Knives Out - The new film by Rian "subverted expectations" Johnson

[off meds / online]

this movie isn't about the great replacement, please just be normal

 

[Chad Nasty]

Spoiler: The plot in as few words as possible

Christopher Plummer kills himself so he can virtue signal.

It was a good movie, I'll give it that. I wasn't too thrilled with the SJW self congratulation, though.

Thanks for the rundown, I couldn't make it through the trailer to even figure out what this shit is about.

 

[Nonronic]

I remember seeing the trailers for Knives Out over two years ago. All I really remembered was that it seemed cool and engaging. The title logo looked really fancy, so it must be good. I'm kind of lazy when it comes to watching movies though, so I'd been sitting on my ass for the past two years never getting around to seeing it until today, on a whim.

So after two years of waiting to feel like watching this movie I was interested in, it did a good job of making me want to inject myself with 100mg of morphine? Or at least drown my sorrows?

frozenrunner is totally right on what they said about this movie and I'm glad I wasn't the only one who could pick up on all the symbolic propaganda rhetoric streaming through the arteries of this film.

Spoiler

As someone earlier in the thread mentioned, the movie would be more of a thriller than a whodunnit for most of it, because it's primarily about the protagonist and victim's conspiracy to frame a perceived unavoidable death as an unrelated suicide. It's a thriller about being the poor innocent anchor baby who didn't do nothing. A thriller about avoiding the pressure and judgement from evil entitled dwellers of a home. A thriller about getting away with rightfully being given and trusted absolutely everything by the innocent, cool, wise old boomer who sees the poor innocent anchor baby nurse as a true friend, and the rest of his descended family, from living off of his success, as too spoiled and enabled for their own good.

That shit in the scenes where Thrombley family members are arguing about the morals of ICE deportations, there's no way that the writing is meant to have you side with the guy arguing against illegal immigration. I've seen it enough in mainstream/politically correct media, where statements and points that might seem rational or worth considering are presented as something to ridicule or have disassembled by the "morally righteous". Everyone in the movie with clear right-wing/alt-right opinions are presented as the most ethically questionable characters. The man who agrees with deportation cheats on his wife and is dishonest about it, Ransom, who calls Meg an SJW, is presented as the most unproductive and dependent member of the entire family, Jacob is a kid, his dad laughs off his son's interest in alt-right politics and acts like a scary intimidating creep at Marta when he finds out her mom's undocumented.

It's just another example as to how an emotionally engaging movie can easily be constructed with the intent to make the viewer project onto a particular identity/side and sympathize with them. Remember to distinguish reality from fiction or else you'll be taken advantage of to disregard aspects of a subject that are worth approaching.

TL;DR: Serves me right, I trusted Hollywood.

 

[Rusty Hinges]

Sorry to resurrect this thread. I watched the new one, Wake Up Dead Man, against my will. It's a more functional mystery than Glass Onion, but still suffers from similar writing problems. Once again, the suspect with the most screentime and the most capability to pull off the murder is the one pulling the strings. It's clear before you even meet the rest of the side characters. What caught me off guard was the willing involvement of auxiliary suspects in the scheme and the villain's motivation, the latter of which Rian cheats to achieve.

The antagonist, Martha, wants to kill a corrupt priest to avoid the sin of greed from infesting her church, as he plans on recovering a secret diamond from a crypt that the church owns, and only they know the location of. The film tries to stage her as sympathetic when uncovered (when she literally chooses to commit suicide over being caught and doesn't even hide the diamond).

Her decisions throughout the plot are nonsensical. Rather than simply kill the priest, frame it as a suicide or accident (the former of which would easily be accepted due to declining attendance and pressure from members), and leave the gem as a secret in the crypt, or stealthily pluck it during the burial, she chooses something far less discreet and safe for those uninvolved.

Instead, Martha involves multiple accomplices in a blatant murder, which she frames on Friar Jud. She uses an idea from a mystery murder novel on the church's set reading list and commits the crime during the middle of a church service, in front of a small crowd of witnesses who have or are set to read that book. She then takes a look-alike of the victim and buries him in the crypt to retrieve the gem, making it appear as though the priest rose from the dead on the security camera.

Not only is it unnecessarily cruel and reckless to pin a murder on an innocent man who then has every reason to find the truth, but this method also requires at least one aide to learn the secret and draws a gratuitous amount of press.

Also, there's plenty of "I have nothing but contempt for your backward beliefs, but Jesus said to be nice somewhere," baked into the script. Right-wing strawmen feature for comedic relief, and there's a clear message of acceptance and kindness through faith, instead of being judgmental. Not that "Forgive your enemies" is a bad message, but the script treats characters like the priest's long-dead mother as a misunderstood victim when she tore up the church and beat a child in a wrathful, greed-induced search for a diamond her husband did not want anyone to have. There is evidence that her spouse hated her for dressing provocatively, but they didn't sell the idea that she was actually abused, nor that she was entitled to the fortune.

Benoit Blanc is also a vitriolic atheist, through and through. Even his "Damascus" moment comes down to him feeling sympathy for Jud, and he immediately follows it up with "God is a fiction." He's not even momentarily agnostic, and the beard and hairstyle really make him feel like Rian's self-insert here.

Wake Up Dead Man displays solid cinematography, serviceable acting, and plenty of good scenes with Jud, but the film, overall, is worth sleeping on.

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

All the woman are good people and helpless victims, while all the men are either stupid, evil, unsympathetic or some combination of the three.

 

[Starman John]

Having watched the movie, it's pretty telling of the movie how dead this thread is.
Ironically enough, i am looking forward to the reception of the next movie, that will absolutely happen, given the millions Netflix gives to this crap. I wonder how long will it take for the general public watching it to catch up to the one trick Johnson keeps using.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Having watched the movie, it's pretty telling of the movie how dead this thread is.

Its a movie, how alive do you expect the thread to be? Is there any movie with a massive thread?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

What caught me off guard was the willing involvement of auxiliary suspects in the scheme and the villain's motivation, the latter of which Rian cheats to achieve.

Knox sperging intensifies

Why can't western movies just do a valid mystery with one suspect doing the crime? What is even the point of labeling it as mystery rather than thriller? Even books barely pull off doing this shit.