Ray Romano

I think that this was the first of the Ice Age series that I sat down with the kids and watched all the way through, so I might not be as tired by the repeated tropes as I might if I had seen the other movies. It was okay. I mean, it's a kids movie in a series to sell movies and keep children entertained. And my children were entertained. There was almost some internal conflict and character development with the sabre-toothed tiger, but I think that was lost by the end.

Despite a wonderful new character with the voice of Simon Pegg and one of the better Scrat-subplots of the entire series, this is a middling film with a weak, nearly non-existent plot and very heavy-handed character arcs (which are, of course, still better than no arcs at all). But it has some fun moments, and I have a soft spot for Hollow Earth theory nonsense.

A solid step up from the rather aimless third film, with a great villain from Peter Dinklage, some genuinely creepy (yet funny) sirens, and some mildly amusing eccentric old person hijinks from Wanda Sykes. Otherwise yet another somewhat bland and overwrought sequel when compared to the grounded and genuine original.

Month of April 2022: Celebrity Profiles

A quick little read. This was a free used book from Thriftbooks.com on 1/17/2022.

It is barely a memoir. Ray mentions random moments in his life, mostly about his wife and four kids, and then expands on those moments with satire comedy. At the beginning, he had me cracking up, then it really fell flat.

A lot of his real life sounds exactly like his life on the TV show, “Everyone Loves Raymond”. That appears to be his real personality. I just love show more that show and can watch reruns over and over and crack up every time. show less