Here's another clue for you all - GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY -- dir. Rian Johnson; Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monáe, etc etc

very fun. can't believe "Agatha Christie shit that isn't set in great-grandpa days" hasn't been a decades-long thriving genre.

for real.

this also reminded me of latter-day Hitchcock, very determined to entertain but unafraid of being quite silly on the way there.

"We appreciate the input, and acknowledge this would've made $100 million with ease, but it is very important to Netflix, as a business, that people watch this movie on their phones. For some reason." https://t.co/qlGDfGXDVK

— David Roth (@david_j_roth) November 30, 2022

yes. you might even say it was SOOOOOOOOOOOO... foolish i guess

We were going to see this last no night but the theater had sold out to the point where there were no open seat pairs left.

SHITBALLS

Last night I rewatched Knives Out for the first time since it came out. I was struck by how much more naturalistic it was compared to Glass Onion. The new one really leans into the glitz and glamour and overall spectacle, and in doing so ends up being quite a bit more cartoony.

this was a lot of fun, not as neat as the first one but entertaining

loved the anticlimatic scene where blanc ruined the gillian flynn plot

daniel craig is hilarious, I wonder if it's the gravitas that comes with age that allows him to be so funny, or if he was always very funny

He's good in Logan Lucky (with a similar accent), though some of that is that he seems dangerous in the film as well - the lightness and fussiness is new, I think?

Film is great. A LOT of stuff to giggle at, like the red Solo cup given to the assistant

BUTTRESS

this was terrific, just highly enjoyable from start to finish. Craig & Monae, MAGIC!

also RMDE at all the balloonheads on twitter who were breathlessly calling White Lotus a “mystery” or a “whodunnit” when ~THIS~ exists, like stfu you dopes

i def want to watch it again & luxuriate in the enjoyableness

and this is only a small matter but man i love seeing kate hudson deployed correctly. she was great.

also lol at the burnout dude chilling in his room to Little River Band’s “Cool Change”. A+

My older daughter hadn't seen it yet, so most of us watched it again and enjoyed watching her watch it for the first time.

I also loved this. My only complaint is that I didn’t bug that a governor running a progressive Senate campaign would willingly jump on a party call with a boner pill meathead, let alone go on a weekend retreat with him

*believe, I don’t know how that ended up as “bug”

She knows there was ZERO rhino in those pills

I know there are a million little details like it, but I caught how Duke's holster had the Gadsden snake and "DTOM" printed on it.

I liked how they dispatched with COVID as a concern. (Ethan Hawke: "You're good.") I was distracted in the first few minutes by people who seemed to work for Kathryn Hahn not wearing masks at her house.

Very nice “oh she’s off putting out some fire” gag

birdie’s mask being just netting was hilar

Duke’s Mom boredly solving all the puzzles was great too “…Fibonacci”

Birdie's mask was one-upping Lana Del Rey

lol

Enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Laughed out loud several times, while watching it alone on a laptop wearing headphones.

https://twitter.com/sannewman/status/1602039776424722435?s=46&t=b822EJTbUUBowG8Ps_6e2A

Oh that’s good. Couldn’t put my finger on it when it happened.

maybe my favorite reference in Glass Onion pic.twitter.com/sjNOGhklQo

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) December 23, 2022

oh shit

YESSS

omg

Ha, was just reading about that:

That contagious fun was evident when Norton completely surprised Johnson by appearing on set for a flashback scene dressed exactly how Tom Cruise looked playing macho motivational speaker Frank T.J. Mackey in Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 movie "Magnolia," complete with shoulder-length hair and a black leather vest over a velvet shirt with the top buttons undone. Norton's idea was that his billionaire character, Miles Bron, is so unoriginal that he would copy the look from a movie he just watched.

"He and Jenny Eagan, our costume designer, came up with the look and I had no idea," Johnson said. "I started cracking up. But then I thought, 'Is this too much?' I also thought, 'What is Paul going to think of this?' Hopefully he takes it in the right spirit."

https://www.insider.com/rian-johnson-interview-glass-onion-star-wars-2022-12

So! This was...fine. Not anywhere as satisfying as the first one.

Hudson and Monae were MVPs.

whenever i watch a rian johnson film i feel like i’m in the hands of a very good filmmaker and i especially felt that when the lights went out

less sure i’m always in the hands of a good writer, the story doubling back on itself kinda gave me a headache, and i only accept ludicrous twin sister reveals in horror movies and pretty little liars

hudson and bautista were excellent

The doubling back annoyed me too, worth it (for a while) to watch Monae give serious movie star vibes.

Bautista is an underrated actor. If he looked just 10-15% more human he could follow The Rock's path and be a man for all markets.

Monae’s acting was a real surprise to me too, also she’s super adorbs in this film.

"SHITBALLS!"

I'm no doubt alone in thinking so, but I've always found Norton hot and more so as he's hollowed out with age.

funny thing is he always struck me as phony as an actor around his American History X days but I've grown to enjoy him much more in his later career.

I thought he was the real deal as early as Primal Fear and I loved him in Everyone Says I Love You but I never thought about him twice until the late '00s.

He was fun in "Moonlight Kingdom." In some ways he's the most insufferable when he's doing Serious Acting, and the most enjoyable when he's doing silly character stuff (like this or Wes Anderson or iirc "Birdman").

yeah josh otm i feel the same way,

he was good in MOtherless Brooklyn (as an actor at least), even though the movie/adaptation wasn't good

and in The Grand Budapest Hotel.

This was our Christmas brunch movie with the kids, everyone enjoyed it. I agree it's more cartoony than the first one, although the first one was pretty silly too. The twin sister plot was creaky for sure, but it was also a relief because I was afraid for a minute that Monae was actually going to be out of the movie. I enjoyed getting to see her do so much. (Also agree she and Hudson were the clear standouts, aside from Craig.)

I don't think these are exactly great movies, but they're good entertainment. And the timing of this one hitting just as Elon Musk is showing his ass every day is pretty stellar. When Benoit Blanc goes into his rant about how Norton's character is actually just an idiot, who in the audience isn't thinking about Musk?

Thought this was a big improvement over the first, ie actually funny. Not sure it's worth any consideration beyond that but entertaining adult comedy w/ big names hamming it up is worth 2 hours of time.

I also agree he’s a better filmmaker than writer, he should get a good co-writer to punch up his scripts.

Was anyone expecting this one to be more than fun, or, for that matter, think the first one was aiming for more than fun? I thought they both were a blast, more or less grown up entertainments that are smart, unpretentious, well-made, fun for the whole family and bear (and seem designed for) repeat viewings. Couldn't ask for more, really, especially for a genre that's surprisingly hard to pull off, let alone a sequel with literally every single person watching closely, trying to figure it out in real time. It's a neat trick, surprising people perpetually primed for a surprise.

Fwiw, I thought the twin stuff was amusing for its pro forma audacity. It's such a murder mystery trope, but tackled here with some degree of novelty, imo.

yeah I enjoyed all of that, it’s definitely a movie that is mostly just celebrating the fun of its genre tropes & going a bit silly with it all

who in the audience isn't thinking about Musk?

Or Sam Bankman-Fried, or for some us Liz Truss... it's been a weird year.

We rewatched it tonight, the writing really is amazing.

Watched this tonight. MVP is the costume designer, big laugh when Craig appeared in the blue and white striped top and revealed a moment later he was wearing matching shorts.

I thought that was kind of the point of the ending, they had to find a way to ruin the mythology of Miles Bron. having his 'clean' fuel source torch his own mansion and ruin one of the most famous artworks of all time seems like it would probably do it. not to mention the murder of two people close to him. it's hard to imagine "Alpha" sticking around much longer after that.

I guess on reflection Knives Out was probably the better movie, but I think it's a legitimately great one which doesn't come around very often anymore. Glass Onion is also great but less so. It's maybe unfair to compare the two - they're both murder mysteries, but I think they both approach the concept in very different ways

And to be fair, Johnson has explicitly said that he's taking a Christie approach where not every mystery/story/etc has to be the same or work the same or have the same tone etc. He wants to vary it up, and some things will work more than others depending on the viewer. I mean, I'm already very interested in whatever the third film will be regardless of what the hell approach/setting/etc he takes.

Lily, agreed very much about the overall differences - great description of why KO worked so well.

I do think I enjoyed GO just a little more than you did; I guess for me the ending pyrotechnics still have the 'satisfying puzzle' feel, because we're seeing the two heroes smartly put together several different pieces of information to identify exactly how this scorched-earth solution could be achieved, and why it would work.

Extremely minor point but I appreciate that Benoit quoted the line "my God, it's full of stars" as being from 2010: The Year They Make Contact, not 2001 (I know it's in the book 2001, but more importantly it's not in the movie).

I thought that was kind of the point of the ending, they had to find a way to ruin the mythology of Miles Bron. having his 'clean' fuel source torch his own mansion and ruin one of the most famous artworks of all time seems like it would probably do it. not to mention the murder of two people close to him. it's hard to imagine "Alpha" sticking around much longer after that.

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 10, 2023 11:56 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

No billionaire has nor would ever face consequences for anything ever

ok

Michael Milken was the equivalent of a billionaire in today's dollars

man I thought about it a little and a high school chemistry teacher wouldn't be able to defeat a cartel, so now I don't like Breaking Bad anymore

they literally have this conversation in the movie iirc

Extremely minor point but I appreciate that Benoit quoted the line "my God, it's full of stars" as being from 2010: The Year They Make Contact, not 2001 (I know it's in the book 2001, but more importantly it's not in the movie).

even more extremely minor point, miles wasn't playing blackbird correctly, or at least not how mccartney plays it. maybe accidental, but the camera did linger on the fretting hand right at the pertinent moment.

thats when i knew who did it

i think one of the reasons i got taken out of this bc i watched with my parents and they found the internet jokes incomprehensible

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Wednesday, January 4, 2023 7:45 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah same, they didn't understand anything or know who the people being caricatured were.

pinefox and also dan SUPER otm about what makes mysteries interesting/good. Right after watching GO I thought about the really classic whodunnit and decided that the sleuth doesn't necessarily have MORE information than the others (or the reader) but they perceive/understand it differently, they're not misdirected by their expectations.

GO didn't give anything to go on and felt quite cold (funnily enough for being set on a mediterranean island). I loved the jokes but I didn't like any of the people.

I loved the subversion of the puzzle box, how in so many stories solving it would be the WHOLE story, it would be impossibly convoluted, etc, whereas here it was shallow and took minutes. When Monae smashed hers in the garage I knew right away she was going to be the only sane one! Great moment. I thought it had great moments like that but kept getting in its own way.

BB was way less of an idiot this time around, yeah? didn't love that.

I loved the jokes but I didn't like any of the people.

Yeah this was one of the key issues for me with GO. The Knives Out crew were equally reprehensible but they were flawed in a more relatable way and the film took care to give them some nice character moments e.g. Jamie Lee Curtis' relationship with her father; Meg the niece who is otherwise kind and reasonable as long as her own interests aren't being threatened; even Ransom was seen as somewhat sympathetic (or maybe we're just primed for that because he's being played by Captain America). I guess Peg and Whisky had their own moments too in GO but neither felt sufficiently fleshed out in comparison.

I also think KO was better served by having Marta as the main audience proxy rather than Benoit - it's much more fun watching how he works through someone else's eyes, plus we're constantly anxious for her so when the twist/reveal arrives, it's not just satisfactory but comes as a huge relief

Roz: I agree, I think it's not so much that those characters are more likeable (though you're right), more that they cohere as a group. The GO group didn't seem like a group at all, but a random assortment.

in orbit: It would be fair to say that in a detective story the sleuth should NOT have more information than the reader - if they do it is 'unfair', according to the (laughable if you like) classical rules of the Detection Club et al. While such strict rules are absurd, I think this principle stands.

in orbit: "Yeah same, they didn't understand anything or know who the people being caricatured were." Nor do I. I think that the Miles Bron character might be like Elon Musk, but otherwise the characters didn't remind me of anyone in particular.

I feel much in agreement with those for whom character was a problem in GO.

I think some of this is a proxy for the fact that the characters just stood out more in Knives Out - there wasn't really a lot for Leslie Odom Jr, or Katherine Hahn to do, they were slight variations on "dependent on Miles, but resentful of it" and without much screen time that couldn't have been amalgamated, the Thrombeys were more varied in their relationships with Harlan, and each other.

“I’m not here!”