OK, so what's the story with Finding Nemo? The cinetrix finally watched it, and she can't figure out its intended audience. The only thing that's clear is that it can't possibly be meant for children. Or noncinephiliac adults.
How else to explain the shark? See, he's named Bruce [har-D-har], one imagines as a homage to the Jaws shark robot on the Universal Studios tour. But he speaks with the broad "Good on ya" Australian accent of the Monty Python Bruce sketches. Oh yes, and he's a member of a "Fish are friends, not food" recovery group. The mind reels at the in-joke-ness of it all. Memo to Pixar nerds staffers: Leave the office once in a while. Hell, leave the Bay area.
The Fesser watched the first half with me. He's a rare one--never saw a Disney animated film--so he was particularly attuned to the, um, fishiness of the whole enterprise. When I told him I'd watched the rest of what he kept referring to as "that fucked-up movie," he asked me what happened. "They found Nemo?" Well, obvs. But only after playing on every possible childhood fear and maybe suggesting a few new ones [I nominate "all drains lead to the ocean" as most likely to reverse toilet training].
Don't get me wrong, the animation looks fantastic and the colors are sumptuous. And I liked the seagulls that repeated "Mine, mine, mine," and the lobstahs with their Bahstahn accents. But what a creepy fucking movie. And the cinetrix says this having been duly traumatized by all the Disney animated classics at the appropriate impressionable age.
RELATED The lamest Quizilla quiz ever: What Finding Nemo Character Are You? How flawed is it? Leaving aside the questionable grammar of its title, the cinetrix ended up as Dory when Gill was an option. Feh.
