It's a Miracle!

Film: Wake Up Dead Man
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

I genuinely enjoy the regularity of the Knives Out franchise. Based on the past decade, we’ll get a new film in the franchise around the end of 2028. The latest one, called Wake Up Dead Man hits all of the points that we got from the original Knives Out. The script is dynamite, the mystery is a good one and yet completely solvable (I guessed right), and the cast is a who’s who of modern Hollywood.

This time, and for the first time in three films, the person who is being falsely accused of a murder is a man, and a priest, no less. Former boxer and new Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) has been relegated to a backwater parish in upstate New York as his first official appointment as a priest. He is in the position of assisting Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). Wicks is prickly and demanding, abusive and rude. He’s also heading a cult of personality of local parishioners, all of whom have their own foibles and dependence on Wicks.

Self-Referential Title is Self-Referential

Film: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Format: Streaming video from NetFlex on rockin’ flatscreen.

On the day after Christmas, 2022, noted failed screenwriter and right-wing wastepaper basket Ben Shapiro went on a 17-tweet long rant about how much he hated Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (which I will call simply Glass Onion from this point forward). Part of his rant was about the politics of the movie (and we’ll get there), but it started with his evident inability to understand the basics of whodunnit mysteries. Shapiro complained that the first half of the movie was a bait-and-switch…and then in the middle of his rant switched focus, much like he just complained about.

It would be fair to complain a bit about Glass Onion because it doesn’t reach the same joyful narrative heights of the first Benoit Blanc mystery. This is much more a candy confection than the first film, an elaborate puzzle box like the ones received by the man characters at the start of the film. Because of this, its less rewatchable than the first film. Don’t take this as a serious negative criticism—sometimes this is exactly what you want. It is a difference, though, and there’s no getting around that.

The Hole in the Donut

Film: Knives Out
Format: Electronic copy through Google Play on laptop.

A couple of weeks ago, fellow movie nerd, bad film aficionado, and all-around mensch Jason Soto purchased a copy of Knives Out and offered the electronic version to anyone who wanted it, so I claimed it. It took me a little while to get to actually claiming the electronic copy, but now I have, and I set about to watching the movie with a will. I’m so happy I did. Of all the movies on my Oscar list from 2019, Knives Out is one that I really wanted to see in the theater. Then again, since I pretty much never see anything in the theater, I knew I wouldn’t, but would want to see it as soon as I could.

Knives Out is an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery. We’ve got a big house, a dead body that looks like a suicide, conniving relatives all desperate for a reading of the will, and everyone in the house having a motive. True to the form, we’ve also got a gentleman detective, in this case a Southern gentleman named Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who has been called in to investigate what looks like a clear case of suicide, hired by an unknown party via a thick envelope of cash.

Toxic Fandom

Films: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

Not going to the theater that often means that I don’t tend see the big movies when everyone else does. That being the case, I’m probably the last person who comes to this blog to see Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. I didn’t really know what to expect. After all, this is the Star Wars movie that caused a small part of the fan base to so completely lose its collective shit that they demanded an immediate remake.

I need to talk about this, about the toxic fandom that seems to exist more and more. Honestly, I don’t know if that’s absolutely true. Toxic fandom has probably always existed; in the age of the internet, it simply has more of a platform. And here’s the thing—in a lot of respects, that toxic fandom looks a lot like a younger version of me. I don’t mean that I acted like they do when I was younger, but I fit the stereotype. I was (and still am a little) a huge Star Wars fan as a kid. I’m white and male, and I’m also a nerd. There but for the grace of social skills and being raised by non-shitty parents go I.

Picks from Chip: Brick

Film: Brick
Format: DVD from personal collection on rockin’ flatscreen.

This is the twelfth in a series of twelve movies selected by Chip Lary at Tips from Chip.

A few years ago when I had a podcast with Nick Jobe at YourFace, we ran the show in a series of seasons. The idea was that our guest would pick a genre of film, Nick would pick a film in the genre he knew that I hadn’t seen, and I would pick a film in the genre he hadn’t seen. At least that was how it worked in theory. We did film noir every season, and every time we did, Nick toyed with the idea of having me watch Brick. When a Half Price Books had a massive movie sale last year (I got more than 50 movies for $30), I bought Brick figuring that I’d get to it eventually.

That eventually turned out to be sometime this year, since Chip put it on my list of 12 movies. Since I owned it, Brick was my insurance—if there was a planned film I couldn’t get, I could always fall back on watching this. Fortunately, that was never necessary, so Brick turns out to be movie #12. It’s a movie I’ve heard about from a lot of people, which means that, essentially sight unseen, I’m going into this with some expectations.