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

It's there as cover for breaking the bar, I think?

None of the twist has anything to do with the initial whodunnit, though. They play absolutely fair with that - the "Duke don't dance with pineapple", Myles handing Duke his drink, whatever Birdie's drink was. We don't know what the other mystery is until after the twist introduces it.

yeah but reveal of the second mystery by the twist steamrolls the initial whodunnit and also delivers the answer to you in a bowtie - the denouement isn't really that satisfying, hence needing the climax of glass breaking etc.

also, pineapple is a pretty distinct flavor, surprised that duke didn't pick up on it in his drink immediately but maybe he was already pretty wasted / preoccupied with how to blackmail miles at that point. rian johnson in shambles at these plot holes.

also, obviously should have been a soy allergy, not a pineapple allergy, duh

An interesting take from Ethan Iverson, a jazz pianist, huge crime fiction fan, and small-c conservative (which is why it's surprising — to me anyway — that this is running in The Nation instead of The Bulwark or The New Criterion).

i enjoyed this, i don't think i'll think about it again. biggest difference between this and the first one was with the first one you felt you at least had a chance of figuring out who did it, invites the viewer in. here that's thrown out the window with the introduction of the twin sister and half an hour long flashback that turns everything that came before it on its head. it feels more like a rollercoaster on rails than a choose your own adventure. but whatever, it's fun!

― 龜, Thursday, December 29, 2022 9:53 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

having seen it twice now, this is where i am with it too. i enjoyed it, i found it funny and i loved the ending and several performances. i think my biggest issue is that the movie has no justification for withholding the helen/blanc backstory aside from shocking the audience with a fun twist. there's no formal reason for us not to be aware of helen and blanc cooperating from the start, those scenes on the island are withheld from us simply because the film wants to withhold them. it does make for a fun rollercoaster ride but a weird detective story where machinations of the detective himself are used to misdirect us, to the extent that we don't even know whose murder he's investigating for half the movie.

i have other issues with it, probably more complaints than praise at this point, but i'm also 100% on board for more benoit blanc movies and will devour whatever comes next

Agree that the mystery part was more muddled than KN1 and whoever it was here who suggested that Johnson get a co-writer next time.

lol the Nation piece refers to it as “Jerold Leto hard kombucha.” Great proofreading!

xpost *calls up Gillian Flynn* Er wait.

good old Benoit deciphering the entire murder mystery party game instantly was pleasing

"what the hell, man?"

machinations of the detective himself are used to misdirect us, to the extent that we don't even know whose murder he's investigating for half the movie

This is completely true and completely awesome.

also, pineapple is a pretty distinct flavor, surprised that duke didn't pick up on it in his drink immediately but maybe he was already pretty wasted / preoccupied with how to blackmail miles at that point.

Dude was handed a drink, sipped it, and immediately started choking

fair enough! i guess my point was i expected a spit-take, but yeah the choking is immediate.

Really enjoyed this. Appreciated the bit of misdirection which seemed to be leading towards Ed Norton getting offed early on, so Duke being the victim was a genuine surprise there, and really liked the constant noise of the party scene leading up to the poisoning. Reminded me of the Boogie Nights firecracker scene. I would want to watch it again, not even for the mystery but the sheer pleasure of watching the cast do their thing.

great cast

had the thought today that knives out is like the oceans eleven franchise, rotating ensemble casts anchored by a star riffing on a fun genre stalwart

I was disappointed that Johnson didn't go with the idea that Benoit Blanc would have a totally different accent in each film.

So what milieus/mystery settings are we going to be in in the next one, now that we’ve done Mystery Mansion and Remote Island? Ski resort seems like an auspicious choice and good for outfits.

Boat or train or train-boat

Def gotta be a hydro-train.
Or I'm thinking "impossible" museum caper

Christie liked boats and trains, obv. Some kind of culty New Age weekend spa maybe. Or a first-class cabin on one of those superluxe planes?

I’d love to see a blimp-related locked room mystery.

picturesque rural scandinavian pagan festival

“I do declare, is that a White Lotus hotel?”

Le Lotus Blanc

Helen/Blanc backstory felt like an inner ring to the onion. I was glad things were peeled back in order and not quickly during the end reveal.

Saw this last night, really liked it. I'm not sure if the timeliness of the movie is necessarily a good thing - it's amazing this movie came out right at this moment but at the same time we're all fucking sick of these kinds of people. Still I think it works because it focuses so much on Janelle Monae's character. I thought she would just be part of an ensemble cast but she feels like a bona fide movie star here. Too bad for those waiting for more music from her, I guess.

As for the movie itself I thought it was really well done. You expect these movies to deceive you so I thought some of the details were really clever. The first half had a lot of odd visual clues that make you think "wait, did anyone else see that?" which of course get explained way down the line. I thought it was great that the movie had two characters who were basically red herrings. One is particularly clever if you've seen the first one (my guess was that Peg was gonna factor greatly into the plot b/c that's sort of how the first one went but it turned out she was entirely irrelevant). It was just a really well made movie in general. I loved a lot of the visual details - the scene where Monae is just going to town on the invitation box with a hammer and you can see all the little game pieces fly out was amazing. It was full of subtle funny bits as well. Like Duke's gun being pointed directly at his dick and balls for most of the film. I also loved the grand reveal that most of these characters were just not very smart, which is the opposite of how these films usually go.

rly liked the first film. made it 13 minutes into this. what the fuck

if I wanted a barrage of hip internet nonsense I'd simply post here more!

"Active participants in a text-only message board are summoned to pub in Camden Town..."

There should be more modern movies that pretend the internet doesn't exist

this was good but not as good as the first. the big twist here was fun but twists that exist solely in the framing to mess with the audience are ultimately less satisfying, without any sympathetic/pov character to actually be surprised/impacted by the twist it ends up having less narrative weight

The fantastic thing about this movie is watching it a second time and seeing everything play out in real time exactly how Blanc pegged it before the denouement

A solid holiday watch but everyone who called it cringe otm - I am always in for a bit of hating on billionaires but at times it felt like it was a bit “see? See????”

Re the post upthread where they compared Miles having friends - isn’t the whole point by this stage in their lives that he is not their friend? He’s their meal tickets, and he’s got the means to take everything away as easily as it was given too. I wouldn’t call them friends in any meaningful way.

Also, everyone in this with blue eyes except Kate Hudson looked like they were wearing really fake looking contact lenses, I blame whatever filter they used. Isn’t the smarmy awful politician Sinema? (Sorry if that was said upthread but I didn’t read all 200+ comments.)

However I really love Janelle Monaé a lot, I will forgive a lot for her. But yeah, it’s not the kind of thing I see myself ever wanting to watch or think of again.

Agree w DJP re: rewatching.

The annoying stuff is minor notes compared to the overall fun the performers are having and the structure of the thing, which I enjoyed a lot as another take on a common mystery storytelling trope, re-seeing things from the POV where all is explained. Daniel Craig is clearly enjoying this role a million more times than Bond (post-Casino Royale movies that is) and really do hope they make a few more of these. If they can crank out three MCU films per year and ten-plus Fast and the Furious flicks I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

politician could be anyone, really. I was reading her as a Gillibrand but the recent FTX hijinks colored my perception

biggest laughs i had were the brief moments of Miles's clear shitlordness - playing "Blackbird" and "Under the Bridge" on acoustic, Frank Mackey cosplay, etc.

"Blackbird" was perfect, but the chili peppers song had to be "Soul to Squeeze".

I definitely laughed at the line "The Red Hot Chili Peppers are kinda underrated!" but that joke has been used enough that it's almost become true at this point

I am really struggling to get my head around the fact that—according to the internet—Glass Onion had exactly the same budget as the first movie: $40mil

Honestly the film gets better the more I think about it. And yeah if I hadn't said it already the second watch showing how everything came together and if it hit all the beats just so was a treat. Honestly I want Johnson to do his usual thing ASAP and release a watchalong commentary here.

My own subtle bit I caught the second time through, maybe someone already mentioned this too: so the second watch was with my folks and they prefer to have subtitles on as their hearing can be rough, don't blame 'em. So when Blanc meets Helen out on the staircase after the blackout he specifically says "Helen," which I simultaneously caught in both the dialogue and the subtitles. I hadn't noticed it the first time through at all, or rather, I'm sure I did somehow but must have just shrugged it off or thought I misheard something. Anyway that surely was anything but a mistake on Johnson/the editor's part, making it a big ol' clue about something that was going to be revealed in more detail in the next few minutes anyway, but only if you were really up on the tropes in turn. And I'm sure some were! So when we get the scene again later in the film him saying "Helen" that of course makes sense fully, and avoids it being a cheat or editing trick (and they did similar with the glass switch-off).

There's a good interview with Johnson that goes into all the ways he doesn't trick you, as long as you're paying attention.

thought this was fun, funny, and don’t have an issue with the overlapping flashback structure, but i do think that the characters were thinner and much less surprising this time around.

my biggest laugh was the payoff to the sweat shop storyline haha. also thought the deadbeat friend was a great gag who kept popping up at the perfect times

I love that Derol is played by Noah Segan, who basically is Johnson's friend from way back that he keeps around.

he's in every Johnson project, iirc.

I definitely laughed at the line "The Red Hot Chili Peppers are kinda underrated!" but that joke has been used enough that it's almost become true at this point

He says specifically that Frusciante is underrated, which (while also not untrue, perhaps) is a better joke.

the rian johnson/muppets knives out shd be jfk

(BB as garrison obv, dialogue unchanged obv obv)

Ned, I absolutely caught that during the second watch, along with most of the other things in the party confrontation scene. I missed the bit with the recorder, though.

There's a good interview with Johnson that goes into all the ways he doesn't trick you, as long as you're paying attention.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, January 2, 2023 1:54 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't notice any of the stuff he writes about but I did suspect something was going on with Monae's character right from the beginning - the scene where she's dressed down, with a Southern accent, violently smashing the puzzle box contradicts everything we see from her the rest of the first half. I didn't think the twist would be that dramatic but I figured there was some sort of double life thing going on. Also there's the bit where the other characters are watching her asking "what is she up to?" and you can see her stumbling down the hill? So here I thought the twist was that she had some fatal illness or something.

fwiw I did really appreciate the plot's other central "twist", that Miles Bron just isn't that smart - I was really expecting some "I expected you to solve the murder mystery all along, so I could move on with my real plan!" thing and I'm really glad it didn't happen.