https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/1536379230526722049
Sad to see this subtitled "A Knives Out Mystery" when it's supposed to be "A Benoit Blanc Mystery"... but I get it. And I can't wait.
Anyone gonna catch the one-week engagement?
Planning to.
It's weird, because my love for Knives Out is profound and all-consuming, but I'm having a really hard time getting hyped for this. Other than Norton and Hahn, the cast is kind of bad, and I don't love the idea of Benoit Blanc, who is at his core a cipher that the audience isn't meant to crack, being the main character. I just get the sense it's going to be the Brothers Bloom (adequate) to Knives Out's Brick (flawless; can do no wrong).
I think more than anything I'm annoyed they passed on the opportunity to give Daniel Craig a different accent in each movie.
Hmmm. Will probably be a divisive sequel. For me, it improves on the first one in almost every way. It's also certainly an ensemble with a character central to the mystery that isn't Benoit. So no fear, Polka, Benoit Blanc iz defo not the main character.
(although, I wonder if that point can be debated after the film's been seen more, that might be fun)
A complaint I could see being consistent might be that the film is just
too ridiculous. I found that really fun. There's even a
And Kate Hudson & Edward Norton get two of the best roles they've had in a while.
What gets in the way the most for me is actually intrinsic to 'whodunnits,' beats that seem to be in all mysteries of this Christie/Columbo homage structure. But everything that's original to the movie iz a bunch of fun.
Knives Out is clearly superior in my view (it was my #2 or 3 of that year), but this is still very good. It does get too silly at times, which is its weakness. I appreciate the rigorous mystery plotting all the more, though, because it's so needed.
Benoit Blanc is definitely more centered here than in the original, with tons more screen time, but he still occupies the same role, and it's never really about him.
Edward Norton is one of those actors who rarely works for me. His performance here was characteristically uneven, but my dislike of him transferred well to the character.
I did not expect this to be the definitive movie about Elon Musk. I'd heard a hint of that going in so kind of had a fun time spotting all the parallels. I wonder how long it would have taken me to figure it out otherwise.
Side note, the cast is ordered very strangely in the end credits. Dave Bautista and Kate Hudson are credited under "and with" after several the most minor supporting characters. Any explanation for this?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjPqvp_VIAAUWl3?format=jpg&name=large)
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on November 28, 2022, 05:36:42 PMSide note, the cast is ordered very strangely in the end credits. Dave Bautista and Kate Hudson are credited under "and with" after several the most minor supporting characters. Any explanation for this?
Generally this is the result of negotiation between the studio/producers and the actors' agents. Rather than just be fourth or fifth-billed (thus implying they are fourth or fifth in importance, potentially bringing down the actor's apparent value), they instead take an "and" or "and with" credit tagged onto the end, which creates the appearance of added importance by separating them from the other actors in the list, without putting them above the actual top-billed actors. Ocean's Eleven had a little fun with this convention with its "and introducing Julia Roberts" credit.
Off-topic, but I wonder which actor has received the most 'and' credits in their career? Who is the 'and'-iest actor?
Gene Hackman in the 90s, when he took a lot of smaller supporting roles?
Possible Spoilers If You're, Like, Very Weird About Spoilers
I had a lot of fun this evening watching Glass Onion. I disliked Knives Out: the jokes were Twitter oriented in a cringe inducing way, and it seemed to me insanely condescending in an involuntarily way toward the immigrant family that it tried to champion (I hate the ending.) Above all that, it wasn't a mystery, nor did it subvert the genre in an interesting way.
Glass Onion isn't really a mystery either. It begins with a fake mystery, but then keeps adding layers to the story with a simple yet fun narrative trick. The jokes were less annoying and some of them made me laugh. And its proletarian revenge upon the bourgeoisie was this time fun as hell to witness. Not inert and paternalistic like in the first movie.
I'm pleasantly surprised, because I expected Johnson to be even more awkward despite his good intentions now that he's loaded as fuck.
Glass Onion as an Anti-Mystery in a way poses this question;
if you can't solve the film because the film itself is deceptive, is it a true mystery ?
I think the guessing game as you watch makes it mysterious, even if it's manipulating how it should fall into place.
Didn't much care for this at all. A film made by someone who spends too much time on Twitter. A film made for the next five minutes of the discourse cycle. It crams in more on-the-nose, topical character types than it knows what to do with. It will date quickly and badly. Even more problematic is the fact that the mystery is both unsurprising and uninteresting.
Would've preferred watching an odd-couple comedy about Daniel Craig and Hugh Grant living together.
Quote from: RudyBlatnoyd on December 24, 2022, 05:09:26 AMWould've preferred watching an odd-couple comedy about Daniel Craig and Hugh Grant living together *and solving mysteries.
Maybe in the next one.
Honestly yeah that sounds delightful.
Rewatching it, I dont mind the
obfuscation during the first half
anymore. The film iz a sleight-of-hand fugue.
Rewatching Knives Out after watching Glass Onion a couple days ago, and setting aside the other relative qualities of the films, it's wild the extent to which the first one looks like a real movie and the second one looks like a TV show.
Quote from: polkablues on December 28, 2022, 09:54:32 PMRewatching Knives Out after watching Glass Onion a couple days ago, and setting aside the other relative qualities of the films, it's wild the extent to which the first one looks like a real movie and the second one looks like a TV show.
I noticed it. But that's mostly due to the lighting, no? Glass Onion seems to also have been shot on film but that's not visible. Even The Last Jedi had more texture.
Everything from the flat lighting to the color grading to the lack of grain to the shot composition to the production design. Knives Out is so rich and lush and textural and intricate and cinematic, it's almost hard to believe Glass Onion was made by the same director and cinematographer.
the movie felt like ideas turned into a first draft way too quickly. and then a first draft turned into a shooting draft way too quickly. and then a first edit turned into a movie way too quickly.
there's some good stuff in there, spoiled by the very obvious lack of work and lack of time to do things right. rian got paid 50m$ for this, netflix should be able to find an executive to say useful things to filmmakers along with the checks.
https://twitter.com/steveyedlin/status/1606751291136671746
https://twitter.com/steveyedlin/status/1606751853823549442
Lighting design thread describing the meticulous work that went into the sweeping lighthouse effect for its dramatic midpoint turn. Yedlin always provides valuable resources for aspiring cinematographers.