Note: this covers the events of 12/27/19.

I got my hair dyed hot pink/burgundy (that’s the best I can describe this shade) today! Since I won’t be in any plays for months, or doing anything much exciting, or seeing anyone much, and January sucks, I need to do something fun, y’all.

We went to visit Mom’s friend Tom today and I met their receptionist, Noel, who does have a Christmas birthday. There were three “noel” signs by her desk in all the other Christmas bling and Tom said later that she hates stuff like that. So why does she have these, then? Mystery, I guess.

I forgot to mention this insane story: there is some annoying woman in Mom’s social circle who has been annoying since grammar school and Brownies. I guess on Christmas Eve she was going on about her various health ailments (she’s that kind of girl) and one of the many problems was that she’s dehydrated, and she claimed she couldn’t possibly keep drinking because then she’d have to go to the bathroom (duh), and then someone snarked that she’d better wear Depends. “Well, I can’t do that, I wear a thong.” The lady is 69 years old. And as Tom said when he heard this, “nobody needed to know that.”

Tom is going to see the Rose Parade and floats soon. I’m jealous.

Mom told me today that by this time next year she will have worked on the house. I asked if she had any kind of plan to do this and she said no. I believe not a word.

We went out to dinner with Roger tonight and then out for dessert. It was fun. At the end of the night when he was dropping us off, he said something like he wasn’t going to do anything with Mom that would make me jealous and I said “hey, go ahead, and I already am jealous.” He kissed my hand twice for that. Awwww.

I finally heard back from Meg and it sound like she's available for visiting come the 31st, so I guess I'll leave then so the lovebirds can get it on here.

And now, for a halfway spoiled discussion of Knives Out: This will “spoil” around to the halfway mark in this commentary, just so you know. It will not reveal the ending.

The plot of this is that famous mystery writer Harlan Thrombey slashes his own neck in his attic bedroom, and someone sends some money in an envelope to Benoit Blanc, the last “gentleman detective” to investigate. I normally am very anti-Daniel Craig, who generally looks miserable (same issue I have with Adam Driver, come to think of it) 24 7, but give him some loopy Louisiana accent and even though he’s playing a Serious Role, he’s more fun to watch. His eyes look lovely in this movie.

The Thrombey family is as follows:

* Daughter Linda, a real estate mogul, hardass, actually got along with her father because she’d play secret code games with him. Linda is married to Richard, who is generally sleazy and cheating on his wife, and we’re told early on that Harlan found out and was going to tell Linda.

* Their son is Hugh Ransom, the “black sheep,” which is saying something for this bunch. He storms out of the party early and we don’t meet him until later.

* Son Walt, who runs (or “runs”) the family business, is looked down upon for not having started his own anything. Dad decided to fire him from the family business so he’s get his own life. Walt is married to Donna(?) who doesn’t do much besides throw a fit at one point. They have a son named Jacob, who does nothing except troll online and masturbate and I don’t know why he’s in the movie.

* Daughter in law Joni’s husband died fifteen years ago, but she’s still hanging around the family and basically running a Goop equivalent. Her daughter is Meg, the only relatively nice one in the gene pool, but even she gets kinda bad later on once her college money is threatened. Joni turns out to be double dipping money and Harlan cuts her off.

The Thrombey employees (minus the incompetent security guy, who basically runs things off VCRs and that’s all you need to know) are Fran the housekeeper who’s obsessed with Hallmark mysteries, and Marta, Harlan’s nurse/buddy whose mother is undocumented. It’s established that Marta is also basically Harlan’s friend, which I guess he needs in this bunch.

Anyway, a key fact we find out in the movie is that Marta accidentally...or she thinks accidentally...injected Harlan with the wrong amount of drugs, which should kill him in about ten minutes, AND somehow her antidote is missing and they live too far away to have an ambulance get there in time. This raises red flags all over the place to me, and it should. Harlan goes into Mystery Writer Mode and tells her exactly what to do to get away with it, which she does, but with some errors in execution. Harlan even slits his own throat to help with coverup.

This gets even more awkward when the will is read and everything is left to Marta, and naturally the family is Very Upset about this....

I’ll actually stop there on the spoilage at this point. I’ll just say Marta needs to figure out a way out of this mess, what to do with the money IF she gets it, who to trust...it’s her movie, really. Chris Evans does stand out as a charming jerk (in sweaters that I guess are making the Internet crazy), and generally speaking, everyone’s doing a great job in it. I do think the mystery kind of prunes down after a while to a few factors, and there’s a lot of use of Marta’s nervous barfing every time she lies (seriously, if people know you do this, why would you try to lie to cops, though?). I am grateful that I did not also start barfing myself every time she did it, I guess I’m improving on that issue.

I’d recommend seeing it. I love the use of knives everywhere, including the giant knife...sundial sculpture a la Game of Thrones? that’s focused on a lot. This is a movie where you have to watch every detail. I had a bloody nose come on (while wearing a white sweater I canNOT wash) and had one lone Kleenex and I did not leave the theater to deal with it, y’all. So yeah, it’s a cool movie.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry