Last night we went to see the latest computer-animated Pixar creation, Finding Nemo. I love how the folks behind computer-animated movies seem to have nailed the perfect audience equation. They’re effectively movies for children, but the good ones are so much more entertaining. For some reason computer-animated movies seem to be doing this the best. From everything Pixar’s done to Shrek and Veggie Tales’ Jonah, most computer-animated flicks are made for the whole family. That rocks.

Their weren’t even that many kids at the theater last night. The family in front of us had two teenagers. A middle school aged guy was sitting by himself in the front row. Four twenty-something couples walked in the theater immediately after we did. It was great.

The movie was fun, too. It wasn’t as brilliantly original as Monsters Inc. or either of the Toy Story movies, but it had a lot of heart and a lot fun. Since it didn’t have any huge name actors (John Goodman, Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, Tim Allen, etc.), it felt like more of a small-scale movie, which was kind of nice. It didn’t feel like a movie where the kids would be swimming in merchandise and tie-ins, which is probably the nature of a movie about fish (of course there is plenty of merchandising, but it doesn’t feel as enticing).