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

agree tbh

There’s certainly an art to making delightful, off-axis genre exercises. He’s not a Paul Thomas Anderson or whatever (to pick a contemporary) but why should he be?

i could just tell how much this movie enjoyed telling its story and it kept giving me opportunities to share in that joy. i sorta feel this energy running through most of rian johnson's movies

yeah hes a story guy, its a strength when so many lauded directors have other priorities cf nolan and whatever the fuck it is hes doing with "plot" nb i may be overstretching it with "lauded"

johnson is also a writer-director who, Star Wars aside, has only done original screenplays not tied to any existing material, so i can understand people developing a stronger sense of his voice, interests, themes, etc., than in some other people working at his level. also IIRC auteur theory was birthed from the study of people who reliably turned out well-made, memorable mid-budget movies, no?

That's true.

I didn't know he was talked about as anything much, but I think a tincture of auteurism can be usefully applied here as he started with an unusual detective story and has now produced a slightly less unusual detective story.

Yeah, I mean, I just think it's interesting that Johnson is a director people know by name, precisely because it's hard (for me) to pinpoint his "voice." He's no hack Ron Howard-type, to be sure, I'm just not sure what are the aesthetic hallmarks of a "Rian Johnson film." If there is a throughline to all of his work that I've noticed, it's a sense of playfulness and a commitment to telling a good story, but these are pretty general qualities.

This might be unnecessary, but I feel the need to clarify that this slipperiness is what I find interesting about Johnson, and is not meant as a dis on him or his work (which I've enjoyed all of, except for the Brothers Bloom, which gave me twee poisoning)

He's got clever style and writing. There's definitely a line through Brick, Looper, his Breaking Bad work, and Knives Out. I hated Brothers Bloom too (and I'm a Wes Anderson fan).
The Last Jedi was a departure from his usually small-mid budget films, but I appreciated the character work on the script; praying his own trilogy still happens.

He doesn't have a clear visual style (he seems to like shooting from unusual angles but not in a way that's particularly distinctive) but there's def a theme that runs through his writing - both a reverence for and a willingness to subvert genre tropes, whether it's noir or high school flicks, a whodunit, a time travel movie or a franchise blockbuster.

I thought this was pretty good. lotta great little touches - loved "Sundown" playing at the diner. and I actually thought the political stuff worked. I've heard that exact argument play out practically word for word

this is one of the few films of its kind where I've actually been able to guess most of the ending. the fact that the Narcan (or whatever that was) went missing seemed like something that was obviously going to come back. and the thing about the dogs. the fact that it wasn't set up by Harlan from the get go was pretty cool though - the 'mixing up the bottles' plot was pretty clever

saw that bottle swap straight away tbh

just presumed that plummer had set it all up

Driving around on errands this morning, I remembered Plummer's response when he realizes he might've been given the wrong injection = classic.

Sequel otw as expected: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/knives-sequel-works-centered-daniel-craigs-detective-character-1266533

Nice nice

Knive Harder

Knives Over Forks

Knives In?

craigs character would be fairly low down the list of those id follow to a sequel tbh

much rather follow shannons tortured and twisted failed publisher

Could be interesting if it's a Better Call Saul thing where it shows Craig with a different name and accent until a threat to his life forces him to assume another identity.

Wait that's a Tana French novel nm

I hope he casts Kelly Marie Tran.

craigs character would be fairly low down the list of those id follow to a sequel tbh

Poirot stories are not about Poirot

I would totally see a Knives Out sequel, and yet one of the great things about the movie is that it's a star-studded Hollywood entertainment that's not a franchise.

Why has Knives Out — an old-school whodunnit, unrelated to any established franchise or source material — done so well? Some of the movie’s success might be thanks to good holiday timing, but it also has something that the latest entries in the Star Wars, Jumanji, Frozen, Addams Family, and Maleficent franchises do not: incredible word-of-mouth buzz.

...

The sort of word of mouth that sells out theaters five weeks into a film’s release often has very little to do with critics and everything to do with people telling their friends and family that a movie is actually good. Not “good for a Marvel movie,” not “a little long but has some good special effects” or even “definitely going to win some Oscars,” but good in that way that makes it hard to shut up about — usually the result of a movie exceeding expectations in some, often ineffable, way. That’s what Knives Out is: a pretty good movie that’s exceeding people’s expectations because their expectations for the movies are so damn low.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/knives-out-rian-johnson-box-office-movies

(Johnson has repeatedly said that while he's always been disinterested in sequels, the beauty of doing further Benoit Blanc Mysteries is that they'd not be sequels, just new mysteries about different characters.)

xp it manages to be a whodunnit and fun in a very contemporary american way, whereas a lot of pure whodunnits try to be period pieces or otherwise entangled and it limits the audience

the joke about the house being acquired contemporarily pokes fun at that, because it’s the atemporal element

whodunnit and fun in a very contemporary american way

... while using and playing with all the traditional genre tropes. Obviously "genre tropes, but contemporary!" is not a new idea, but normally it's not done this well.

this was fabulous, loved the coffee cup framing and all the delicious overacting and mugging, like an updated parody of Murder By Death. all the acting was pitch perfect.

Why has Knives Out — an old-school whodunnit, unrelated to any established franchise or source material — done so well?

because America want to see rich people get theirs for once

Kinda surprised how un-twisty it was. I was expecting at least one more surprise in the final third. I think movies like Wild Things have permanently messed up my ‘twist anticipation’ gland.

really happy i went out to see this in the theater, it was so much fun. i was cracking up at random daniel craig line deliveries. the way the tone modulated from farcical to sinister was a neat and difficult trick--thinking of the family descending on marta's failing car like zombie vultures vs. the genuinely unsettling encounter with walt in the hallway of her apartment. it made the last shot feel very well-earned. also, since i haven't seen it mentioned in this thread at least, what a delight christopher plummer is in his scenes.

great cameo by downtown maynard, massachusetts too

I appreciated that Ana de Armas, probably 29ish when this was shot, was able to play a nuanced character that didn’t seem artificially old or young. Just a responsible person, not a kid, who lives with her mom and works a private nursing job, but still has social potential to live out

Just saw it again with Rian Johnson’s commentary in my ear, some great stuff about sets and locations, improvised moments, and especially cinematography. Biggest revelation for me was hearing that Benoit Blanc’s voice owes the most to Ken Burns talking head, writer, and Lost Causer Shelby Foote.

Also Johnson storyboards his movies himself with bad line drawings, and one of the key payoffs for Marta’s story, of knowing by look and feel which drug was which, wasn’t in his first draft but was pitched by his first readers.

wow yeah shelby foote did basically talk like that

omg that is awesome

We’re still in theaters this weekend! If you haven’t caught @KnivesOut yet or if you want another shot of whudunnitness we’ve got you covered. Though I can’t promise it will equal the splendor of my original storyboard vision. pic.twitter.com/95rzRbSmBE

— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) January 19, 2020

lmao

nice to know that i share the drawing ability of a successful film director

I don't :(

Hahah I love the Safdies reply to that.

People laughed at my boards, but they’re helpful. pic.twitter.com/jzGPHWSnjM

— SAFDIE (@JOSH_BENNY) January 19, 2020

that last effort has me humming "that aint workin, thats the way you do it"

And we're off:

Update: Lionsgate's CEO says a Knives Out sequel is officially happening. Production is getting underway soon. https://t.co/USnQHmBWN7 pic.twitter.com/atjZjrlL39

— Peter Sciretta (@slashfilm) February 6, 2020

Blanc. Benoit Blanc.

this movie fucking ruled!!!

I always associate detective stories with medicine, but daniel craig reminded me of someone particularly charismatic and brilliant I trained under which endeared me to his character even more than I might have otherwise. totally bought the accent and was ROLLING at “detective KFC” or whatever that diss was

ensemble cast overall was fantastic I thought. ana de armas was really good! so much goodness in her character. hope she gets some critical love for this role. and man did she look good in this movie

"CSI: KFC"

how's the novel

SUPER racist! v glad he updated it.

what novel?

saw this around Xmas and k3vin otm, Daniel Craig was great as was everyone else especially Ana de Armas. it is always good to see Craig cutting loose w/an accent and w/his not inconsiderable comic chops and natural charisma. the manner in which the mystery was "solved" early on was an excellent red herring, for how it all continued to pile up thereafter. biggest laughs in the theater came from the Gravity's Rainbow zing and "that was the dumbest car chase of all time!" plus:

"I spoke in the car about the hole at the center of this donut. And what you and Harlan did that fateful night seems at first glance to fill that hole perfectly. A donut hole in a donut's hole. But we must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the donut hole has a hole in its center. It is not a donut hole, but a smaller donut with its own hole, and our donut is not holed at all!"