The Big Sick Review

To get to the point, The Big Sick is a highly enjoyable earnest romantic comedy that does an excellent job of promoting the importance of love in our lives.

Filled with great acting, the cast brings a number of honest moments to life, for better and worse. From awkwardness to tension, the emotions are both real and relatable. The family dynamics are a particular enjoyment.

While the movie does follow an archetypal love story (boy gets girl, etc.) and is very much a relatively youthful "of our time" story (trying to avoid "millennial"), the execution and specific content help Sick stand out. It's very refreshing that the film highlights the value of love and how it's so much more pure than dishonesty, guilt, fear, traditions and societal pressure. When we can learn to love and accept each other, the world is a better place.

Then again, we are just human, as the film so greatly shows.

With plenty of charm and laughs to spare, The Big Sick is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Special props to Ray Romano for stealing so many scenes with his more deadpan delivery, as well as both Kumail and Emily for telling (and in Kumail's case acting in) this story.

The Mermaid (2016) movie review - STEPHEN CHOW!!

STEPHEN CHOW!!

The trailers (American?) did not do The Mermaid any justice, presenting it as more of a hard action movie. In actuality, this is more of a return to form for director Stephen Chow, returning to his 90's comedy-romance(-action) roots.

One could argue that if you've seen one of his 90's comedy-romance movies (whether he acted or directed), you've seen them all, but The Mermaid has a few nice differences.

For one, it feels more cohesive. There's a core story that flows very well, with each of the main characters feeling fleshed out and motivated.

Two, there are some great themes, such as the most obvious environmentalism, commentary on wealth and class, personal growth and love.

Three, while his 90's films typically feature an amazing guy who may be down on his luck falling in love with a "loser" girl (somewhat haphazardly), this one features a woman who isn't anything close to a loser. She's dedicated (to her family, friends, self), strong, funny, can fight and more. There may still be some cultural challenges, but it's a refreshingly different direction. The guy is still on the wish fulfillment side, though, but is also the protagonist who grows the most during the journey.

Long story short, it has some great visuals, GREAT comedic sequences (Chow would be a perfect choice for Looney Tunes), great themes and is a LOT of fun.

A solid RECOMMENDED (with a personal bias towards HIGHLY because it's Stephen Chow). Catch it as soon as you can.

Oblivion review - Shoots for the Stars, but Falls Short

Oblivion (2013)

One liner review: Not bad, but far from great sci-fi action romance.

With beautiful cinematography, amazing production design and a solid soundtrack, there's a lot to like in Oblivion. Director Joseph Kosinski did the rare feat of creating a sophomore outing that's better than his first (the visually striking, but incredibly boring and flawed Tron: Legacy); Oblivion is significantly more refined and better paced than Tron: Legacy, but it also has a lot of the same flaws for story and character.

Kosinski falls into the same boat of directors, that includes Ridley Scott and Zack Snyder, who go for style over substance (the degree of both is up for debate). It's particularly annoying because they often set up their films to seem like they'll have lots of substance, but just fall flat (looking at you, Scott).

Kosinski's biggest flaw is that he's not an actor's director, or at least not a character's director. Based on his two outings thus far, he doesn't seem to understand or care about good character arcs and how to have a really emotional audience connection. He lacks the storytelling prowess to put a character through certain beats of a plot to earn the proper emotional reaction, which is unfortunate because he actually knows how to create a nicely emotional scene (melding music and visuals). To put it another way, he tells the audience how they should feel, rather than showing them through the rest of the movie; there's no proper tension or buildup leading to release, resulting in some flat reveals.

On that note, Oblivion loftily tries to make an interesting futuristic sci-fi action-romance story, but because it tries for both with an underdeveloped script, it fails to achieve success on either front. It's not a particularly convoluted movie, but it does present a good number of plot holes. Once Kosinski learns how to create and work with a great script, he'll easily be on my list of must-watch directors, but I wouldn't give him another $100+ million for a movie to gain that experience.

Bottom line:
RECOMMENDED for those looking for something passively enjoyable with interesting ideas, good action, great production design and a melodic soundtrack (the credits track is almost worth the price of admission).

NOT RECOMMENDED for those expecting a more active experience that's intelligently scripted on either the story or character fronts.