I actually am a terrorist. I just do standup on the side to keep a low profile.

The Big Sick

(2017)

(SPOILERS) The Big Sick wasn’t the big hit many expected. Tipped as a summer sleeper, it merely performed respectably (on a low budget, so that was okay). But then, with a title suggesting the worst excesses of now passé gross-out comedy, what did Amazon and Lionsgate (who picked it up following Sundance) expect? It isn’t that at all – by which I mean, vomit-related – of course, and is in fact a rather sweet culture-clash comedy with a you-couldn’t make it up coma thrown in – the actual big sick – based on the experiences of comedian Kumail Nanjiani in dating his wife to be (Emily V Gordon).

When I say it’s sweet, though, I mean The Big Sick’s inoffensive (even when dealing with racism aimed at Kumail, playing himself), and amiable, likeable and unassuming. It entirely reflects Nanjiani’s personality, basically, which doesn’t make for the most vital or responsive viewing experience. Nanjiani is dating Emily (Zoe Kazan), but they break up when she discovers he hasn’t told his unreceptive family he’s dating a white girl, and that he can’t see a long-term prospect for them for this reason. Despite this, when she becomes seriously ill a few weeks later (eventually diagnosed as a complication resulting from Still’s Disease), he ends up signing the permission form to induce a coma and it’s at the hospital that he meets her parents Beth (Holly Hunter) and Terry (Ray Romano). As a consequence, much of the movie doesn’t even feature Kazan, revolving instead around the growing bond through trauma between those closest to her.

On that level, the movie works; the setup is sufficiently different that you’re intrigued to see how this unfolds, and Hunter and Romano make for an effective chalk-and-cheese pairing, she fiery and outspoken, he weary and reserved. Where the movie stumbles is in averring to the Judd Apatow formula, minus his trademark gross-out – he’s a producer, although how he finds the time between self-righteous tweets is beyond me – right down to an unnecessarily excessive running time (two hours is not the ideal for a comedy, but his pictures are often well over that limit).

Apatow frequently favours the autobiographical, something that has rarely paid dividends creatively – Funny People, This is 40 – inevitably involving depicting comedians as comedians, which again, unless you’re Jerry Seinfeld, isn’t always such a good idea, nursing the danger of coming across as hubristic (it may work for Stephen King or – once upon a time, when he was both acting in his pictures and less controversial – Woody Allen to give their protagonists the skillset they have, but it can be overly inclusive and off-putting to an audience, as if everything revolves around them. As such, the stand-up element of The Big Sick is merely okay.

Nanjiani is a reactive personality, which suits the story, but in terms of range he isn’t so effective when called upon to emote (for example, becoming enraged at the burger joint, or pleading with Emily’s parents not to move her to another hospital). That’s fine – a lot of comedians aren’t – but it does mean that the romance side is also very low key. The interactions with his family, though, while familiar from other wry depictions of traditional Muslim parenting, consistently spark thanks to the performances of Anupam Kher (as his father Azmat), Zenobia Shroff (mother Sharmeen) and Adeel Akhtar (brother Naveed).

Hunter scores for a scene where she launches into a racist heckler, as Nanjiani attempts to carry on with his act regardless, while Romano’s deadpan (“If you feel a coma coming on, just call us”) has an authenticity that Nanjiani, peppering his dialogue with “bits” doesn’t quite grasp yet. Kazan’s very likeable, when she’s actually conscious. But that’s The Big Sick. It’s likeable, good-natured and pleasant, but nothing more than that. You wouldn’t instantly deduce it as a contender for Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Maybe the dingo ate your baby.

Seinfeld 2.9: The Stranded The Premise George and Elaine are stranded at a party in Long Island, with a disgruntled hostess.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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