Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) - Movie Review

In response to the myriad of fan theories about the secret meanings behind the Beatles’ music (backmasking, “Paul is dead”, that kind of shit), John Lennon wrote the song Glass Onion, which would be included on the group’s self-titled White Album. It’s basically a troll set to music, referencing other Beatles songs to give fuel to the people who think that they intentionally put in all these cryptic messages in their art... when in reality, it meant pretty much fuck-all. Many layers, but all of them see-through right down to the core: a glass onion.

See How They Run (2022) - Movie Review

Okay, okay, for real this time, we’re done with the trauma shit. We’re still dealing with the macabre, but things are going to be a lot lighter this time around with a silly little whodunit mystery. And man, the cast for this thing is incredible. Putting Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan together as the leads is already beautiful all on its own, but adding in Adrien Brody, rising star Harris Dickinson, David Oyelowo making up for the double helping of bad from last year, and Reece motherloving Shearsmith? I could watch these people paint fences and still be fine with paying for the privilege.

Death On The Nile (2022) - Movie Review

With how a lot of mainstream films have been collecting dust while the pandemic kept mucking up the release schedule over the last couple years, this film arguably has gone through the worst aging of any film caught in that shuffle. Between when filming wrapped up in December of 2019, and its official release in February of 2022, at least four of the actors in this ensemble film have become embroiled in controversies. Actual Cannibal Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright’s ‘vaccine scepticism’, Russell Brand’s descent down the conspiracy YouTube rabbit hole, even Gal Gadot’s nauseating cover of Imagine (which, in her defense, she has since admitted to being… out of touch, to put it mildly); this is the kind of PR clusterfuck that could end up burying a film in release limbo indefinitely, COVID or no COVID.

Not that I'm holding any of that against the film myself. It’s rather unfair to hold Kenneth Branagh or indeed any of the other cast members responsible for actions that not only weren’t even of their own doing, but took place quite a while after the work itself was finished. Don’t get me wrong, it’s more than a little hilarious thinking about this four-car pile-up in hindsight, but… I have no other way to say it: This is a situation where separation of art from the artist absolutely applies. Hell, this isn’t even a new phenomenon for this specific series, given how controversial the casting of Johnny Depp was in Murder On The Orient Express. And that’s also taken on new life considering new information regarding his and Amber Heard’s… disastrous relationship, and how the film itself framed the death of his character in an ultimately positive light, as part of the story’s larger examination of the concept of justice.

I’m bringing all this up because, this early into 2022, it’s the kind of production snafu that threatens to overtake the film itself in terms of sheer interest, more so than possibly any film to come in the next several months. But honestly, as someone who went into this thinking that it would pale in comparison to Branagh’s Belfast, and who wasn’t that into Orient Express to begin with, I walked away from this very surprised by the results. Like, I think I liked this more than Orient or Belfast.

The Night Clerk (2020) - Movie Review

This is something I’m likely going to get into more detail with a review I can already see approaching early next year, but just to get it out in the open: I don’t have an inherent problem with non-autistic people playing those on the spectrum. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Asa Butterfield, and Ben Affleck aren’t on the spectrum (far as I know, at least), and yet their respective depictions in Mary & Max, X+Y, and The Accountant still resonated with me.

Being able to depict something that close to my heart in a truly empathetic way means the world to me, regardless of the status of the actor doing it, and while I get the problem with the lack of IRL autistic representation in these movies (it’s been happening for so long, it’s become the norm to the detriment of working autistic actors), that on its own isn’t the issue. It just adds salt to the wound when the film’s understanding of the condition is already as fucked as it is in films like The Night Clerk.

What Did Jack Do? (2020) - Movie Review

I honestly never thought I’d be able to do this on this blog. I always assumed that the window in which I could watch and review new David Lynch movies had past me by. But then this little number showed up on Netflix, a former art gallery exclusive from 2017 (these reviews are dated by Australian release/access date, hence why I’m getting away with calling this ‘new’), and there’s not a herd of wild horses that could stop me from grabbing this chance with both hands. And he doesn’t seem to have lost a touch of his weirdness after all this time.

Knives Out (2019) - Movie Review

Films like this… intimidate me. As someone who writes about every new movie I watch, I certainly don’t make it a habit of hiding my true feelings in regards to pretty much anything I’ve written about here, whether I love it, hate it, or walked away unfathomably bored. But my come-up as part of the wider YouTube angry critic scene has definitely influenced how I approach all of those features. If something is bad, I hold no qualms in outlying every single way it has failed… but what about the opposite? What about those films that are just so engaging, so well-crafted, so endearingly good?

Surely, a film that is entirely positive is an impossible thing; no film is perfect, and even with films I love, I usually bring up even the most minor of issues to keep things balanced. Then there comes a film like Knives Out where, no matter how hard I strain my grey matter, I struggle to find fault in what it presents. I don’t know if this film is indeed perfect, but holy shit, it's so damn close that there's nary a difference.

Murder Mystery (2019) - Movie Review

Having covered all of the previous Happy Madison Netflix features, I freely admit that I didn’t go into this film expecting anything all that decent. And sure enough, in record time, that feeling of déjà vu kicks in with the usual hallmarks of an Adam Sandler production: Prominent in-your-face product placement with the Amazon gift card (wow, is this not a good time to be shilling out for them), Sandler’s wife being cast in a role meant to show off how hot she is (she’s literally billed as ‘Great Looking Flight Attendant’), and the story as a whole is a thinly-veiled excuse for a European vacation, just like the last time Sandler and Jennifer Aniston got together with Just Go With It.

Crooked House (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Aristide Leonides (Gino Picciano), a wealthy businessman in charge of a family dynasty, has been found dead in his stately home. His granddaughter Sophia (Stefani Martini), suspecting foul play, hires private investigator Charles Hayward (Max Irons) to look into the case. As he arrives at the Leonides estate, and meets the many members of Aristide's immediate family, it seems that not only does everyone have a motive, but they are all more than capable of fulfilling that motive. This case is going to be trickier than first thought.

Wind River (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Wildlife tracker Cory (Jeremy Renner), while on a routine hunt, discovers the body of a dead Native America woman in the snow. As she alerts the residents of the surrounding reservation of Wind River, in particular the victim’s father Martin (Gil Birmingham), FBI agent Jane (Elizabeth Olsen) is brought in to help with the investigation. As she and Cory try to figure who was responsible for the death, they are confronted with just how dangerous this land can be.

Murder On The Orient Express (2017) - Movie Review

Kenneth Branagh, when all is said and done, is a filmmaker who operates best in the realm of adaptation. Starting out by bringing some of Shakespeare’s greatest stories to the big screen in roaring fashion, right down to what has become the definitive version of Hamlet (all four hours of it), he has since gone on to give the same treatment to operas, spy thriller novels, superheroes, even Disney princesses. The respective qualities of each of those examples definitely differs, but I would argue that the man always manages to leave an impression on whatever genre he decides to take on. Today marks yet another new avenue for the man, this time delving into a murder mystery adapted from legendary writer Agatha Christie. Do we see the little grey cells go off in Branagh’s head once again, or are they sitting this one out?

Ittefaq (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: A book publisher (Kimberly Louisa McBeath) and a lawyer (Samir Sharma) have turned up dead and the only two witnesses to the crimes are also the prime suspects: Author Vikram (Sidharth Malhotra) and homemaker Maya (Sonakshi Sinha). As officer Dev (Akshaye Khanna) interviews them both, and hears two different versions of the facts from each of them, he struggles to piece together what actually happened that night. However, as the investigation carries on, it seems that the 'truth' of the matter is going to be even tougher to discern than first thought.