I Watched 3 Movies in 2020, and One of Them Was Rise of Skywalker
- Knives Out (2019)
Synopsis: After the body of author and patriarch Harlan Thromby (Christopher Plummer) is discovered by his nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is called in to investigate.
There’s a lot of great stuff in this movie. Great performances, especially from de Armas and Craig, great direction and cinematography, great set and costume design, great dialogue, some really subtle character-driven writing amidst the over-the-top satirical stuff, and a plot that doesn’t get too behind itself. And the absurdity of Marta’s vomitous affliction was surprising and hilarious. I honestly feel like they could have used it more/better, not because the vomiting itself is funny (I actually generally hate vomit humor) but because as a plot device the novelty is just so good, and I feel like too many times in the middle of the film it only served as a redundant representation of the tension rather than actually affecting the plot.
But anyway. The movie did a bunch of great stuff and I enjoyed it. So it’s definitely a great movie.
It was not the movie I was expecting it to be though, and that took a bit to get used to and made it feel like the disparate elements of the movie didn’t quite come together. But that’s my fault I suppose, since I was expecting it to be more of a comedic murder mystery a la Murdered by Death, rather than a Columbo episode which I only just realized as I was typing is what this movie is wow how did I not notice that before. (I mean, maybe Poirot would be more accurate but I haven’t watched any of those so I don’t know.) Anyway, I love Columbo, I just wasn’t prepared for that. (Also Daniel Craig’s Louisiana accent took some getting used to. I have a feeling that first scene he talks in was shot pretty early on, because he seems to need to make his face do weird stuff in order to get the accent to come out, and he stops doing that in later scenes.)
Oh, also, Lakeith Stanfield got nothing to do in this movie. Anyone could have been stuffed into that role and I don’t feel like it would have changed anything. I don’t know if it started out as a bigger role and then got downsized as they were filming, or maybe there’s a bunch of stuff that got cut in the edit, but, you know, he’s on the poster (in a very distinctive blue suit, no less). So it seems like he should matter. And he really doesn’t. His deputy does more than him, ’cause at least he’s goofy. Fran does more than him. Heck, the grandmother does more than him. Even Marta’s mom is a more developed character. I think the only character who contributes less to the movie than he does is Marta’s sister, and that’s debatable. So that was kind of frustrating.
Also that’s not how you play Go, but I think they know that.
Also, the Baby Driver reference—it wasn’t bad, it’s actually a good line, it’s just noticeable, because I feel like when movies casually reference other movies like that they’re usually older, and Baby Driver came out pretty recently. Kind of jolted me out of the movie for a second, is all. - Our Popcorn Movie Dystopia—Some More News: The Movie (2020)
Synopsis: Cody (Cody Johnston) gets a message from the future, and analyzes current events through the lens of pop culture.
Ok, so technically this a YouTube video but it’s over 2 hours long, it has an IMDb page, and they clearly put a movie-amount of work into it, so I feel it would be disrespectful not to include it in this context. A surprisingly deep analysis of pretty dumb movies that nevertheless have been accurately predicting our current events for the last 30+ years. Also relevant is the PeopleWatching episode “2017”, which contains the headline: “Study: Need to Imagine a Better Future in Order to Create One”. I’m still pretty sure we’re all doomed, but maybe that’s just me.
Certain of Eventual Failure 