The Big Sick - Movie Review

Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Anupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff.
Written by Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani.
Directed by Michael Showalter.

★★★½

This semi-autobiographical tale was written by real-life husband and wife Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon. Kumail plays himself in the movie, and Zoe Kazan plays Emily. We see he's a stand-up comedian/Uber driver, and she's a therapist. They meet cute, they date, they break up, and then she gets a serious illness that puts her in a coma.

For much of the movie, we watch Kumail fall back in love with Emily while getting to know her parents (Holly Hunter, Ray Romano) at the hospital. It's certainly an awkward way for them to meet.

The movie also explores a lot of Kumail's Pakistani background, and how his own parents keep trying to set him up with a nice Pakistani girl. He can't bring himself to let them know he's fallen for a white girl.

The movie has plenty of laughs, a lot of heart, and it's nice to watch a movie that provides the perspective we don't often get to see in cinema.

Ice Age: Continental Drift - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Wanda Sykes, Jennifer Lopez, Queen Latifah, Peter Dinklage, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Keke Palmer, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Josh Gad, Nick Frost and Chris Wedge.
Directed by Steve Martino & Mike Thurmeier.

★★½

This is the fourth installment in the series, box-office-wise, there's no indication it'll be going extinct anytime soon.  Ice Age 5 & 6 will happen.

Manny, Sid and Diego are living happily ever after, or at least have been since escaping the middle of the Earth where dinosaurs still roamed.  Manny's daughter's growing up and he's overprotective (no references to the wife and child he lost before the first Ice Age).  Sid's family shows up long enough to drop off Granny and abandon him again.  Diego's just hanging out.

The best part of all of the movies is Scrat, in fruitless pursuit of the perfect acorn.  This time he falls to the Earth's core, causing the plate shifts that rip apart the continents.  Manny, Sid, Diego and Granny happen to be on one piece of land that drifts out into the ocean, cutting them off from everyone else.

I welcome an excuse to narrow down the cast, and Wanda Sykes is a perfect fourth-wheel as the cranky, wrinky granny sloth.  The four eventually encounter pirates, led by a malicious baboon named Captain Guts. (I couldn't place the voice, but ah, it was Peter Dinklage).  Naturally there's a sabre-tooth hottie (Jennifer Lopez) among the crew that Diego can pine for.

It's an okay time-killer.  I still enjoy John Leguizamo's Sid the Sloth, and some of the visual gags are funny.  The teenage-daughter subplot is typical Nick Jr. stuff.