Knives Out

Knives Out (2019)

Written and directed by Rian Johnson

Stars: Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Jaime Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, LaKeith Stanfield, Noah Segan, Katherine Langford, Riki Lindhome, Jaeden Martell, and Christopher Plummer

Being familiar with Rian Johnson's filmography, I was hesitant in looking at this. I was spoiled a bit about who done it, but the clues were there if you picked it up. Now, that the atrociously named sequel in coming out soonish on Netflix. This whodunit was good, but long in the tooth.

On the day of his 85th birthday, Harlan Thrombey (Plummer) is found dead in his study. Private Investigator Benoit Blanc (Craig) along with Lt. Elliott (Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Segan) question all of the members of the Thrombey family where something sinister is waiting to bubble up.

Can we get this out of the way? Daniel Craig's accent. What is that? I deduced that it was either Louisiana, because of the French name or it was South Carolina with that thick drawl. My assumption in the latter. It was something. Could have had a generic American accent, but when the exaggerated accent are there, you have to take pause.

Johnson did a similar style film with Brick that I didn't care for that much. This felt like a better attempt at the whodunit. I felt like there were some pacing issues. There is a scene where you see what happened and you have to sit through another hour of movie. The last twenty minutes of the movie were good with the reveal, but then you go back and find holes in plot. It kinda ruins the expierence.

I enjoyed the movie. Some characters could have been cut or combined into one character. Some characters were very one-dimensional.

Rating: 8/10

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Stars: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong,  Tallie Medel, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr, and Jaime Lee Curtis

This movie was not on my radar to see this year. Film twitter was buzzing about it. Thank you, twitterverse for the recommendation.

Evelyn (Yeoh), a seemingly ordinary woman is thrust into a world where there are multiple universe that have one common denominator, Evelyn. She doesn't believe that that there are other universes out there until the ultimate jumper, Joy (Hsu) tries to destroy her.

I didn't know what to expect with the movie. It was like being on an acid trip or watching a sequence of a Doctor Strange movie. I was strapped in and enjoyed the ride. What was happening with this movie? Sausage fingers, a black bagel, butt plugs and usual triggers for jumps. I laughed. I got emotional. I was creeped out. It was sensory overload.

The one thing that irked me was the exposition. The Waymond (Quan) character spouted A LOT of exposition about multiverses and jumps to Evelyn.

Rating: 9/10

A Fish Called Wanda

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Directed by Charles Crichton with uncredited work of John Cleese

Screenplay by John Cleese

Story by John Cleese and Charles Crichton

Stars: Jaime Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, John Cleese, Michael Palin and Tom Georgeson

Seeing that I was doing this "Birthday Blog-A-Thon" that tens of you are following, it was luck that A Fish Called Wanda is on constant rotation on Logo. I have seen bits and pieces of the movie since it was released. I wanted to see something light-hearted seeing all of the dark movies I have seen. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards and won Best Supporting Actor for Kevin Kline. I thought it was a solid movie despite its ridiculousness.

A team of thieves are going for the their last caper. The leader, George (Georgeson) wants to rip off a place for their precious diamonds so he could retire with his main squeeze, Wanda (Curtis). No the fish, the human. Wanda the fish belongs to the stuttering Ken (Palin). The new person coming into the mix is dim-witted Otto (Kline) who stakes him claim with the one of the team members. When the thieves double and triple cross each other to find the loot to leave the country things get complicated when George is arrested and has to be represented by Archie Leach (Cleese).

Normally, a movie about a bunch of con artists would be very predictable that they would stab each other in the back in order ahead. I know some things that were going to happen when they did, but a couple of things surprised me. The chemistry between Wanda the human and Archie was nice to see. I love the characters quirks like Wanda the human would almost orgasm by foreign languages or Otto trying to be spiritual with Nietzsche but doesn't uphold to his philosophy in the least bit.

Not that many comedies would get love at the Oscar buy Kevin Kline won over Martin Landau, River Phoenix or Sir Alec Guiness. Hmm... I enjoyed Otto very much. He tries so hard to be intellectual, but he is stupid plain and simple. Don't call him stupid, though. There were times that I laughed out loud and couldn't stop. Some jokes or gags fall flat. Maybe because of how the movie has aged in the past 25 years. Jaime Lee Curtis was very alluring and sexy in this movie. If I was wasn't strictly dickly, I would be all up in that.

P.S. There is nothing remotely gay about this movie, except for when Otto tries to distract Ken by confess his "feelings" for him.

My Rating