Knives Out and Turning the Other Cheek

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So this weekend marked roughly my dozenth watch of Knives Out. Not much else to do as I eagerly await the currently in-development sequels. On this viewing, what really struck me, aside from just how great Jamie Lee Curtis looks in phosphorescent pink, is just how good they manage to keep Marta.

That our heroine is this movie’s ambassador of morality should come as no surprise. It’s a regular truism in storytelling in general that goodness is the ultimate decider in who wins and who loses. May the most virtuous person win. Marta is certainly good, as the film reminds us many times: she is hardworking, humble, patient, and very attuned to the emotional needs of others. But there’s one facet of her goodness that I really fixated on: she doesn’t really ever call attention to how awful the Thrombeys are to her.

We the audience understand that the Thrombeys are a clan of entitled, vindictive little brats, and we recognize how they casually mistreat Marta, but Marta herself doesn’t ever really bite back at them for most of the movie. The Thrombeys insist that “we’ve been so good to you,” and “we’ve always treated you like family,” usually anytime they’re about to coerce her for their own purposes. And Marta usually recites this mantra back to them all the way until the eleventh hour when she’s about to confess to “killing” Harlan.

The movie plays with the “turn the other cheek” mentality espoused in Christian dialogue in a way that reveals a lot about how we define goodness. Even if they absolutely deserve it, Marta snapping at the family who has manipulated her would technically be an act of malice, and that would contradict her image as a wholesome beyond wholesome individual.

The film sidesteps that trap by instead letting Detective Benoit Blanc–definitely a good guy but free of the responsibility of having to prove his moral purity–call out the Thrombeys for their behavior. Blanc gets to say what we want to, and Marta gets to maintain her title as a morally unimpeachable human. It’s deeply cathartic when Blanc rails at the Thrombeys and calls them “a pack of vultures at the feast! Knives out and beaks bloody!”

Imagine if Marta had been the one to declare that she deserves the fortune. She’s not wrong, but still she’s somehow less sympathetic. Once a character starts calling themselves a martyr, they lose that humility piece that makes it so easy to sympathize with them.

It’s worth noting that the movie does permit Marta one jab against her abusers before the credits roll. Remember that after Ransom has been outed as the mastermind behind Harlan’s death, Marta does call Ransom an “a**hole,” her first act of true disdain against a truly disgusting person. This is framed as a moment of growth for Marta. She’s finally calling out the people who’ve tormented her for being truly awful individuals.

So what does this all mean about turning the other cheek?

The film presents this axiom in all of its contradictions. That Marta seems unable to stand up for herself only further endears us to her and assures us that she is good and, yes, she does deserve to call her out the Thrombeys for their inhumanness. Yet if she did that, she would lose some of her goodness.

To follow Christ’s instruction as writ, you can’t really push back against your antagonizer in any degree. And yet, the film seems to accommodate the reality that few of us are ready to truly fulfill this teaching to its fullest. Calling the dude who tried to frame you for the murder of your employer and friend an “a**hole,” probably won’t keep you locked out of the pearly gates.

But the film also reminds us that there is also power, even satisfaction, in abstaining from direct retaliation. This affords you a sense of dignity and power against which your enemy could never hope to compare. Think of the film’s final scene with Marta perched on top of the mansion, staring down at the newly evicted Thrombeys. She does not gloat, she does not mock. She just stares them down, secure that she is finally untouchable.

And we would not have it any other way.

Knives out: Britney Spears goes after sister again on Twitter – 97.9 WRMF

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LA/Disney Channel via Getty Images

Britney Spears is not through criticizing Jamie Lynn Spears following her baby sister’s tell-all interview with ABC News’ Juju Chang. The singer sent off a fiery tweet Friday condemning Jamie Lynn’s so called “crazy lies.”

In the interview, Chang mentions an incident Jamie Lynn describes in her book, in which, Chang says, “Britney takes a knife, says she’s scared and locks you and herself into a room.” Chang then asked Jamie Lynn why she decided to share that story.

“It’s important to remember that I was a kid in that moment — I was scared. That was an experience that I had,” Jamie Lynn explained.

In a tweet on Friday, Britney wrote, “Jamie Lynn … congrats babe ! You’ve stooped to a whole new level of LOW. I’ve never been around you ever with a knife or would I ever even think to do such !!!…so please please stop with these crazy lies for the Hollywood books!!!”

Britney went on to imply that Jamie Lynn is a “scum person” and noted, “I’m actually very confused about you making that up because it’s honestly not like you at all!!!” She added, “Congrats on introducing your older sister [to] the concept of getting LOW, LOWER, LOWEST…because you win on that one, babe!!!”

Britney previously referenced Jamie’s tell-all interview on Thursday, but did not reference the alleged knife incident. The following day, Jamie Lynn responded and said her sister’s “accusatory posts” are causing her family to receive death threats.

26 best Netflix movies coming in 2022

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Best Netflix movies 2022

We’ve entered into the new year, and you know what that means. It means a ton of new movies and shows are slated to drop on Netflix throughout 2022. Also, some of your favorite films that have confirmed sequels will be arriving on the streamer this year. With so much new content coming out soon, it makes it hard for you to pick which films should be added to your must-watch list. So to help you out, we’re going to share the best Netflix movies coming in 2022.

We haven’t seen any new Netflix movies added to the streamer in January yet that are worth a watch other than The Wasteland. And it looks like there won’t be a good selection of new movies releasing in January altogether. The only upcoming movies you should be on the lookout for in January are Munich – The Edge of War, Brazen, The Royal Treatment, and Home Team starring Kevin James.

However, if you look at 2022 as a whole, there are so many highly anticipated titles scheduled to land on Netflix this year. This is why we’ve compiled a list of the best Netflix movies coming in 2022 with their release dates. To kick off our list is the upcoming mystery film Knives Out 2.

Knives Out 2 release date

When Knives Out was released in theaters in 2019, it quickly became one of the biggest movies of the year. It received critical acclaim for its outstanding acting and well-written screenplay. So many people swarm to the theaters to feast their eyes upon this Daniel Craig-led movie. It was a box office hit, grossing $311.4 million worldwide against a $40 million budget, and received several award nominations.

Shortly after the movie’s release in theaters, there were talks of a Knives Out 2, but there wasn’t anything set in stone. A sequel was expected due to the film’s success, but it was a great surprise to discover that Netflix would be the movie’s streaming home. In March 2021, Netflix agreed to pay $469 million to acquire streaming rights to two sequels written and directed by Rian Johnson. So not only will we be getting a Knives Out 2, but also a Knives Out 3.

Each film will have an entirely new cast (except Daniel Craig) and setting. An official synopsis of what the sequel will be about is unknown at the moment, but you can expect Detective Benoit Blanc to be involved in a new case.

Production on Knives Out 2 wrapped in September 2021 and is now in post-production. An official release date hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s expected to come to Netflix in 2022. Our best guess on when we could see Knives Out 2 is in summer or fall 2022. However, Netflix might hold the mystery film for a holiday release sometime in November or December. As soon as we become privy to the sequel’s release date, we’ll inform you right away!

Go ahead and hit NEXT to see more of the best Netflix movies coming in 2022!

Donald Trump Jr., Ron DeSantis, Tucker Carlson attack Brett Kavanaugh

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You don’t have to look closely to see the similarities between what Trump was saying then and what other prominent Republicans are saying now: He doesn’t have the “courage” or the “backbone.” The left “broke” him. He may actually be a liberal.

The end of Scream 5 is a zinger aimed at toxic fandom

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One thing that separates Scream and its sequels from other long-running slasher-film series — apart from the fact that most of its characters actually understand the significance of telling someone “I’ll be right back” when a knife-wielding masked killer is on the loose — is the fact that these movies are structured as whodunits. Though the Ghostface mask has become as iconic as Jason Voorhees’ hockey mask, Freddy Krueger’s burnt face, or Michael Myers’ half-melted William Shatner mask, the legion of Ghostface killers in Scream movies never develop supernatural resistance to death. It’s a different (and very mortal) person underneath every time — usually more than one, as characters in the newest Scream point out. This makes Scream films into particularly spoiler-sensitive slashers. (No offense to Friday the 13th fans, but can most of those sequels be spoiled at all?)

But as is often the case with the Scream series, the identity of the killer matters less than what the movie is saying about its killers. So let’s talk through the revelations in the final section of the 2022 Scream, number five in the series, and what they mean for the previous films in the franchise. Fair warning: There will be major Scream spoilers from here on out.

[Ed. Note: He isn’t kidding. Ending spoilers for the 2022 Scream, aka Scream 5, ahead.]

Is Rian Johnson in the new Scream movie?

If you ask Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) early in the new Scream, she might explain that the real villain of the whole series is Looper director Rian Johnson. But the series she’s referring to is Stab, the movies-within-the-movies based on the events of Scream and its sequels. When real-world events ran out, the Stab series evidently went off on the usual slasher-movie tangents. (Back in Scream 4, someone mentioned an entry that included time travel.)

The most recent Stab movie is apparently the eighth installment, rechristened just Stab (sound familiar?) and directed by the “Knives Out guy,” as one character refers to Johnson. He isn’t mentioned by name, and he doesn’t make a personal appearance. He might as well, though; the new Scream crew is clearly thinking about the divisive, rabid response to Johnson’s Star Wars movie The Last Jedi. Mindy rants and raves about how ill-received Stab 8 was, and how it lost everything people loved about the original Stab and undermined the films that came before it. So to sum up, the last Stab was a Rian Johnson-directed eighth installment of a long-running franchise that made certain corners of the internet absolutely lose its mind over perceived slights to a nostalgic property. Noted.

A greater ambiguity in this scene is what Scream 5 is saying about the never-ending Last Jedi controversy. Like her uncle Randy, the designated film geek of the first two Screams (with a video cameo in part three), Mindy is a fast-talking movie nerd who’s funny and likable. That makes her veiled shots at Last Jedi seem like a voice of expertise rather than fan entitlement. For a while, it seems like the movie is trying to have its cake and eat it too: satirizing the out-of-proportion fan derangement over The Last Jedi while also recasting Johnson’s thoughtful tweaks to Star Wars as equivalent to one of those late-period Halloween sequels that go off in nonsensical and vaguely insulting directions.

After all, Scream 5’s point-of-view character Sam (Melissa Barrera), who has returned to Woodsboro after years away after her sister was attacked by someone in a Ghostface mask, doesn’t seem to have much opinion about movie franchises. She depends on people like Mindy (or her sister Tara, who claims to prefer “elevated horror”) to define the rules.

Does Scream have a post-credits scene?

If you stay through the end credits of Scream, the closest thing you’ll get to a credit cookie is catching Rian Johnson’s name in the “special thanks” section toward the end of the crawl, indicating that the filmmakers aren’t actually exercising genuine animosity toward the Knives Out guy. It even seems plausible that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (who, like Johnson, started out in low-budget genre territory before getting called up to do a big franchise picture) sought and received his blessing to make him the in-universe director of Stab 8.

As for an actual mid-or-post-credits tease for Scream 6, the movie contains nothing of the sort. The new filmmakers seem to understand that it wouldn’t fit the Scream M.O. The other entries never really teased further sequels, since they definitively dispatched the people wearing the various masks and cloaks. For all of their jokes about rules, slashers, and sequels, the Screams have steadfastly avoided planting seeds for future installments; the ending of Scream 3, where series protagonist Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is comfortable enough to leave a creaking door ajar, is even a little poetic in its willingness to give the then-trilogy some metaphorical closure.

The latest movie makes a halfhearted concession to horror conventions by a quick shock-cut to an image of the Ghostface costume before the credits, but it’s completely context-free. It isn’t an actual character or plot point — just a quick jump-scare seemingly meant to fudge the kind of but-he’s-alive! ending these movies have never indulged, but that both slasher fans and franchise-movie watchers have come to expect.

So who’s the killer in Scream 5?

Everyone knows that the killers in the first Scream are Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and his best friend Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Scream 5 is written to be self-conscious about its status as what the characters call a “requel” — a film that combines elements of a remake (with new characters in a similar situation) and a sequel (with old characters returning to please the fans).

So it turns out that the killers in the 2022 Scream were inspired by the original killings — their whole motivation for reviving Ghostface is to be the reboot they want to see in the world. It turns out that Amber (Mikey Madison), bestie of Tara (Jenna Ortega), the girl who is attacked (but not killed!) in Scream 5’s traditional opening sequence, is a hardcore Stab fan who wants new “source material” to fuel a back-to-basics Stab sequel. And in a nod to the original film, where one of the killers was Sidney’s boyfriend, Amber’s partner in murder is Richie (Jack Quaid), the seemingly innocuous boyfriend of Tara’s older sister Sam — who is Billy Loomis’ secret daughter. (Naturally, the movie calls out the possibility of the fatal love interest early on, which serves as a fake-out for Richie’s nefarious true nature.)

Even though Amber and Richie repeat the killer-boyfriend trope in real life, they aren’t sticking to reality for their new Stab script. They actually want to frame Sam for the murders, because Sam carrying on her dad’s legacy would be a classic “requel” move. Basically, they want to shape a real-life narrative so it can inspire a movie they want to see — something “for the fans”! — and they’re rewriting their chosen story in blood.

As with a lot of Scream sequels, it ultimately doesn’t matter much who the killers are. The motivation, rather than the killers’ identity, tends to be integral to each sequel’s thesis — though this also means that the film’s thesis doesn’t emerge until the climatic monologue where the killers inevitably explain themselves. (The series’ legacy characters, Sidney, Gale (Courteney Cox), and Dewey (David Arquette), are endearing and resilient, but they don’t have much of a track record in terms of actually solving mysteries.) After all, for the whodunit to work, at least a few suspects have to remain plausible for much of the running time.

Accordingly, almost any of the supporting characters in Scream 5 could fill the role of “crazed superfans obsessed with restoring Stab/Scream to its original glory.” The real villain here is toxic fandom. Amber and Richie are exactly the fans who Mindy is alluding to earlier in the movie when she describes a visceral Reddit reaction against Stab 8. It’s clear in retrospect that Richie, who seemed to be watching Stab movies on Netflix and complaint videos on YouTube as a way of cheerfully catching up with Sam’s situation, was actually indulging his obsession with the series he feels has lost its way.

Though other Scream movies have saved some pointed commentary for their last 30 minutes (Scream 4 is kind of slack in the middle, but it has a killer final act about desire for social-media fame), this one feels especially barbed in satirizing the fan desire not just for more sequels, but for sequels made to their exact specifications, and with fans’ preferred ideas about mixing the old and new — ideas which are often straight out of a hacky screenwriter’s limited imagination, just like Amber and Richie’s next-gen-Loomis notion is. After so many “for the fans!” PR tours, there’s something thrilling about a slasher series that has its knives out for the worst parts of fandom.

Who dies in the 2022 Scream?

Another aspect of the Scream series that sets it apart from other slashers is that it’s maintained a core cast of beloved characters across five installments, something virtually unheard of in other horror series. Laurie Strode will have appeared in seven Halloween movies by the time David Gordon Green’s new trilogy is completed in 2023, but bringing her back involved resetting the continuity. Sidney, Gale, and Dewey have appeared in every Scream movie without a reset. The series is notable for the fact that the villain isn’t the unstoppable Michael Myers-style killing machine — Sidney Prescott is the one who ultimately can’t be stopped, and the audience knows that. Maybe because the series is so aware of slasher clichés, it’s never resorted to giving Sidney an ignominious end for the sake of shock value.

But the filmmakers do try something a little different here: Dewey, whose survival of multiple stabbings has become a running joke in the series, actually does die this time around, capping off a sad postscript to his sheriff days where he broke things off with Gale again, was forced into early retirement, and became an alcoholic loner. Rough stuff, but it does give David Arquette some meatier material than just feuding with Gale. Call it his Han Solo moment; we all want our Han moments to recall the original Star Wars, but sometimes they’re more like The Force Awakens.

The other deaths — like Sheriff Judy (Marley Shelton), who seems to have been brought back from Scream 4 for the express purpose of being a “legacy” character who’s also expendable — are relatively predictable, though they’re light by the series standards. In this one, multiple teenagers survive Ghostface attacks, with a robust cast potentially available to pick things up in Scream 6.

Yet most of these characters also seem ill-equipped to carry those future, inevitable Scream follow-ups. For all of Scream’s smart commentary about the artistic dead ends of “requels” and the toxic fans who chase them there, it still feels a bit like it’s painted itself into a corner: The more likable and capable characters it introduces (and Sam and Tara are both very easy to root for), the trickier it is to develop them beyond forever menacing them with new knife-wielding maniacs, and the harder it will be to balance out the “legacy” characters (even if only two major ones remain) with the new class. The best thing about the new Scream is that it punts any ongoing-franchise concerns to another film. The worst thing is that it’ll probably inspire one.