Knives Out

3 Reasons to See It: 1) It's a really fun movie. 2) It's a well-done whodunnit. 3) One of the best stories I've seen in a while.

3 Reasons to Not See It: 1) It's a whodunnit and if that doesn't appeal to you, you probably won't like it. 2) Again, I can't think of anything else. Truly a really good movie.

Going in: I think it will have some funny moments in it. I'm hoping it'll be right around Shazam. I went 12/3 with Jonathan. 

Popcorn: 9/10. Holy cow, did this beat my expectations. We had a lot of fun and the movie isn't what you would call a standard movie. Definitely worth seeing.

Art: 9.7/10. Summarize the good points. Then the bad.

Acting: 6/6. Really good acting. Not to the same level as Joker, but on a different level. Everyone had a part to play and I didn't think it was overdone. Ana de Armas was the one to watch. Compared to how she did Blade Runner, this is a very different aspect to her skills. Same with Chris Evans.

Music: 3/4. I'm debating whether this should have full score or the standard. I went with the standard just because it throws everything out of balance. The music isn't fantastic but my son and I agreed that was probably intentional. This is a head-movie, not much of a heart-movie.

Filming: 4/4. This wasn't as beautiful as Joker (quick aside: this movie quickly got to the top of my list so I'm comparing it to Joker because I didn't know whether I wanted to dethrone the king), but the filming was part of the storytelling. A couple of shots are obvious and they stick with you - in a good way.

Art Dept: 4/4. This was shot almost entirely in the same house. The set design did a lot of interesting things with it, little items here and there. As far as we could tell, there is no CGI.

Editing: 4/4. I don't often get a chance to give full points for editing so I often look just for one scene. And there's one that while watching, I said to myself "this is the scene". The sound was mixed a little louder but the impact was calculated and had a good result.

Story: 8/8. Such an engaging story and when you look back at it, you see how well it was put together. The movie almost relies on anti-coincidence, events that happen to the detriment of the character. I would say the theme was family, but in a weird twist of a way.

Directing: 6/6. This movie was so calculated and made some choices that paid off really well. Everything clicked and fell in place.

Production: 4/4. Worth seeing in the theaters, no misleading trailers. And it didn't disappoint. Not sure it needed to be a big screen movie, but I was glad it was.