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https://nerdist.com/article/knives-out-fantastic-fest-review/
Families are hell. That might as well be the subhead for Rian Johnson’s murder mystery whodunnit Knives Out, which is a yarn-spinning tale about a dynasty of brats at odds over their dead father’s inheritance. But it’s a story that goes much deeper than that; it’s part Agatha Christie paperback–with a choose-your-own-adventure sense of play–part political allegory, a film that’s so discontent to be just one thing that it occasionally gets lost in its own ambition. But none of that is to the overall detriment of Knives Out, a film so fun and quippy that it’s basically irresistible. It’s hard to imagine having a better time at the movies this year.
It’s really hard to talk about Knives Out without immediately spoiling Knives Out, but here’s a basic rundown of the characters and plot. Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, an elderly mystery novelist who built an empire out of his bestsellers. On the night of his 85th birthday party, Harlan dies in what at first appears to be suicide but what may in fact be a more elaborate, elicit crime. The circumstances of his death are complicated by his recent financial disengagement from his many family members, including son Walt (Michael Shannon), daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), Linda’s husband Richard (Don Johnson), their son Ransom (Chris Evans), and Harlan’s widowed daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette).
At the center of the ruckus is Harlan’s caregiver Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), the daughter of an illegal immigrant who was also the last person to see Harlan alive. Daniel Craig plays Benoit Blanc, a detective hired to investigate the case, with Noah Segan and Lakeith Stanfield as the police officers helping him sniff out a suspect.
Lionsgate
Just who, if anyone, is responsible for Harlan’s death is the whole fun of Knives Out, and we won’t give even the faintest hint of a spoiler beyond that basic premise. All you really need to know going in is that this epic cast is more than up for the task. Craig is having the time of his life as the Southern drawling Blanc; it’s a scenery-chewing performance that deserves an entire franchise to itself. Most of the Thrombey family members have limited roles, but–for the most part–they make their screentime count.
Collette is probably the most memorable, as an airy influencer with a skincare company who could have stepped right out of a Real Housewives episode. Chris Evans is also delicious as Ransom, the privileged grandson who long ago severed ties with the family for reasons that are clearly ego-based. How he fits into the story is one of the movie’s more clever discoveries. (If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll know there are a lot of “eat shits.”)
But this is really Ana de Armas’ movie. As Marta, she gives Knives Out its heart. Her big, expressive eyes and tender approach to the character carry you through the story’s many twists and turns. Marta also elevates the film from what could have been a simple murder mystery into one with political heft. The Thrombey’s insist she’s a part of the family–even though they aren’t sure if she’s from Ecuador or Paraguay–until it’s suddenly inconvenient for them. She’s an outsider, always reminded of just how tenuous her place in the household is, which works as a powerful immigrant allegory. As the family spars over politics–Jaeden Martell as Walt’s conservative son Jacob butts heads with Joni’s “SJW” daughter Meg (Katherine Langford)–Marta sits on the sidelines, never asking for a thing, lost to the various strains of white privilege that threaten to eat her entirely.
Lionsgate
Despite those snappy politics and hilarious performances, Knives Out isn’t a perfect film. It sags a little in its too-long second act, and gets occasionally lost in its own preciousness. The mystery also suffers a little from “too much going on” syndrome. There are an impressive amount of famous faces in this movie, but one could argue there are too many; apart from Marta, no one exists outside of their stereotype. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for a loaded murder mystery–in fact, one could argue, that’s a key factor of the genre–but that imbalance is felt at times, as if the film is operating on two different planets. Some characters are so underutilized that you have to wonder why they’re even there at all.
Still, in the end, Knives Out succeeds as clever, propulsive slice of a movie, the sort of audience-pleaser that crosses generational interests and will make you laugh yourself silly. (There’s one all-timer Hamilton joke that had our Fantastic Fest audience howling.) Overall, the movie feels like stepping into a game of Clue, if the board were planted somewhere in the chilly east coast, where shadows loom and money is an institution. It’s a perfect movie for the times: funny and sharp, with something important to say. Just make sure you go in knowing nothing, lest you fall victim yourself.
4 out of 5.
Header Image Credit: Lionsgate
The post KNIVES OUT Is A Masterful Whodunit With A Sharp Political Edge appeared first on Nerdist.
Families are hell. That might as well be the subhead for Rian Johnson’s murder mystery whodunnit Knives Out, which is a yarn-spinning tale about a dynasty of brats at odds over their dead father’s inheritance. But it’s a story that goes much deeper than that; it’s part Agatha Christie paperback–with a choose-your-own-adventure sense of play–part political allegory, a film that’s so discontent to be just one thing that it occasionally gets lost in its own ambition. But none of that is to the overall detriment of Knives Out, a film so fun and quippy that it’s basically irresistible. It’s hard to imagine having a better time at the movies this year.
It’s really hard to talk about Knives Out without immediately spoiling Knives Out, but here’s a basic rundown of the characters and plot. Christopher Plummer plays Harlan Thrombey, an elderly mystery novelist who built an empire out of his bestsellers. On the night of his 85th birthday party, Harlan dies in what at first appears to be suicide but what may in fact be a more elaborate, elicit crime. The circumstances of his death are complicated by his recent financial disengagement from his many family members, including son Walt (Michael Shannon), daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), Linda’s husband Richard (Don Johnson), their son Ransom (Chris Evans), and Harlan’s widowed daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette).
At the center of the ruckus is Harlan’s caregiver Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), the daughter of an illegal immigrant who was also the last person to see Harlan alive. Daniel Craig plays Benoit Blanc, a detective hired to investigate the case, with Noah Segan and Lakeith Stanfield as the police officers helping him sniff out a suspect.
Lionsgate
Just who, if anyone, is responsible for Harlan’s death is the whole fun of Knives Out, and we won’t give even the faintest hint of a spoiler beyond that basic premise. All you really need to know going in is that this epic cast is more than up for the task. Craig is having the time of his life as the Southern drawling Blanc; it’s a scenery-chewing performance that deserves an entire franchise to itself. Most of the Thrombey family members have limited roles, but–for the most part–they make their screentime count.
Collette is probably the most memorable, as an airy influencer with a skincare company who could have stepped right out of a Real Housewives episode. Chris Evans is also delicious as Ransom, the privileged grandson who long ago severed ties with the family for reasons that are clearly ego-based. How he fits into the story is one of the movie’s more clever discoveries. (If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll know there are a lot of “eat shits.”)
But this is really Ana de Armas’ movie. As Marta, she gives Knives Out its heart. Her big, expressive eyes and tender approach to the character carry you through the story’s many twists and turns. Marta also elevates the film from what could have been a simple murder mystery into one with political heft. The Thrombey’s insist she’s a part of the family–even though they aren’t sure if she’s from Ecuador or Paraguay–until it’s suddenly inconvenient for them. She’s an outsider, always reminded of just how tenuous her place in the household is, which works as a powerful immigrant allegory. As the family spars over politics–Jaeden Martell as Walt’s conservative son Jacob butts heads with Joni’s “SJW” daughter Meg (Katherine Langford)–Marta sits on the sidelines, never asking for a thing, lost to the various strains of white privilege that threaten to eat her entirely.
Lionsgate
Despite those snappy politics and hilarious performances, Knives Out isn’t a perfect film. It sags a little in its too-long second act, and gets occasionally lost in its own preciousness. The mystery also suffers a little from “too much going on” syndrome. There are an impressive amount of famous faces in this movie, but one could argue there are too many; apart from Marta, no one exists outside of their stereotype. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for a loaded murder mystery–in fact, one could argue, that’s a key factor of the genre–but that imbalance is felt at times, as if the film is operating on two different planets. Some characters are so underutilized that you have to wonder why they’re even there at all.
Still, in the end, Knives Out succeeds as clever, propulsive slice of a movie, the sort of audience-pleaser that crosses generational interests and will make you laugh yourself silly. (There’s one all-timer Hamilton joke that had our Fantastic Fest audience howling.) Overall, the movie feels like stepping into a game of Clue, if the board were planted somewhere in the chilly east coast, where shadows loom and money is an institution. It’s a perfect movie for the times: funny and sharp, with something important to say. Just make sure you go in knowing nothing, lest you fall victim yourself.
4 out of 5.
Header Image Credit: Lionsgate
The post KNIVES OUT Is A Masterful Whodunit With A Sharp Political Edge appeared first on Nerdist.
Writer: Rick Remender / Artist: Matteo Scalera / Image Comics
We’ve been in the endgame with Black Science for some time now, but still…I never took the time to consider that I’d soon be writing my last review on what has been one of the smartest sleeper hits on the shelves for five years and change. Yet here I am, musing about how we’ve come such a long way from that first issue where a mad scientist adventurer Indiana Jones’d out of harm’s way with a giant toad’s tongue.
And now in the final issue, Grant McKay and Kadir Aslan’s ideology comes to a very unexpected head. Remender has a penchant for taking the road less traveled. In this case, he didn’t bring Black Science to a close with an epic third act slugfest for the fate of the universe. Instead, this issue, as does Remender’s concept of the eververse, comes down to a matter of choice. All the time Grant spends throughout this series taking account of self and trying to be better for the sake of his family (maybe some of the most development I’ve ever seen in a protagonist) all seems to hinge on a single decision. Though this one choice is a callback to a previous side plot, it also somehow manages to speak to Remender’s entire concept of alternate universes. The finale manages to say goodbye to a massive, memorable cast of characters in a fitting and arguably unsettling way that will stick with readers for quite some time. Not only that, the job Matteo Scalera did as far as delivering on all the gravitas promised in Remender’s script was nothing less than stellar. There was just as many intimate, emotional moments as there were action beats necessary to pull this finale off and Scalera’s line work and facial expressions leaned into every one of them.
Bottom Line: A powerful finish to one of the most consistently strong stories of the past ten years with meticulously detailed panels and an ending that will make readers have to read it over at least two more times and once more in trade to make sure that read it right. It’s hard to ask for more.
10 Stargate fan conventions out of 10
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The post Black Science Comes To An End With #43: Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are working on a new concept vehicle dubbed “Shapeshifter” with the intention of sending it to Titan, one of the many moons orbiting Saturn. But Shapeshifter won’t simply be a new iteration of the Huygens probe NASA landed on the Saturnian moon back in 2005; as its name implies, Shapeshifter will be able to morph itself, transforming into everything from a submarine to a flying drone to a rolling land rover.
And because we know you’ve already said it in your head, here it is in writing: Shapeshifter bots, transform and roll out!
A very brief summation of the Shapeshifter probe was released back in March 2018, noting that the vehicle is a “novel system concept for all-access and cross-domain mobility on bodies with atmospheres,” and that “The proposed robotic platform is capable of mobility across domains including flying in the atmosphere, rolling on a smooth surface, navigating subsurface voids (ex. caves), floating on a lake surface and propelling under an ocean.” Fast forward to now, and we get our first glimpse of a somewhat functional prototype that can… sort of do some of those things.
The clip of the prototype, which comes via Gizmodo, is brief, but it gives us a sense of what a real Shapeshifter probe may eventually look like. For right now, we’re looking at a wiry, mostly empty barrel with a quadcopter drone at its center, but by the time Shapeshifter has its first opportunity to take off for Titan sometime in 2026—with NASA’s Dragonfly mission—chances are it’ll look a lot more like the illustrations in the video rather than something you can piece together from a racing-drone junkyard.
NASA
Still though, Shapeshifter will have it where it counts (in theory). Principal investigator for the morphin’ probe, Ali Agha, said in the video’s associated news post that “We have very limited information about the composition of the surface [of Titan]. Rocky terrain, methane lakes, cryovolcanoes—we potentially have all of these, but we don’t know for certain.” Agha added that for Shapeshifter, he and his team “thought about how to create a system that is versatile and capable of traversing different types of terrain but also compact enough to launch on a rocket.”
But even though Shapeshifter could be a sweetheart of a probe perfect for the 2026 Dragonfly mission, it may not even leave Earth at all. Because the project is a part of “NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Program” (NIAC), it will need to pass the space agency’s “Phase II selection process” in 2020, which may not happen.
NASA
If Shapeshifter does pass muster next year, and if it does end up tagging along with Dragonfly, we’d still have to wait until 2034 for the robotic probe to actually touch down on Titan’s surface. By then, who knows how robotics will have changed. It could be that by 2026 we can just send a few swarms of these Atlas robots to Titan, where they can record all the critical scientific data we need, as well as land some 10/10 gymnastics routines.
What do you think of this Shapeshifter probe? And what do you think we’ll find on the surface of Titan? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Images: NASA
The post NASA’s ‘Shapeshifter’ Probe Concept Is Extremely Sci-Fi appeared first on Nerdist.