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I think a real interesting part of the movie was how the first Trump conversation sort of breaks the reality of the movie and re-contextualizes how we view the family. The line about the house being like a Clue board is correct. The whole feel of the film initially is very anachronistic. Detective Blanc is described as the last of his kind. But the Trump conversation brings these heightened characters back to our reality. It makes them seem more dangerous. I also like the reveal that the house was bought in the 80s. Loved the movie, "...because you're an rear end in a top hat" is a masterpiece of a line. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Nov 30, 2019 19:16
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Femur posted:Really liked the movies, lead to a few theories but it all felt like The old man being alive but that wouldn't be satisfying, but it all turns out to be a coincidence was great. I will say it is interesting to unpack that as decent as Harlan is, he essentially dies out of his relentlessness in being a white savior to Marta. The film isn't trite enough to imply that he's on the same level as his Trump-ish children, nor but does it ignore that giving Marta is a net good even if we can unpack Harlan's actions, but as Blanc says, he dies because he won't just listen to Marta. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Dec 1, 2019 |
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Dec 1, 2019 05:13
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Femur posted:
It's not a coincidence because it's cause and effect... Harlan fucks over his family by leaving the money to his kind and good nurse -> He tells one of his lovely family members -> Said Family member make a plan to kill him -> The nurse is so kind and good though that she foils this plan, but this leads to the unintended consequence of her thinking she killed him when she didn't -> Harlan, either out of love for the nurse or knowing that this will mean that his money will go to his family because of the slayer clause, decides to kill himself.
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Dec 1, 2019 14:13
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Steve Yun posted:Considering how good his movies before and after Star Wars are, is it fair to say the studio probably messed with his Star Wars movie despite their public declarations to the contrary
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Dec 1, 2019 20:15
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AccountSupervisor posted:I kind of loved that this didnt really go too overboard with some convulted and overly complicated reveal.
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Dec 3, 2019 03:02
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Yeah, the scene you're discussing is casting Meg as a pitiful character manipulating Marta's kindness. In the context of the scene, Meg when she thought she was down used private knowledge to try to gently caress over Marta. And now that she has, in her mind, successfully hosed over Marta she not only brushes off responsibility for her actions, but is asking for comfort from the person she is loving over. It also feels like you're holding up Marta to a weird standard. "The impulse to see a kindhearted victim of racism not do what they can to see justice done upon their terrorists is genuinely disturbing." Yeah man, you're not wrong... but that's nuance, baby. quote:edit: The final shot of the movie might be intended to be a devastating own on the Thrombys, but in reality... You're also misunderstanding the important choice that Blanc doesn't prescribe what she should do. Blanc isn't being depicted as the kind white savior-- It's important that the movie lets Marta be the one that nails the villain. He's being depicted as instructive to white people. It's Marta's choice. Blanc is correct for not giving his opinion even though he clearly has one. But I feel like a lot of folks are going to be dunking on you and I want to be clear that this is a movie about race that really only has one major character who is of color. And like... we can unpack that. But you're going all more-woke-than-though with a movie in a way that not only lacks nuance, but takes agency from Marta as an unique character, and not just a prop.
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Dec 3, 2019 23:35
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pospysyl posted:Sorry, when I say that Johnson is a white guilt liberal that wants to write a movie about racism but can't, I'm only basing that on the fact that he wrote a movie about racism that was bad. As for his political persuasion, I can only base that on this movie, his tweets, and his interviews about the mean chuds that didn't like his previous movies. But never mind the fact that you diminish any agency that Ana de Armas and Katherine Langford have over the scene you refer to, you're really clearly just using real important topics as a cudgel and not engaging in actual criticism or debate.
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Dec 3, 2019 23:44
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There's this TV show on CW where magicians perform tricks for Penn and Teller, and see if they can fool them. Penn and Teller watch the trick and without giving it away, they give a coded message of how the trick was mostly done. And for the most part, they're usually right. But there is this one episode where this guy comes in and basically goes, "Here are the things I'm going to do in this trick. I'm literally telling you 99% of what this trick is... but I bet you can't figure out the other 1%." And he's right. He would have lost the game if he just did the trick, but he changed the rules to be that you can't guess the missing piece. And I think that's how Knives Out functions. It not just that it tells you exactly how Harlan dies, but it is pretty obvious that Ransom is up to no good. The "Hugh/You" bit is pretty clear. But even when you know that Ransom probably burned down the lab and killed the maid, you don't have all the pieces, and that's what makes the movie exciting. As is how Marta actually nails Ransom. It's a movie about sleight of hand and misdirecting the audience.
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Dec 16, 2019 01:18
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I had a coworker who rallied against people who call themselves allies. Her main thing was that she felt those who label themselves as allies are false in that most of them will never put their own privilege at risk in the name of their "alliance." I think that notion really sums up Meg.
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Jan 11, 2020 21:27
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The Knives Out
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Feb 6, 2022 14:29
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Guy A. Person posted:Out, drat Knives
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Feb 8, 2022 01:49
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The context of the quote from Rian Johnson was based on a scene shown to the press that showed Benoit Blanc at home with his partner who's apparently played by a pretty big actor. The scene isn't explicit enough in that some people had to ask, but this wasn't Johnson randomly doing a JK Rowling. The context was a scene in which Johnson and Craig felt it was very clear, and that's why he said 'obviously.' It's obvious based on something the people in the room had seen.
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Oct 18, 2022 17:41
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Knives Out and Glass Onion are less subversions and more just fun little magic tricks of films that focus on misdirection. Both movies end with the most obvious culprit being the one who did it, but present the information in a way that creates a sleight of hand so you don't notice the obvious. In the case of Knives Out, you actually think you know who the murderer is by the end of the first act, and in Glass Onion, you don't even know the murder that is being solved into halfway through the movie. i will say thematically, I think Glass Onion is a more blunt version of The Last Jedi. Both deal with the idea that evil isn't complex or multifaceted. It's just blunt, greedy, and often stupid regardless how people try to dress it up. Anyway, I think that as a murder mystery, Knives Out is probably better with the big revelation in the end that she had actually used the right medicine because she's just a good nurse being such a good mix of both the mystery, theme, and character. But gently caress, Blanc's speech in the end wasn't one of the most cathartic things I've ever experienced. And the way it kept building from the flashbacks to his misuse of language to the pineapple juice to how mad Blanc is that he actually stole his idea to do the one clever or well thought out thing that he did the entire time.
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Nov 26, 2022 05:19
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The flashback for me didn’t diminish the mystery for me at all, the thing is that there is misdirection on what the mystery is. You’re being tricked into believing it’s about who wants to kill Bron when in fact it’s about who killed Duke and Andi. The fact that Andi is already dead doesn’t diminish that when you initially think she is murdered, her death becomes part of the mystery. But like Blanc points out, we focus on what Bron tells us is happening, not what we actually saw.
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Nov 26, 2022 13:51
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I do feel like something that is interesting to me is that the movie is kind of a reverse psycho. Andi always seems important of course, but not really much more than any of the other characters. Then we suddenly get the big reveal that she, or at least the person we thought was Andi, is and always has been the main character. I think on a meta level, the idea that Blanc is the main character of the movie is also kind of a great clue that something is wrong. We as the audience know that the Blanc being the main character isn’t really how a Knives Out movie is supposed to work, but it’s east to write off as “well, they’re just making him more important for the sequel.” As for things being more blunt, I think that makes a lot of sense to me. Knives Out deals with class, white privilege, power, and duty. As awful a the family is, the issues are complex. Even the last shot of that movie ends with a shot that shows that the supposed victory of the main character is a little more complicated. Even the one decent character in Knives Out trips over his own white savior complex and assumption that he is smarter than a Latina who doesn’t make as much money as him. But the whole point is that there really, really isn’t any complexity to any of this. Nothing special about any of these people besides maybe the sisters. I think that the zoom call also sort of tips its hand to the view that genius and extraordinary talent does exist, it’s just that it comes in the form of Kareem and Sondheim, not blowhard assholes desperately trying to convince you of their genius. We celebrate Angela Lansbury because we witness her genius with our own eyes and ears. Not because we’re told.
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Nov 26, 2022 16:10
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The movie also presents Mona Lisa as a prisoner throughout the film. The Governor got it right comparing the Mona Lisa's presentation to be like a teenager hanging up a print on his dorm room wall. The fact that it's authentic does not mitigate how it's being trivialized. While it might be tragic that the Mona Lisa is destroyed like Andi's death itself, it's better to die than live under Bron's thumb.
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Nov 26, 2022 19:14
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YOLOsubmarine posted:I don’t think this is really the message. Rian Johnson, along with a lot of the cast, is extremely wealthy by any measure and I don’t think the movie is meant to impugn all of them as greedy idiots. Or the famous folks that Blanc is playing Among Us with at the beginning. Ironically though, Ed Norton is by far the richest in the cast and has made more money in tech investments than he ever has from acting. EDIT: Because I was wrong about Johnson Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Nov 27, 2022 |
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Nov 27, 2022 03:26
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YOLOsubmarine posted:Johnson’s net worth is at the very least in the tens of millions and he stands to make ~100 million from the Netflix deal. He’s not just well off, he’s rich. The fact that the scale is so skewed by Musk level wealth doesn’t mean that’s not an obscene amount of money.
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Nov 27, 2022 03:43
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Skippy McPants posted:While this is all true, I woulda been happier if Blanc handed her the gun and she'd just shot his rear end.
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Nov 27, 2022 06:20
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Lord Hydronium posted:Johnson's movies in general play a lot with genre conventions and audience expectations, that's just the kind of movies he likes to make. It's also funny because I think my main issue with Johnson pre-Breaking Bad episodes was that his characterization was a bit flat.
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Nov 29, 2022 02:17
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Friend posted:It's purely for award consideration right? Seems like netflix would be at least somewhat interested in that, though maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference
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Nov 30, 2022 03:00
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precision posted:It's 2022, being amazed at gay inclusion in Hollywood properties is very 1990s Anyway, I like Johnson’s movies because they’re often not what people expect them to be even while watching them and then people get so mad. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 16:53
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Ferrinus posted:I enjoyed this movie but it's got some real ideological limitations. Like at one point Blanc criticizes another character for not having a good grasp of disruption theory. Disruption theory??? Like there's a good, smart way to plan out an app with buzzwords like "crypto scalability" involved? Get outta here!
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Dec 27, 2022 01:13
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Ferrinus posted:Well, here's my question: is the diagram on the napkin supposed to be, like, good? Should we respect whoever drew it? Do I want credit for it for reasons besides tricking the courts into awarding me money?
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Dec 27, 2022 04:24
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Yeah, I do kind of agree that the Bron being a 1:1 Musk analogue is really contextual. He's a huge influence, but it's not like his biography is 1:1 or anything. It's just one part of the movie REALLY resonates. Duke is more about vibes than anything else. The breastification of men is painfully on point though. One weird thing I read is that people are somewhat pissed about the film taking place during COVID, seeing it as unnecessary. Which is weird as a bunch of plot elements kinda of require it and Blanc's whole story starts with him struggling in lockdown.
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Dec 27, 2022 18:19
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mobby_6kl posted:I think I mentioned it in the GBS thread but the thing that stood out to me is them explicitly saying Alpha Space and Alpha Cars, only Musky does both (unless you count the EV Amazon delivery vans?) and pretends to be trying to save everyone. --Jackie Hoffman is a treasure --The mom actually does provide some level of foreshadowing that the box is not a mind blowing work of genius. I rewatched it and it really is great. It's even more obvious that Blanc is off in the beginning of the movie. And there are great details and foreshadowing. In the same scene, Blanc assumed Bron to not be stupid while also explaining stupid things are his weakness. We even get a really good example of how Bron just steals people's ideas. Blanc asks if the box could be reset and Bron acts like it's a big realization he just had.
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Dec 28, 2022 04:09
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I think for a sequel, I do want to see another type of relationship between Blanc and the lead. I liked in this movie how Blanc had a mentor relationship with Helen as opposed to Knives Out where he's actually working somewhat in opposition with Marta. I feel like Blanc is never going to be as interesting as he was in Knives Out because you really don't know how good a person he is until the reveal. The "Good nurse" line really gets me. But anyway, I would enjoy a sequel where the hero is in genuine opposition with Blanc.
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Dec 29, 2022 13:47
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They should do one last normal Knives Out movie with Blanc in a case dealing with some lady and then have the last case be a team up of Marta, Helen, TBD lady, and Hugh Grant trying to solve Blanc’s murder. Johnson should also go full troll and call it The Last Detective.
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Jan 2, 2023 12:46
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I agree that Duke is more of a general amalgamation of the "manosphere" which we honestly probably need a better word for. I think for better or for worse, I would say that Duke is also a pretty charitable take on things. The actual manosphere includes Christo-fascists, people who try to orchestrate bomb threats on children's hospitals, maniacs who run women out of their homes through harassment campaigns, and straight up sexual traffickers. Like Duke sucks, but he is relatively toned down compared to his real world influences. I think in that sense, I kinda sorta get the Rogan connections that can pop into people's heads. Joe Rogan is kinda only manosphere adjacent, and you can definitely find videos of him not only making good points, but standing up to assholes. His transphobia and his gullibility are unfortunately big flaws that lead him to platform assholes. So, I kind of get when you see Duke who is this super bro-y shithead but like, not screaming blood and soil or talking about bombing drag shows or doxxing a lady who made a sad indie game, that your mind might go to Rogan who for all of his flaws is more of just a shithead than a foaming bigot... I mean a shithead that still platforms and mainstreams transphobia and vaccine hesitancy, but relatively speaking. Whiskey also makes it sound like his MRA bend is a more recent thing that he's leaning into.
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Jan 11, 2023 04:13
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MacheteZombie posted:I thinks it's fair to say a majority of the characters are underwritten tbh I really do agree with all of what Megaman is saying. Duke is a pretty soft satire, and while I love Janelle, they're not really being given the meaty role that Ana de Armas was given. Harlan's actual death scene in that movie is absolutely harrowing and heartbreaking, and you really do feel for this love between the two of them. The big reveal at the end and Blanc's line about her being a good nurse is an emotional gut punch. But it's a movie in which our heroes are the ones who actively deceiving us more than the baddie, and the the tone of the film is just very different than what Knives Out was. This is also a very personal hangup, but I think a more accurate to life Duke would probably detract from the movie. I know materially Jeff Bezos does more harm in the world by magnitudes, but also, I do actually detest Matt Walsh more than him because the latter's essentially actively trying to kill me. It's not a very logical stance, but here we are. The answer then of course is that Duke could be replaced with a different character, but Bautista was still very fun and I had fun and ultimately love the movie both times I saw it. And there are aspects like "breastification" and the tone during the apology video that did feel pretty on point for MRA stuff. EDIT: I also do like that after really showing no indication earlier, once he starts to fall apart, it turns out that Bron is also just kinda racist and sexist too which felt right. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Jan 11, 2023 |
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Jan 11, 2023 21:31
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Ironically, and accurately to real life, it does seem kinda flipped. The best gag in Knives Out is the reveal the house hasn't even been in the family for more than forty years. Harlan and his family feel like old money and maybe Harlan was rich before that--It's been a bit since I watched the movie--but the wealth seems very concentrated in him and his work. So, they are relatively new money who just feel like old money. We don't know EXACTLY Bron's origins, but it seems pretty clear that he had a lot of money before the company took off. The sense that you got was that he was just shifting his weight and money around to create a false image of himself. Taken together, I think Knives Out and Glass Onion essentially present relatively new money that feels like old money and old money masquerading as new money, and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that it's all just kinda bullshit and aesthetics.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:03
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