The various haphazard romantic choices, "neurotic problems," and cynical statements made by the characters in the film were actually efforts to avoid their own emotional depths."The potion""s vial promised: "Beauty Divine" - so both Donkey and Shrek took a drink, and a sudden rainstorm occurred.The cop""s love life is unromantic and pragmatic:Lydecker: Have you ever been in love?McPherson:A doll in Washington Heights once got a fox fur out of me.]The unanimously-praised film with a modest budget of $23 million deservedly won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (the first for Spielberg), Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Editing (Michael Kahn), and Best Art Direction.""TODAY," flesh-eating, recently-dead zombies (or undead "walkers") were "pretending to be alive," going through the motions of being human and reliving aspects of their former lives (a zombie band played in a town""s gazebo, a young dating zombie couple romantically held hands together, etc.