Finding Nemo (The Dave100 #98)

You take a story about an ocean, and a fish named Nemo with a gimpy fin.  Let him have an extremely overprotective father, let Nemo go missing, and let that father meet up with a short-term memory blue fish named Dory while in the hunt for Nemo. 

Then let your main voices be veteran actor Albert Brooks and talk show host, former American Idol failure and America's Favorite Lesbian Ellen DeGeneres. 

Toss it all in the hands of Pixar, and you've got a magnificent movie.  There is so much to love about "Finding Nemo", but perhaps the thing you have to appreciate, even if you find the story unappealing, is the visual aspects.  On HD, its absolutely glorious.  The colors are vibrant, the animation is superior, and taking away any Toy Story movies, this might be Pixar's crowning achievement.

As with all Pixar films, I saw this in the theater, then watched it off and on through the years, but I really began to dig and appreciate "Finding Nemo", beyond the normal "Yeah man, I like that film!" earlier this year. 

At The Happiest Place in the Mall (RIP), we had this big screen at the back of the store that showed stuff like Hannah Montana previews, Jonas Brother videos, random film clips from "Beauty & the Beast" and "Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" and movie trailers for "G-Force" and the upcoming release of  "Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs" and so on... and we had to play these 30 to 45 minute videos all day. 

But...

...every now and again, we'd break the rules.  We'd break the rules by popping in a DVD, and sometimes, many times, it was "Finding Nemo", and we'd watch it while we doled out the magic.  And we'd quote the lines... and let me tell ya, all of us there, we all knew those lines.  We knew those lines..

"You know, for a clown fish, he really isn't that funny"
"He touched the butt"
"That's a big butt"
"Fish are friends, not food"
and of course... "Just keep swimming."

On a related note, "Finding Nemo: the Musical" is a must-see show/attraction when I go to Disney World, no question.  Sandy Plankton agrees.