Anthropomorphic Fish and My Oceanic Crush on Will Smith

OK, when I first saw the cover of the Shark Tale DVD, I just *knew* I wouldn't like it. For starters, the fish were too, well, human-looking. Totally creepy. And it just looked, well, annoying. Open-minded, I know.

So my mother bought it for my daughter. Thereby, of course, taking the "I only buy my grandkids toys that make annoying noises, will end up in a landfill in about 2 weeks *and* are cheaply made of unrecyclable plastic in Chinese sweatshops" guideline to a new high.

Of course you can imagine what a bitch it is now to have to admit (Hi, Mom!) that it's a terribly fun movie. And I should know, as I have watched it at least twice a day for the past three weeks.

It is a movie with an all-star cast which for once (contrary to, say Mars Attacks) lives up to its potential. And as has become de riguer in adult-oriented animated kids' movies, there are oh-so-many funny homages (or are they parodies?) of previous movies - from the wiseguys' "Fuhgeddaboudit" to Ali to "You had me at hello". Even the *soundtrack* is fun. You can't HELP but like this film, I tell you. Except for my friend Nick, who I-bet-dollars-to-donuts will hate it.

Robert DeNiro as the mob-boss shark is worth the price of admission, alone. Not to mention Martin Scorcese as his pufferfish underling and Doug E. Doug and Ziggy Marley as Rastafarian jellyfish henchmen. Angelina Jolie is a fishy femme fatale, Renee Zelwegger plays a girl-next-door worthy of 1990's Meg Ryan, and Jack Black is the strangely effeminate vegetarian cross-dolphin-dressing shark...

And then, of course, there is Will Smith. Much to my husband's bafflement, I have always had a little thing for Will Smith. I mean, not a *thing* thing, but just a "I would watch any stupid movie he's in - even Independence Day" kind of thing.

But now, unfortunately, it's a THING. I knew we had been watching the movie too often when my 3-year could sing all the words to "Three Little Birds" and shouted "I be dancing!" (We don't, as a rule, speak in the progressive subjunctive in our sub-rural neighborhood). But I just can't help it, because they say "Let's watch Shark Tale!" and I think, what the Hell? It's one more chance to watch - well, not exactly - Will Smith be so damned charismatic and funny and growly-voiced and, well, AFFABLE.

Now affability has not generally been an immediate turn-on for me, but perhaps it's just the very long New England winter that has me re-evalutaing its sheer appeal. My mail carrier - who tosses packages OUT OF HER CAR as she DRIVES BY - isn't affable. Most of the folks at my church aren't affable. My overworked darling of a husband is frequently un-affable, and I am often less than ideally affable toward my snow-day children.

Take a good measure of affability, and gussy-it-up with a little charisma, some urban as-my-daughter-puts-it "hippy-hop" cool, and that terribly, terribly masculine voice and well. THAT'S sexy. Espcially as far as fish go. I find myself having bizarre icthyological fantasies. And to think I have my mother to thank for all of this.

Well. Ahem. Clearly I need to change up my movie watching routine. I hear I, Robot is good...