Knives Out Delivers Top-Shelf Entertainment As Delectable As A Donut Hole

As Knives Out begins, the various members of the Thrombey family are being interviewed by police officers about the recent death of Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). Such interviews are being treated as just a formality given that Harlan Thrombey died by way of suicide, but listening in on these interviews is a man who believes there is something bigger going on here with this elderly mystery book author's demise. That man is none other than Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), an ultra-Southern individual who suspects murder could be behind the death of Harlan Thrombey. Who could be behind it? Well, there's no shortage of suspects within the Thrombey family, his descendants are quite the eclectic group of people each with their own ax to grind.

Merging The Direction of Steven Soderbergh With An Excellent Tarell Alvin McCraney Script Make High Flying Bird A Winner

Steven Soderbergh may have "retired" for a brief period in the mid-2010s, but he's now managed to deliver three more directorial efforts in the span of 18 months starting with 2017's delightful comedy Logan Lucky. The newest effort in his return to directing see's Soderbergh going to the land that so many filmmakers are traveling to these days to get their movies made: Netflix. After his attempt to shake up theatrical distribution with is last two films and the Fingerprint Releasing label, Soderbergh's decided to just unleash his newest movie, High Flying Bird, as well as his next directorial effort (the Meryl Streep vehicle The Laundromat) for the streaming service that managed to really kick its original movie game into high gear last year.

Give The Orville And Its Tedious & Confused Take On The Final Frontier Some Space

Even hearing for months on end that The Orville as a TV show had a more serious tone than its heavily comedic ads would suggest didn't prepare me for what a tonally odd creation it is. It's trying to actually be a new straight-up science-fiction program that heavily homages Star Trek to a fault but it's also one with recurring comedic elements that just don't work at all. If the attempt here was to make something either as comedically strong as Ted or as thoughtful & exciting as the best elements of Star Trek, then the folks behind The Orville have miscalculated greatly and wound up with a science-fiction equivalent to Seth MacFarlane's major movie misfire A Million Ways To Die In The West.

"We're Up All Night For Good Fun, We're Up All Night To Get (Logan) Lucky"

The South and its associated culture (and other parts of the country north of the South that hew closely to said country) are weird. Anything to do with redneck stuff is inherently just a little bit off-kilter. Not saying there aren't strange facets of the upper-crust life too (why are fish eggs considered a culinary delicacy among the wealthy again?) but having lived in Texas for over two decades, I'm well-aware of how a large share of the little details of everyday life around here really are just bizarre like certain colloquialisms, fashion traits, and societal faux pas. Filmmakers like Richard Linklater have used that truth heavily in their own films and now Logan Lucky is the newest film to utilize the inherent oddness of Southern customs as a backbone for entertaining cinema.