Into 2023, Looking Back on Some 2022 Releases
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): I realize that I’m quite tardy with Happy New Year wishes to all who view this blog, but it’s been marvelous to take a couple of weeks off from the usual late Wednesday/early Thursday postings, yet my viewing continued so I do have some (shorter than usual; I appreciate the applause!) comments on 2002 cinematic entries that have now come to streaming (conveniently for me, as I’m still avoiding theaters while the latest nasty-COVID-variants continue to surge in my San Francisco area). However, before I get to that, my Irish friend (who’s long since relocated to the U.S.), Gemma Whelan (a theatre director and author of a marvelous new novel, Painting Through the Dark [The book can be ordered through your local bookstore or on Amazon; more info at www.gemmawhelan.com. If you like the book, please consider posting a short review on Goodreads and Amazon, or at least rating it on these two sites. I found the writing to be well-crafted, the story about a young Irish woman starting anew in San Francisco quite engaging, so I encourage your readership]), sent me some comments on my recent review of The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) which I’d like to share with you: “I enjoyed reading your blog. I did see the film in the cinema a while ago. I thought the filmmaking was stunning - cinematography, sound, pacing etc. The acting was brilliant. I've been to Inishmore and loved seeing the island in all its stark glory. I definitely see a connection between the Civil War on the mainland and the rift between the friends. I think that a whole film at this pace about this topic is a wonderful thing. Friendship. Colm himself (in confession) and Padraic both allude to Colm's depression. I bet there's a lot of depression on the islands...and I feel that and his growing sense of his own mortality were what caused him to break off the friendship. I did find the finger cutting gruesome - but that's McDonough, so wasn't surprised. As soon as I saw the old woman I assumed she was a banshee character by her look and dress. This was confirmed when she foretold the deaths - as the banshee does in Irish lore. BTW - Van Morrison is loved and appreciated all over Ireland! No prejudice where talent is concerned! Actually there's never been any kind of division that I know of where the arts are concerned. Films, plays, music - they're just Irish.” I’m glad to know someone who understands the content of this fine film/the socio-history behind it so much better than me also finds great value in it.
Now, onto reviews of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, White Noise, The Fabelmans, She Said, and The Menu. Futher, here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site which offers you a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you'd just want to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, go here.
SHORT TAKES (spoilers appear here)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
Daniel Craig is back as detective Benoit Blanc solving another murder mystery (more than one victim in this case, actually), this time on a Greek island owned by a tech billionaire (Edward Norton) who’s gathered a group of old friends to show off his latest triumphs (including stealing the Mona Lisa to display in his lair), but then—as usual—tragedy and confusion strike until we learn all of the answers.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you enjoyed the original Knives Out (Johnson, 2019; review in our December 4, 2019 posting), I think you’ll find this one generally a delight also—the CCAL certainly does with a superb cluster of 92% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, a hearty way to start the new year from Metacritic with an 81% average score (likely to be one of their highest of 2023, given how stingy this group can be with praise [more info on these critics-accumulation-sites far below in the Related Links section of this posting and all others at the Two Guys in the Dark blog]), but—as with the Agatha Christie novels this now-ongoing-series takes its inspiration from—there are lots of characters and motives to keep up with, including one from the past that impacts on the present, so it may be a bit too convoluted to fully embrace as I more easily did with the original movie (even though I gave both a 3½ stars rating, which just goes to show there can be nuance within similarity). The only recurring character from the original is master-detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who finds himself invited to a murder-mystery-game on a small Greek island owned by tech-billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton), with easy-overtones of Elon Musk, only he finds when he arrives he wasn’t invited by Miles as were the mega-rich-guy's long-time-friends Alpha (Miles’ company) head scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.), Connecticut governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), supermodel-turned-fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson)—and her assistant, Peg (Jessica Henwick)—men’s rights-streaming star Duke Cody (Dave Bautista)—plus girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline)—and Alpha co-founder/pushed-out-by-Miles Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), so one of them must have invited Benoit by means of a complicated puzzle (which you can play a version of in the first item connected to this movie, also down there in Related Links). Even before the game starts, though, Benoit quickly figures out who is supposed to “kill” Miles so now it’s just a weekend party until Duke suddenly chokes to death, seemingly have drunk from Miles’ glass, so the focus is on who among them tried to kill Miles (all have reasons to do so, as it turns out), until someone shoots Andi, seemingly fatally.
Then a flashback reveals Andi actually died (suicide?) a week earlier, so her place, at Benoit’s urging, is taken by twin sister, Helen (also played by Monáe); ⇒we learn later Helen’s not dead, as the bullet was stopped by Andi’s journal in her jacket pocket, but Benoit lets the rest of the group think she’s expired so she can do some sleuthing, allowing her to find the original cocktail napkin where Andi sketched out the crucial structure that became Alpha, but Miles copied it, claimed sole ownership with the others backing him up in court due to various secrets he holds against all of them as he moved toward his great invention, Klear, using hydrogen as a clean, cheap energy source. Miles killed Andi when he learned she still had the original napkin, then took it; Duke got wind of this, so Miles killed him via his pineapple allergy, then switched glasses to throw suspicion away from himself. Helen and Benoit tell the group the truth, but Miles burns the napkin; she responds by lighting a bonfire, tosses in some Klear with the resulting explosion destroying most of the Glass Onion (Miles’ mansion, named for a bar where they all hung out before each achieved fame), along with the Mona Lisa which Miles brought to the Onion after putting a fake in the Louvre. At this point, alerted-authorities are on their way to the island with the guests finally ready to testify against Miles.⇐ (If you’d like more plot details than I’m providing, you can go to this Glass Onion ... site.)
This movie was released domestically for a week on November 23, 2022 (took in about $15 million), then pulled until its Netflix streaming debut on December 23, 2022; it’s enjoyable to just ride along with the chaos of events if you’re not trying to follow every nuance of all these characters, but it does get confusing at times trying to keep up with all of the wrinkles if you insist on staying focused every minute (just as the participants had to deal with a challenging puzzle to even get their invitations). If so, after watching it you might want to see this video (11:42 [ad interrupts at 5:20]) about the main unanswered questions of the plot, but I don’t think they really matter all that much. As usual for the closure of a review I’ll add on a Musical Metaphor, which here will be the song “Glass Onion” (from the 1968 The Beatles dual album [the “White Album”]) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a BQIAWh3YBs, used with the closing credits, an appropriate tune because it offers a cluster of distracting clues (as does the movie) about Beatles songs from John Lennon, irritated at how fans were going overboard in trying to apply unintended meanings to the band’s previous recorded lyrics.
Based on Don DeLillo’s acclaimed novel from nearly 40 years ago, this is a combo satire/drama which uses the married couple played by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig to take jabs at higher education, American consumerism, fascinations with/fears about death, and even the need for nuns to act as if they believe their religion for others' benefit; strange throughout, yet fascinating to watch.
Here’s the trailer:
(If you’d like more details than I’m giving here, please visit this White Noise site which also gives some mention of differences from the original book, as does this 8:00 explanatory site [Spoilers; ad interrupts at 3:35].) Based on the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo (won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction, still being praised today)—which I read and enjoyed at the time but remember little about except some of the satire of academia—this quirky film, set in 1984, is about professor of Hitler Studies (he invented it) at (fictional) College-on-the-Hill, Jack Gladney (Adam Driver), his wife Babette—often called Baba (Greta Gerwig), their 4 kids (1 mutual, the others from previous marriages; they’re each on their 4th “lifelong” union), and, to some degree, Jack’s colleague, Prof. Murray Siskind (Don Cheadle), who’s trying to develop his own specialty on Elvis Presley (he also lectures on the aesthetics of car crashes in movies). Oldest daughter Denise (Raffey Cassidy), from Baba, is concerned about Mom’s worsening mental/emotional condition, seemingly due to a mysterious drug, Dylar, she’s taking (Baba denies it, yet Denise finds her small stash), but both parents are increasingly depressed over the reality of their deaths someday, though when Jack attempts to get info on Dylar no one (not even Baba’s doctor) knows of its existence. To make matters worse for all, a truck carrying toxic material rams into a freight train setting off a dangerous cloud of chemical waste, forcing a massive evacuation, with Jack meeting Murray in the communal shelter, hesitantly accepting a small pistol from him for possibly-needed-protection, although Jack’s main concern is whether his exposure to the cloud will result in death much sooner than anticipated.
Back home, Jack confronts Babette about the Dylar; she admits she got it from a “Mr. Gray” (Lars Eidinger)—actually Willie Mink—as part of a failed study he was conducting so she trades sex with him to keep getting supplied with a substance that's supposed to ease her death fears (but hasn’t worked for her; she still takes it out of desperation, I guess). ⇒Jack decides he wants some Dylar too (Denise threw the remainder away), locates Mr. Gray, goes to his motel to take what he can, intent on killing Gray in the process; Jack shoots him a couple of times, but, when Baba shows up, Mink, not dead yet, wounds both of them. They take him to a hospital run by atheistic German nuns, leading them to reconnect with each other, then the film ends in an A&P grocery where everybody’s dancing to the music under the final credits.⇐ This is clearly a wacky experience that might have varying possibilities for appeal—or not (I generally liked it but wish there were even more jabs at academic pomposity [which I’ve seen plenty of in my career]; the CCAL’s barely supportive [RT, 63% positive; MC 66% average score], but my local cinematic-major domo, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle noted it as #11 on his 10 Worst of 2022 [4 of which I wouldn’t put on such a list—The Batman, Lightyear, Jurassic World Domination, Thor: Love and Thunder {even though I dropped down to 3 stars for 1 of them}—the other 6 I haven’t yet seen, but he might well have a point with the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre {David Blue Garcia, 2022} that I have no intention of viewing anyway]). I’m not clear if White Noise ever had a domestic release (been out in a few other counties since December 7, 2022 but only about $71.5 thousand in grosses), but now resides on Netflix streaming, free to subscribers. In keeping with the overall goofy tone of these various sociological satires, I’ll give you an unusual Musical Metaphor, 10 hours of black screen/white noise, in case you need something more potent than reading my reviews to help you get to sleep.
Director, co-screenwriter Spielberg bases this movie on his own childhood-into-adolescence so while certain aspects (especially character names) have been fictionalized, he’s clear that much time, effort, and research went into recreating the events of his early years, yet it’s easy for anyone (you don’t even have to be Jewish, despite the content here) to appreciate what’s ready to be embraced.
Here’s the trailer:
(As with the other reviews this week there are considerably more plot details than I’m presenting so if you want to know more go to this ... Fabelmans site.) When ordinary mortals like us want to take a “selfie” we aim a smartphone at ourselves, snap the shot, post it somewhere on social media, wait for the “Like”s to pour in (or the snide comments from our “witty” friends). When famed director Spielberg wants to do an extended version of something like that—in this case, focusing on aspects of his childhood/adolescence where the images in a documentary would be a lot of old family photos/grainy home movies accompanied by some voiceovers from whomever’s still alive (both of Spielberg’s parents are now deceased)—he’s got the industry credentials to generate a $40 million budget to make a somewhat-fictionalized version of his early life (co-written by him and acclaimed playwright Tony Kushner), simply changing names of participants, playing around a bit with some facts to turn this story into something that’s semi-autobiographical but can be understood and appreciated on a more universal level (similar, in my opinion, to what cinema-master Federico Fellini was able to do with many of his classics, including his masterpiece, 8½ [1963], winner of Oscar’s Best Foreign Film, among many other accolades). In The Fabelmans we begin in 1952 New Jersey where Jewish parents Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano) take their 7-year-old-son, Sammy (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord)—they also have 3 slightly younger daughters—to his first movie, The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille, 1952 [Oscar-winner for Best Picture]), where he’s spellbound/traumatized by the massive train-wreck-scene, leading to him wanting to recreate that destruction on his Hanukkah-present-model-railroad so Mom lets him use Dad’s 8mm camera to film his crashes so he can simply watch them over and over again rather than destroy his pricey toy.
This leads to him making other silent movies in NJ, then in Phoenix, AZ when Burt—a budding tech-wizard—gets a better job, moves the family and close-friend/business associate "Uncle" Bennie Loewy (Seth Rogen) to the desert in 1957. Mitzi’s mother dies, she’s distraught, so Burt asks Sammy to edit footage he shot of their recent family camping trip to help cheer her up. Reluctantly (after a talk from actual Uncle Boris Schildkraut [Judd Hirsch]), Sammy agrees, then is shocked to see within his footage evidence of Mitzi being romantic with Bennie. This leads to distancing from/ arguments with Mom until she slaps him in anger, apologizes, then learns her son knows her secret, which he promises to keep to himself. Next, Burt gets another promotion, moves the unwilling family to Saratoga, CA (somewhat close to me in the SF Bay Area) as Bennie stays behind but gives Sammy an expensive Bolex 16mm camera, which he says he’ll never use (no, we don’t believe him).
At his new high-school (in 1962), Sammy (now played by Gabriel LaBelle) encounters anti-Semitic bullying from Chad Thomas (Oakes Fegley) and Logan Hall (Sam Rechner), falls in love with devout Christian Monica Sherwood (Chloe East) who gets Sammy to use her father’s superior Arriflex 16mm camera to document the school’s Ditch Day getaway to the beach at Santa Cruz, but she then breaks up with him because he wants her to follow him to Hollywood after graduation but she’s determined (for reasons I can’t comprehend) to go to college at Texas A&M U. Sammy’s film is well-received, yet secretly-self-doubting-Logan’s angry he’s made to look so good, but he prevents Chad from dishing out any more insults to Sammy. ⇒Burt and Mitzi divorce, she takes the girls back to Phoenix to be with Bennie, Burt and Sammy move to Hollywood where the kid seeks production work, ends up through a CBS contact getting a brief interview with famed director John Ford (David Lynch) who gives a nervous kid advice on how to frame the horizon line for maximum impact.⇐ You can watch this fact vs. fiction video (15:04 [ad interrupts at 7:55; not much concern with Spoilers, though]) to get a sense of basically how little this narrative deviates from Spielberg’s actual life, yet at such a long running-time you might wish it would push the chronology a bit further, but this is clearly all our director cared to focus on regarding his own background. The major domestic rollout was on November 23, 2022 where it’s still going, now in 998 theaters with grosses of $13.5 million (worldwide $16.9 million) so you can likely find it in your area although if you’re willing to spend $19.99 for streaming it’s on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and others, so join me and the CCAL in our encouragement (RT solid 91% positives; MC hefty 84% average score) for you to see it, especially for the overall acting achievements, although primarily the impact of Williams and LaBelle.
For my Musical Metaphor I’ll turn to another titan of American entertainment, Brian Wilson, for his “Child Is Father of the Man” (intended for the never-released original version of Smile but on the 2004 Brian Wilson Presents Smile and the Beach Boys 2011The Smile Sessions albums) at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCoweCaRn5U and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1dCpa 8oy4E, not because the repeated lyrics (mostly taken from William Wordsworth’s 1802 poem "My Heart Leaps Up") offer any great insights but the concept (from the poem too) fits well for me in regard to this Spielberg self-exploration into how his own childhood predicted the man he’s become.
She Said (Maria Schrader, 2022) rated R 129 min.
This one’s based in reality, following the difficult investigations The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey made in 2016-’17 to expose the facts of famed Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s extensive sexual assaults on women looking for work in that industry, with lots of off-the-record admissions but few public testimonies until the dam burst.
Here’s the trailer:
A powerful docudrama in the spirit of All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)—Watergate political crisis/resignation of President Nixon—and Spotlight (Tom McCarthy, 2015; review in our November 19, 2015 posting)—sexual abuses by Catholic clergy. She Said features actual people, primarily reporters Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) of The New York Times in their quest for truth of accusations from female actors about sexual abuse/rape by once-famous/powerful-Hollywood-mogul Harvey Weinstein (Mike Houston, seen only from the back). In its heyday of 1980s-early ‘90s, Weinstein’s Miramax was the epitome of an independent studio releasing such triumphs as Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989), The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992), Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994), Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994), and Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998; multi-Oscar winner); in 1993 Miramax was purchased by the Walt Disney Company, then owned by others, ending up in 2019 with VIacomCBS (now called Paramount Global), although Harvey and brother Bob left in 2005 to form The Weinstein Company; however, She Said isn’t about any of that but rather hush-hush-chatter regarding Harvey forcing himself sexually on numerous women, with no public outcry due to fear of him ruining their careers.
This film sets its opening tone of disgust with such misogyny by noting how in 2016 Donald Trump (voice of James Austin Johnson) was revealed to have made demeaning remarks about women (coinciding with [still ongoing] charges against him for sexual assault), yet these reporters and their colleagues are dismayed when he wins the Presidency. From there, focus is on Weinstein as tips come to Kantor—joined by Twohey—about assaults on actors Rose McGowan (voice of Keilly McQuall), Ashley Judd (plays herself), and Gwyneth Paltrow (not on screen, does her own voice work), but none will go on the record scared of retaliation from Weinstein. As with other famous investigative films cited above, the main content here is the dogged, often-frustrating attempts of the reporters to get any info from anyone with knowledge of these charges against Harvey, let alone being willing to go public, including a refusal from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to verify secret payouts to various women to avoid court proceedings; Twohey even finds criminal charges quickly dropped against Weinstein because of friends in the NY District Attorney’s office. Further attempts to gather evidence are deadends, even as our reporters face a combination of pressure from bosses Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson) and Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher) to keep following the story (so as to not get beaten to print by Ronan Farrow writing for The New Yorker) butted up against constant refusals by them to go to press due to lack of substantiated-facts.
⇒Weinstein learns about the paper’s investigation, tries to use his lawyer to diffuse the reporting, then steps in himself to try to personally pressure the Times to give it up; they refuse, move ahead when Judd and Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle), a former Miramax assistant to Weinstein, agree to go on the record. After the story’s debut on October 5, 2017 (Farrrow’s article came out on October 10, 2017), 82 other women came forward with charges against Weinstein.⇐ Since then, he was found guilty in a New York trial (February 24, 2020), with a 23-year-sentence, then also guilty in a Los Angeles trial (December 19, 2022), additional sentencing to come. Given the ongoing impact of the #MeToo movement in recent years as women have become vocal about sexual abuse/harassment they’ve suffered from employers (actual/potential) or colleagues, you’d think this film would have had a greater impact in theaters than it has, but since its domestic opening on November 18, 2022 (many other countries into December) it’s made only $5.8 million in northern North America, $12.3 million globally. Some speculate interest might have been superseded by the L.A. trial (began in October 2022, ran most of the rest of the year) on news reports during those months, but another factor during these constant-COVID-times, along with unending political consternation, could be audiences being more interested in escapist fare such as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ryan Coogler, 2022; review in our December 1, 2022 posting), Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022), Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2022), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (reviewed above in this posting), and The Menu (Mark Mylod, 2022; reviewed just below), all of which took in a lot of cash during those months. The CCAL tried to encourage more interest (RT, 87% positive reviews; MC, 74% average score) but it didn’t make too much difference.
She Said develops terrific drama—despite knowing the eventual outcome long after this film’s events—but it may be frustrating for those who’d prefer to see Weinstein taken down in court (despite defense arguments about lying witnesses, consensual sex), but procedures of investigative stories are crucial, as the process of inquisition’s something we need to know more about in addition to drama of trials. If you want to explore this film, it’ll cost $19.99 to rent on Vudu or the same amount to buy it on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, or Vudu (more rental options open on 2/1/23). To conclude with a usual Musical Metaphor, I’ll turn to one that’s become more usual than I normally intend, Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” (1981 Face Value album) at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=YkADj0TPrJA, which I think is appropriate to the perpetrator’s cruelty here (“Well, the hurt doesn’t show, but the pain still grows / It’s no stranger to you and me”), yet I’ve used this song 6 times before, I don’t want to get too regular, but my repetition just shows the ongoing interpersonal-horrors that well-made films keep exposing us to so we don’t become complacent (I’ve also used Pink Floyd’s “Money” 9 times, another indication of the crap polluting us socially as seen on screen).
The Menu (Mark Mylod, 2022) rated R 107 min.
A famous chef invites a dozen diners to his unique, isolated island restaurant where they’re to eat a hugely-expensive exotic 12-course tasting menu, but when they arrive they find he’s brought them there to settle grudges against all of them because everyone in the place (including him) is going to die on that night, but one last-minute-arrival works to challenge that scenario in order to save herself.
Here’s the trailer:
(While I think I covered all of the relevant plot points in She Said, for The Menu I’m a bit back in the situation of the 3 earlier reviews above in that if I haven’t said enough about what happens you can also access this ... Menu site for more details, as well as watching this 17:56 video [Spoilers], exploring what this movie’s really about.) While I’ve put these reviews in the order of when I saw what I’m exploring this week, it’s appropriate to end on The Menu because, to me at least, it features overtures of Glass Onion … in that it deals with a wealthy, prominent manipulator who invites several acquaintances to his island for a special event whereupon one of them dies, although it’s different here in that the manipulator, celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), announces himself as the orchestrator of upcoming deaths rather than seeming like the intended victim as in Glass Onion … . There’s no such thing as a free dinner here, though, as each guest had to pay $1,250 for the “honor” of indulging in this lavish-12 course-investment into the heights of haute cuisine as temperamental, demanding Slowik not only creates these exotic dishes but also introduces them with strange, unnerving monologues with the additions later of private, damning news about each guest—food critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer) and her editor, Ted (Paul Adelstein); wealthy snobs Richard (Reed Birney) and Anne (Judith Light) Leibrandt; faded movie star George (John Leguizamo) and his personal assistant, Felicity (Aimee Carrero); business partners Soren (Arturo Castro), Dave (Mark St. Cyr), and Bryce (Rob Yang); the chef’s alcoholic mother, Katherine (Christina Brucato); and, most importantly, egotistical-food-enthusiast Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his date tonight, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy)—although both she and the restaurant’s maître d’hôtel, Elsa (Hong Chau), are surprised to find she’s a replacement for another woman Tyler had previously announced as his companion (we later find out she’s a hired escort, Erin, who Tyler is using as a replacement for his ex-girlfriend).
Once they've all been shown around the island and taken to the restaurant, we see the kitchen staff furiously working on preparations for the dinner, movements almost mechanically-synchronized with a clear sense of fear on the part of these folks regarding their boss. As the evening gets increasingly more tense (and courses increasingly more exotic), a despondent sous-chef kills himself in full view of everyone, with Richard deciding to escape leading to quick capture, the severing of one of his fingers as punishment—by now Julian’s revealed his intention to kill everyone there before the night is out, yet when he offers opportunities for anyone to leave they’re easily caught, returned to the restaurant. Margot/Erin is sent by Julian to get a barrel needed for the dessert, allowing her to sneak into his quarters where she sees clippings of his past in fast-food; however, she’s attacked by Elsa so she defends herself by stabbing Elsa in the neck, then uses a radio to call for Coast Guard help.
⇒Soon, a guy arrives but he's just another cook, not really with the Coast Guard. Erin confronts Julian about the “loveless” aspects of his fancy dishes, orders a cheeseburger to go instead, which he prepares, then lets her leave as she was not one of the intended victims. As she motors off in the (stolen?) Coast Guard boat she sees the restaurant’s been set ablaze, killing everyone on the island as she starts eating her (luscious-looking) cheeseburger.⇐ (But was it poisoned?) OK, back to Glass Onion … for a bit, which I found to be overall more enjoyable than The Menu, although the CCAL disagrees with me in that RT reviews are 89% positive, MC average score in 71%. While the premise was intriguing, once we’re moving steadily into the plot I found I didn’t gain much from the presence of any of the other diners beyond Tyler and Margot (whereas I found the whole cast of Glass Onion … to be enjoyable), Julian and Elsa make effective scary presences (but not enough so as to have this movie called “horror” in many descriptions of it—although “comedy” is appropriate in various interchanges), and, as in many indications, the whole thing's supposed to be some sort of a satire on such ridiculously-costly/art-over-nutrition dining where I get the joke even if I don’t need to carry it on for even the relatively-compact-running time of this movie. (Full disclosure: some years ago when my wife Nina was approaching her 60th birthday we made plans with her brother and other relatives to go whole-hog at the S.F. Bay Area’s famous French Laundry restaurant, complete with limo service and lots of pricy wine to go with our 9-course tasting menu [which I got my fill of due to Nina not caring for some of the strange-fishy-selections], so I can see what’s being addressed here [fortunately our chef wasn’t homicidal] but don’t really know how the concept would likely play with the majority of audiences who probably would only have experience with that yummy cheeseburger).
The Menu opened on November 18, 2022 domestically, spread worldwide through Nov/Dec, still in 780 theaters, making $37.8 million (globally $76.4 million), but subscribers can find it on HBO/HBO Max. Regarding my final Musical Metaphor, though, maybe I’m just getting slap-happy after all this typing or maybe I’m trying to emphasize the comic aspects of this movie as I easily let it fade from my memory, but I’ve decided to go with “Eat It” (on the 1984 “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI for a lighter take on food of all kinds than Julian Slowik aspired toward (although to fully appreciate Al, you need to also see what he’s parodying, Michael Jackson’s "Beat It" on the terrific 1982 Thriller album). Done!! Less next week, I promise!
That’s all for my critical commentary this week (which usually reminds me of some parting lyrics from Pink Floyd’s "Time": “The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say,” or maybe R.E.M. knows me even better [from "Losing My Religion"]: “Oh no, I’ve said too much / I haven’t said enough”), but whether you agree with any of that stuff or not I’ll offer you one more opportunity to be in unity with an attitude that would benefit all of us, James Taylor’s "Shower the People" (on his 1976 In the Pocket album), because we should “Shower the people you love with love / Show them the way that you feel / Things are gonna be much better/ If you only will.” We’re now sailing through divisive times; it could be a smoother ride if we’d only help each other a bit more.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: Some extra items you might like: (1) New on Netflix in January 2023; (2) New on Amazon Prime Video in January 2023; (3) New on Hulu in January 2023; (4) New on Disney+ in January 2023; (5) New on HBO/HBO Max in January 2023; (6) 20 directors give opinions on top films of 2022; (7) Women were better represented behind the camera in Hollywood during the Silent Era; (8) Avatar: The Way of Water now #7 on global All-Time box-office list*; & (9) 34 movies that celebrate the movies (I've seen only a few of them).
*See this chart for the full list, at least as of now with ... Water still selling tickets at a very hot pace.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll down to the bottom of this Summary page to see some additional info about you wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list). Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!
*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.
AND … at least until the Oscars for 2022’s releases have been awarded on Sunday, March 12, 2023 we’re also going to include reminders in each posting of very informative links where you can get updated tallies of which films have been nominated for and/or received various awards and which ones made various individual critic’s Top 10 lists. You may find the diversity among the various awards competitions and the various critics hard to reconcile at times—not to mention the often-significant-gap between critics’ choices and competitive-award-winners (which pales when they’re compared to the even-more-noticeable-gap between specific award winners and big box-office-grosses you might want to monitor here)—but as that less-than-enthusiastic-patron-of-the-arts, Plato, noted in The Symposium (385-380 BC)—roughly translated, depending on how accurate you wish the actual quote to be—“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder,” so your choices for success are as valid as any of these others, especially if you offer some rationale for your decisions (unlike any awards voters who blindly fill out ballots, sometimes—damn it!—for films they have never seen).
To save you time scrolling through the “various awards” list above, here are the 2023 Golden Globe nominees and winners (if you care about them after all of their recent controversies).
Here’s more information about Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery:
https://www.knivesoutmystery.com/ (if you want to solve the puzzle to get clues, be my guest;
it got to be too tedious for me as an official site) so here's the alternative:
https://www.netflix.com/title/81458416
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpU8Oit6uok (14:21 video of 20 Things You Missed
in this movie; Spoilers)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/glass_onion_a_knives_out_mystery
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/glass-onion-a-knives-out-mystery
Here’s more information about White Noise:
https://www.whitenoise-movie.com/home/ (click on the 3 little bars in the upper left for more info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvx2DHkQeL4 (7:17 interview with director Noah Baumbach and actors Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/white_noise_2022
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/white-noise-2022?ref=hp
Here’s more information about The Fabelmans:
https://www.thefabelmans.movie (click on the 3 little bars in the upper left for more info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6drLWh9psw (5:17 interview with director Steven Spielberg and actors Michelle Williams, Gabriel LaBelle, Paul Dano)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fabelmans
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-fabelmans
Here’s more information about She Said:
https://www.shesaidmovie.com/ (as usual, click on the 3 little bars in the upper left for more info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdvFCSf90rY (5:08 interview with actors Carey Mulligan
and Zoe Kazan) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wOP4NFGjDM (7:08 interview with journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/she_said
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/she-said
Here’s more information about The Menu:
https://www.searchlightpictures.com/the-menu/ (click Close in the upper right corner to skip
the trailer, go on to other options)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfKPA09jwzU (21:33 interview with director Mark Mylod, producer Betsy Koch, screenwriters Will Tracy, Seth Reiss, and actors Arturo Castro, Rob Yang, Mark St. Cyr, Paul Adelstein , Aimee Carrero, Judith Light, Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_menu
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-menu
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