film review – R & R Blog

Cast of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (titled onscreen as simply Glass Onion) is a 2022 American mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Johnson and Ram Bergman. It is the sequel to the 2019 film Knives Out, with Daniel Craig reprising his role as master detective Benoit Blanc as he takes on a new case revolving around a tech billionaire and his old friends. The ensemble cast includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista.

Johnson had considered the idea of several films featuring the Benoit Blanc character prior to the first film’s release. A sequel was greenlit by its original distributor Lionsgate in 2020, but in March 2021 Netflix bought the rights to two Knives Out sequels for $469 million. The cast signed on that May. Filming took place on the island of Spetses, Greece, in June and July 2021, and continued elsewhere until September.

Following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2022, Glass Onion began a one-week limited theatrical release on November 23, 2022, receiving the widest theatrical release ever for a Netflix film and grossed $15 million against a $40 million budget. Netflix began streaming it on December 23.

Similar to Knives Out, Glass Onion received critical acclaim, with praise for its screenplay, direction, performances (particularly those of Craig, Norton, Monáe, and Hudson), and musical score, and was named one of the best films of 2022 by the National Board of Review.

Cast

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, a detective hired by Helen Brand to investigate her sister’s murder

Kathryn Hahn as Claire Debella, the governor of Connecticut, now running for the Senate

Janelle Monáe as Helen and Andi Brand, twin sisters, with the latter being Miles’s ex-business partne

Edward Norton as Miles Bron, a New York billionaire and owner of a large technology company

Dave Bautista as Duke Cody, a streamer and men’s rights activist

Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint, the head scientist for Miles’s company

Madelyn Cline as Whiskey, Duke’s girlfriend and Twitch channel assistan

Jessica Henwick as Peg, Birdie’s assistant

Kate Hudson as Birdie Jay, a former supermodel turned fashion designer in Manhattan

Noah Segan as Derol, a slacker who lives on Miles’s island. Segan previously appeared in Knives Out (2019) as Trooper Wagner

Dallas Roberts as Devon Debella, Claire’s husband

Credits to Wikipedia, for the full article, click here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Onion:_A_Knives_Out_Mystery

Elements of a Film Review

Elements of a Film Review

Overview: Reviews are evaluations, so all of them at some point state the author’s judgment about the value of the item being reviewed, usually discussing both strengths and weaknesses with support.

However, a review of a film, book, or other related artistic production is a flexible form with many options, as I hope you have noticed from the models we’ve been discussing. To give some sense of your options when writing your own review, below is a list of elements one might find in a review.

Choose which of these elements will work best for your particular book or movie; then decide on a pattern of organization based on what will hook your audience’s interest and keep them reading, leaving them with a strong impression at the end. Your text gives you two possible organization patterns, but there are many more options.

Please resist the magnetic pull of the 5-paragraph essay format! Restricting yourself to simplistic formulas paralyzes the mind and bores the reader.

Elements of a Review:

Required elements

• A thesis: an arguable claim about the value of the work with reasons.

• Evaluative statements, usually a combination of overall evaluation and specific strengths and weaknesses of the work.

• Description of the work: How it looks, sounds, feels, tastes, smells (if relevant). Sometimes more esoteric elements are described, such as the tone, stance, or political orientation. Sometimes its effect on the viewer is described.

• Plot summary, sometimes a separate section, sometimes woven in with evaluation and analysis.

Elements usually or often included

• Discussion of relevant criteria, with maybe an explanation of why these are the most important. For films, consider which elements of a film get awards. Most often discussed are directing, acting, plot, and cinematography. More general criteria include depth of thinking, emotional impact, authenticity in relation to what is being depicted, wit or cleverness of the writing, and originality.

• Background information to provide context. This can be information about the historical setting, people, or events;the society depicted; other works produced by the filmmaker or writer; key ideas involved in the work (e.g. political, philosophical, or artistic ideas), and production history.

• Comparison/ Contrast with other similar works, with the source material, with sequels or prequels, etc.

• Classification/Division: a work can be placed in a class, such as a particular genre (e.g. sci-fi, historical drama, documentary, French New Wave) and then distinguished from other items in that category.

• Reception: How the film was received by audiences and/or critics; awards it has won.

• Analysis: Discussion of how the film works, what makes the characters tick, what the film says about the society that produced it, why audiences responded as they did, etc.

• Narrative: Sometimes a story of the reviewer’s experience with the film or the issue it depicts is relevant and interesting. For example, a war movie reviewed by a soldier who fought in it or a refugee who fled from it has an added emotional heft if the reviewers discuss their experiences, particularly while evaluating the film’s authenticity.

Mini-review for Analysis: How many of the above elements can you find in Mark Kermode’s 1-paragraph review of Slumdog Millionaire, which he published when the DVD came out?

With its “feelgood film of the decade” status assured and a best film Oscar under its belt, it’s easy to forget just how grim Slumdog Millionaire (2008, 15, Pathe £19.56) really is. Yet despite a ludicrously misleading advertising campaign, Danny Boyle’s cross-cultural masterpiece is unflinching in its ground-level depiction of the streets of Mumbai in which homeless children are abused and exploited while TV screens spew forth win-a-million fantasias. It’s a credit to the film-makers that Slumdog is such an uplifting experience, with Boyle focusing on the vitality of the human spirit just as he did in Trainspotting, even as his characters are literally plunging down life’s lavatory. Anthony Dod Mantle’s vibrant camera races from gutters to rooftops, injecting life into the squalor – there’s nothing “abject” about this poverty – while AR Rahman’s score keeps the heart pumping and the pulse racing. Full Monty screenwriter Simon Beaufoy works wonders with Vikas Swarup’s source novel and the cast, led by Skins star Dev Patel, rise to the challenge with aplomb. Honestly, it’s hard to remember a better “best film.”

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FILM REVIEWS: We prefer reviews that focus on one film in current theatrical release or due to be released shortly in North America. The review should relate what is of merit and what is not in the film under discussion. It should incorporate early in the review a very brief synopsis or description of the plot (avoiding or at least flagging plot “spoilers”) for those who haven’t seen the film. Your review should not, however, be in the guise of a lengthy plot outline, interpolated with your critical commentary. We are concerned with aesthetics as well as content, with how cinematic techniques affect a film’s impact. Preferred length is about 1,500 to 2,000 words for feature reviews. Please provide production credits and distribution source information with your review, following the format we use in the magazine.
Please note that since we have space in each issue for only five to six “Film Reviews,” our editors engage in extensive discussions about which films we want to cover. For each issue, we try to select a mix of mainstream Hollywood films of particular political or cultural importance, quality foreign films, and American independent films, including both fiction films and documentaries. The principal reasons we decide not to make freelance Film Review assignments proposed to us, or to publish completed Film Reviews submitted to us, are 1) because our Editorial Board has decided to cover other films in a particular issue, 2) because our editors have not seen the film proposed for review, and we do not wish to assign coverage of films we have not seen for ourselves, or 3) because the film is not going to be exhibited or distributed in North America.

DVD and BLU-RAY REVIEWS: We publish in each issue five to six reviews of either new or recent films (in particular those not covered in previous issues) or vintage and classic films released on DVD and Blu-ray. Preferred length for DVD reviews of single titles is in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 words, or longer for reviews covering multiple titles or box sets. The critical approach should be the same as that recommended for Film Reviews, except that you should also include some commentary on any supplementary materials or “extras’ on the disc, and, when appropriate, some discussion of the technical quality of the transfer, especially if the title has previously been released in video format. Please provide brief production credits and distribution-source information with your review(s), following the format used in the magazine.