Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: Hercule Poirot and Elon Musk

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was even funnier and more fun than Knives Out, which was plenty funny and fun.  Plus, Glass Onion was just brimming with social relevance, extending its satire of Agatha Christie to our real world at large.  All to the good -- given what our real world is like, we could use all the satire we can get our eyes and ears on.

[Spoilers ahead ...]

COVID is the first real calamity to receive this treatment.  I certainly wouldn't want to see an entire movie lampooning anything about the pandemic -- it's no laughing matter -- but the start-up of Glass Onion with the masks and the protective blast to the throat was just right.

Elon Musk, on the other hand, deserves all the satire anyone can lob at him.  And Miles Bron, who turns out to be the villain of the story, surely has elements of Musk, hawking a scientific miracle energy breakthrough, flaunting his billionaire wealth, and all the rest.  Social media in general get a good ribbing in this movie, too,

The acting was great.  Daniel Craig (as sleuth Benoit Black) and Ed Norton (as Miles Bron) have never given anything less than a top performance, at least as far as I know.  And the supporting cast were in fine form, too.  For some reason, my favorite was Madelyn Cline as Whiskey (hey, she was excellent in Outer Banks, too).

Of course, in a satire whodunnit, the mystery plot has to be tight and well resolved.  I won't give everything away, on the slim chance that you're reading this and haven't already seen Glass Onion.  But I will say Hercule Poirot would've approved.

Oh, and the music was good, too!  "Glass Onion" is always a pleasure to hear.  And it sounded fantastic at the end of this movie.  I'm thinking the producers of the movie did to the sound what Peter Jackson did for the Beatles in Get Back -- the Beatles never sounded better!

And while we're on the subject of music in this movie, Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa" gets that same -- let's call it Peter Jackson -- treatment. Cole's uniquely warm voice, like "chestnuts roasting on an open fire," sounds like it's in the same room with us. Mona Lisa -- the Leonardo da Vinci painting -- makes a major appearance in the movie, a symbol of Bron's boastful greed -- as does an acoustic guitar alleged to be Paul McCartney's, which Bron strums for "Blackbird" to impress his guests. 

Okay, this review is about a movie, not its music, but as long as I'm into it, the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" sounded crystal clear beautiful, too, as did David Bowie's "Starman" (his "Star" is in Glass Onion, too, but I always liked "Starman" much more). And one last point, promise, about this music: it was fun to hear Toots and the Maytals sing "Take Me Home, Country Roads," but yeah, it made me wish I was hearing John Denver singing his song with co-writers Taffy Nivert and Bill Danoffin this supersonic mix. 

 All credit goes to Rian Johnson, who not only selected the songs, but wrote and directed this gem of a movie.

not the least bit funny ... well, maybe a little

alternate reality about The Beatles on Amazon, and  FREE on Vocal

Outer Banks: Top Notch Waves and Intrigue

As I mentioned in my review a couple of weeks ago of the first episode of Hightown, I'm always up for a TV series or movie that takes place in a sea town on the East Coast of the United States.  But with the lockdown keeping me and family from going up to Cape Cod, it's especially good to see those Atlantic waves splashing around a narrative.

So, I would've likely liked Outer Banks, which takes place on the string of islands off the North Carolina coast, in any case.  But by the time the 10-episode first season of the series concluded on Netflix, which my wife and I binged the past two nights, I found myself riveted to the screen and loving it.

Outer Banks actually starts off just ok, not great, a mildly diverting story of teenage shenanigans, rivalries, and romance on one of those islands.  But there's a dark undercurrent from the beginning - the father of one the lead players, John B, has been missing for months - which soon turns into a powerful story of parent-child relationships and edge-of-your-seat pursuit of lost treasure with all manner of plausible, sharply focused heroes and villains.

The acting was also surprisingly excellent - surprising, because I didn't know most of the actors.  I did know and liked Charles Esten from Nashville, and he brings to Outer Banks an unexpected range.  Chase Stokes was excellent as John B, as was Madelyn Cline as his girlfriend Sarah.  The two were very impressive in portraying a relationship that progressed from dissing to flirting to running for their lives.  The supporting cast was also top-notch, with especially notable performances by Jonathan Daviss, Rudy Pankow, and Madison Bailey.  But everyone in this vibrant cast made an impression on me, and I'll be looking for them from now on when I coast through Netflix and Prime Video.

I won't say anything more about the plot - because I don't want to give anything away - except that you can always distinguish a well-written narrative from the others in that surprises in the well-written narrative seem thoroughly plausible when you think of them in retrospect.  Outer Banks has a lot of large and small moving pieces, which are brought together perfectly in the end.  Hey, it's not as good as jumping in the cool waves off Cape Cod Bay, but I'll take it.