Knives Out

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY: skewer the rich

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Photo caption: Daniel Craig and Janelle Monae in GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY. Courtesy of Netflix.

Writer-director Rian Johnson follows his wonderful Knives Out with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, another satirical drawing room murder mystery with super detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Again, the rich are skewered and, again, Blanc is overshadowed by a younger female of color. It’s all good fun.

Glass Onion is set on the extravagant private island (think the hideout of a Bond supervillain) of an untethered, narcissistic billionaire (think Elon Musk). The billionaire (a perfect Edward Norton) invites four of buddies from his past (Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom, Jr., and Katharine Hahn) for a weekend house party, plus a girlfriend (Madelyn Cline) and an assistant (Jessica Henwick – whose compelling presence is wasted in this often sniveling role). And Benoit Blanc comes, too, which is fitting because the weekend’s theme is a Clue-like mystery game. Another mysterious friend from the past (Janelle Monáe) shows up; her relationship to the others is complicated, and she puts everyone on edge.

There’s a murder to be solved and a Macguffin to be found. Along the way there are several massive plot twists. Clues dropped early hint that a fortune has been made, not by intellectual talent and hard work, but by manipulation and cheating. Rian Johnson loves to expose treachery among the 1 percent, and here he brings us a classic emperor-has-no-clothes comeuppance.

Knives Out was one of 2019’s smartest and funniest films, and Glass Onion is not in that class – but is still very entertaining. The first forty minutes of set-up are not that compelling, but the pace picks up once the plot twists start piling up and Janelle Monáe takes over the movie.

Janelle Monáe in GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY. Credit: John Wilson. Courtesy of Netflix.

The cast is excellent, especially Craig and Norton. But the most riveting performance is by the singular Janelle Monáe. The stunningly beautiful Monáe is a captivating screen presence. She’s also demonstrated serious dramatic acting chops in her who-is-THAT? performance in her first feature film Moonlight, and again in Hidden Figures. Monáe’s own music and fashion projects are startlingly original, and her artsy sensibility seems impervious to risk. I say, let her direct a movie if she wants – just get her back up on the movie screen.

Glass Onion looks several times glossier than its $40 million budget. Glass Onion has spent over a week as the #1 film on Netflix, which is excellent because it means that Netflix will likely fund another Rian Johnson movie.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is streaming on Netflix.

Movies to See Right Now

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Brad Pitt in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

It’s time for the Oscars, and The Movie Gourmet will be rooting for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and Parasite, which lead my Best Movies of 2019. I’ll be rooting for Adam Driver (actor), Brad Pitt (supporting actor), Laura Dern (supporting actress), Bong Joon Ho or Quentin Tarantino (director and original screenplay) and Taika Waititi (adapted screenplay for Jojo Rabbit).

Roger Deakins should win the cinematography Oscar for 1917; overall, I wasn’t impressed with 1917, except for the technical achievements, so I would be OK with 1917 winning some technical Oscars. I haven’t yet seen the favorite for best documentary, American Factory, which is streamable.

If Honeyland or The Joker win anything, I will become nauseous. If 1917 takes Best Picture, it will be projectile vomit.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • 1917 is technically groundbreaking, but the screenplay neither thrilled me nor moved me.
  • The earnest documentary Honeyland failed to keep me interested.

ON VIDEO

The character-driven suspenser The Gift is more than a satisfying thriller – it’s a well-made and surprisingly thoughtful film that I keep mulling over. The Gift is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon in ATLANTIC CITY

Turner Classic Movies continues its 31 Days of Oscar on February 8 with Atlantic City, one of only 43 movies that have been nominated for all of the Big Five Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay). Susan Sarandon plays Sally, a hard luck waitress in Atlantic City at its shabbiest. She’s never met anyone like her neighbor Lou (Burt Lancaster), an elderly small-time hood, who behaves as if he’s mob royalty, despite the fact that he lives across the alley from Sally. Despite his station, Lou has the confidence that comes from having seen every situation before. Sally’s nogoodnik ex entangles the two in a life or death drug buy. Top rate.

Susan Sarandon and Burt Lancaster in ATLANTIC CITY

REMEMBRANCE

Here’s my tribute to Kirk Douglas.

Movies to See Right Now

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Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE – this week’s video pick

This weekend I’m back in San Francisco for the close of Noir City, Eddie Muller’s great film noir festival. Here are my recommendations and the eighteen films you can’t see anywhere else.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • 1917 is technically groundbreaking, but the screenplay neither thrilled me nor moved me.
  • The earnest documentary Honeyland failed to keep me interested.

ON VIDEO

My video pick, Ash Is Purest White, is writer-director Zhangke Jia’s portrait of an unforgettable woman surviving betrayal, the crime world and the tidal waves of change in modern China, all embedded in a gangster neo-noir. Tao Zhao, Jia’s wife and muse, gives a tour de force performance. Ash is Purest White is on my list of Best Movies of 2019, and it’s streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On February 1, The Candidate reappears on Turner Classic Movies’ 31 Days of Oscar. The Candidate may still be the greatest political film of all-time, with a searing leading performance by Robert Redford. My day job is in politics, and so many moments in The Candidate are absolutely real. Excellent supporting performances by Peter Boyle, Don Porter and Melvyn Douglas. (Significant parts of The Candidate were shot in the Bay Area, including San Jose’s Eastridge mall and Oakland’s Paramount Theatre.)

THE CANDIDATE – Robert Redford learns that running for elected office has its disadvantages

Movies to See Right Now

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Jean Gabin (wearung shades) and Alain Delon (with dice) in ANY NUMBER CAN WIN, playing Sunday at NOIR CITY

This weekend I’m in San Francisco at Noir City, Eddie Muller’s great film noir festival. Here are my recommendations and the eighteen films you can’t see anywhere else.

And ICYMI my first look at Cinequest 2020.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • 1917 is technically groundbreaking, but the screenplay neither thrilled me nor moved me.
  • The earnest documentary Honeyland failed to keep me interested.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is H.P. Mendoza’s refreshing hoot, Colma: The Musical. You can stream it from Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

REMEMBRANCES

Best known as member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Terry Jones was responsible for much of the troupe’s surreal and wicked humor; he embraced cross dressing as British matrons in Python skits. Jones thought up And Now for Something Completely Different, co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail and wrote the The Meaning of Life. Jones wrote and directed one of the wittiest films ever, The Life of Brian.

Jo Shishido in CRUEL GUN STORY

Actor Jo Shishido starred in a zillion Japanese crime action films, most notably Cruel Gun Story (1964). Oddly, his career as a leading man took off after his plastic surgery, intended to emphasize his cheekbones, left him with puffy cheeks.

ON TV

On January 25 and 26, Turner Classic Movies is presenting the 1950 noir thriller Try and Get Me! (also known as The Sound of Fury), It’s fitting that Eddie Muller will introduce this film on TCM’s Noir Alley because Muller’s Film Noir Foundation restored Try and Get Me! (and I first saw it at the FNF’s Noir City film fest).

Frank Lovejoy plays a hard luck guy who is talked into a crime by a sociopath (Lloyd Bridges), and the crime becomes worse than he ever imagined. The story basically mirrors that of the 1933 Brooke Hart kidnapping in San Jose, which resulted in the Bay Area’s last public lynching – in San Jose’s St. James Park.

Lloyd Bridges and Frank Lovejoy in TRY AND GET ME!

Movies to See Right Now

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George MacKay in 1917

The best film still in theaters, Parasite, has garnered six Oscar nominations, and is certain to win the Best International Oscar. Marriage Story also has six Oscar nods. But I’m not a big fan of 1917.

Remembrance: Director Ivan Passer came out of the Czech New Wave (Intimate Lighting) to work in the US (fifteen features including award-winning Haunted Summer and Robert Duvall’s Stalin). My favorite Passer film is his 1981 Cutter’s Way, with its early Jeff Bridges and fine performances by John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn – and it’s still the best film set in Santa Barbara. I watched it again recently and it still holds up; you can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Jeff Bridges and John Heard in CUTTER’S WAY

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
  • 1917 is technically groundbreaking, but the screenplay neither thrilled me nor moved me.
  • The earnest documentary Honeyland failed to keep me interested.

ON VIDEO

My Stream/DVD of the Week is Brian De Palma’s gangster epic Carlito’s Way, starring a brilliant Al Pacino. Carlito’s Way plays frequently on premium television channels and is available on DVD and Blue-Ray from Netflix. Carlito’s Way can also be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

And where else can you find a guy who writes about Cutter’s Way and Carlito’s Way in the same blog post?

ON TV

On January 18, Turner Classic Movies airs The Man Who Cheated Himself, one of my Overlooked Noir. A cop falls for a dame who makes him go bad – but it’s not just any cop and not just any dame. Bonus: there are plenty of glorious mid-century San Francisco locations.

Jane Wyatt amd Lee J. Cobb in THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF

Movies to See Right Now

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Adam Sandler in UNCUT GEMS

Make plans now to attend Noir City, the great San Francisco festival of film noir.

And, ICYMI:

Remembrances

“I just want to say one word to you. Just one word…Plastics.” Screenwriter Buck Henry wrote some of the most iconic dialogue in the movies. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me!” Henry was nominated for Oscars for adapting The Graduate screenplay and for directing Heaven Can Wait. Along with The Graduate, I also love his screenplay for What’s Up, Doc? He also played the hotel clerk in The Graduate and played himself in The Player, pitching The Graduate II. He appeared often on Saturday Night Live, once getting nipped by John Belushi’s samurai sword. His NYT obit includes his birth name and other tidbits.

Actress Sue Lyon died at the very end of last year and hadn’t made a movie in forty years. She is best remembered for her performance at age 16 as the titular character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 Lolita. She also appeared in The Night of the Iguana and in one of my guilty faves, The Flim Flam Man.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
  • Uncut Gems is a neo-noir in a pressure cooker. Adam Sandler channels a guy racing through a gambling addiction and the resultant financial desperation. It’s the most wire-to-wire movie tension in years.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.

ON VIDEO

My Streams of the Week are the six Best Movies of 2019 – So Far that are already available to stream. This week, I’m featuring They Shall Not Grow Old: a generation finally understood. Now you can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On January 12, Turner Classic Movies will present the 1934 screwball comedy Twentieth Century, which holds up as well today as it did 85 years ago. A flamboyantly narcissistic Broadway producer (John Barrymore) has fallen on hard times and hops a transcontinental train to persuade his former star (Carole Lombard), now an A-list movie star, to headline his new venture. Barrymore’s shameless self-entitlement and hyper dramatic neediness makes for one of the funniest performances in the movies.

TWENTIETH CENTURY

Movies to See Right Now

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MARRIAGE STORY

It doesn’t get much better at the movies than Christmas week. There’s a great selection and you don’t even need to leave home to watch Marriage Story or The Irishman.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into awickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.

ON VIDEO

My Streams of the Week are the six Best Movies of 2019 – So Far that are already available to stream. This week, I’m featuring Long Day’s Journey into Night:  obsession and a vivid darkness. It can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

ON TV

On December 23, Turner Classic Movies is airing BOTH the 1940 and 1944 versions of Gaslight. My essay on both movies and gaslighting in domestic violence is here.

And on December 26, Turner Classic Movies presents Richard Attenborough’s Young Winston (1972), with Simon Ward as the young Winston Churchill. As a young man, Churchill was already risking life and limb to gain celebrity and build a public reputation. Young Churchill depicts his brief career in the military as an insubordinate daredevil in India, Sudan and the Boer War. It’s a good story, and, as a bonus, Simon Ward bears a remarkable physical resemblance to the young Churchill.

Simon Ward in YOUNG WINSTON

Movies to See Right Now

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Ana de Armas in KNIVES OUT

All the movies listed in this week’s OUT NOW are on my list of Best Movies of 2019. New this week: Rian Johnson’s wickedly funny Knives Out, plus I’ll be writing soon about the compelling documentary Midnight Family, opening today at the Roxie in San Francisco.

OUT NOW

  • The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
  • Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
  • Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
  • Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into awickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.

ON VIDEO

My Streams of the Week are the six Best Movies of 2019 – So Far that are already available to stream. This week, I’m featuring The Last Black Man in San Francisco:  the most stark reality, only dream-like.  It’s available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play

ON TV

If you have found the work of Ingmar Bergman just too dreary, Wild Strawberries is a great choice (December 18 on Turner Classic Movies). There’s no denying that Bergman is a film genius, and he’s influenced the likes of Woody Allen, Scorsese, Coppola, Altman, Kieślowski and basically much of the last two generations of filmmakers. But I don’t recommend that casual movie fans watch Bergman’s gloomiest movies just because they “are good for you” – I want you to have a good time at the movies.

Wild Strawberries is the story of an accomplished but cranky geezer. His indifferent daughter-in-law is taking him to be honored at his college. On their road trip, they pick up some young hitch-hikers and then a stranded couple. Each encounter reminds the old doctor of an episode in his youth. As he reminisces, he can finally emotionally process the experiences that had troubled him, helping him finally achieve an inner peace. It’s a wonderful film.

WILD STRAWBERRIES

KNIVES OUT: born on third base and thought they hit a triple

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Daniel Craig in KNIVES OUT

Writer-director Rian Johnson explodes the genre of the drawing room murder mystery in the gloriously entertaining Knives Out.

Knives Out opens at the country estate of a multi-millionaire author (Chistopher Plummer), where he is found dead. If he was murdered, it had to be at the hands of his sweet caregiver Marta (Ana de Armas) or a member of his icky family of ingrates (Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Chris Evans). A Hercule Poirot-type consulting detective (Daniel Craig with a Southern accent) arrives to investigate, and the game is afoot.

I’ve met plenty of folks like the author’s family, who were born on third base and thought they hit a triple. That’s what Knives Out is really about – a wickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement. One of the running jokes is that they claim that Marta is “one of the family”, but none can remember which Latin American country she’s from.

Despite Daniel Craig’s turn as the famed detective, this is really Ana de Armas’ movie, and she is superb. All of the cast are excellent, but everyone except de Armas and Plummer play very broad characters. BTW De Armas plays Paloma, the Bond Girl, to Craig’s James Bond in No Time to Die (coming in April 2020).

Ana de Armas in KNIVES OUT

I recently wrote about Rian Johnson’s 2005 breakthrough Brick, which inhabited the form of another familiar movie genre – film noir. In Nate Jones’ interview in Vulture, Johnson says “One thing I don’t believe in is the notion that this is a dusty old genre and you have to find a way to flip the old tropes on their heads. The basic machinery of it, the tropes of it, are why it works.”

Johnson slyly (and without comment) inserts a shot of Marta’s mom watching a rerun of Angela Lansbury in a Murder, She Wrote, dubbed in Spanish. And the great M. Emmet Walsh has a cameo as the aged security guy who proudly explains the VHS-based security camera system.

Knives Out works as a darkly funny murder mystery and as a pointed social satire. It’s one of the year’s smartest and funniest films.