OVP: Shark Tale (2004)

Film: Shark Tale (2004)
Stars: Will Smith, Jack Black, Robert de Niro, Renee Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese, Peter Falk, Katie Couric
Director: Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, & Rob Letterman
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

You've likely noticed in the past two weeks a bit more conversation around the films of 2004-06, which isn't an accident.  I've been moving at a decent clip through a number of Oscar Viewing Project viewings, and these movies are next up in my queue as I've polished off pretty much every Oscar-nominated film since.  As a result, we're going to be heading today back to when the Best Animated Feature race was still in its infancy, when there were only three nominees and one could question whether or not even that number was too much, considering that they were giving "Oscar-nominated" status to a movie as generic (though insanely profitable) as Shark Tale.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around Oscar (Smith) a blue fish who spends his days working at a Whale Wash (a carwash for whales-no muscles were stretched here), but day-dreaming about living the life of someone rich-and-famous.  He is adored by his friend Angie (Zellweger), who is secretly in love with Oscar, and who offers up an inherited pink pearl as collateral when Oscar's boss Sykes (Scorsese) calls in all of the money that Oscar owes him, as Oscar is inclined to waste his paychecks on get-rich-quick schemes.  Oscar loses the money in a bet, but before he's found out by Angie & essentially killed by Sykes, the shark that was going to kill him dies because it's hit in the head by an anchor, and Oscar claims he was the one who killed it.  He is proclaimed the "Sharkslayer," a myth that is further perpetrated when Lenny (Black), a vegetarian shark, helps Oscar out by pretending to die like his brother (who was hit with the anchor).  The film ends with Oscar being found out by Lenny's father Don Lino (de Niro, mining every last inch of that Godfather legacy for coin), but ultimately coming clean, with the sharks letting his reef go free and him getting back together with Angie, now as a legitimate partner in the Whale Wash.

It's kind of hard to describe how big of a deal this might have been circa 2004.  Though the actors involved are obviously still famous, Jolie, Smith, & Zellweger were at the peak of their movie star power when this film came out, and so the movie's gargantuan ($350+ million gross) makes sense.  I mean, they found a way to get Marty Scorsese to play a pufferfish-you've gotta have some pull to be able to get a legend like Scorsese to do his only voiceover role.

If only the film was worth it.  I don't know how they could pull this many magnetic film personas into one room and come up with something so generic, but they did.  The film's plot is easy to see coming, and no one is doing anything interesting here, not even Jack Black who could make the phonebook funny if given the opportunity.  Scorsese is arguably the best of the bunch simply from a curiosity standpoint, but Smith is playing his persona as a fish, as is Jolie, as is de Niro, and there's none of the inventive voicework that was making Pixar (Dreamworks' biggest animated competitor during this era as Disney was also phoning it in at the time) a critical darling at the time.  Even the color palette seems a bit uninspired compared to Finding Nemo a year earlier.  The movie, much like Shrek, ages poorly, with pop cultural references that die just a few years after it was made, and the only saving grace for the picture might be that it found enough stars that simply will always be famous that trading on their personas will still work years later.  Unfortunately, the actual movie itself never takes advantage of the call sheet and gives a hackneyed, disposable tale.

OVP: Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)

Film: Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
Stars: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Bing Crosby, Peter Falk, Barbara Rush, Victor Buono
Director: Gordon Douglas
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Original Scoring, Best Original Song-"My Kind of Town")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

It's been eons since we started going through the Turner Classic Movies collection on my TiVo, and given that it's 31 Days of Oscar right now, and my list of OVP movies could not be higher, I figured I'd start making a dent on the collection, and that starts with this 1964 Rat Pack adventure.

(Spoilers are gonna happen) The film is not quite sure what it's based on-there's obviously a Robin Hood element (with Sinatra and Martin's characters even sporting Nottingham-inspired names), but there's also a bit of Guys and Dolls in the cards as well.  The movie is about two dueling mob bosses Robbo (Sinatra) and Guy Gisborne (Falk), both of whom are put into a power struggle upon the death of their leader Big Jim (Edward G. Robinson, in an inspired and hilarious cameo) at the hands of the Sheriff and Guy.  As we move, it becomes apparent that Robbo is going to be the silver spoon character, and Falk is going to persistently trip over his own shoes (the problem with these movies, aside from the fact that with the realism of The Godfather eight years later, they all look a bit silly, is that their villains aren't remotely realistic, though a late-added character does add some spice, but we'll get to her in a moment).  For example, despite the fact that Guy Gisborne has seemingly hundreds of men and the will of the police, and Robbo has only his twelve Merry Men, Guy never seems to be able to go one-up on Robbo, when in reality he could crush him.

The movie adds a Robin Hood element when Barbara Rush, who plays Big Jim's "daughter" Marian (still confused on if that was actually the case or not, though I will admit to having some believability issues with Edward G. Robinson producing the Peyton Place star), tries to bribe Robbo into killing the Sheriff, and when Guy does it for him, she gives Robbo the money anyway, assuming he was the one who did the murder.  Robbo wants nothing to do with the money, and instead gives it to a charity, and thus is proclaimed a modern-day Robin Hood (a guy who covers up his indiscretions to the public through comparatively minor charity, a ploy used by everyone from J.D. Rockefeller to Mitt Romney). The film after this gets ridiculously silly, not just because Bing Crosby's naive, then suddenly not, character was a confusing mess, but also because of what happens with Barbara Rush.

Rush's character is definitely the most compelling, and it's hard to tell whether she's an ambitious Lady Macbeth in search of her weak backboned king or if she's just a bored housewife drawn to an array of weak-willed men.  By my count she goes to bed with both Martin and Falk, and probably Sinatra (though in a sad moment for him, not Victor Buono), and by the end of the movie her ambitions to stay in the public actually remain intact, as she's crusading against the mob, and Sinatra, Martin, and Davis are all three on the street, begging for change.  Rush's character is quite shrill, and not any sort of feminist, but she's the least cliched of the bunch, and after a career in decline, she at least scored a part in a hit movie as her career proceeded to deflate in the mid-1960's.  Of course, she got to be be married to and reproduce with a twentysomething Jeffrey Hunter, so that's enough reward for ten lifetimes.

The movie received a pair of Oscar nominations, and as you'd suspect with this cast, they're both musically-charged.  The film received one nomination for Best Scoring, a nomination that I suppose makes sense, but is a bit weak if you truly think about it: there's little doubt of the leads' vocal abilities (with the exception of Falk and his ill-advised trek into singing the first number), but the staging of the numbers seemed quite poor.  The voices of the three crooners seem to be competing with each other, which leads to some over-singing, and they aren't really willing to put much panache into the songs except for just standing there.  Compare it to some of the terrific musicals that were coming out in 1964 (My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins, for starters), and this isn't in the same league.

The main song, of course, fits well, and is a classic, and even with the awkward structuring of the musicals, you can't deny Ol' Blue Eyes belting out "My Kind of Town," for the first time (it's strange to think of this song ever not existing, and also how often Sinatra's hits revolved around cities-it's a wonder he didn't get "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" instead of Tony Bennett).  Overall, though, I will have to say that the fun of this movie (which was admittedly affected by some major real life drama, with both the JFK assassination and the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr. occurring during production) is largely sucked out during the musical numbers, and I was left wanting.

What about you?  Do you have a favorite of the Rat Pack members, or their movies?  Who was the best musical of 1964 (a year brimming with them)?  And what are your thoughts on largely forgotten star Barbara Rush, and her seemingly A-List career that never took off?