Knives Out: Sharpest Writing of 2019?
Knives Out doesn’t just defy the whodunit narrative, it uses the weaknesses to its advantage. It’s well aware of the genre’s faults and tropes

"The Birdcatcher's Son" - According to Faroese law, the birdwatcher Esmar will lose his lease within one year, thus forced to leave both his house and his land unless he makes sure he and his wife Johanna have a son. Because Johanna has just given birth to date, they decide what they think is their last and best chance; to jointly find another man who can make Johanna with children.
Knives Out doesn’t just defy the whodunit narrative, it uses the weaknesses to its advantage. It’s well aware of the genre’s faults and tropes
Meander, released in 2021, is a French gory horror film featuring a woman trapped in small spaces as she fights for her life, paralleling real pandemic life.
When they’re young, they’re America’s darlings but, when they become teens and adolescents, they’re instantly perceived as harbingers of immorality. They’re Lindsay Lohan, Macaulay Culkin, Justin Bieber, and Britney Spears. But, despite what many media outlets, politicians, and the general public may think, they are human beings above anything else. The new Billie Eilish documentary, Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry, proves this — showing the trials, tribulations, and humanity when growing up with all the world’s eyes on you.
J Brooke, Incluvie Guest Columnist on 'Life and Beth' and 'Sort of': while living one’s truth is freedom, speaking it as a mandatory assignment can become captivity.
A film that focuses on an algorithm for a dating app that will bring viewers in for a surprise.
I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before.