dans_la_lune

It's true however. The personalities, at first, did not really appeal to me, rather I enjoyed watching the division of labor among the skilled tradesmen. I always felt that the world has no use for a man without experience, and some of these guys have a lot of experience through their years of specialization.

Since I'll never be accused of socialism, the appearance of wealth is also magnetic on some level unaffected by social criticism.

What kind of took me by surprise is the undiminished enthusiasm with which the guys transfer their shop squabbles into an international sphere (TV). Dwayne and Mike, especially, project strong personalities. Boyd just seems abrasive.

One of the guys from Blink-182, Mark or Biff or something, once said that listening to pop music was punk because everyone hates it. He was probably referring to his own crowd, because someone is obviously buying pop records. Nevertheless, he raises an interesting point.

Our novels and films are filled with the neurotic, intelligent observations of the socially inept, as these protagonists struggle to accomplish the most basic functions of everyday life. {Talking to someone at a bar, having fun over the holidays}.

Jessica, on the other hand, displays many social behaviors, has a healthy bodyweight, loves the media, and kisses people on the lips by way of greeting. She is the opposite of the massively popular Zellweger/Bridget Jones character type, and still turns a brisk business in spite of it.

Her 500-word vocabulary is probably false. John Wayne had that one figured out in the forties.

Congratulations are due to Hollywood: in the past, studio spies found out about rival productions and rushed to make films with identical synopses in order to undercut the competition. [See Volcano, Dante's Peak - Kundun, Seven Years In Tibet - The Sopranos, Analyze This]. It's remarkably easy to do - you approach studios with a completed spec script, get rejected at x, get accepted at y, and then x has still got your old screenplay when it's finally put into production at y.

In this case Dreemwerks simply copied Pixar. So for people with a whetted appetite for CGI fish movies, 'Shark Tale' has all the right stuff to succeed; strong writers, animators, a big budget. And it still fails.

-Fish moving through water encounter resistance and must use muscle power to move forward. Shark Tale's fish drift in whichever direction they choose, without wagging their fins, in a seemingly friction-less environment. They don't look like fish.

-Constant screaming. Can we have some introverts sprinkled among the extroverts? I suppose anything worth saying is equally worth blasting at full volume.

-Blatant hypocrisy. Oscar's initial elation with his celebrity is dampened by the commercialization and media saturation of his image. This doesn't stop the producers from shoving a box of Krispy Kreme donuts in our face [twice].

I'll give ST a couple points for converging Oscar's story with Lenny's skillfully, great overall story structure, and some funny jokes [not including the Jerry Maguire reference].

5/10