Manny and Sid Become Family Men in Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

It seems like I’ve seen a lot of dinosaurs in the past couple of weeks. While I was in Florida with my aunt, uncle and cousin, I spent two days at Universal, and both days we rode the Jurassic Park river ride, which is half sedate boat tour, half panicky log flume, with animatronic dinosaurs in every direction. At Lion Country Safari, we wandered through a wooded path and posed with giant sculptures of dinos, and at Animal Kingdom, we spent a fair bit of time meandering through the dino village and embarking on the Dinosaur ride there. It was fairly fitting, then, to return to my aunt and uncle’s after our long drive up from Florida and turn on the TV to find Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs just starting.

I’m not sure what it is about the Ice Age movies, but I’ve seen all three of them now, and basically enjoyed them, but I always seem to watch them when other things are going on, so I’m not able to give my full attention to the movie. Hence, the details of this third movie in the Ice Age series are just a bit fuzzy to me as I think back on watching it a couple days ago as we wound down from our trip. However, I did enjoy the movie overall, even if it didn’t suck me in completely as Pixar always does.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs finds the main characters from previous movies each in a different place in life. Sensitive mammoth Manny (Ray Romano) is about to become a father, and while his even-keeled mate Ellie (Queen Latifah) is handling her pregnancy with quiet dignity, Manny is so excited that he’s beside himself. He’s channeled most of his nervous energy into providing a perfect playground for the impending arrival, but he still has enough left over to pester Ellie with endless questions as he worries over whether everything will go smoothly.

Surly saber-toothed tiger Diego (Denis Leary) finds all this lovey-dovey family stuff pretty off-putting, and it’s enough to make him want to set off on his own and return to a life of solitude. Meanwhile, eccentric sloth Sid (John Leguizamo) craves a sense of belonging, of truly being needed. He hasn’t been able to find a mate, and Manny’s domestic bliss leaves him feeling a little left out, so when he stumbles upon a clutch of Tyrannosaurus Rex eggs, he can’t resist bringing them home to raise them himself. Of course, this is a dangerous idea, and though he begins to care for them once they hatch, trouble really heats up once their biological mother returns for them.

Soon another great quest is underway as he tags along after the babies he’s come to think of as his own, ignoring the threat their mother poses, and Manny and Ellie trail after him, hoping to extract him. Parenthood is foremost on the minds of both Sid and Manny here, and it’s sweet to see the ways in which they prepare for and embrace that role. Their storylines mostly unfold separately, while Scrat the comic relief prehistoric squirrel dashes through every once in a while in pursuit of that ever-elusive nut as well as a particularly attractive female squirrel. His antics always steal the show in these movies, and that’s the case here as well, which is nice because the overall tone of the film is a bit on the serious side.

The animation in the movie is pretty nice overall. The landscape is on the bleak side, but it has its own sort of beauty. Of the animals, I think the mammoths come off looking the best. Sid isn’t particularly pleasant to look at, while Scrat is fairly cute but also deranged-looking. Diego has a solemnly handsome look about him, while piratey weasel Buck (Simon Pegg), who comes along to serve as a guide to the mammoths, just looks goofy.

Although I wasn’t drawn into this movie as completely as I might have been, I did enjoy seeing the characters again, and I thought the depiction of Manny and Sid trying to figure out how to be father was quite touching, even if the Sid angle reminded me a little too much of the first sequel to The Land Before Time. I hear that a fourth installment is on its way next year, and something tells me I’ll probably give that a try too.

Everybody Loves Raymond Is Hilarious But Nerve-Wracking

I’ve watched a lot of sit-coms over the years, but few of them have been in prime time. I always seem to wait for syndication, when I can count on finding the same show in the same time slot every day instead of trying to keep track of what time and channel it will be on once a week. In particular, I tend to watch a lot of shows that come on just before or after the news, particularly in the morning and early evening. So it was that I never watched Everybody Loves Raymond until halfway through the show’s run but that since then I have seen a majority of the episodes in the series, many of them multiple times. For years, Everybody Loves Raymond has immediately followed World News Tonight here in Erie, and I’ve gotten to be very well acquainted with the Barones in those years.

Ray Romano plays Ray Barone, a sportswriter who, along with his wife Debra (Patricia Heaton) and children - Ally (Madylin Sweeten) and twins Geoffrey and Michael (Sawyer and Sullivan Sweeten) - lives across the street from his parents, Frank (Peter Boyle) and Marie (Doris Roberts), and older brother Robert (Brad Garrett). Most of the activity on the show occurs in one of the two houses, and there are few significant characters outside the family, which eventually expands to include straight-laced Amy MacDougall (Monica Horan), her square parents Pat (Georgia Engel) and Hank (Fred Willard) and her immature brother Peter (Chris Elliot).

The Barones are a very close-knit but dysfunctional family. As much as I love watching the show, it stresses me out because someone is always yelling. Their personalities clash spectacularly in each episode as each character’s quirks become problematic. Ray is whiny and self-absorbed, while Debra is shrill and shrewish. Each frequently feels unappreciated by the other, while petulant Robert is convinced that Ray always gets the best of everything. Frank is cantankerous and downright belligerent, while Marie is a master manipulator who can send a shiver down the spine with the sweetest of words.

While Ray is the central character in the show, Marie is the one who usually garners the biggest laughs, along with indignant outcries. Roberts seems to have tapped into something universal with her imperious performance. She can wither one of her children with a glance even as she coats her words with sugar, and she lays on the guilt trips with all the force of a cement roller. Everybody I’ve discussed the show with seems to know a woman scarily similar to Marie, whether it’s a mother-in-law, an aunt or a sanctimonious church member. Roberts’ comic timing is impeccable, and her deadly delivery in scenes when Marie’s dander is up is deliciously unsettling. And speaking of delicious, barely an episode passes without her offering some sort of delicacy that makes my stomach grumble.

While I’d have to vote Roberts MVP in the cast of Raymond, my personal favorite of the actors is Garrett, whose deep voice, hangdog expression and constant sense of disenfranchisement make Robert such an endearingly Eeyoreish character. Robert takes devilish delight in his brother’s misfortunes, but even when he’s cackling maniacally over some mess that Raymond has brought upon himself, I’m usually too busy cracking up to be too perturbed with him. When it comes to physical comedy, Garrett is hard to beat; he’s especially adept at freezing his face into horrified expressions. While I find Marie hilarious, it’s Robert who I most expect to give me the giggles.

In terms of sheer likability, I have to acknowledge Robert’s eventual wife Amy and applaud Horan for so often playing the straight man in the lunacy of the combined Barone households. It couldn’t have been easy for her to keep from bursting into laughter while pandemonium raged around her. While she isn’t as funny as most of the characters, Amy is a breath of fresh air amidst all the angst in that family, as is her mousy mother in her few but notable appearances.

Frank is more openly appalling than Marie, always saying exactly what comes into his mind, no matter how uncouth it may be. In some ways, though, that makes him easier to take, much like I find Ray more palatable than Debra even if she has every reason to be annoyed with him. Heaton plays Debra as always one mishap away from a nervous breakdown, with biting sarcasm one of her only tools for maintaining her sanity. I ought to feel sorry for Debra for being thrown into this crazy family, but most of the time I just find her too abrasive to sympathize much. Meanwhile, I tend to forget that the children even exist. Although there are certain episodes that focus on one or two of the young Barones, most of the time they seem more like props than characters. After years of watching the show, I still don’t feel like I know anything about them. Ally is absent for more than 60 episodes, the twins more than 80, and when they are present, they are mostly forgettable.

Everybody Loves Raymond is a show that I will usually stop to watch, even if I’ve seen the episode before. However, I’ve also been known to change the channel or leave the room because the tension onscreen is making me uncomfortable. It’s obvious that these people care about one another, but they spend so much of their time being mean to each other that the affection sometimes seems buried very deep. While some of the scenarios, especially those involving Marie, ring very familiar, others make me profoundly grateful not to live in such a volatile home. Then again, perhaps that is part of the point. Maybe everybody loves Raymond because he makes them realize they could have a much more agitating situation. It’s fun to laugh at the petty feuds always springing up among the members of the two households. But it sure is nice to know that if I want to, with the click of a remote, I can simply turn off the bickering.