The Big Sick--From the mind, and REAL LIFE, of Pakistani comedian Kumail Nanjani comes this sweet little rom-com about the goofy guy falling for the girl he has a hard time treating well, only for her to wind up in a coma, during which he bonds with her parents and finds himself. If it sounds saccharine and predictable, that's cause it kinda is, but the miracle of the thing is how well it works anyway, mostly because of just how sincere it is (It helps that it was a TRUE STORY). It does have a unique angle, dealing explicitly with the cultural repercussions of a Muslim-raised guy breaking family tradition to be with an American girl, and the cast is terrific (Zoe Kazan makes for a charming comatose patient, and Holly Hunter is a friggin' fireball as her mother; Anupam Kher and Vella Lovell are his aejfjekorably obtuse parents). Emotionally manipulative though it may be, it's the good, non-forced kind, where you enjoy getting suckered. A-
Dunkirk--While keeping in mind that I'm not a very big Christopher Nolan fan, this may be his best movie. One of the problems I've always had with his work is how increasingly indulgent his movies have become with his growing success. At a tight and tidy 107 minutes, this movie has all the cinematic scope and value of his other stuff, but with the discipline to not overdo it. Told across three different overlapping timelines and featuring a large ensemble cast (including pop singer Harry Styles and superstar Tom Hardy in roles where you can't recognize them, while great, underappreciated actors Kenneth Branaugh and Mark Rylance can always be clearly seen), it's the kind of war movie that's more about how everything felt than it is about what actually went down. And for a movie that's largely about people waiting around for something to happen, it's pretty darn intense. The vigorous score from Hans Zimmer and a generous use of sound effects do a lot of the heavy lifting, but even without them I would have been interested and enthralled. Good, good stuff. A-
War for the Planet of the Apes--As a fan of this sci-fi series partly because of how absurd they have been (the Lawgiver, the bomb-worshippers, the END OF ALL THINGS), it's alarming how quickly the three reboot movies from this decade have become somber and, well, possible. This one continues a recent trend of grim and thoughtful blockbusters taking the place of the more frivolously exciting ones, though that's not to say it isn't exciting. There are moments, like the prison break finale, that are downright thrilling, and the obligatory comic relief character pops up now and again to remind us not to take it too seriously. But I enjoyed it for providing further proof of how valuable motion capture is for the engineering of artificial emotion and for the overall attempt at respectability, even if the weight of its tone is occasionally at odds with its subject. We're still watching a movie about sentient monkeys taking over the world, after all. B+
I still haven't gotten into a screening of Spider-Man: Homecoming, but I may try to get to it this week.
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