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142: Is ‘Glass Onion’ a Satisfying Murder Mystery?

December 27, 2022
Notes
Transcript
This week, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) review the first of Rian Johnson’s two Knives Out sequels for Netflix, Glass Onion. Is it a mystery worthy of Benoit Blanc or something a little lesser? Before that, the gang discusses the biggest business stories of the year: streamers, sports, theaters, China, and more all get a mention. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it with a friend; listeners like you are our best advocates. And we hope you had a happy holiday!
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:11

    Welcome back to across the movie isle presented by Bulwark Plus. I am your host, Sunny Banish Culture Editor of The Bulwark, I’m joined as always by Alyssa Rosenberg of The Washington Post Peter Zimmerman of Reason Magazine. Alyssa Peter, how are you today?
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:22

    I am hunky dory.
  • Speaker 3
    0:00:25

    I am happy to be talking about movies with friends.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:28

    It’s the end of the year, so we figured we’d take a look back at twenty twenty two and throw out the story we thought was the biggest of the year or at least one of the biggest of the year, one that defined the business of show biz in some way, one that will continue to define the business of show biz in some way and one that, you know, may have been a little bit controversial as it was happening. It’s been a weird and interesting year in a lot of ways. And I’m sure we’re gonna talk about a lot of that. I mean, There’s drama in boardrooms at Disney and Warner Brothers. There’s the abrupt shift in streaming economics, you know, from grow at all cost to try and make money now, you know, from growing to profit.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:05

    It’s it’s a tricky thing. The fact that theaters continue to slowly recover, but kind of lack the product to return to pre pandemic levels of box office revenue. But I think the biggest story of the year is when that’s gonna take a few years to shake out fully and it’s finally happening. I think this is gonna be this is it. This is where what we’ve all been waiting for, and that’s the the full on unbundling.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:27

    Right? The move by streamers into sports programming is going to be the thing that kills cable once and for all. I think The biggest play on this front so far was Amazon Prime videos purchase of exclusive rights to Thursday night football Amazon bought the rights to play one game a week for about eleven billion dollars over eleven years, meaning they’re spending about a billion dollars a year, about sixty million dollars a game. It’s been a qualified success, I think, though it kind of depends on how you wanna measure success. Right?
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:56

    A prime video said that they saw a record number of sign ups. Over the three hour period that preceded the first game. And the national nature of the NFL means that markets all over the country are signing up signing up for at the very least Prime Video or Amazon Prime itself. But I mean, look, Prime Video activations are kind of the key here because roughly half a little more than that of the households in the country or you have access to the service given that’s how many folks subscribe to Prime. But they just haven’t turned on their plan video.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:25

    They don’t know they haven’t. Amazon is trying to get folks on that train. As a subscriber activation play, undoubtedly very smart. As an in house advertising play for shows like Lord of the Rings, rings a power, Jack Reacher, whatever. Right?
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:38

    It also makes a lot of sense. One way to think about NFL writes and NFL deals in general. They’re so expensive because they give the networks a captive audience to show what new programs are hitting airwaves over the year. On network TV. That’s why you see seventeen thousand ads for whatever CBS dot com is coming out whenever you watch a a n f or AFC football game.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:59

    Whether or not all the financials work is another question. Right? Amazon promised ad buyers that each game would hit around twelve point five million viewers. And they have not hit that. I think they’re averaging about eleven million is what Amazon says, but we’ll see.
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:13

    This is the future of streaming, YouTube TV just bought the rights to NFL Sunday ticket for two point five billion dollars a year. There’s no way to generate two point five billion dollars on NFL Sunday ticket. I’m sorry. It’s not gonna happen. So this is a play to get people on YouTube to get them fully divorced from the cable ecosystem to get people to cut the cord and sign up for what is what amounts to now just a different cable package.
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:39

    It’s kind of funny how these things have grown and expanded and are down just as expensive, but that’s a conversation for another time. Pecock, making inroads with soccer and wrestling fans, Apple TV picked up exclusive MLS rights for their season pass service and has been showing Major League Baseball games on Friday night. PN plus is hugely popular with the MMA fans because they have a rights deal with UFC. It’s only a matter of time before the NBA follows suit with let’s say, maybe HBO Max, which has a pretty good relationship, has everybody knows with TNT and DBS, which currently airs basketball games. Here’s the thing.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:12

    And this is why this is so important. Making hit TV shows is really epping hard. It’s incredibly difficult. Stranger things sized hits don’t grow on trees. It’s it’s impossible to predict what the market’s gonna want.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:24

    You you get lucky on something like this and that’s great. Sports rights are valuable because there are tons and tons of people who watch sports. And those fans are loyal and you have them captive if you have the rights to show their games. If you have to turn on a network to watch a game, you’re going to get that network. People love sports, they love their sports teams, and they are willing to sign up for things to get access to them.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:46

    I will just speak from experience here. I know probably fifty people who have DIRECTV just to watch PACCAR’s games. Well, that’s crazy amount of money. That’s that’s a lot of revenue that you’re that you’re getting when you sign folks like that up. And once the streaming services start taking those rights deals away from basic cable and away from the networks, It’s only a matter of time before unbundling becomes the norm rather than what everybody is doing just on on the outside side.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:14

    And that’s gonna change the economics of Hollywood entirely. I mean, that’s gonna change the economics of everything. So that’s my that was my take on a big story of the year. Sorry. I went on a bit there, but it’s I think it’s really I think it’s really underappreciated.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:28

    How much things are gonna be changing here in the next few years on this front. Alyssa, what was your big story of the year? I
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:35

    think the continued disconnection between you the US and China in pop culture is going to be the story that it’s been ongoing for a couple of years. It’s intensified this year. And it’s going to have incredibly long term impacts on what the US is able to produce in a lot of different arenas. You
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:54

    know,
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:54

    we saw that American movies had continued trouble getting into the Chinese market this year. That was probably intensified by the fact that this was one of the years in which China holds its party congress. And so especially under Xi Jinping, the country has become significantly more nationalist. And I think there was you know, part of that has been China’s efforts to develop its sort of homegrown blockbuster industry. And they were not for political reasons beyond like the normal set of bizarre political reasons, we’re not going to encourage a lot of US pop culture to be in the ecosystem.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:32

    Even those movies that did get in underperformed for various reasons, the Batman did
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:37

    I think
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:38

    significantly worse than Warner had hoped it would avatar the way of water, which should have been a massive head, is running into China’s massive COVID wave. But there is some sense that Chinese audiences during a couple of years when they’ve been withheld from the market, have gotten somewhat less interested in American blockbusters and someone more interested in the kinds of, you know, big tentpole movies that Chinese studios are creating. If you look at the Chinese domestic box office, a lot of it was dominated by sequels two significant hits that that domestic industry has developed. And then in the US, you’re starting to see a really tough conversation taking place about TikTok the by Dan’s own, you know, video app that is wildly popular among Americans, but that many suspect is essentially from functioning as a Chinese intelligence operation. TikTok actually acknowledged today that a couple of employees had access to user data, including that of reporters.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:37

    American reporters improperly. And so, you know, you’re seeing lawmakers both in states and at the federal level start proposing bands on the app on government owned devices. But I think that there is going to be much more significant concern in coming years about the extent to which Chinese developed apps are effectively an influence operation or a data gathering operation. TikTok in the in China is significantly sort of less of wild west and less entertaining. And so I think you may start to see the US US lawmakers expect, you know, subject Chinese products Chinese apps to increase scrutiny.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:16

    And of course, you know, this will have an enormous impact on movies in particular, which for a long time had really baked in the assumption significant Chinese box office into, you know, what they projected, you know, superhero movies, action is with make. And if that market is no longer reliable, we’re gonna see studios assess whether they need to go the Netflix route and just decide the deal with China is too much of a hassle. And scale their ambitions accordingly. So I think we’re gonna see a lot of friction in that relationship with results both for what US consumers have this to and for what gets made at all. Is
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:50

    it wish casting on my part to say, okay, maybe this means if you can’t do the two hundred fifty a dollar superhero movie anymore. You can only do the one hundred fifty million dollar superhero movie these days. Maybe we’ll have fewer of those just in general. Maybe we’ll get a maybe we’ll get a resurgence in the the mid the mid budget movie for adults. Or am I just am I just dreaming here?
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:15

    Is that I think that’s
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:17

    probably wish casting. What is not wish casting though is that after years of sort of career purgatory. We actually have three Richard Gear projects in development. Yeah. So the actor who’s been largely exiled from Hollywood given his support of Tibetan independence.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:33

    You know, it seems to be making a little bit of a comeback. I’ve actually started getting press release nudges about at least one of these projects, so we know they’re happening. So we may not, you know, if the Richard Girishants heralds the return of sort of mid budget movie for adults, then maybe you get both of your wishes, but I suspect you’re only gonna get one.
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:51

    I I as as readers of my Washington Post columns. No. I I said that we need Richard here to get more projects just to spite China. So despite that’s a good reason to do anything. Peter, what was the big story of the year from your point of view?
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:05

    Early this year, Netflix reported their first ever decline in subscribers. And that set in motion kind of a revolution in the streaming business that had boomed during the pandemic and become the focus of Hollywood business models even after ear theaters came back online. A whole bunch of things happened as a result of Netflix reporting that decline. So first, Netflix announced they do a new ad supported or something they promised they would never do. They also begin looking at putting movies into theaters, leading to, for example, a one week medium sized run of the movie we’re gonna talk about later.
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:40

    Knives out too, glass onion. Wall Street really soured on Netflix and other streaming other streamers, resulting in huge stock price declines. Netflix fired a bunch of people. And other streamers began looking to downsize as well. Studios realized that they needed to put movies in theaters and that ninety million dollar feature film bets like Batgirl, which Warner Bros.
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:01

    Had planned for HBO Max and then canceled without airing anywhere over the summer. Those big bets For streaming first or streaming only, they simply didn’t work. Because what the Netflix subscriber drop showed was that the streaming focused business model or the streaming only business model was simply not sustainable as envisioned. And that in turn is gonna mean less spending on content, which means many fewer shows being put into production, which means fewer things for us to watch, but also fewer jobs for writers and other Hollywood professionals, which is probably gonna result in a writers’ guild strike next year. And if sunny is right, that might mean demands for streamers to start releasing their viewing data, which would just be a huge just a huge thing for streamers to do.
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:46

    And all of this, the streaming business turmoil, studios looking back to theaters for revenue, distribution and release model changes across the industry, reduced spend on on new content, all of that traces back to that first report from Netflix that they were losing subscribers. It was really a sign that the streaming business as we know it, which in some ways has dominated Hollywood at least for the last three years and was sort of seen as Hollywood’s future, it doesn’t really work as envisioned. That doesn’t mean that streaming is gonna go away, but it does mean that it’s going to have to
  • Speaker 1
    0:12:18

    change. Yeah. I mean, the streaming business model, and I I’ve talked about this ad nauseam on this show and other shows. But the streaming and the streaming business model has always been really interesting in the sense that you have one service Netflix that have first mover advantage that basically is functioning as a replacement for basic cable and you know, that that can work for them because they’re generating, you know, thirty whatever billion dollars of revenue. So, like, Okay.
  • Speaker 1
    0:12:44

    That makes sense for Netflix. Everybody else trying to ape Netflix is doing it wrong because, hey, they’ll never be able to generate that much revenue. But b, they should be using streaming as a way to replace the revenue streams that were lost when physical media has physical media hasn’t gone away, knock on wood yet. But the, you know, it is not a mass consumer product anymore. And cable channels are going to be going away soon.
  • Speaker 1
    0:13:08

    There’s gonna be a lot of rights money that gets lost in that in that regard. So like streaming makes sense for a company like Warner Bros. Where you have HBO Max and we’re we’re gonna make a ton of money here, but it’s not gonna be Netflix money, it’s gonna be DVD money, and TBS money. And it it is weird that it took people so long to recognize that fact, which seemed fairly obvious from the beginning.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:32

    Yeah. I mean, as someone who was sort of mocked relentlessly for, you know, saying, like, I, a simple country moron, don’t understand how, you know, replacing all of these revenue streams with one revenue stream is going to work long term. You know, I I mean, I had people giving me an incredibly hard time about that for a long time, but, like, It seems like it was true.
  • Speaker 3
    0:13:52

    So I I mean, as I’ve said on this podcast before, I think the bet was that you could take a lot of families that maybe only to movies once a year, which is the average number of times that like most people go to the movies each year. And instead of getting one ticket per each for per family member per year, you could get a monthly fee from them and that that would be more money than you would get from theaters. Now, I in the end, I think that bet clearly wasn’t gonna pay off. And the competition from HBO Max and just plus in particular, but even from things like, you know, Paramount plus, which is not a huge concern, but has has a business. I don’t think it’s a super sustainable one, but they have a business right now.
  • Speaker 3
    0:14:32

    The the flourishing of streaming options, I think, has proven harder for net Netflix to compete with than Netflix execs were expecting a few years ago when they sort of saw, oh, look, we’re first in this space, and we’re gonna hoover up so much so much money, so much attention, we are gonna become the essential thing. In part, because people know us, we’ve got a because that’s our brand, because, you know, everybody’s already paying for it. But in part because we have so much content that nobody’s gonna, you know, nobody’s gonna stop their subscription because they just, like, there’s because there’s enough. And It turned out that just having a watch is not enough. I mean, Netflix is not again, they’re not gonna go away.
  • Speaker 3
    0:15:09

    It’s not like gonna fail as a company. That’s not what’s gonna happen. But it turns out that content quality and desirability also matters And in a way that I think Netflix had somewhat underrated. And we’ve particularly seen that with regards to Disney plus, which has just done really well, not churning out a huge amount of original content, but making sure that they focus their original content on stuff that had huge brand name recognition. Marvel and Star Wars and that sort of thing.
  • Speaker 3
    0:15:37

    And that has that has brought people in because people will pay for those big IPs.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:42

    Well, and they’ve also, you know, recognized that the weekly release model has significant advantages over the binge model in terms of building long term audience. And, you know, sometimes innovation isn’t necessary as I think Netflix is discovering somewhat to its peril. I
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:59

    will say I will say that Netflix is Netflix’s initial dump seasons at once model made some sense at to, like, differentiate them from the marketplace and, like, I I get it. I think it I think it I think it was smart for house of cards, for stranger things, you get people, they watch it all in a week they got some of it. But we have seen them pulling back from that a little bit. I mean, the new Harry and Meghan show. Right?
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:23

    Harry’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle show is coming out on, like, a weekly ish schedule, which is in interesting. I think it’s I think they
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:33

    And even their big season, you know, full season dumps are now not actually full season benchmark, either dumps. Like, you you look at something like Ozark, where the final season came out in two different sections. Right? Two, I believe, seven or or seven episode sequences. And so you could watch the first half of it, but then you had to watch, wait, and watch the rest of it two months later or something like that.
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:58

    And, you know, again, that is that is a product of competition. And while that while Ozark, the Ozark decision was made before, streaming drop. I I think all of this kind of stems from the realization that the the streaming model as, you know, with and the the kind of content spend that we have seen over the last five years is just it’s not sustainable and something’s gonna have to change. Speaking
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:20

    of streaming and sustainability. We’re gonna move on to the main event now. Glass onion, a knives out mystery. I said earlier that nobody gets a streaming channel. For new movies or at the very least, you know, it’s it’s hard to get folks to come come hang out for back girl.
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:40

    Right? But I I do think that Glass onion might be the exception that proves the rule. And certainly Netflix thinks that because they spent nearly half a billion dollars the rights to make two knives out sequels because the original was insanely popular when it hit the streamer. And knives out is that rare piece of IP to hit the open market. Rare piece of intellectual property that somebody could snap up and build a franchise around.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:02

    Though interestingly, I mean, this is in the weeds a little bit, but Netflix didn’t actually buy the right dknives out or Benoit Blanc. They just bought the rights to make the next two movies, which, you know, we’ll see if that comes back. To bite them. It’s not often you get a chance to buy a franchise. Netflix jumped at it, and they they believe folks would flock to the service as a result.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:22

    We’ll see if that happens. But the movie itself Let’s talk about that. Glass onion sees the return of Benoit Blanc played here as before by Daniel Craig. Sideline and out of sorts, thanks to the pandemic. He is whisked away to the private island of an Elon Musk style billionaire named Miles Braun played by Edward Norton.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:41

    There, Benoit joins a desperate coterie of hangers on. There’s Twitch Streamer who’s played by Dave Batista, a governor and senate candidate played by Katherine Hahn, an in house scientist played by Leslie Odom Junior, a wealthy socialite slash sweatpants, designer played by Kate Hudson, and a sperm business associate played by Janelle Monet. And they hang out, they blow off some steam, and they’re gonna do a little dinner or murder mystery thing. Murder mystery that gets all too real backstabbing abounds as we learn one by one that each of these people has reason to hope for bronze untimely passing. Like the first nines out, there’s a political relevance here that’s less subtext than text.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:18

    It’s the thing above the subtext. You know, it’s the text. And though, I I bet even Ryan Johnson is kind of surprised by how big a fool Elon Musk has managed to make of himself over the last six months. It’s it’s still all kind of right there and fairly relevant. And I think people can have some fun with the memes once this hits Netflix.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:36

    I find both of these knives out movies to be just a little bit too pleased with themselves. But they’re also pretty darn entertaining. It helps it casts are so stacked. I mean, this is this is a movie, knives out to glass onion, whatever we wanna call it. It’s a movie where Ethan Hawk shows up for literally sixty seconds.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:56

    And all he does is, like, spray, throat spray in the characters so they don’t have to wear a mask through a whole movie. And then he’s gone. He never appears again. I thought there would be some sort of like he’s gonna come back. Maybe he’s like a he’s a he’s a part of the the the mystery of the unravels.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:11

    No. He just shows up and then he’s gone because when you have four hundred fifty million dollars to make two movies, you can throw a million dollars at Ethan Hawk to show up on separate day, I guess. The plot itself is slightly less clever than I think it thinks it is. And the doubled structure of the story will I’m sure we’ll talk about this more in a minute. Essentially repeats it twice in a way that is both clever but also kind of tedious.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:34

    All in all, though, it’s funny, it zips along. It’s a it’s a weirdly perfect little time capsule for our moment or at least our moment a few moments ago. Alyssa, what did you make of glass on I
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:46

    felt like this was less than some of its parts. So the parts are pretty charming, particularly Daniel Craig and Janelle Monet, who I am an early booster of and have just been incredibly pleased to see become like a real sort of multi hyphenate star because she is incredible. But watching this movie had me think back a little bit to death on the Nile, which we watched earlier this year. And which is obviously an inferior movie But at the same time, it illustrates the difference between what Agatha Christie did incredibly well and what I think Ryan Johnson does. Okay, with, which is sort of build in its characters, backstories, and reveals.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:27

    And so, you know, in Death and Anil, you have this you know, incredibly complicated group of people who have been brought together for this wedding of a socialite that they hate. And, you know, part of solving the mystery is by eliminating suspects, but the backstories that, you know, that Christy and then, you know, Kenneth Brennan have sort of devised for the characters, are sort of poignant and well developed in ways that aren’t quite equaled here. Right? I mean, there’s nothing in glass in glass onion that is nearly as, you know, poignant as the discovery of like, the annoying rich lady and her nurse are, like, they’re actually a couple and the only way that they can be together is to put together this sort of, like, absurd performance where one of them is this incredible hypochondriac and the other one is just sort of irritated with her. And the relationships between the characters in Glass onion don’t entirely make sense.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:24

    Right? Like, you know, you have Catherine Hahn playing this. I think she’s supposed to be the democratic governor of Connecticut. Who is, like, somehow still hanging out with two people who like absolutely
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:37

    destroy
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:37

    her political career to be associated with. Right? Like, why is she still friends with Duke and Birdie? Like,
  • Speaker 3
    0:22:45

    what you
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:46

    know, is the friendship like kind of a secret? Is it you know, does it reflect something about like her own values? There’s just sorta nothing there. And so the you know, the character work just ends up being not terribly engaging. And and, you know, Christie,
  • Speaker 1
    0:23:06

    like, Christie
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:07

    was just much better at developing these sort of deaf character sketches that provided deep walls of motivation without necessarily having to go too deep on any of them. And I think that extends in particular to Miles Braun because from a political perspective, the revelation that Miles is just an idiot is not as sort of relevant or damning a condemnation of tech industry people
  • Speaker 1
    0:23:35

    as Johnson seems
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:36

    to think it is. Right? I mean, whatever else you might think of Elon Musk who is, you know, in the process of declining himself for a forty four billion dollar hobby. Like, he’s not a stupid person in general. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:49

    I mean, he like, I think he is pretty dumb about US politics and it’s like not thought through his, you know, supposed commitment to free speech. Very deeply. But, like, the guy is running, you know, a company that has revolutionized the electric car industry. He’s, like, kind of become the private contractor that makes NASA still a thing. You know, he’s keeping Internet going in Ukraine during and, you know, an incredibly brutal war there.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:20

    Like, the guy’s not actually a full scale idiot. Right? Like, he is making a fool of himself in certain highly specific ways, but saying like, oh, all Tech Bros are just dumb asses. Is not actually a penetrating observation about that, you know, that industry, the culture that has grown up around it, etcetera. And so I think that’s just a sort of a substantial weakness of the movie that made it much less engaging to me than I expected it to be.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:49

    Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:24:49

    I mean, the the interesting thing about Braun is I I I think of him almost I think of him and his his friend slash hangers on as as kind of a wheel. He is he’s the hub. They are the spokes off it, and the reason they are all attached to him is because he is the one with the extremely large amount of money. And there is like a there is a truth to that. There is a there is an absolute set of parasitic relationship that exists like that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:15

    You know who it reminds me of a little bit is movie directors. Movie directors have lots of people like this just kinda hanging on them waiting for gigs and jobs and that sort of thing. They also tend to be less smart than they think they are, but I’ll leave that aside, Peter, what did you what did you make of glass onion? I
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:37

    largely enjoyed this. I thought it was a significant improvement on the first film. It’s just a little bit sharper, a little bit funnier. I thought the pandemic aspect of it was really well done. Just the you you mentioned Ethan Hawks’ extremely short appearance as the guy who sprays their mouths so that they don’t have to wear masks.
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:58

    And what’s great about it is the movie lets you wonder if maybe that’s just complete nonsense and just a a pretext for removing the the masks or whether, like, maybe the billionaire actually has special access to some sort of advanced, you know, mouth spray that actually Like and the movie doesn’t tell you and in a way that I think is is kind of funny and smart. Though I also was wondering if Ethan Hawk would maybe show up and be the murderer, which would have been really kind of amusing. I like the I I mostly like the double structure. I I think it runs a little bit long, and so the movie does feel a little bit draggy in that middle section. Because of this, right, this movie is about two hours and twenty minutes and it probably should have been about two hours and five or two hours and eight minutes.
  • Speaker 3
    0:26:41

    It’s just about ten, fifteen minutes too long. I think I think Daniel Craig is is kinda delightful and as as Benoit Blanc. Right? And just he’s he is a great tribute to Agatha Christie style detectives, but also a great kind of deconstruction of them. And that’s what I liked about this movie most, is that it manages to both pay pay tribute and sort of be an homage to Christie.
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:09

    But also, to subtly twist and tweak and use Christie’s forms in ways to sort of not maybe deconstruct the mystery exactly, but to to make sort of
  • Speaker 1
    0:27:21

    to
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:21

    to kind of to make to make something that is a little bit more comic and a little bit less about sort of, like, let’s be clever in our mystery solving. And in fact, like, the revelation is that there’s nothing clever going on. The revelation is that that this was all stupid and it’s just blunt has to be able to see through this stupidity. I agree with Alyssa’s critiques to some degree, but they just didn’t bother me that much. Like, the characters are sharply drawn, you know, carriers.
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:49

    Right? And so the fact that they don’t quite make sense as real people and as and have real you know, have have real back stories that, like, actually, in the real world would make sense. It did it felt like To me, it felt like it was it was a cartoon. I
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:03

    guess it didn’t they didn’t work for me particularly well as caricature either. Right? Because like caricature have to see through an excellent caricature sees through to the truth of a person in a given position. Right? And reveals our ridiculousness or an oddity or a hypocrisy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:21

    About that. And these characters just didn’t feel like they had insight into the particular sort of dormamas and behaviors of people in their particular positions. Can I make
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:32

    a suggestion here as to why they they don’t work exactly or or why they’re they feel just a little off? I feel like when you’re and look, I am not an agatha christie expert. I’ve only read a couple agatha christie novels. I’ve only seen a couple of of movies based on the Ag of the Christie books. But when I when I’m watching an Agatha Christie Mystery or reading an Agatha Christie book, I I get the sense that we are mostly supposed to sympathize or empathize with all of the suspects, or at least most of them.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:03

    And in both nimes out and glass onion. I feel like we’re both we’re supposed to basically hate everybody who is under consideration for the crime in question. And
  • Speaker 3
    0:29:13

    I think that someone whose heart is full of malice. Well, shouldn’t you appreciate that? In
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:18

    theory, this would appeal to me more, but there’s there’s a smarmy sneering quality to it that I I I find just a little bit off putting. And I Alissa, you’re you’re the guy I got the christy person. Am I is that is that a is that a christy again?
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:31

    Don’t think that’s wrong. I mean, I think that Christie sees her character sort of weakness and weaknesses and failings quite clearly. But you know, Pareau is an excellent I mean, and she has multiple detectives, of course. But Pareau in particular is interested in people. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:47

    I mean, he’s a good detective in part because he’s empathetic. And, you know, notices things about the nuances of relationships between characters. And obviously, you know, Perot is the detective on which Benoit Blanc is most closely based. So, yeah, no, no, I don’t think that’s wrong.
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:06

    Yeah, I I
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:07

    thought it mostly earned its smugness. I agree to some extent, but it didn’t bother me as much as in the first film, which I I didn’t hate, but I didn’t love either. And I felt like this movie was It’s it’s cartoon comic ness was more effective. Again, not perfectly, but more effective than in the first film. And the sort of
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:30

    the slight
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:34

    nastiness of all the characters I I thought was amusing for the most part rather than irritating. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:40

    Can I also just shout out the the other cameo we haven’t mentioned, which is having Hugh Grant show up as Blanc’s husband briefly is is very terming and funny. Yeah. That
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:50

    would it’s fun. Again, there there are lots of nice little touches to this. Like for instance, the the puzzle box that they get at the beginning of the movie that, you know, the the most of the characters set about to solve well Janelle Monet’s character that just smashes it up with a sledgehammer is is a again, it’s a nice little way of thinking about these stories. And I, you know, I I I we haven’t even really split. I I feel like we should not split.
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:18

    If you if you haven’t watched it, you should go watch it and to to see what the the ultimate resolution here is. Because it’s it is it it’s a fun family watch. I do think this is a sort of thing that you can watch with with, you know, grown up grown up children can watch with their grown up parents and not be. Board or embarrassed by. One exit question here, is this the only I’m I I I I was trying to think while I was watching it, is this the only real pandemic movie that, like, kind of, uses the pandemic Kimmy,
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:48

    which — Yeah. — the the sort of film that we watched Kimmy. Yeah. Kimmy back. Earlier this year, which was great.
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:55

    And I think the other movie that I think does a very good job of using the pandemic as a backdrop for Again, a kind of a a thriller mystery, you know, less less comic than knives out too, but it sort of it’s it’s a useful It’s an effective use of the pandemic as a backdrop and as an environment.
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:17

    Yeah,
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:17

    that’s a
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:18

    good one. I had forgotten about, Kimmy. Alright. So what do we think? Thumbs up or thumbs down on glass onion and knives out mystery?
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:23

    Peter. It’s not perfect,
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:24

    but thumbs up. Alyssa.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:26

    Thumbs up. It’s reasonably enjoyable even if it’s not perfect.
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:30

    Yeah. Medium thumbs up. A thumbs up of medium size for me. You know, like this like half the little carpel or whatever. Thumb up.
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:38

    Thumb
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:38

    up. Thumb
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:40

    up. Alright. That is it for this week’s show. Make sure to swing by at m a dot the bulwark dot com to get more episodes of the show. We actually don’t have a bonus episode this week because of holiday schedules and all that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:50

    So apologies for that, but, you know, you’ll I think you’ll survive. Make sure to tell your friends, strong recommendation from a friend is basically the only way to grow podcast audiences. Girl we will die. If you did not like today’s episode, please complain to me on Twitter app study bunch. I can convince you that it is, in fact, the best show in your podcast feed.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:06

    You guys next week.
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