible part perfectly in All That Jazz and was wonderful in Jaws, the horror of his performance in Romeo Is Bleeding has never left me - and you never know what the hell Eric Roberts is going to get up. Do you see what I'm saying here? The chances for a lot of screaming and yelling are dangerously high. That said, I'm intrigued in spite of myself.

Shooting is due to being in May.

You all know about the Christmas musicals: Meet Me in St. Louis, White Christmas, etc. That's where you go if you want your holiday fix tinged with song (or, in the case of Meet Me in St. Louis, deep depression). This list is just an offering of seven wonderful (non-holiday) musicals from someone who is a complete sucker for the genre and actually likes to spend the holidays singing along with people on the TV.