Stronger Than You

Knives Out (2019) // Glass Onion (2022)

I also think that all the "um okay knives out & glass onion were good. Wrap it up now" posts are so funny. You're tripping if you think there's not going to be at least five Benoit Blanc films lol

What part of "the detective franchise is back babey" did you not get. There were 14 Poirot films and that's not counting the show which was a standard season for most of its run. 69 Columbo episodes. Like it or hate it you are going to be seeing Benoit Blanc until the day he stops making money and then some.

He hasn't even been on a train yet for fucks sake

HE HASN'T EVEN BEEN ON A TRAIN YET!!!!

The thing about world-famous detectives that's true both in character and out of character is that it's annoyingly difficult to make them go away.

arthur conan doyle found that out the hard way

JANELLE MONÁE GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY 2022, directed by Rian Johnson

GLASS ONION: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

im obsessed with the color palette of this movie. and also his drip

benoit blanc dress up simulator

the storyboards for knives out are fucking incredible

rian johnson tweeted this for knives out 2 so i can’t wait to find it in the movie

what truly gets me with knives out and glass onion both is the use of the viewers' memories. like when harlan gives marta the instructions where to park the car, before or behind the statue. or when we see miles hand duke the whiskey glass.

like i watched those parts. i heard harlan say where to park the car. i consciously took in how miles gave duke his glass the first time. but then the characters show that twisted scene and suddenly i also don't remember. park the car before or behind the statue? did he hand duke the glass or did duke take it by mistake?

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

none of you are talking abt whiskey which truthfully is such a damn shame. she was introduced and i thought she was just supposed to be the dumb blonde girlfriend - arm candy. but then she ran into helen and we immediately see how badly she wants to do more, but she feels trapped to go along with what duke does in order to build her future. shes also the only person to look at helen, who she believes is andi, and say thats shes sorry, that she was fucked over and didnt deserve what happened. dont look at me and say this character wasnt fucking fantastic

EXACTLY.

It's funny because I keep getting ads about how critics are raving over it. "The film of the decade" they say. Meanwhile no one I know has even mentioned the new avatar movie. It might as well not exist.

One of my favorite things about Benoit Blanc, and this applies to both the characters in the story AND the audience, is that he's such a brilliant detective he makes you FORGET he's a brilliant detective.

He's clearly well-known in this universe, enough that apparently Google defines him as the world's greatest detective, and Miles Bron even recognizes him on SIGHT in Glass Onion. And we the audience have, presumably, seen him in Knives Out, so we already know this isn't blowing smoke and is in fact a deserved fame. And yet his bumbling, scattered persona we see in the early film is so believable it immediately fools even people who know better than to underestimate him.

Even when he finally starts slipping the mask a little, after "solving" the botched murder mystery, we don't start seeing the real picture and his real goal until we see his interactions with Helen. His brilliance comes in his comfort with being seen as stupid, as incompetent, of letting himself be undermined and making people let their guard down around him, even when they should KNOW better.

And that works even better for the audience watching the movie. We're so focused on trying to figure him out, the movie hides the clues in plain sight. Even though we should KNOW, if we watched Knives Out, that the answer is not going to be simple and straightforward, that we should be prepared for anything. But we're so caught up in the performance and the story and the layers that it makes us forget we've been here before.

Anyway, Glass Onion is 10/10 and I hope we get more movies with Benoit as a connecting thread, because he and these movies are so brilliant and I love them.

One of my favorite metaphors of Glass Onion is the Mona Lisa vs the Glass Onion.

Miles is constantly comparing himself, whether directly or indirectly, to the Mona Lisa. He wants to be “forever remembered in the same breath” as her. He plays up the mystery and the complexity of the painting, the artistry, the skill and the knowledge that went into it; All traits that he wants others to see in him.

But when Miles is describing the painting, who gets the closeup shot? Not Miles, but Helen. Helen is the one who gets multiple shots throughout the movie mirroring the Mona Lisa- same pose, same unreadable expression.

Because Miles isn’t the Mona Lisa, however much he wishes he was. Miles is the Glass Onion. Something trying to look complex and layered on the outside, when in reality, the center is in plain sight. Miles isn’t some enigmatic genius, he is exactly what he appears to be at first glance: an idiotic, rich, egotistical, shithead.

He didn’t make his own puzzles, he didn’t write his own murder, he didn’t create his own art, he didn’t even come up with the idea for his company. His island is filled with things made by other people. He isn’t even the person who did the thing that will forever connect him to the Mona Lisa. The thing that will forever tie him to Helen Brand.

Helen is the one with complexity. Helen is the one surrounded by mystery. Helen is the one who’s more than meets the eye. Helen is the Mona Lisa, and the Mona Lisa destroyed herself to take down Miles Bron.