KNIVES OUT -- dir. Rian Johnson; Daniel Craig, Michael Shannon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, etc. etc.

Dude he was doing community theater southern as a choice.

Nobody after Kevin Spacey on HoC does that shit as a legit attempt

― master of nuggets (Neanderthal), Friday, 6 December 2019 00:16 (one hour ago) link

ah i see, acting badly on purpose, what a bold and advanced move

Have you seen movies before doggie

Most actors don’t act in movies so acting badly on purpose is a lot more fun

“combo of smart and stupid” — otm

loved this.

Loved Daniel Craig's ridiculous accent. That character would have been way less interesting without it. That whole donut within a donut speech would not have worked without that accent.

ah i see, acting badly on purpose, what a bold and advanced move

please somebody restrain flopson from seeing any previous mega-cast country-house murder-mystery screen comedies made from the 1930s to the 1980s, or stage ones ever, lest he utterly implode with disgust

One plus one plus two plus one

there's a bit where Craig says 'I suspect... foul play' which sounds like a direct echo of a line spoken by Edward Woodward in The Wicker Man. Made me wonder if it was deliberate or just very very uncanny

Did like that chair. Positively garish.
Harlan must love GoT.

May need another look at the film.had just assumed that the decoration had been some kind of family legacy until hearing it had very short family history. Was it supposed to say nouveau riche at all?

I saw that Joseph Gordon Levitt was credited as a random detective, and assumed he was one of the ones at the medical office or something - it turns out that he's the narrator in the show that Marta's sister's watching on her laptop.

please somebody restrain flopson from seeing any previous mega-cast country-house murder-mystery screen comedies made from the 1930s to the 1980s, or stage ones ever, lest he utterly implode with disgust

― insecurity bear (sic), Friday, December 6, 2019 12:32 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these. if they are like bad movie knives out, probably i will also find them bad

Is there a single famous person with a deep South accent? i'm struggling to think of any. Morgan Freeman? (not really deep South though)

I thought Stephen Colbert congratulated Craig on his accent. Colbert's from Carolina, not sure how much it shows in his current accent though.

Well, there are definitely actors with a southern accent, and lots of Texans, but like a Col. Sanders accent? I don't know.

Walton Goggins?

I assume a lot of actors from all over work to limit their strong regional accents in order to land roles.

the accent is a lot but it never seemed ~wrong~ to me. like you're benoit blanc from southern louisana? sure, okay, i can go with this. the real colonel sanders was from indiana anyway and the "colonel sanders accent" just actors projecting vague southernness.

Fred Dalton Thompson had a pretty good shitkicker accent, didn't he?

I hate bad Southern accents in movies and I was worried Craig's would be a distraction, but I thought it was fine, internally consistent and of a piece with Benoit Blanc's fulsome self-regard

the crazy decor of the Thrombey house I took to be mainly artifacts gathered by Harlan during his long mystery-writing career, so the place is a house of mystery in a couple of different ways

the most distracting lapse in the movie is the scene in which the detectives are talking to Marta on the veranda and you can see their breath misting in the cold and Marta (always shown in separate shots) is not misting

I noticed that too. The first time I wondered if it was just Craig's cigar smoke. Or maybe it was because Marta has been inside, but they came in from the chill?

Fred Thompson, the asshole Republican and sometimes actor, is from Tennessee, so not “deep” South à la Foghorn Leghorn et al. Billy Bob has a wonderful accent but it’s hillbilly, not Georgia/Louisiana/Alabama/S Carolina etc

ANYWAY

The problem I had with the accent was not that it was "good" or "bad" but placed Craig on a broader parodic bandwidth than every other actor, which in an ensemble film like this is just interruptive. I just don't understand what value it added.

I enjoyed this movie but reading all the high praise can't help but wonder if people are just finding it refreshing relative to the lack in multiplexes of this kind of harmless fun.

Calling bullshit on that "I got outvoted" line though. However racist or superior the family was they all demonstrated a real affection and gratitude for her personally. Also duh ppl don't get "invited" to funerals. Surely there was a smarter funnier option for what they intended here.

a broader parodic bandwidth than every other actor, which in an ensemble film like this is just interruptive

the white cop was v broad tbf. but it did sit very strangely with lakeith stanfield's awesome, understated, perceptive thing. speaking of lakeith stanfield i kept waiting for him to get his moment and show up blanc for the self-regarding blowhard he was but it never came :(

Well, he does chuckle at Chris Evans' "CSI KFC" joke, which was at Craig's expense.

xpost I thought the "I got outvoted" line was a joke. That is, who exactly was voting? The kids? The grandkids? They never say. I just assumed it was the kids, and if two of them say they were outvoted, then I suspect they never even held a vote and just used it as an excuse.

Well yeah, but the joke is for the viewer, not for her, and it’s predicated on the idea that no one would want her at the funeral, which doesn’t ring remotely true, and on the idea that close friends get “invited” to funerals

just a wrong note I thought

placed Craig on a broader parodic bandwidth than every other actor, which in an ensemble film like this is just interruptive. I just don't understand what value it added.

1) it was fun
2) it was not much broader than Curtis or Shannon or
3) it deliberately sets him apart / as other from the self-regarding waspiness of the family
4) ‘ave you nevair SEEN any screen portrayal, be it large or small, of m’sieu ‘Ercule PoiROT, ze esteemed privat detecteeve from BELZHUM??

Poirot is also Definitely Gay which I don't think Craig was playing towards, probably for the best

People hold private memorials, especially for famous and/or rich ppl. It’s not that engraved invitations are sent out, it’s that the ceremony is stated to be private, or for family only, or “at an undisclosed location.”

However racist or superior the family was they all demonstrated a real affection and gratitude for her personally.

That affection is shown many many times to go a short distance only, and not to be especially profound.

Definitely Gay which I don't think Craig was playing towards, probably for the best

I’m fine if the next Benoit Blanc Mystery implicitly or openly has all the sweater-clad hunks murmuring “wreck me daddy” to themselves every time he looks away from them though

xp I have, yes! And Clouseau and even Columbo, Peter Falk leans into something a little OTT. None of those struck me as this jarring

However racist or superior the family was they all demonstrated a real affection and gratitude for her personally.

lol that lasted all of ten minutes the moment she gets the money. this was clearly a case of going through the motions and being charitable to staff that was always tenuous and only needed one event to completely unravel. none of it was real.

sic it was literally referred to as “the funeral”

anyway who cares, this movie was alright

xo that’s just not true, she is very evidently treated like family from the outset, long b4 the will is read. I

and yeah, co-signing sic, not all funerals are public. wasn't the idea that she didn't even know the funeral had already happened when she arrived at the house? generally if you're not wanted at a funeral due to it being private, you're just...simply not provided the details. or it's announced, like sic said, that we're keeping it to immediate family only. def have had people die where I didn't attend because I basically knew it was a smaller private thing.

that’s just not true, she is very evidently treated like family from the outset

lol have you never known a bullshitter before?

there’s my thumby Zing-post hug/kiss crosspost for you Neanderthal

Yeah it just didn’t scan to me that their bullshit extended to secret disdain for this character

As you were

born-on-third assholes, which is what most of the Thrombeys are*, are often like this. they're very good at coming across as caring and kind, but also classist assholes that think a thing like having "the help" show up at a rich patriarch's funeral is "beneath" them.

*meaning that at first it makes most of them look like they built their own empires but it's quickly revealed they did so either from direct million dollar loans from Harlan or illicit means like double-dipping on a daughter's financial aid.

(disregard, rather than disdain, as shown every time they refer to her parental country of origin)

wasn't the idea that she didn't even know the funeral had already happened when she arrived at the house?

that’s how I read it the first time, wasn’t sure by the third

moreso, it always felt like they were just faux-kind to Marta just like these types of people can be. kind of like "Smurf" Cody in Animal Kingdom with her grandson J. she comes across as a loving grandmother when she takes him in, embraces him, calls him sweety, talks to him in a sweet grandma voice, yet the moment he's a threat to her, she orders him killed, because none of those feelings were 'real'.

similarly they all "like" Marta and they make shows of kindness to her, but they're empty - like they say they're going to take care of her financially! How nice! But it's an empty gesture because they're doing so with the money they assume they're going to get from Harlan's estate, not their own money. and the moment she gets the money, instead of being happy that she's going to be well-off, they all turn on her like selfish, vile pricks.

xpost yeah I don't mean to suggest that they secretly "hate" Marta, but that they don't care as much about her as they let on.

born-on-third assholes, which is what most of the Thrombeys are*, are often like this. they're very good at coming across as caring and kind, but also classist assholes that think a thing like having "the help" show up at a rich patriarch's funeral is "beneath" them.

― master of nuggets (Neanderthal), Friday, December 6, 2019 2:21 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Exactly. Fran also wasn't invited, which was why she was home to see Ransom.

michael shannon's eye was really wandering overtime, wonder if it was CGI or if he can do that at will -- acting!

It is a little weird watching this discussion from the UK - she's the help! They're kind to her because you're kind to the help, but I have no idea where you're getting "very evidently treated like family".

In fact she's treated better than the family treats each other, because she's not on the radar. If you'd asked any of them before the will scene if Harlan was schtupping her, they would have politely changed the subject because who cares what you do with the help?

(Something at one point - I annoyingly forget what - did make me wonder if they were going for something Father Brownish where class makes people dangerous through invisibility)

The most glaring example of How Things Are is the scene with Don Johnson prattling on while holding up his empty cake plate. It's only after a second that you realize he is holding it up for Marta, who is standing just off screen and a little bit out of focus in the foreground, to take.

prattling on about how much he appreciates her

don johnson was my favorite in this, so effectively squirrely when being interrogated

Does Don Johnson ever play characters that aren't garbage people?

A Boy And His Dog

Maybe the twist in Watchmen finale is he's a cool dude.