As part of its "Flicks on the Bricks" film series, Pioneer Courthouse Square hosted a screening of Jaws on Friday night. Because seeing movies in the outdoors is an experience that's hard to come by around these parts (with all due respect to Newberg's 99 West Drive-In), I headed down there after work. I made it in time to see the crowd applaued when the shark managed to chew off a swimmer's leg. They cheered again when Robert Shaw met his demise.

This is only the second time I've gone to a movie down there but, based on what I've seen, the annual series draws some weird fans of Speilberg-connected movies. Last time was the The Goonies in 2004 and I sat next to a guy who looked like Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. He spent the whole time talking back to the screen and trying to coax weed out of fellow audience members.

Things were pretty tame in the square on Friday. Then someone in the back threw a smoke bomb into the crowd right around the time Roy Scheider and crew headed off for a showdown with the shark. Sailing over the crowd and spitting yellow smoke, it looked like a tear gas canister or something even more sinister. It landed next to a group of teenagers sitting in the middle of the square near the screen. Rather than screaming and waving their arms wildly, they calmly gathered up their things and moved. The crowd barely took notice of it. Maybe they were too enwrapped in the events on screen to take note of something that could be posioning them with deadly Joker gas.

A security guard grabbed the canister while a few alcohol monitors went looking for the culprit. All in all, everyone acted cool, rational and even indifferently to the bomb, as if this were a common, everday event. On the other hand, is the same town that told the Joint Terrorism Task Force to take a hike last year.

Kudos to you, PDX Jaws fans. You can tell the difference between harmless smoke bombs and the explosive, shark and/or human killing variety.

Also: the crowd cheered again when the shark blew up at the end. Have they no sense of loyalty? Or are they just nihilists?

More also: Nate from emoglasses filmed this guy dancing, possibly while extremely drunk, on the steps of the square before the show. Please, enjoy.