posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
connielane at 06:34pm on 19/09/2012
connielane at 06:34pm on 19/09/2012Um spoilers? Is there anyone who hasn't seen this movie? If you haven't, you have no one to blame but yourself if you keep reading. Also, WHY HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE?! GET THEE TO NETFLIX! BEGONE, UNSEER!
This movie came out a few months before I started this LJ, so I never got a chance to write about it - a fact that I never realized until seeing the movie again this past weekend and wanting to say a bunch of stuff and "express my feels," as they say in fannish parlance. I love pretty much all of Pixar's movies, and while Up is definitely my favorite, Finding Nemo runs it a close second. Not only is it a tremendous story about the dynamic between parents and children, but it is certainly the most beautiful (excuse me, BEAUTIFUL - the beauty of this movie calls for all caps) of their films. So, more than any of the other recent Disney revival releases, I definitely wanted to see this on the big screen again, and what the heck, I was curious what the 3D would add to the experience.
Finding Nemo (2003)
First of all, though, I have to say something about the new Toy Story short, Partysaurus Rex, because OH MY GOODNESS THAT IS THE MOST AMAZING PIXAR SHORT I HAVE EVER SEEN. Okay, it doesn't have the artistry of some of their other shorts, being more of a comic offering than a moving one. But holy cow, Pixar never stops pulling out the brilliant ideas for these toy characters (and new toy characters to boot)!
Okay, so this being a re-release, I knew that probably everyone in the theater would have seen the movie before. What I was not anticipating was that most of these people would feel the need to prove their familiarity with the movie by quoting every single line of dialogue at the screen, as if this were their living room. Kind of annoying, even though sometimes it was funny (like when several people were doing the "no eating here tonight, you on a DIIIIEEET!" chant along with Dory). Also, there was the most adorable child who was belting "Beyond the Sea" at the top of his lungs on the way out of the theater. Priceless.
ANYWAY, what to say about this movie that hasn't been said a million times? It opens with perhaps the most brutal scene in a children's film since the death of Bambi's mother. Then the title appears, and we get the first proper listen at Thomas Newman's melancholy and stunning score, and we know that whatever happens from her on out is going to be informed by that first scene - the tragedy of Coral's death, the impossibly touching image of Nemo's little egg in Marlin's anxious fins, and his promise that he won't let anything happen to his son.
Fast forward ... I'm not sure how many years. How long do fish live, best case scenario? I guess we're supposed to approximate the age of a human child? So five or six years, I guess. It's Nemo's first day of school, and Nemo and Marlin swim through the wonderfully vivid and colorful neighborhood of The Reef (seriously, I know it probably doesn't qualify since it's animation, but there should have been some cinematography recognition from the Academy - just sayin'). We see all kinds of different sea creatures - adult versions and kid versions - and the teacher is a Spotted Eagle Ray named, fittingly, Mr. Ray. I love how the kids all hover over his back, like he's some oceanic flying carpet. Some of the kids near Nemo get bored with the lesson and decide to swim out to the Drop-Off, eventually having a "one-up" contest to see who is brave enough to swim closest to "the butt." Marlin arrives just before Nemo was going to swim out, but Nemo swims all the way to the boat and slaps a defiant fin on it. Unfortunately, before he can swim back to the others, he is captured by a deep sea diver who fancies himself as "rescuing" Nemo. And so our adventure begins.
Marlin, without so much as looking back, swims after the boat but quickly loses it. Almost immediately, he runs into Dory, a Pacific blue regal tang (thank you, Wikipedia article writer, for your anal retentive cataloguing of every single species of fish in this movie) with short-term memory loss. This is initially funny and is played for laughs for most of the movie, but there's something really sad about Dory from the get-go. Where did she come from? Does she have family or friends? Where are they? And it occurred to me, probably before this most recent viewing, that I've met some Dory's in my life, and they're rarely the kind of people you *want* to get to know better when you first meet them, because, well, it's just so much work to be around them. Maybe not all of these people are worth the trouble, but I have had some "Dory" friends who definitely *were* and I'm glad I took the trouble to be friends with them. Thank you, Pixar, for your awesome values and for being amazing human beings. Not perfect, of course, but then nobody is.
The first adventure Marlin and Dory find themselves in is the Shark Support Group meeting. "Fish are friends, not food." "Except STINKIN' DOLPHINS!" Where do I even start with the awesome?! Possibly with the delicious voice acting of Barry Humphries, who plays Bruce, the great white shark who "never even knew his father!". The shark is named Bruce, of course, because that was the name of the mechanical shark in Jaws. Dory's confession is adorable ("I don't think I've ever eaten a fish."), but Marlin's turn is interrupted when he spots the diver's mask that could lead him to Nemo. A struggle with Dory leads to a bloody ... nose? Do fish have noses? Anyway, the smell of Dory's blood sends Bruce over the edge and he tries to eat them, but they manage to escape, losing the mask down a dark trench in the process.
As cute and sweet as this film is, what it also does extremely well is create a sense of danger for the characters. Both the escape from Bruce and the next struggle with the anglerfish (the thing with the light and the scary teeth - do a Google image search for "anglerfish" if you want NIGHTMARES FOREVER) are exceptional action scenes that have you on the edge of your seat, amirite? Once they trap the anglerfish ("NO EATING HERE TONIGHT!") we get a big character moment for Dory as she realizes she remembers what was written on the mask. I realize that real memory difficulties are more complex than this, but I love the idea that finally having a friend helps her to not forget as much. And with that, Marlin and Dory are off to 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney to see a guy named P. Sherman.
Speaking of P. Sherman, I can't remember exactly when we first see Nemo's fate, because his adventure is so effectively cut together with his father's, but while Marlin and Dory are facing off against sharks and anglerfish, Nemo finds himself in a dentist's fish tank with several new characters, all voiced by some pretty impressive folks. Just look at this lineup.
- Gill, the moorish idol voiced by Willem Dafoe
- Bloat, a pufferfish voiced by Brad Garrett
- Bubbles (BUBBLES!), a yellow tang voiced by Stephen Root
- Gurgle, a royal gramma voiced by Austin Pendleton
- Peach, a starfish voiced by Allison Janney, and
- Deb (and Flo), a four-stripe damselfish voiced by Vicki Lewis
And that's not even getting to Nigel, the brown pelican voiced by the amazing Geoffrey Rush. And while we're on the subject of the stellar voice cast, shout-outs to Pixar staple, John Ratzenberger, who plays the school of moonfish; Andrew Stanton (the film's director), who voices Crush, the sea turtle, as well as the pelicans ("MINE?"); Eric Bana, who plays Anchor, the hammerhead shark;acters, all voiced by some pretty impressive folks. Just look at this lineup.
- Gill, the moorish idol voiced by Willem Dafoe
- Bloat, a pufferfish voiced by Brad Garrett
talk show host Rove McManus, who voices one of the crabs; and one of my favorite actresses who I feel has never quite had the career she deserved, Elizabeth Perkins, who does the voice of Coral, Marlin's ... wife? co-parent? Nemo's departed mother, at any rate.
Okay, back to the tank! There are no words to describe my love for the tank initiation scene ("SHARK BAIT, OO-AH-AH!"), but the tank scenes are some of my favorite stuff in the movie. And the escape plan scenes are just brilliant.
Meanwhile, back in the big blue, Marlin and Dory have to struggle through a bloom of jellyfish (thanks to Dory's forgetfulness about the details of why they should go through and not over the trench, and Marlin's unwillingness to trust what she does remember) and nearly die. But Marlin wakes up on the shell of a green sea turtle named Crush, and thus begins a welcome moment of calm on the EAC (East Australian Current). Marlin gets a much needed look at a more laid-back (or perhaps just less paranoid) parenting style, and a scene which is probably best known for its surfer-speak ("Fin ... noggin ... DUUUUUDE!") culminates in the Single Most Emotional Scene of the Movie for me. I'm welling up just thinking about it. At the insistence of the turtles (and Dory, who of course doesn't remember), Marlin starts to tell the story of his and Dory's adventures to find his son. We've seen the story, so obviously we don't need to hear it again, but we hear bits and pieces of it as it's passed down the ocean - first among the turtles, then various fish, then crabs ("It's like wicked dahk down there, you can't see a thing."), swordfish (who sound a lot like James Mason), dolphins, and then pelicans, finally reaching Nigel, who rushes to tell Nemo in a lovely companion scene, where Nigel is telling the story and the sound fades out as we watch Nemo flush with pride and respect for his father. I cannot say enough about this scene and the love song it sings to storytelling, so I'll just embed it here and make you all cry too.
You all know how it ends and how everyone is reunited, I'm sure, so I won't go into that. But I have to give another shout-out to my other favorite Very Important Storytelling Moment in the film which is the whale scene. Not Dory speaking whale, which is probably the most well-remembered moment of the movie, but the "belly of the beast" moment that Marlin has. Once they find themselves trapped in the whale's mouth, he panics, as he has done in every situation he's faced throughout the movie. He mentions to Dory his promise to Nemo that we saw in the beginning of the film, and Dory gives us my favorite line and the film's mission statement. "If nothing ever happens to him, then nothing will ever happen to him." I know nothing about parenting, but one thing I do understand is that it is a delicate balancing act between keeping them alive and safe and letting them live and discover who they are. And we see Marlin finally learn this lesson and put it to use later when he trusts Nemo's ability to help rescue Dory from the fishnet.
I still think my favorite Pixar film is Up, but this is pretty darn close to it in my affections. If you want to see it again while it's in theaters, the 3D looks great but isn't essential. And like I said above, the new short is fantastic and hilarious. I love every single second of this movie.
This movie came out a few months before I started this LJ, so I never got a chance to write about it - a fact that I never realized until seeing the movie again this past weekend and wanting to say a bunch of stuff and "express my feels," as they say in fannish parlance. I love pretty much all of Pixar's movies, and while Up is definitely my favorite, Finding Nemo runs it a close second. Not only is it a tremendous story about the dynamic between parents and children, but it is certainly the most beautiful (excuse me, BEAUTIFUL - the beauty of this movie calls for all caps) of their films. So, more than any of the other recent Disney revival releases, I definitely wanted to see this on the big screen again, and what the heck, I was curious what the 3D would add to the experience.
Finding Nemo (2003)
First of all, though, I have to say something about the new Toy Story short, Partysaurus Rex, because OH MY GOODNESS THAT IS THE MOST AMAZING PIXAR SHORT I HAVE EVER SEEN. Okay, it doesn't have the artistry of some of their other shorts, being more of a comic offering than a moving one. But holy cow, Pixar never stops pulling out the brilliant ideas for these toy characters (and new toy characters to boot)!
Okay, so this being a re-release, I knew that probably everyone in the theater would have seen the movie before. What I was not anticipating was that most of these people would feel the need to prove their familiarity with the movie by quoting every single line of dialogue at the screen, as if this were their living room. Kind of annoying, even though sometimes it was funny (like when several people were doing the "no eating here tonight, you on a DIIIIEEET!" chant along with Dory). Also, there was the most adorable child who was belting "Beyond the Sea" at the top of his lungs on the way out of the theater. Priceless.
ANYWAY, what to say about this movie that hasn't been said a million times? It opens with perhaps the most brutal scene in a children's film since the death of Bambi's mother. Then the title appears, and we get the first proper listen at Thomas Newman's melancholy and stunning score, and we know that whatever happens from her on out is going to be informed by that first scene - the tragedy of Coral's death, the impossibly touching image of Nemo's little egg in Marlin's anxious fins, and his promise that he won't let anything happen to his son.
Fast forward ... I'm not sure how many years. How long do fish live, best case scenario? I guess we're supposed to approximate the age of a human child? So five or six years, I guess. It's Nemo's first day of school, and Nemo and Marlin swim through the wonderfully vivid and colorful neighborhood of The Reef (seriously, I know it probably doesn't qualify since it's animation, but there should have been some cinematography recognition from the Academy - just sayin'). We see all kinds of different sea creatures - adult versions and kid versions - and the teacher is a Spotted Eagle Ray named, fittingly, Mr. Ray. I love how the kids all hover over his back, like he's some oceanic flying carpet. Some of the kids near Nemo get bored with the lesson and decide to swim out to the Drop-Off, eventually having a "one-up" contest to see who is brave enough to swim closest to "the butt." Marlin arrives just before Nemo was going to swim out, but Nemo swims all the way to the boat and slaps a defiant fin on it. Unfortunately, before he can swim back to the others, he is captured by a deep sea diver who fancies himself as "rescuing" Nemo. And so our adventure begins.
Marlin, without so much as looking back, swims after the boat but quickly loses it. Almost immediately, he runs into Dory, a Pacific blue regal tang (thank you, Wikipedia article writer, for your anal retentive cataloguing of every single species of fish in this movie) with short-term memory loss. This is initially funny and is played for laughs for most of the movie, but there's something really sad about Dory from the get-go. Where did she come from? Does she have family or friends? Where are they? And it occurred to me, probably before this most recent viewing, that I've met some Dory's in my life, and they're rarely the kind of people you *want* to get to know better when you first meet them, because, well, it's just so much work to be around them. Maybe not all of these people are worth the trouble, but I have had some "Dory" friends who definitely *were* and I'm glad I took the trouble to be friends with them. Thank you, Pixar, for your awesome values and for being amazing human beings. Not perfect, of course, but then nobody is.
The first adventure Marlin and Dory find themselves in is the Shark Support Group meeting. "Fish are friends, not food." "Except STINKIN' DOLPHINS!" Where do I even start with the awesome?! Possibly with the delicious voice acting of Barry Humphries, who plays Bruce, the great white shark who "never even knew his father!". The shark is named Bruce, of course, because that was the name of the mechanical shark in Jaws. Dory's confession is adorable ("I don't think I've ever eaten a fish."), but Marlin's turn is interrupted when he spots the diver's mask that could lead him to Nemo. A struggle with Dory leads to a bloody ... nose? Do fish have noses? Anyway, the smell of Dory's blood sends Bruce over the edge and he tries to eat them, but they manage to escape, losing the mask down a dark trench in the process.
As cute and sweet as this film is, what it also does extremely well is create a sense of danger for the characters. Both the escape from Bruce and the next struggle with the anglerfish (the thing with the light and the scary teeth - do a Google image search for "anglerfish" if you want NIGHTMARES FOREVER) are exceptional action scenes that have you on the edge of your seat, amirite? Once they trap the anglerfish ("NO EATING HERE TONIGHT!") we get a big character moment for Dory as she realizes she remembers what was written on the mask. I realize that real memory difficulties are more complex than this, but I love the idea that finally having a friend helps her to not forget as much. And with that, Marlin and Dory are off to 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney to see a guy named P. Sherman.
Speaking of P. Sherman, I can't remember exactly when we first see Nemo's fate, because his adventure is so effectively cut together with his father's, but while Marlin and Dory are facing off against sharks and anglerfish, Nemo finds himself in a dentist's fish tank with several new characters, all voiced by some pretty impressive folks. Just look at this lineup.
- Gill, the moorish idol voiced by Willem Dafoe
- Bloat, a pufferfish voiced by Brad Garrett
- Bubbles (BUBBLES!), a yellow tang voiced by Stephen Root
- Gurgle, a royal gramma voiced by Austin Pendleton
- Peach, a starfish voiced by Allison Janney, and
- Deb (and Flo), a four-stripe damselfish voiced by Vicki Lewis
And that's not even getting to Nigel, the brown pelican voiced by the amazing Geoffrey Rush. And while we're on the subject of the stellar voice cast, shout-outs to Pixar staple, John Ratzenberger, who plays the school of moonfish; Andrew Stanton (the film's director), who voices Crush, the sea turtle, as well as the pelicans ("MINE?"); Eric Bana, who plays Anchor, the hammerhead shark;acters, all voiced by some pretty impressive folks. Just look at this lineup.
- Gill, the moorish idol voiced by Willem Dafoe
- Bloat, a pufferfish voiced by Brad Garrett
talk show host Rove McManus, who voices one of the crabs; and one of my favorite actresses who I feel has never quite had the career she deserved, Elizabeth Perkins, who does the voice of Coral, Marlin's ... wife? co-parent? Nemo's departed mother, at any rate.
Okay, back to the tank! There are no words to describe my love for the tank initiation scene ("SHARK BAIT, OO-AH-AH!"), but the tank scenes are some of my favorite stuff in the movie. And the escape plan scenes are just brilliant.
Meanwhile, back in the big blue, Marlin and Dory have to struggle through a bloom of jellyfish (thanks to Dory's forgetfulness about the details of why they should go through and not over the trench, and Marlin's unwillingness to trust what she does remember) and nearly die. But Marlin wakes up on the shell of a green sea turtle named Crush, and thus begins a welcome moment of calm on the EAC (East Australian Current). Marlin gets a much needed look at a more laid-back (or perhaps just less paranoid) parenting style, and a scene which is probably best known for its surfer-speak ("Fin ... noggin ... DUUUUUDE!") culminates in the Single Most Emotional Scene of the Movie for me. I'm welling up just thinking about it. At the insistence of the turtles (and Dory, who of course doesn't remember), Marlin starts to tell the story of his and Dory's adventures to find his son. We've seen the story, so obviously we don't need to hear it again, but we hear bits and pieces of it as it's passed down the ocean - first among the turtles, then various fish, then crabs ("It's like wicked dahk down there, you can't see a thing."), swordfish (who sound a lot like James Mason), dolphins, and then pelicans, finally reaching Nigel, who rushes to tell Nemo in a lovely companion scene, where Nigel is telling the story and the sound fades out as we watch Nemo flush with pride and respect for his father. I cannot say enough about this scene and the love song it sings to storytelling, so I'll just embed it here and make you all cry too.
You all know how it ends and how everyone is reunited, I'm sure, so I won't go into that. But I have to give another shout-out to my other favorite Very Important Storytelling Moment in the film which is the whale scene. Not Dory speaking whale, which is probably the most well-remembered moment of the movie, but the "belly of the beast" moment that Marlin has. Once they find themselves trapped in the whale's mouth, he panics, as he has done in every situation he's faced throughout the movie. He mentions to Dory his promise to Nemo that we saw in the beginning of the film, and Dory gives us my favorite line and the film's mission statement. "If nothing ever happens to him, then nothing will ever happen to him." I know nothing about parenting, but one thing I do understand is that it is a delicate balancing act between keeping them alive and safe and letting them live and discover who they are. And we see Marlin finally learn this lesson and put it to use later when he trusts Nemo's ability to help rescue Dory from the fishnet.
I still think my favorite Pixar film is Up, but this is pretty darn close to it in my affections. If you want to see it again while it's in theaters, the 3D looks great but isn't essential. And like I said above, the new short is fantastic and hilarious. I love every single second of this movie.