Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Director: Rian Johnson. Cast: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Ethan Hawke, Hugh Grant, Stephen Sondheim, Natasha Lyonne, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Serena Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 139 min. Crime/Mystery.

• Looks like the Knives Out films, inspired by Agatha Christie's style of whodunit mysteries, are going down the path of the two recent actual Christie's adaptations: Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile: great first movie, good but not as great second movie. When it came to Glass Onion, I was as engaged throughout as the first Knives Out, and the multitude of colorful characters, including Daniel Craig as sleuth Benoit Blanc with his Southern accent, and Edward Norton as a reckless Elon Musk type, make it a delicious murder mystery (like Nile, they even go to sea!); just that I didn't get the feeling of originality like the first Knives Out, and was able to predict a mid-movie twist (the one regarding a dead body on the stairs) - probably because I read too many Christie novels as a teenager.
• Fascinating cameo appearances. Just look at the list above, after Dave Bautista.
• Obsessions with glass on this one: the main setting of the story is a literal huge glass onion, there's a question of vodka glasses with poison being passed around, and a major climax with glass sculptures being smashed to pieces. Even a gong sound heard on the island is said in the movie to have been composed by famed composer Philip Glass. Very funny.
• Would I look forward to a third Knives Out movie? Of course I would. As long as Daniel Craig is there. And ... they bring back Ana de Armas from the first movie.
  

MoGo's rating: 7/10

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Holy Spider (2022)

Director: Ali Abbasi. Cast: Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, Mehdi Bajestani, Arash Ashtiani. 116 min. Crime/Thriller.

• Of course, on the heels of the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, comes Holy Spider, based on the true story of a serial killer who in the '90s was targeting prostitutes in the holy city of Mashhad, and the female reporter who went to great lengths to expose him (I was in medical school at the time, when he was glamorized in the tabloids as the "Night Bat").
• While the Islamic Republic government of Iran is based in and thrives on misogyny, Holy Spider goes far deeper than that. It shows the struggles of merely being a woman in a theocracy, and how an act as simple as a lone female checking into a hotel is considered an act of defiance. How favorably a religious man is treated when he proves he's one of them ... but how even he cannot be sure of his fate when his acts ever so slightly undermine the system. How the simplest physical form of friendly affection (a kiss) is frowned upon, and how the act of sex becomes the direct antithesis of that other concept known as love. And surely, how the execution of violence by the self-righteous is supported, admired, and coveted by the religious community of a "holy" city, and that violence is passed onto next generations.
• Zar Amir-Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival, for her portrayal of the reporter. Amir-Ebrahimi, once an actress working in Iran, was banned from work and was forced to flee the country, after she was accused of appearing in a leaked sex tape (she denies the accusation). While at times difficult to keep your eyes on the screen during the protracted death scenes, watch this movie and come to believe her: she is a victim of the Holy Spider. 

MoGo's rating: 8/10

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Crimes of the Future (2022)

Director: David Cronenberg. Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart. 107 min. Sci-fi/Horror.

• Cronenberg is back to his 70s and 80s "body horror" origins, with all those gross, gooey, slimy body issues that are more grotesque than scary. This time it's in a future where physical pain no longer exists, and underground "mutated artist" groups put up shows of dissecting and harvesting newly created internal body organs ("artsy tumors"), either with an audience or live on camera. 
• While I was delighted to find Cronenberg back at his bizarre sense of horror (this time with some of the most attractive faces in the business), and while the main character's integration with machines to create new organs reminded of Cronenberg's own metal-fetish Crash (1996), or the recent Palm d'Or winner Titane (2021), the thought process behind repackaging and delivering his 80's style into our post-Covid times (when the concept of disease and "pain" could have far more connotations), was lost on me. Would've preferred to see Mortensen, Seydoux and Stewart in a plot as convoluted but less arthouse-like, in the able hands of David Cronenberg.

MoGo's rating: 6/10

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Tár (2022)

Director: Todd Field. Cast: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Mark Strong. 158 min. Drama.

• You've most likely seen these people: elites who use their elitism as a shield, to say whatever they want and do whatever they want, and maybe even commit crimes, and then when confronted with their words or actions, intellectualize with some lengthy philosophical psychobabble that makes you wonder: What just happened?
• Cate Blanchette plays one of those elites. She's one of the greatest orchestra conductors of her time, and that shield has made her untouchable when to her own benefit, she abuses and ruins other people's lives. Don't want to spoil any further, but when you see her, you'll recognize: wow, she's so much like this or that highly-educated person I know - that person who looks very benign on the outside, but is a destructive force of nature; because of the smart ways they wiggle themselves out of the moral disgrace they advertise.
• The film has very long sequences of people sitting around talking, and that hurts the films pacing. But towards the end, you understand why the development of this character needed to be drawn out so much.

MoGo's rating: 7/10

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Director: Ryan Coogler. Cast: Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Angela Bassett, Martin Freeman. 161 min. Fantasy/Action.

• Other than the small positive of having an interesting villain, the only major attribute I can assign this nth Marvel movie, is its beautiful send-off of its recently passed Black Panther role actor, Chadwick Bosman. And how do you make a sequel, when your main (beloved) actor is no longer with us? Simple: you respectfully don't include him, and as Persians might say, show how empty his spot is, because nothing can fill that spot. And that's exactly what Wakanda Forever perfectly does. Otherwise, no matter how hard Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett (as sister and mother of the deceased Black Panther) try, it's quite hard to keep this two and half hour plus movie (why are movies so long these days!!!) from getting boring. After all, the first time a superhero shows up, is almost almost two hours into the movie. Go figure.

MoGo's rating: 6/10

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