Hello my fellow readers and clue seekers! Today, we review not one, but two, yes TWO movies! Yet again! This time, we have two movies that will have you guessing and send your heart pounding, though not always in a good way. So let's begin:
"Knives Out" (Director: Rian Johnson)
Now, the reviews are NOT exaggerating. Honestly, while some things are done away with quickly, and some things seem obvious, this movie was quite hilarious. First of all, you have an all-star cast who all gave BRILLIANT performances, although I will raise my one BIG issue: Please, for the love of all that is decent and holy, NEVER GIVE DANIEL CRAIG A SOUTHERN ACCENT AGAIN! Either keep him with his natural accent (which would have worked as well for this movie) or cast someone else. Honestly, the accent he was trying to do was about as butchered as the overall explanation of what happened to Christopher Lee's character and the time afterward.
Also, the quips in this movie are quite funny. Some great one-liners delivered, my favorite still being "What is this? CSI KFC?" delivered by our wonderful and former Captain America, Chris Evans. I feel like I need to make that into something, but not sure what just yet. And if you are all about family drama, then you will feel right at home with this dysfunction! It might even make your family look sane!
This movie has basically been described as a modern take on a whodunit, even though we find out in the very beginning who did it. But do not think everything is as it seems, because, like all true murder mysteries, IT'S NOT! (Wow, big shock.) Everything then becomes a bit of a tangled web, as we power through the family listening to a will reading, and their faults are revealed for all the world to see, making them all potential suspects. It's only after the family turns on the poor caretaker that it really turns into a who TRIED to do it, with Daniel Craig's "gentleman detective" right in the middle of it all, hired under mysterious circumstances, trying to find the "doughnut hole [that] seems to have another doughnut, with another doughnut hole, inside it..." There's another design in that somewhere...
Overall, I found this movie exactly as Jamie Lee Curtis says:
This movie has basically been described as a modern take on a whodunit, even though we find out in the very beginning who did it. But do not think everything is as it seems, because, like all true murder mysteries, IT'S NOT! (Wow, big shock.) Everything then becomes a bit of a tangled web, as we power through the family listening to a will reading, and their faults are revealed for all the world to see, making them all potential suspects. It's only after the family turns on the poor caretaker that it really turns into a who TRIED to do it, with Daniel Craig's "gentleman detective" right in the middle of it all, hired under mysterious circumstances, trying to find the "doughnut hole [that] seems to have another doughnut, with another doughnut hole, inside it..." There's another design in that somewhere...
Overall, I found this movie exactly as Jamie Lee Curtis says:
"Uncut Gems" (Directors: Josh and Benny Safdie)
Has the ride stopped, because I want off! Adam Sandler attempting to do this very mob-like movie was DEFINITELY a stretch, and not exactly in a good way. While it was a nice change of pace for the actor, and shows commitment, this movie was like one long anxiety attack. Seriously, many times I kept feeling like something was going to happen, and then nothing ever does. You can't do that to someone unless you would like to induce a panic attack in them. And why would you set this movie in 2012? Just this by itself seems to be like a random choice of time frame. This isn't a period piece, we don't need to go backwards.
While I did go into this movie with the ending ruined (thank you to my brother), I didn't know exactly HOW everything would culminate. The movie follows Howard (played by Adam Sandler) who is a gambling addict that works in the famous NYC Diamond District. This is a very obvious and very BAD combination, being surrounded by all that wealth and beauty. For some reason--let's assume a gambling debt--he owes money to this guy named Arno, who we later find out is his brother-in-law. At the same time, Harold is trying to make enough money from selling a GIANT uncut Ethiopian black fire opal, which he thinks is over a million dollars. Cue my drool:
Now, for those of you who are not gem experts (and I am definitely not one of them, despite my love of jewelry and unique pieces), let me try and say something about opals: first, there are many types, the most common that we know of being lab created and natural. If you ever seen the two together, you will notice that a lab created opal is more white, while a natural opal is going to have a lot more green to it, among many other colors. This plays into the two more common classes of opal: precious and common. Precious opal displays play-of-color (iridescence), common opal does not. Black opal is considered to be the rarest, whereas white, gray and green are the most common.
via GIPHY
From here, we basically follow Howard through all his follies as he tries to pay off his debts to pretty much everyone, basically using the black fire opal as a chip in this whole scheme. It becomes a pretty predictable movie, although the ending kind of threw me just a bit, despite the fact that it was already spoiled for me. The performances were not horrible, but not the greatest. I was HATING the fact that Idina Menzel, who was playing Howard's wife, was basically being cast as a "Real Housewife of Long Island" complete with mob-sounding accent and all. So, if you like an anxiety-driven, drug-induced thrill ride with a weird, 80s sounding techno soundtrack, you've found your movie!
No comments:
Post a Comment