shark tale is a keeper

Saw a preview of Dreamworks' latest CG movie Shark Tale tonight. It's very good, I recommend it for its visual style, the great voice talent, and the seemingly endless supply of pop-cultural references and puns (the New York premiere on Monday was even called "Sharkspeare in the Park", heh). It's also way more street than any major CG animated film, sort of an underwater hiphop Sopranos if you can imagine that. It was absolutely a fun movie to watch, and anyway where else can you think of getting Robert DeNiro, Peter Falk, Ziggy Marley and Katie Couric (who voices a newscaster named "Katie Current") together in one place? The DW team should be very happy with this show; it certainly won't be as big as Shrek2, but I think word-of-mouth is going to be good.

BTW, there's a neat article by writer/director Rob Letterman in Script (warning: spoilers), where he describes some of the events and thought process that went into the script. I loved this account:

The producers liked my draft, and suddenly I was in a room with DreamWorks Principal Jeffrey Katzenberg. He wanted me to rewrite the whole script. I said “Great.” He said, “By Monday.” I said, “No problem.” Then I left the room and realized it was Friday. I had promised Jeffrey Katzenberg I would do a rewrite in three days! Once you promise something to Jeffrey, you have to deliver. It’s not like he is going to forget. So I pulled three all-nighters and turned in the rewrite. Once again I was in front of Jeffrey. He gave me his notes on the rewrite, and then gave me three more days. That’s been going on for two years now.

Anyway, Shark is good. Go see it on the big screen, let me know how you like it.