Shark Tale is a great animation movie, a continuation of the animation movie series from Dreamworks SKG (earlier movies being Shrek, Antz, Chicken Run, etc). The movie is centered around the tale of a mellow young shark (who does not want to be the feared killer) and a loser fish Oscar. The movie’s story of the shark family has a strong resemblance to the Godfather (with a Marlon Brando type father running the show), combined with the additional elements of a love triangle for Oscar and his debt problems / loan sharks. Given that the Godfather is an old movie and rated R, and the other elements of the story are also not exactly children related issues (unlike other animation movies such as Toy Story, Shrek (based on an interpretation of a fairy tale), Finding Nemo), there is a perception that Shark Tale is not exactly a movie for children.

Putting these issues aside, Shark Tale is a delightful movie. The voices of the actors used in the movie seem to portray the characters much more realistically; the actors who lent their voices to the movie are: Will Smith, Jack Black, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. The movie was nominated for the Academy awards for Best Animated Picture. Shark Tales got a mixed review critically, and was a much bigger commercial success, picking up approx $357 million worldwide in the year of release.
The movie is about 2 water-dwellers, a fish named Oscar and a young shark called Lenny. Oscar is a perennial loser who works in a Whalewash, and owes money to his boss Mr. Sykes. When Oscar makes another mistake on the job, he is called by his boss and asked to pay up by the next day. His best friend Angie offers him the way to pay back his debt by pawning a pearl necklace, but he uses this money to play the races, loses, and is doomed.
In the meantimes, the shark family head Don Liro is bemoaning the fact that one of his sons Lenny is not exactly the picture of the fearsome killer shark, and decides that another son, far more the picture of a killer, Frankie, must teach him. The 2 separate stories merge when Frankie spots the 2 jellyfish (Ernie and Bernie, henchmen of Mr. Sykes) electrocuting Oscar and decides that this is a good place for Lenny to attack. However, Lenny does not do any of that, telling Oscar that he will not eat him; seeing this dawdling by his brother, Frankie gets impatient. However, in a stroke of the luck that changes fortunes, Frankie gets killed by an anchor, and since Oscar is the one closest to the incident, he gets all the credit and sees this as an opportunity to become a hero.
Things change for Oscar. For one, Lenny now tags along with him. He also gets very famous, and attracts the attention of a gold-digger Lola, and becomes more distant from Angie. And then the Don wants revenge, and plans an attack. Eventually Oscar manages to lure the sharks into a trap; he also turns a leaf and reveals the truth, marries Angie and makes peace with the sharks. Eventually the Don also makes his peace his son Lenny.

It is in the last 1-2 decades that animation movies have come into their own. And Pixar has had a great deal to do with making them more life-like, more enjoyable, and able to appeal to an adult audience as well. Finding Nemo was made by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in 2003; it was the fifth such combined effort by Pixar and Disney, and was incredibly successful. The movie, surprisingly for an animation movie, has been voted in many of the top 100 films, and been incredibly successful financially. Even though the movie cost in the range of around $95 million to make, it made over $860 worldwide, and is probably the most sold DVD, selling more than 40 million copies.

Finding Nemo was nominated for 4 awards, and won 1.
* Best Animated Film - Won
* Best Original Score - Thomas Newman (Nominated)
* Best Sound Editing (Nominated)
* Best Screenplay - Original - Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson & David Reynolds (Nominated)
The movie was rated as not just a children’s movie, but a movie that appealed to teens as well as adults. For a start, Finding Nemo has some great animation. It has been pretty hard to make an animation that shows water naturally, and imagine a movie that was all about water; yet the effects were well applauded and the water, whether it be in the water of the Australian Great Barrier Reef or the smallness of a aquarium, always seemed realistic.
The movie also impresses in terms of its story. The elements of an over-protective father, a rebellious son, and the tensions surrounding such a relationship all are a basic part of life, and the movie presented this in a very warm, appealing way. The movie is also very funny, and you can be pretty sure to be laughing at many points of the movie. Also, for parents who watch Finding Nemo, the concept of losing a child, and the desperate effort to find the lost child is something that all parents can identify with.
What makes the movie even more special are the characters, all of whom have their own character, with many of them fighting their own personal battles. Some of the actors who have lent their voices and made the characters so more lovable are Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton, Stephen Root and Geoffrey Rush.
The movie, about the clownfish, Marlin, is about him losing his wife and children (save one) to a barracuda. Marlin promises that the one safe child will always be safe. And hence, as Nemo starts to grow up, Marlin tries to live upto that promise and becomes an over-protective father, to the extent that Nemo is embarrassed by Marlin. When Marlin warns Nemo against the dangers of the open ocean, Nemo in defiance, goes to the ocean to demonstrate that there are no dangers against him; and thus starts the adventure. Nemo is captured by a scuba-diving dentist. Marlin soon loses the boat of the dentist, but picks up a blue tang named Dory who offers to help him search for his son (and is also a hindrance many times). They soon are able to figure out that Nemo has been taken to Sydney.
Nemo is now in a fish tank, waiting to be given as a birthday present to a young girl named Darla. The other fish in the fish tank are all enthusiastic about trying to escape, and a fish named Gil suggests jamming the filter (so that the dentist will take the fish out while cleaning the tank).
Marlin and Dory meet a number of creatures on the way, such as the shark who wants to love fish and not be seen as a fish-eating machine, a very old sea turtle totally young at heart, and then a pelican named Nigel who offers some incredible help by taking them to the dentist’s office. Nemo in the meantime pretends to be dead, and is sent down the toilet to reach the ocean. In between Nemo meets up with Marlin and Dory, and then Dory is caught in a net. In order to save Dory, Marlin has to allow Nemo to go back on his own while Marlin saves Dory.

Toy Story is an incredible movie, it is sometimes easy to forget that this was an animation movie, released in 1995. Made by Pixar, it was Pixar’s first feature film and was released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution in the US, and was the first computer animated film to be released. The movie grossed over $350 million worldwide, which is an incredible amount, given that the budget was $30 million. It was a major advance in the history of animation in movies, and resulted in much better animation in movies after that. The voices of the different characters were done by stars, with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen playing the major roles. For this movie, John Lasseter received an Academy Special Achievement Award in 1996 “for the development and inspired application of techniques that have made possible the first feature-length computer-animated film.”
In 2007, the film was ranked #99 on the American Film Institute’s 10th Anniversary Edition of the 100 greatest American films of all time, the only computer animated film on the list, as a mark of its stature. After the immense advancements in this movie, animation became much more common-place. The movie also stuck a deep chord with kids, and is exceedingly popular with kids of all ages.

The story is about toys in the room of a 9 year old buy, Andy, who lives with his mother and sister, Molly. He has a set of toys, in which the cowboy toy, Woody is his favorite. Woody is apprehensive since it is Andy’s birthday and he is wondering as to what Andy will get as a present. A new toy will create problems in terms of the new toy becoming Andy’s favorite. And that is exactly what happens, with Andy’s mom giving him a surprise in terms of Buzz Lightyear, a spaceman (inspired by the real life Buzz Ladrin). Woody gets jealous as Buzz becomes Andy’s favorite toy. Buzz himself does not know that he is a toy, believing himself to be real, and on a mission.
The other toys gravitate towards Buzz because of his flashy style and attitude, making Woody even more jealous. This has its repercussions when Andy has to select one toy for a trip, and Woody tried to hide Buzz, instead knocking him out of the window. The other toys turn on Woody at that time, but Andy comes and takes Woody (since he is unable to find Buzz). In the car, though, Woody finds that Andy had hung onto the car, and they fight and are left behind. And then follows a series of adventures as they try to find their way, meeting Andy’s next door kid (a kid who experiments with and destroys toys), Buzz realizes on watching an advertisement that he is only a toy and gets depressed, escape a dog bent on catching them, and then they eventually make friends with each other,