Christmas viewings this year are a Benoit Blanc double feature. Just did Knives Out and will catch Glass Onion after dinner.
Like, I know I am not breaking news saying Knives Out is a good movie. I have seen it several times at this point and remain never not impressed how delicately structured it is. I just described it elsewhere as a mobius strip with the first and back half of the film effectively being two separate mysteries forming either side of the central conflict, Johnson balanced all the elements and callbacks so well. To say nothing of the amazing cast and all of the just far-too-real characters on top of that. Easily one of my favorite movies of the last decade, and definitely cemented Rian Johnson as a scripting and directorial voice I want to keep looking out for.
I do my best to keep expectations low because nothing wrecks a movie's first viewing for me like building up something in my mind and having it not deliver*, but I really cannot wait to check out Glass Onion.
*On this note, if from the marketing or your own expectations, you had wanted a movie to be one thing and it turned out to be something you didn't enjoy as much, I implore you to give it a second watch on its own merits instead of what you wanted from it, it usually ends up a much better viewing experience with this mindset.
So that thing I was saying about solving two segments of the same mystery? Glass Onion pulled that off again. And did it very well. I think, as a whole, I did not enjoy it more than Knives Out but it was still excellent in a lot of the same ways, and satisfying in a similar but skewed manner. And it is certainly very timely. There were moments of skewing so prescient I had to ask if they did reshoots in the past couple weeks or something.
Also I can just watch Janelle Monae forever, hell. So good, so pretty.
So yeah, absolutely worthy follow-up to one of my favorite movies.
