Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

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Reposting this link from the Facebook FTC group:

Vulture - Angela Lansbury and Stephen Sondheim to Make Posthumous Cameos in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

And its source:

Playbill - Angela Lansbury and Stephen Sondheim Will Make Posthumous Onscreen Appearances in Knives Out Film Sequel

Apparently Lansbury and Sondheim appear in the new movie "as themselves".  Given the sleuth Benoit Blanc's established fondness for showtunes, their appearance, however brief or random, must surely occasion some excitement within the story.  (Also of interest: this time out, writer-director Rian Johnson has given Blanc a live-in boyfriend -- or husband? -- of whom Daniel Craig says only "No spoilers, but who wouldn't want to live with that [actor]?").

According to Wikipedia, the film wrapped in September 2021 and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival almost a year later, i.e. last month.
It is currently scoring well on both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes.

Glass Onion will be in theaters for a week starting this Thanksgiving, then streaming on Netflix from December 23.
Happy holidays!   

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Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim, indeed?  This puzzle box -- certainly "not to be trifled with", as Craig's Southern-fried sleuth observes -- ought to have ended up in SJS's famous collection: if I were Rian Johnson, I'd have bequeathed the prop to him as a "wrap" gift.

That is, always assuming there was an actual prop buried somewhere underneath what looks like a generous dollop of CGI.

In theory, I suppose, it could have been mostly practical, with the exception of the magically seamless four-way closure at 01:23, and the likewise 100%-invisible hinges by which the box opens and closes, origami-like, along several different planes of depth.  The turntable movements, however, actually cut through the fold-lines in a way that would be pretty nightmarish to engineer seamlessly.  So my hunch is that the the box -- while designed to make spatial sense as a single piece of diabolically-intricate but theoretically-possible cabinetry -- was probably built in multiple separate versions, each featuring just one or two actually-practical layers; swapped out between takes; and sweetened with CGI for the folds, closures, and at least some of the opening/closing movement itself.  I'd guess, for instance, that there might have been a version where the spinning layers were practical, but not any of the folds; and perhaps two other versions that actually opened and closed (one to present the puzzles on top, another to reveal the invitation deeper within), but didn't spin.

What fun this must have been to design!

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Speaking of the puzzle box, the movie's website includes a digital version of it that lets you solve puzzles to unlock clips from the movie:

https://www.knivesoutmystery.com

And this week's New Yorker includes an interview with Glass Onion director Rian Johnson:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/rian-johnson-reaches-for-another-knife


Also -- speaking of current screen whodunnits in the classic Agatha Christie mould -- See How They Run (now on HBO Max) is an enjoyable watch, even featuring a droll third-act appearance by Dame Agatha herself (played by Shirley Henderson).  Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan head a delightful all-star cast, and if everyone's coasting (with the possible exception of Adrien Brody, who earns his paycheck by taking quite a slapstick beating in two back-to-back fight sequences en route to becoming the evening's first corpse), they're nonetheless having an infectiously good time:

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Metacritic

Rotten Tomatoes

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https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/526141/glass-onion-netflix-stephen-sondheim-cameo/

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In a less fizzy context, Benoit Blanc would surely agree that prizes aren't everything.  But in cutting back to Daniel Craig for a fractional beat (at the very end of this clip), Rian Johnson might just win my personal nod for the best reaction shot of 2022:

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Another very sweet piece about Sondheim's & Lansbury's cameos, this one from yesterday's NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/23/movies/glass-onion-knives-out-cameos.html

The movie is enormous fun -- and I use the word enormous intentionally (more on that below).  I watched Glass Onion yesterday evening with my mom, and then we went back and re-watched the original Knives Out right afterward -- needless to say, they make a delightful double-feature.  (I had seen the first film only once before, back in 2019, but I can now report that it holds up to repeat viewing beautifully).

In either order, juxtaposing the two films directly like that brings their similarities and differences into stark relief.  The similarities have to do with the structure of their screenplays (in broad terms, that is; I won't spoil any specifics), while the differences have mostly to do with that word "enormous": seen back-to-back, the original movie's modest scale contrasts sharply with the new one's glossy maximalism.  In both modes, Johnson happily keeps things thrumming along like clockwork: they make perfect holiday viewing/re-viewing, especially as a pair.  I might even watch one or both of them again tomorrow, just for the fun of it.

And, yeah: while it's been quite a few years since I saw The Last of Sheila, it's easy to see how Johnson might have drawn inspiration from it -- again, in broad terms -- for Glass Onion's overall premise, its collection of character types, and its satirical eat-the-rich tone.

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SPOILER ALERT: The article linked below spoils pretty much *ALL* the film's major character details and plot twists.

Vulture - Glass Onion Isn't Trying to Trick You: According to director Rian Johnson, every twist in his sequel is right in front of your face

It's not that I'm obsessed with this movie -- I'm really not; but it is the most purely enjoyable watch I've had this holiday season.
That's not a spectacularly high bar to clear, though.

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Coming next year: