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Speaker 2: Hey, film spotters, Josh and Adam. Here, Wednesdays are when
Speaker 2: we drop something in the feed from the Film Spotting Archive,
Speaker 2: and so here we go this week our twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: review of Knives Out twenty nineteen. Adam, I feel like
Speaker 2: there was a window when we were playfully recalling that,
Speaker 2: you know, the before times. I think now we're in
Speaker 2: a different period where we just pretend like twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: I don't know, twenty twenty three four didn't exist, right,
Speaker 2: just don't refer to them at all. But twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: sounds like a long time ago.
Speaker 3: Spotting Archive goes all the way back to two thousand
Speaker 3: and five. We're just going back about six years. But
Speaker 3: you're right when you think about the before times, it
Speaker 3: might as well be sixty years Knives Out. Ryan Johnson
Speaker 3: now has the third Knives Out mystery coming out, and
Speaker 3: we're highly anticipating it. We thought to get ourselves ready,
Speaker 3: to get you ready for that film. Let's go back
Speaker 3: and hear our discussion of that very first movie, that
Speaker 3: very first, highly successful movie that launched this franchise. So
Speaker 3: here is our review of Knives Out.
Speaker 4: I'm Detective Attendant Elliott, and this is true for Wagner.
Speaker 4: We just want to ask a few questions. We understand
Speaker 4: nine of his demise. The family have gathered to celebrate
Speaker 4: your father's eighty fifth birthday.
Speaker 1: How was it the party.
Speaker 3: Pri my dad's death?
Speaker 4: That was great?
Speaker 2: Jamie Lee Curtis and Leakeith Stanfield and the trailer for
Speaker 2: Ryan Johnson's Knives Out, which opened Thanksgiving weekend. A lot
Speaker 2: of people went to see it, judging by the box office.
Speaker 2: I know I was there in the theater with Debbie
Speaker 2: and we took my daughter b two. We all had
Speaker 2: a great time with it. It's an Agatha Christie style
Speaker 2: Who Done It? Which also stars Tony Kollette, Daniel Craig,
Speaker 2: Chris Evans, Michael Shannon. I'm not done yet. Don Johnson
Speaker 2: and Christopher Plumber. Ryan Johnson well known to us as
Speaker 2: the namesake for our Golden Brick Award for his great
Speaker 2: debut film Brick. He's also, of course, some people know
Speaker 2: him as the writer director of The Last Jedi Adam.
Speaker 2: I would say that though this is a fun who
Speaker 2: done it? The moral burden of wealth really weighs heavily
Speaker 2: on this film. According to the movie's understanding of twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen America, there is a larger culprit on the loose
Speaker 2: than the specific killer here, and that culprit is privilege
Speaker 2: and greed. So what I'd like to know. I've heard
Speaker 2: a lot of people talking about how much fun they
Speaker 2: had with this movie, and it's incredibly fun. It's dexterously cunning,
Speaker 2: immensely entertaining. Did you have more fun with the plot
Speaker 2: or the politics, because the latter is sort of what
Speaker 2: surprised me more, even though I had no idea where
Speaker 2: this movie was going plot wise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you. It definitely was a big surprise
Speaker 3: to me. I think there is a balance of it,
Speaker 3: but I think maybe I did, in the end have
Speaker 3: the most fun with the political commentary that we get
Speaker 3: in this film. And maybe if at some point, either
Speaker 3: this week or next, we get into a little bit
Speaker 3: of spoiler talk, I would love to talk about the
Speaker 3: final shot of this film, which is among the best
Speaker 3: shots of the year. It's a shot that's set it
Speaker 3: perfectly by the script and it expresses visually a titanic
Speaker 3: shift that has taken place, and honestly, it's just as
Speaker 3: thrilling a moment as I had in the theater all year.
Speaker 3: But it gets to the heart of what we're discussing.
Speaker 3: And you may recall this is a month or two
Speaker 3: ago I posted in our film spotting Slack for You
Speaker 3: and Sam a comment that I heard from Ryan Johnson
Speaker 3: on another podcast that really surprised me. And it was
Speaker 3: an interview with Joseph Gordon Levitt, the star of Ryan's
Speaker 3: film Brick and of course also Looper. He's got a
Speaker 3: new podcast called Creative Processing with Joseph Gordon Levitt, and
Speaker 3: Ryan was on the first episode. The first episode, appropriately
Speaker 3: was all about originality and imitation because Ryan has always
Speaker 3: worked within genres. And at one point the interview and
Speaker 3: actually in this moment, they're talking about Looper and Ryan says,
Speaker 3: you have to be kind of angry about something to
Speaker 3: write a script. I think if the thing you're angry
Speaker 3: about is not something you identify in yourself, I'm always
Speaker 3: wary of that. So he kind of goes on to
Speaker 3: say that when he's writing a film and if it
Speaker 3: has villains in it, he's thinking that it's good to
Speaker 3: always start from a place where you're not identifying with
Speaker 3: the good guy, but you're actually identifying with the bad guy.
Speaker 3: Which doesn't mean obviously that you're supporting the bad guy,
Speaker 3: that you agree with the bad guy, that you want
Speaker 3: others to agree with the bad guy. But I think
Speaker 3: Ryan's saying there that you're not really doing the work
Speaker 3: of an artist if you're not self aware and if
Speaker 3: you aren't willing to be harshly introspective and consider all
Speaker 3: your faults and perhaps reckon with him in a film.
Speaker 3: And it was just such a striking answer for a
Speaker 3: lot of reasons, one of them being too that if
Speaker 3: you have ever met Ryan Johnson, or even if you haven't,
Speaker 3: if you just know his kind of persona publicly and
Speaker 3: you've heard him on shows like this or others, you
Speaker 3: know that he seems utterly incapable of anger, even an
Speaker 3: ounce of anger. So it really was kind of a
Speaker 3: profound statement coming from him. And again he wasn't talking
Speaker 3: about Knives Out, but now having seen Knives Out, I
Speaker 3: realized he absolutely could have been. Because there are two
Speaker 3: feelings that my sense is clearly coalesced together for this film.
Speaker 3: One is Ryan's appreciation of genre, especially the who done it,
Speaker 3: and the need to express his frustration with the state
Speaker 3: of things in America. There is political context that the
Speaker 3: movie directly draws on. There is a mention of our president,
Speaker 3: although not by name. There's a mention of kids being
Speaker 3: kept in cages. There's talk of keeping immigrants like the
Speaker 3: main character in the film, Marda, who is played by
Speaker 3: Anna day Armis, and she's the caretaker, the nurse for
Speaker 3: the patriarch who is killed. There's a sense that she
Speaker 3: should at least stay in her place. And yet, saying
Speaker 3: all of that, I feel like what he's really critiquing
Speaker 3: is a general lack of compassion, a lack of humanity
Speaker 3: that shouldn't be political at all, but sadly really is.
Speaker 3: And so I'm saying all this because I think what
Speaker 3: really did strike me about Knives Out is it's the
Speaker 3: first time, maybe we've seen Ryan take external anger and
Speaker 3: process it on screen via just internal anger, which I
Speaker 3: think is interesting. But I also don't think we can
Speaker 3: discount the internal anger part completely. And maybe at some
Speaker 3: point if we talked to Ryan, we can get into
Speaker 3: this a little bit. But I feel like maybe he's
Speaker 3: acknowledging some very small part of himself, of ourselves that
Speaker 3: understands the Thrombief family and their sense of entitlement and
Speaker 3: their sense of privilege and how nice it is to
Speaker 3: have nice things and not have to want for anything.
Speaker 3: But also maybe it comes from Ryan, again purely speculating here,
Speaker 3: but maybe it's a sense of someone feeling like they're
Speaker 3: not doing enough. As we all bemoan these things we
Speaker 3: see occurring around us, I think we all feel a
Speaker 3: little bit paralyzed and wonder should I be doing more
Speaker 3: instead of sitting here on a podcast right now talking
Speaker 3: about movies or radio show. Should I be out there
Speaker 3: trying to make some kind of change. And he's making movies,
Speaker 3: maybe he feels like he's not doing enough either, And
Speaker 3: I think the brilliance of Knives Out is that balance
Speaker 3: of pure entertainment that delivers completely on its mystery premise,
Speaker 3: with that element of critique. It's a fun puzzle, as
Speaker 3: you said, with humor and twists and turns, but it
Speaker 3: also sneakily puts every single viewer in MARTA's shoes, and
Speaker 3: I can't think of anything more subversive than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're describing me as a challenge for the audience,
Speaker 2: and that's why it's doubly encouraging for me that it
Speaker 2: did so well over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, that audiences
Speaker 2: are receiving it both as an entertainment and at this
Speaker 2: other level that you're describing, and hopefully it'll continue to
Speaker 2: reach more audiences that way. You're so right about this
Speaker 2: thing being, you know, just Crackerjack put together, and half
Speaker 2: of the fun is to realize how in control Ryan
Speaker 2: Johnson is of this story the only way and I
Speaker 2: that's how I describe my review, and I have to
Speaker 2: read it because I can't get this right. But this
Speaker 2: plays like an unreliable narrator's recollection of a drunken friends
Speaker 2: story that they heard secondhand. But the trick is that's
Speaker 2: a compliment because all of those levels are purposeful, and
Speaker 2: we're getting each variation of that person's story exactly as
Speaker 2: we need to to be mystified and yet still entertained.
Speaker 2: So the amount of control going on in this film.
Speaker 2: Here's an example. As the suspects start recoming the party
Speaker 2: they've all gathered for this patriarch's eighty fifth birthday party,
Speaker 2: we get a shot of a cake being put down
Speaker 2: before him with lit candles. Yeah, and depending on who
Speaker 2: is telling the story, the shot has them in yes focus.
Speaker 3: They're telling the story of the night from them.
Speaker 2: Their point of view, so their prey, So just a little,
Speaker 2: you know, a little way of putting us in their heads.
Speaker 2: And another example is that we get a flashback in
Speaker 2: this movie, an extended flashback, in the midst of a
Speaker 2: coin toss, so it's up in the air and we
Speaker 2: go off in a totally different direction exactly when we
Speaker 2: need to. So so there's deception and there's misperception that's
Speaker 2: built into into the movies very form. That's just a
Speaker 2: thrill to watch click into place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I noted that scene as well,
Speaker 3: because they're all talking to the detective and it makes
Speaker 3: sense that at that point they may know that they
Speaker 3: are potential suspects, they certainly want to paint themselves in
Speaker 3: a positive light. So when they're telling the story of
Speaker 3: the night. Of course they're going to put themselves in
Speaker 3: the position where they're being adoring with their father, and
Speaker 3: it's not at all what really happened. But I also
Speaker 3: think it makes sense because it's not just that they're lying,
Speaker 3: and Ryan is kind of showing us that they're lying
Speaker 3: by cutting to those scenes. We know that they've all
Speaker 3: said that same thing, so it can't be real. I
Speaker 3: think it speaks overall to a sense of probably denial
Speaker 3: on their part in their recollection of the night. That's
Speaker 3: how they behaved. They've always been that adoring of their father.
Speaker 3: That's who they think they are. And I think that
Speaker 3: the film, You're right, how much is about misperception They
Speaker 3: think they're good people or in the movie shows what
Speaker 3: they really are.
Speaker 2: I think it's another level. They think that's how they
Speaker 2: deserve to be thought of as.
Speaker 3: Okay, now my mind's blown. Well, yes, I know what
Speaker 3: you're getting at, and I think it's true. I also
Speaker 3: would even go back to the opening shot of the film.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the very opening this film, isn't it
Speaker 3: sort of in slow motion dogs and the dogs running.
Speaker 3: When you see these dogs running across the lawn, of
Speaker 3: the estate in slow motion, and that's the credit sequence,
Speaker 3: I think essentially, or the first thing right after you're
Speaker 3: watching it, going okay, that's a choice. What is the
Speaker 3: point of that? But I do think maybe it gets
Speaker 3: to this idea of what you see isn't always what
Speaker 3: you think it is, because we see throughout the film
Speaker 3: that depending on who the dogs are encountering, they are
Speaker 3: either hostile and mean or they're incredibly loving. And when
Speaker 3: they're running in slow motion with no sound like that,
Speaker 3: we as viewers are going, okay, are these dogs attacking someone?
Speaker 3: What are these dogs?
Speaker 2: And what direction are they coming? Coming towards the camera exactly,
Speaker 2: So that feeds back to your idea of this movie
Speaker 2: being a challenge. They're coming for us.
Speaker 3: They are, And there are some great performances in this film. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the whole cast is really strong, but I do think
Speaker 3: Dearmis in particular stands out because she's playing someone in
Speaker 3: Marda who does have to have an abiding sense of
Speaker 3: goodness and innocence, but that could also be played as
Speaker 3: naivete and I don't think she plays that at all,
Speaker 3: And I do think we have to see her then
Speaker 3: as not just this kind of saintly figure. We have
Speaker 3: to see her as a flesh and blood person, not
Speaker 3: just some angel, and I do think there has to
Speaker 3: be just a little bit of a shred of doubt
Speaker 3: about her. We think we know exactly who she is,
Speaker 3: and I don't think the movie really challenges that notion,
Speaker 3: but it has to at least introduce the idea that
Speaker 3: maybe she's not as pure and innocent as she purports
Speaker 3: to be. And the fact that there's just even enough
Speaker 3: of that hint in her performance I think is important.
Speaker 2: Well, it's definitely the most layered performance, and that's, you know,
Speaker 2: by virtue of the construction here, every other character gets
Speaker 2: less time, except for maybe Daniel Craig's private investigator. But
Speaker 2: one thing she has to do, the trick she has
Speaker 2: to pull that she completely manages to pull off, is
Speaker 2: she has to project the fact that she has as much,
Speaker 2: if not more intelligence than anyone else who's acting like
Speaker 2: she doesn't. But at the same time she has to
Speaker 2: make it clear that she's legitimately at a loss in
Speaker 2: this elite world. So there's a combination of being a
Speaker 2: step ahead of them, potentially a step ahead of them,
Speaker 2: while still being a step behind in other ways because
Speaker 2: of the class issues that play in the film, and
Speaker 2: I think she manages that wonderfully. It's a great performance,
Speaker 2: and the others mostly just have you know, it's one
Speaker 2: of these films where you just if you're having have
Speaker 2: as much fun in your seat in the theater as
Speaker 2: the actors probably were doing these scenes. Yeah, sure, you're
Speaker 2: going to be having a great time. And they have
Speaker 2: to this family, They have to project malevolence, disingenuousness, malice
Speaker 2: all and you know, and then get really dark as
Speaker 2: things start to turn and they feel more threatened, and
Speaker 2: everyone in the cast is just great at Chris Evans.
Speaker 3: Chris Evans another standout.
Speaker 2: Another standout, only again because of the construction. He's kind
Speaker 2: of teased at the beginning, and then he finally comes
Speaker 2: in for a big scene and it's a fantastically funny
Speaker 2: scene with great lines, and yeah, Captain America, I can't
Speaker 2: get enough Captain America.
Speaker 3: He's really good in it. I did want to ask you,
Speaker 3: as we're talking about the politics and how overall that
Speaker 3: seemed to be a real strength of the film, what
Speaker 3: did you make of the fact that he made it
Speaker 3: timely something I didn't necessarily expect from this film in
Speaker 3: terms of there being at least one conversation kind of
Speaker 3: right in the middle of this movie where the politics
Speaker 3: of the family, well it seemed appropriate for Thanksgiving, maybe
Speaker 3: that within this family, Yeah, there's a squabble about a
Speaker 3: president and certain decisions that are being made, just like
Speaker 3: is probably playing out at a lot of dinner tables
Speaker 3: around the country. We see different shades of perspectives and
Speaker 3: politics within that family. But instead of just making this
Speaker 3: sort of a political allegory, which Ryan Johnson could have, yeah,
Speaker 3: he decides to make it blatant.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, you use the word subversive. And although overall,
Speaker 2: as I said, it surprised me that it got this political,
Speaker 2: and I appreciated that about it, and I'm certainly on
Speaker 2: the side of the movie's politics, so it's not that,
Speaker 2: but I think if he had pulled back on some
Speaker 2: of those particularly that scene you're talking about, the family
Speaker 2: discussion scene where it almost does get to a point
Speaker 2: like we're gonna hit this hot topic. We're gonna hit
Speaker 2: this hot topic, or we're gonna hit this hot topic.
Speaker 2: Think if you let that bubble under the surface a
Speaker 2: little more, then you're getting subversive it's still challenging as is.
Speaker 2: So your description is apt and I agree with that,
Speaker 2: and I think that's definitely to the movie's credit. But
Speaker 2: I think pulling back on the reins a little bit
Speaker 2: and again letting that simmer and letting it sort of
Speaker 2: sink in underneath, and not maybe put certain audience members
Speaker 2: on edge quite so directly, sometimes it's a little more effective.
Speaker 2: Now I'm more than happy to sit back and watch
Speaker 2: the fireworks, sure, if that's what happens with the film,
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think it's a yeah. Obviously, it's a
Speaker 2: choice of modulation that the movie.
Speaker 3: Makes well, but it makes it, and we're dancing around
Speaker 3: things a little bit in terms of understanding what side
Speaker 3: the filmmaker may or may not be on. I don't
Speaker 3: think we really know that for sure until the end
Speaker 3: of the film. I think there are probably a lot
Speaker 3: of people in the theater who maybe even share the
Speaker 3: perspective of some of the characters like Don Johnson. Oh,
Speaker 3: and watching watching the scene felt like, oh, I like
Speaker 3: that my voice speaking for me. The movie isn't necessarily
Speaker 3: critiquing him here, but I think it's important within the
Speaker 3: context of the entire film that that scene does play
Speaker 3: out the way it does because it does establish hypocrisy,
Speaker 3: and not just of the characters with that particularly, there's
Speaker 3: point of view.
Speaker 2: There's a hip the most potently hypocritical character. And again
Speaker 2: we're dancing around, we don't want to get into spoilers,
Speaker 2: but is someone who and and this speaks, you know,
Speaker 2: to the subversive point. I think someone who is on
Speaker 2: the film's political side, or who claims to be yes, well,
Speaker 2: yes to a point. Yeah, I think we're thinking about
Speaker 2: the same when something of hers is threat until yeah,
Speaker 2: and is let's just say ostensibly an ally until personal costs.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and those are that's to me, that's
Speaker 2: like a subversive needle. That that, I.
Speaker 3: Think is where I think we needed to know first
Speaker 3: where his so called politics lie, where so called politics were,
Speaker 3: or how he showed himself to the world, and then
Speaker 3: how he shows himself when it really matters, and when
Speaker 3: you recognize that they might be coming for the stuff
Speaker 3: that is his. So in that scene, we have all
Speaker 3: the people who are talking about how, you know, real
Speaker 3: Americans pull themselves up by their bootstraps and they shouldn't
Speaker 3: want any handouts and all that stuff. Well, then when
Speaker 3: it comes time to divide up the old man's money.
Speaker 3: They seem to love the idea of them getting something
Speaker 3: that they didn't earn at all. They feel like they're
Speaker 3: entitled to a share of it. Yeah, right, there's hypocrisy there.
Speaker 3: I know, a different character, right, but this is what
Speaker 3: I love. We see that hypocrisy of that side. We
Speaker 3: see the other side as well. We see the hypocrisy
Speaker 3: of those who are the more liberal ones in the argument,
Speaker 3: who decry the other's worldview right up until it affects them,
Speaker 3: and once it affects them, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: they turn in to those other vipers. And we even
Speaker 3: see that in all of them, in the way that
Speaker 3: they all claim to love Marta and that she's part
Speaker 3: of the family, but not one of them actually knows
Speaker 3: what country.
Speaker 2: Sure, it keeps changing, they all get that wrong.
Speaker 3: One of the jokes of the film, and I think
Speaker 3: one of the best and most pointed jokes in the film.
Speaker 3: There is more we could say about Knives Out, probably
Speaker 3: if we were willing to really get into spoilers, including
Speaker 3: I would love at some point to dive into the
Speaker 3: ending of the film, and maybe that's what we'll do
Speaker 3: with Ryan Johnson here if we get him on the
Speaker 3: show in the near future, is kind of break down
Speaker 3: some of those choices and specifically how he envisioned that
Speaker 3: closing scene and what he actually captured on camera. Knives
Speaker 3: Out is currently playing in wide release. We encourage you
Speaker 3: to see it if you haven't done so already a
Speaker 3: twisted whib.
Speaker 2: We are not finished untangling it, not yet.
Speaker 4: What is this csikfc.
Speaker 2: On from December twenty nineteen. That was our review of
Speaker 2: Knives Out on that same episode, would you believe it?
Speaker 2: A review of Gretegerwig's Little Women, So pretty fun show.
Speaker 2: What a great movie year And yeah, you can get
Speaker 2: to that review as well in the film Spotting Archive.
Speaker 2: If you are a film Spotting Family member, access to
Speaker 2: the archive, monthly bonus shows, and more. Those are just
Speaker 2: some of the benefits of joining the film Spotting Family.
Speaker 2: You can do that at film spotting Family dot com.
Speaker 4: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
Speaker 1: The fine.
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