The Big Sick (2017) - Movie Review

At the time of writing this review, I am at the tail-end of a bout with gastroenteritis; yes, a month and a half in and my body is still finding new ways to keep me out of commission. As my brain is still running on half-full in-between worrying about how intact my lunch is going to stay, I hope you’ll understand if I just skip the pleasantries and get right into the movie already. Hopefully, the film I’m looking at today does a better job of making ghastly medical issues seem funny than I just did.

Manny Lewis (2015) - Movie Review

In a weird companion piece to my review of Top Five, I find myself looking at another film starring and written by a stand-up comedian, only this time we’re stepping into my home turf with my favourite stand-up of all time: Carl Barron. The man’s laconic and laid-back style to observational humour perfectly encapsulates the Australian sense of humour that would notice an erupting volcano and just go “Bit fuckin’ hot out here.” It is said that the best comedians can make reading the phone book funny, and while Carl hasn’t quite gotten to that point yet, he did at one point make me laugh simply by counting how many people in the audience were laughing. That’s the kind of delivery the man has got. So, when I heard that he was going to be in a feature film, I pretty much just tore up the preconceptions I walked into Top Five with and got ultra-hyped for this thing, ignoring the usual fare of comedians’ first time in films and the fact that it was co-produced by Channel Seven, whom also did the pretty damn awful The Water Diviner. Let’s take a look.