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Romantic coma

The Big Sick is a romantic comedy like no other.

Yes, two people fall in love in it, but that’s about all it has in common with the average romantic comedy. This film is an amazing beast off in its own rom-com category. Let’s just call it a rom-coma comedy.

Real-life couple Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley) and Emily V. Gordon penned the script based on their own courtship. Nanjiani plays himself while the eternally awesome Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks) steps into the role of Emily.

Their story is incredible, and the way it is presented here, by a fine ensemble under the direction of the great Michael Showalter (Hello, My Name is Doris; Wet Hot American Summer) stands as one of the year’s best films.

Kumail is a standup comedian trying to make it in Chicago when Emily takes in one of his sets and gets noticed. The two wind up in bed together, with Kumail actually being the Uber driver that has to take her home. They have a good time, but they also vow to never see each other again.

That doesn’t last long, and the two wind up in a relationship, one that Kumail keeps secret from his Pakistani parents (Anupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff) who are trying to arrange a wife for him. Things get complicated, and the two of them split. Things get even more complicated when Emily winds up in the emergency room with flu-like symptoms, and Kumail is called upon by her friends to check up on her.

After an awkward hospital visit, Emily winds up in an induced coma, with Kumail informing her parents (Ray Romano and Holly Hunter). As Emily’s situation worsens, Kumail, technically her ex-boyfriend, spends a lot of time with her parents, and a lot of time coming to terms with his feelings for Emily.

Nothing you know about Ray Romano will prepare you for just how damn good he is as Terry, Emily’s sensitive dad. I mean, the man was funny on Everybody Loves Raymond but hell if I knew

he could not only do drama, but more than hold his own with an epic Holly Hunter. He has a scene in Kumail’s apartment, where he reveals details of his marital tensions, that will stand as one of the year’s best acted scenes. He’s a legitimate best supporting actor Oscar contender.

Hunter is right there along with him when it comes to Oscar worthiness. Her Beth is a strongwilled person, so strong she practically beats up a frat boy heckling Kumail at one of his gigs. Hunter is always good, but this role is her best in years. It’s also her funniest turn since playing Edwina in Raising Arizona 30 years ago. Yes, Raising Arizona came out 30 years ago. Let that linger for a moment.

Showalter, who actually spoofed romantic comedies, co-writing the script for 2014’s They Came Together starring Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler, rides the film’s shifting tones like an expert surfer sliding in and out of waves and skipping over sharks. There are so many ways that this movie could’ve gone wrong, but it’s never melodramatic or kitschy or cutesy. It deals with every relationship, cultural and family issue in an incisive way that’s mostly absent from the movies, all while making you laugh and cry. Hats off to Showalter.

Nanjiani, like Romano, has shown a stellar ability to make us laugh with past projects, but he delivers a range of emotions here that should keep him in dramatic roles for the foreseeable future, if he wants them. Alas, he is yet another Oscar contender this film has to offer. And even though her character spends a good chunk of this movie asleep, don’t count out Kazan either, an actress of extreme power.

I don’t think I’ve ever had to use my T-shirt sleeve to dab away tears from both laughing and crying while watching a movie in public. The Big Sick got me both ways, and it will get you, too. Ω

“Sometimes i get road rage walking behind people at the grocery store.”

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4Baby Driver This is a nice car chase movie antidote to The Fate of the Furious, a car chase movie that made me never want to see a car chase movie again, let alone Vin Diesel’s mushy mug. The soundtrack is one of the year’s best, and the guy in the title role is a major star in the making. Ansel Elgort plays Baby, who we see in the film’s opening sequence driving the getaway car for a robbery, a kinetic chase choreographed to the great Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms.” The scene snaps with a colorful energy that’s been missing from car chases of late. The best car chase movie of recent years, Drive, also featured a lonely driver and great vroom-vroom, but the soundtrack and look for that film were more meditative and hazy—not complaining; it worked beautifully. Baby Driver opts for a more clear-eyed, zippy approach, and it pays off. Edgar Wright writes and directs for this, a project he took up after his failed dalliance with Ant-Man. The chases go off with precision editing, filmed in a way that makes you feel like you are in the car. And the soundtrack, featuring music ranging from Simon and Garfunkel to Hocus Pocus and Queen, perfectly complements them.

3Cars 3 The Cars franchise gets a nice little rebirth with Cars 3, a much, much better movie than Cars 2, and a slightly better movie than the first Cars. If you’re keeping score— and, really, you shouldn’t be, for there are far more pressing matters in your life—that still makes Cars 3 one of the more mediocre offerings from Pixar. Still, a mediocre Pixar film is better than most animated movies. Jettisoning the stupid spy movie bullshit—oops, I just cursed in a review for a G-rated movie … sorry, kids—that made the last installment convoluted and useless, the folks at Pixar choose to go an earthier, more emotional route with this one, and it works, for the most part. They also find a way to get the voice of the late Paul Newman into the mix, and hearing his beautiful growl again definitely warms the heart. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is getting on in years, and he’s facing fierce competition from newer model cars like Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), a strong, highly-trained vehicle that is beating McQueen on the racetrack. After a calamitous accident that renders his beautiful red sheen primer gray, McQueen is faced with either retirement or a new training regime comeback, Rocky III-style. The movie plays around with the notions of retirement and the rites of passage to the next generation, pretty heady stuff for a G-rated animated movie. Give the screenwriters credit for finally coming up with a story for Lightning McQueen that caters as much to adults as it does to kids.

4Okja Director Joon-ho Bong, purveyor of spectacularly wacky cinematic things (The Host, Snowpiercer) delivers, perhaps, his wackiest yet with this tale about a future world where meat is scarce, so huge pigs are biogenetically engineered for slaughter. The title character is a prized, giant animal raised in the mountains by Mija (Seo Hyun), a young girl who thinks Okja is her pet. She’s oblivious to the fact that Okja’s days are numbered, so when an envoy for a large corporation (Jake Gyllenhaal going nuts) shows up and takes Okja away, Mija flies into action, and the bizarre adventure begins. Paul Dano, one of the kings of movie weirdness, chips in as the leader of an animal rescue corps that includes Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) and Lily Collins. Following up her collaboration with Bong on Snowpiercer is Tilda Swinton, once again playing twins, as she did in Hail, Caesar!, two evil sisters running the corporation that produced Okja. The movie mixes absurd laughs with mayhem, and the cast is universally great. Like films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Babe before it, this movie looks to shine a light on the cruel treatment of animals and perhaps get you to pass on the bacon the next time you are at Denny’s. It’s streaming on Netflix. 4 Spider Man: Homecoming The last two Spidey adventures were a bummer. Things get back on track in a fun way with Spider-Man: Homecoming, a complete overhaul of the Peter Parker character thanks to the effervescent casting of Tom Holland, a fine actor and an impressive athlete (he does most of his own acrobatic stunts). The film gets a great villain in Vulture, played with snarling glee by Michael Keaton. Director Jon Watts and an admittedly ridiculous number of writers give Vulture an interesting origin. He’s Adrian Toones, a construction salvage worker who had a city contract to clean up the mess in New York City after the events of The Avengers. Some government types take over and kick him off the gig, leaving him pissed and with a bunch of high-tech alien junk in his possession. Toones constructs some weapons, including an elaborate winged suit, with the alien technology and, voila, Vulture. Parker is a younger incarnation this time out, dealing with typical high school traumas that seem a little trivial after the events of Captain America: Civil War, where he sort of saved the day. He’s gone from stealing Captain America’s shield to worrying about girls, and he’s just a little bored. Enter Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) who has given Parker his Spidey suit with some conditions, like that he can only be a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” concentrating on local problems The film is basically one half kick-ass Marvel movie—Watts is no slouch with an action sequence—and one half enjoyable and frothy high school comedy that would make John Hughes proud.

1Transformers: The Last Knight The latest Transformers movie, Transformers:The Last Knight, gets the dubious distinction of being the worst in the series. That is some sort of major accomplishment. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to look at this collective pile of movie manure and decipher which of the five is the worst. It’s like going to a frat house the first week of a semester at Dickhead University and trying to pick out the dumbest, drunkest douche in the place.

All of the qualifiers are terribly, criminally lame.

I’m giving the award of franchise worst because it’s just so clear how every participant in this enterprise, from director Michael Bay right on down to the production assistant who smeared glycerin on Mark Wahlberg’s pecs, is jaded, tired and played out. The stink of “Who gives a shit … just pay me!” hits your nostrils with Wahlberg’s first line delivery. The best part of this movie is when Anthony Hopkins inexplicably goes to Stonehenge to witness a robot battle then gets blown up, leading to the silliest death scene ever. Yep, I just issued a spoiler. Anthony Hopkins, who should be ashamed of himself for participating in this thing, dies hilariously in this movie.

4War for the Planet of the Apes The enthralling, modern Planet of the Apes trilogy comes to a close with its best chapter yet. Caesar (motion-capture

Andy Serkis) is holding his own in the forest with his band of ape soldiers when a crazed colonel (Woody Harrelson) finds him and delivers a painful blow. Caesar finds himself on a revenge quest, with the likes of Rocket (Terry

Notary), Maurice (Karin Konoval) and a new character named Bad Ape (a funny Steve Zahn) in tow. It all leads to a man vs. ape showdown for the ages, and the special effects that were great in the first movie are 10 times better in the third. For fans of the original Apes films, this movie is a virtual love letter to the series.

It even has a mute girl named Nova (Amiah

Miller), the same name as the girl who saw the

Statue of Liberty with Charlton Heston in the original. Matt Reeves, directing his second Ape film, has managed to imbue his special effectsladen adventure with genuine emotion. This is a big budget blockbuster with heart and soul.

While this concludes a trilogy, it’s a safe bet it won’t be the last for the Apes. If you recall, astronauts went missing in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Events in this film seem to be leading up to the events of the original movie. We might be getting a new dude in a loin cloth barking at

Lady Liberty in our cinematic future. 07.20.17 | RN&R | 17