MOVIE: Glass Onion (2022)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Glass Onion: A Knives Out MysteryYear: 2022Rating: PG-13Length: 139 minutes / 2.31 hours Hollywood has woefully underutilized the mystery genre for some time. It probably doesn’t help that there aren’t a lot of mysteries being written that have been adapted to the big screen. The two modern examples that come to mind are Gone Girl (2014) and The Girl on the Train (2016) but they’re darker than the classic mysteries by Agatha Christie. That Hollywood is still releasing movies based on Christie’s works (like Murder on the Orient Express (2017)) or Christie-adjacent works (like See How They Run (2022)) shows there’s a desire for ensemble-based mysteries. Glass Onion (2022) is the breath of fresh air in this somewhat stagnant genre. I’m glad that Knives Out (2019) did well enough to warrant a sequel with Daniel Craig’s fantastic character, Benoit Blanc. Glass Onion takes that same humor and applies it in a biting satire against the hyper-wealthy and “influencer” types that all need...
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MOVIE: Knives Out (2019)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Knives OutYear: 2019Rating: PG-13Length: 130 minutes / 2.17 hours One of the most under-utilized genres to date, a good mystery movie is hard to find these days. This is partly why Knives Out (2019) is such a joy to watch. With plenty of twists and turns—and a murderer that subverts all the numerous tropes of the genre—this film is almost on the edge of self-aware satire of mysteries on the whole. This is partly why I found Knives Out to be delightfully amusing: the absurd nature of some of the genre’s most tightly-held motifs were playfully subverted for a couple of genuine laughs. Of course, part of the problem of Knives Out being so self-aware is that it is inevitably predictable at several key moments. Depending on how far ahead a viewer can deduce the solution to a critical piece of evidence might determine how predictable it is for them. I did appreciate that there was always one piece of the puzzle...
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