GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY***** - BFI London Film Festival - Closing Night Gala

I was not the world's biggest fan of KNIVES OUT - Rian Johnson's closed-house murder-mystery starring Daniel Craig as the detective with the broad southern drawl. I sat stony silent in a packed London Film Festival screening with the rest of the audience having the time of their life.  I thought the mystery wasn't complex or interesting and the performances fell flat for me. I just didn't get it. As a result, I had zero expectations for its high-budget sequel, GLASS ONION, and was cringing at the thought of its two-hour twenty minutes running time. 

Well reader, I can happily report that GLASS ONION is one of my favourite movies of the year!  It flew by its running time in a haze of laugh-out loud comedy; brilliantly-acted outlandish characters; and a proper mystery that's both tricksy, meta-textual and politically biting!

The movie stars Daniel Craig, once again returning as Benoit Blanc, and leaning even further into the camp of a fussily over-dressed and anachronistic famous detective in the Agatha Christie style. The new villain of the piece is Ed Norton's tech billionaire Miles Bron, clearly based on Elon Musk. He's a vainglorious fake-hippie who invites all of his old college friends to a yearly retreat, this time on his supervillain island lair.  As the movie unfolds, in good detective tradition, we realise that each of the characters needs Miles for his money or connections and has a motive to kill him. There's even a MacGuffin - a piece of a new renewable energy-producing crystal widget that is also - oh no! - rather dangerous!

The heart of the piece - or maybe its moral compass in a sea of characters that are more or less self-interested and despicable - is Janelle Monae's Andi Brand.  As the movie unfolds we discover that Andi was in fact the brains behind Miles' big invention and they haven't really spoken in years. So why has she shown up on the island? And who invited Benoit?

The first half of the movie explores the connections between the characters and leads us to the murder. The second half of the film goes back and reveals what was really happening. This might sound tedious but it's so damn clever, smart and involving I promise you it won't feel like a rehash. But I can't tell you exactly why it works for fear of spoiling the plot - so I'll just encourage you to watch.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 139 minutes. It played Toronto 2022 and will be released on Netflix on December 23rd.

THE KILLER INSIDE ME - They fuck you up, your mum and dad Part Two

Lou Ford is a courteous, softly spoken cop in 1950s Texas. He has a sweetheart called Amy who dotes on him: the townsfolk think he's a stand-up guy. But when he was a kid, Lou's housekeeper got off on his spanking her. And this poor little fucked up kid grew up into the kind of guy who can only express love through violence. Lou is something of an enigma - he is alienated from himself - from real emotional engagement with others - and thus from the viewer. Far more intriguing, from a psychological standpoint, are the two women - his girlfriend and his hooker-mistress - who love him. It's mysterious that they love such an emotionally avoidant man - let alone that they continue to do so despite suffering at his hands. Maybe they too were fucked up by their parents? Maybe it's just another case of people being attracted to people whose pathologies enable their own.

Whatever the answer, this is not the kind of film that deals in straightforward answers. Rather, Michael Winterbottom gives us a more or less faithful adaptation of the celebrated pulp novel from Jim Thompson - its triumphs and failures in tact. The film works best as a sinister mood piece, anchored by the superb central performance of Casey Affleck and embedded in superlative production design. I was genuinely surprised that actresses known best for fluffy rom-coms - Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson - would want to appear in such a film, and yet more surprised to see how well they acted in the demanding supporting roles as Lou's mistress and girlfriend respectively. They really hold their own against a supporting cast of the calibre of Ned Beatty and Elias Koteas. This movie is worth watching for the quality of the performances and the cinematography alone.

Nonetheless, this is a flawed film. Yes, there's a crime caper that propels the plot, and some faint dramatic tension between the unions, big business, and a cover up, but this movie is basically a psycho-drama. The fault of the piece lies in the fact that, as psycho-drama, it always holds the viewer at a distance from the motivations of the three key characters. This makes for a frustrating film - a teasing provocation.

One final word about the violence in the movie. THE KILLER INSIDE ME got a lot of press coverage in the UK on account of its graphic depiction of violence against women. Moreover, the movie was accused of misogyny on the grounds that the women in the movie apparently get off on being victimised. To my mind, THE KILLER INSIDE ME is not at the extremes of graphic violence in cinema. Viewers used to the cinema of Haneke or Noe will have seen far worse. Moreover, there is no sense in which this film is "torture porn". Winterbottom's intentions are manifestly earnest. I also find accusations of misogyny misplaced. Yes, the fact that these women go back for more is disturbing. But surely the movie/book are saying something about a particular psychopathology - and in this case it happens to involve the man as sadist and women as masochists. But there is no general point to be made about the role of men and women in such relationships. After all, just look at the dependent relationship between Johnny Papas and Lou.

Additional tags: Mags Arnold, Melissa Parmenter, Tom Bower, Simon Baker, Liam Aiken, Jay R Ferguson, Jim Thompson

THE KILLER INSIDE ME played Sundance and Berlin 2010 and is currently on release in the UK, USA and Denmark. It opens next weekend in South Korea. It opens in August in Belgium and France; in September in Switzerland, Greece and Taiwan; in Finland and the Netherlands in October.

NINE - a series of songs sung by women who are basically in love with a shit

Rob Marshall directed two movies before NINE and I didn't like either of them. His movies are pretty on the surface and are obviously the product of much care and attention to detail. But somehow they miss the essential point of the story, not to mention any subtlety or subversion. And this is a major flaw in movies that deal with the the appearance and reality of sexual domination (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA) and sexual and judicial corruption (CHICAGO).

And yet, still flush with the some-time success of CHICAGO, Marshall had the ambition to tackle NINE, a movie adaptation of a Broadway musical that was itself an adaptation of Fellini's seminal movie - perhaps one of the greatest movies of all time - 8 1/2. How can I explain to you what a technical, psychological and dramatic achievement Fellini's film was? It was a movie that dared to depict the impossibility and insanity of trying to create art in a commercial, celebrity-obsessed environment. Even more daring, it was a movie that threw its own director's psyche onto the screen - his narcissism, his eroticism, his conflicted relationship with his childhood, his relationship with his mother, his wife, his lovers....8 1/2 was a movie so radical and so brilliant that it redefined cinema. It was a movie so great that other directors tried to compete with it and came up short - Henri Georges Clouzot, with his INFERNO, had a heart attack trying.

If great artists have tried and failed to match Fellini, what can we say about Broadway composer and lyricist, Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston? Sadly not much. Yes, they have gotten the bare bones of the story - the narcissistic movie director battling writer's block and a kind of personal crisis - running between his wife and his lover - but never finding the pure adoration that only an Italian mother can give. But they fail to translate Fellini's daring and subversion to the Broadway stage. Worse still, the songs are rather anonymous. "Be Italian" has a decent melody but the rest are utterly forgettable. Worse still, the lyrics have none of the rapier-like wit of CHICAGO or CABARET. No, this is a poor vehicle indeed on which to hang a Hollywood film.

Rob Marshall takes poor fare and does nothing to improve it. Yes, there are a couple of new songs but none of them have any more punch than the originals. Indeed, the 60s pastiche Cinema Italiano, is truly bad. Worst of all, Marshall didn't have the balls to change the incredibly weak opening number. And, after all, what's a song and dance show without a bravura opening number? Catherine Zeta Jones in CHICAGO gripped the audience.

Okay, so the music is weak - hardly Marshall's fault. What about the purely cinematic choices? The casting is variable in its success. Daniel Day-Lewis is either miscast as the director, Guido Contini, or mis-directed by Marshall. Day-Lewis' attempt at an Italian accent distracts from his perfect physical embodiment of the distracted, harrassed, hunch-shouldered director. Penelope Cruz and Judi Dench have a lot of fun and perform with gusto as Guido's lover and loyal friend. Marion Cotillard is superb as Guido's suffering wife. Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas is the best singer and performer by far in the best song in the piece, despite Marshall saddling her with frightful hair and make-up and entirely missing the eroticism of the encounter with the kid. Less happily, we have Nicole Kidman doing nothing special as the Anita Ekberg inspired movie star Claudia. Sophia Loren survives on her iconic status. Kate Hudson is entirely out of her depth but luckily only has to do a MTV dance routine before she's off stage. Her part is entirely disposable.

Most importantly, Marshall doesn't attempt to translate the complexity at the heart of the piece. And without that, Guido comes across as merely annoying, unsympathetic and whiny - a big kid with a mamma complex and an over-extended libido. The women, with the exception of the wife, are not really developed. As a consequence, when one of them does something dramatic, it seems not so much out of character, as we don't know what her character really is, but out of the blue. It's just hard to care. The movie becomes a series of songs sung by women who are basically in love with a shit. And frankly, there's nothing entertaining about that.

NINE is on release in the US, UK and Slovenia. It opens next week in Greece and Canada. It opens in January in Israel, the Netherlands, South Korea, Cyprus, Denmark, Brazil, Italy, Australia, Spain, Taiwan and Romania. It opens in February in Argentina, Hungary, Sweden, France, Finland, Belgium, Germany and Singapore. It opens in March in Japan.

BRIDE WARS - not as bad as the reviewers are making out

BRIDE WARS is clearly a rather shamelessly commercial enterprise aiming solidly at the demographic that falls for schmaltzy formulaic rom-coms like MADE OF HONOUR and P.S.I LOVE YOU. The direction is pedestrian, the writing is mediocre, the clothes are lovely and the ending is entirely predictable. Kate Hudson is about the least convincing lawyer I've seen on screen. Anne Hathaway shows none of the nuance that powered her role in RACHEL GETTING MARRIED. Still, given the shit that has been thrown at the movie, I was pleasantly surprised by how watchable it was. I wouldn't want to watch it again, but it was a perfectly pleasant way to pass ninety minutes.

It may have sub-plots that deal with relationships with men, but the movie is really about female friendship. In its defense, the movie is pretty honest about the lamentable amount of pressure some women put on themselves to have a perfect wedding and the competitiveness and neuroses that underlie some friendships. When the two lead characters, Liv and Emma (Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway) attend a third girlfriend's wedding, as happy as they are for her, they can't resist making digs about the floral arrangements. And when Liv and Emma announce that they are getting married, their other girlfriends hit the ice-cream and anti-depressants, worried that they're falling behind the curve. Finally, when a mix-up by the wedding planner (Candice Bergen) means that Liv and Emma have to get married on the same day at same hotel, neither wants to back down. Each firmly believes that she should have her day in the spotlight.

What then unfolds is a rather unedifying series of sabotage plots until everything goes so far that the two girls realise what we knew all along: it simply isn't worth it.But for all that, Kate Hudson is very watchable as high-achieving, competitive Liv, and her character actually develops as the movie unfolds. I actually rather like Kate Hudson as a light comedic actress. Anne Hathaway is a bit more anonymous as passive-aggressive Emma but Kristen Johnston (3rd ROCK FROM THE SUN) provides some genuine laugh-out-loud moments as Emma's egotistical maid of honour.

BRIDE WARS is on release in the UK, US and Turkey. It opens next week in Australia, Spain and Sweden and on January 22nd in Singapore and Estonia. It opens on January 29th in Hungary; on February 5th in Argentina, Croatia, Germany and Brazil; on February 11th in Belgium, France, Portugal and Norway; on February 20th in Finland and Italy; on February 26th in Russia and the Netherlands and on April 2nd in the Czech Republic.

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL - not to my taste, but I can imagine Dane Cook fans having a great time

From, improbably, the director of PRETTY IN PINK, comes a gross-out romantic comedy. Jason Biggs (AMERICAN PIE) is typecast as the desperate loser whose girlfriend (Kate Hudson) dumps him. In a characteristically contrived set-up, he hires his best-friend - a sort of anti-HITCH - who takes girls on piss-poor dates so that they realise how nice they guys they just dumped were and ask to get back with them. Problem is, the anti-Hitch and the girl actually hit it off. What follows is a bi-polar movie. The first two-thirds are firmly in gross-out territory with lots of non-politically correct dating humour. In the final third, the movie loses its balls and flips into a typically schmaltzy rom-com. I don't particularly find Dane Cook's brand of whacky humour funny, and I certainly don't dig formulaic rom-com's so I pretty much hated this film. BUT I can perfectly envisage fans of Dane Cook really having a great time with this film. So it's basically an alpha-gamma review. This movie does what it does. It's not to all tastes, so think carefully before you go, and hopefully you'll have a good time either way!

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL is on release in Greece, Hungary, Russia, Thailand, the US, the Philippines, Israel, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, Iceland, Turkey, Spain, New Zealand, South Korea, Estonia, Finland, Poland and the UK. It opens in Portugal on November 27th and in Sweden on December 5th.

FOOL'S GOLD - when Matthew McConaughey's naked torso isn't enough

FOOL'S GOLD is a rather bland romantic-adventure-comedy along the lines of Matthew McConaughey's last vehicle SAHARA. This time, he's reunited with Kate Hudson of HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS fame. The two are suitably bronzed and buff, and charm their way through a laughably under-written (but sadly not laugh-provoking) treasure hunt in the West Indies. McConaughey plays his typical slacker character and Hudson plays his History PhD(!) ex-wife. They team up to hunt for Spanish treasure, roping in Hudson's ueber-rich British boss (Donald Sutherland), his air-heard daughter (Alexis Dziena) and an inexplicably Ukrainian side-kick (the Scot, Ewan Bremner). The baddies are a bunch of goons including Theo Huxtable; led by Ray Winstone with a piss-poor Texan accent; and financed by a spoof gangster rapper called Bigg (sic) Bunny.

Director Andy Tennant (HITCH) fails to make this movie sparkle. It's a long way off the best of the genre - namely, Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito in ROMANCING THE STONE. And the after-school special sub-plot in which the bimbo daughter is lectured by Kate Hudson's character is entirely obnoxious. Studios should take note: as wonderful as Matthew McConaughey's naked torso is, it's nowhere near enough to sustain an audience's interest for 2 hours.

All in all, FOOL'S GOLD is one for DVD at best.

FOOL'S GOLD was released earlier this year in Australia, the US, Singapore, Mexico, Argentina, South Korea, Brazil, the Philippones, Thailand, Turkey, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Russia, Estonia, Iceland, Chile, Hungary, Israel, Panama and Egypt. It is currently on release in the UK, Poland and Slovakia. It opens later in April in the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Belgium, France and Norway. It opens on May 1st in the Netherlands, on June 14th in Japan and on June 20th in Finland.

Speaking of weak rom-coms: HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS

This limp and lifeless movie comes as a disappointment given that it was directed by Donald "Miss Congeniality" Petrie and co-scripted by Burr "Igby Goes Down" Steers. Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson play New Yorkers who, for reasons of Wildean subtlety, have to make the other love them/dump them within ten days. She annoys him; he refuses to dump her; they fall in love; they find out that they were set up; they break-up; they make-up. The humour is scarce despite bit parts for Adam Goldberg and Bebe Newirth. The romance falls flat, highlighting the fact that while Sarah Jessica Parker may be irritating there's a certain role that she does best. Overall, not even one for DVD.

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN TEN DAYS was released in 2003 and is available on DVD.

YOU, ME & DUPREE is unfunny

YOU, ME AND DUPREE is a deeply disappointing romantic-comedy. It's all about high production values and good casting but low on actual laughs. Every bit of quirkiness from the Russo brothers' previous flick, WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD has been bleached out of this blander than blander date flick. But, just to go through the motions, (much like the movie) here's a plot synopsis. Molly (Kate Hudson) is a cute, primary school teacher (movie code for All Round Nice Gal) who happens to be the daughter of a property developer played by Michael Douglas (movie code for mean, greedy, scheming bastard.) Molly marries Carl (Matt Dillon) who is also a nice guy. But Carl is under pressure from the mean father-in-law and also from his best man, Dupree. Dupree is the kind of sad-assed loser who still lives for sports and has no job well into his thirties. He's the kind of guy who moves into your house and sets the couch on fire. But, here's the twist: Dupree is played by Owen Wilson, which means he will be a Love-able Loser. Dupree is sort of responsible for splitting Molly and Carl up (roughly sixty minutes) and then sort of gets them back together (forty minutes.) And then we all go home! Okay, so maybe that was a major plot spoiler, but seriously, I doubt you wouldn't have seen it coming a mile off. All in all, this is a pretty lame-ass excuse for a date movie and a real disappointment. You would do better by renting THE WENDELL BAKER STORY instead. It has basically the same central plot premise (Owen Wilson putting a fork in the path of true love) and also features a cameo from Harry Dean Stanton. Plus, it's really, really funny!

YOU, ME AND DUPREE is already on release in the US, Puerto Rico, Australia, the Netherlands, Thailand, Russia, Iceland and the UK. It opens in Argentina and Mexico on September 1st, Hungary on September 7th, Greece, Israel and Brazil on September 15th and in Germany and Latvia on September 22nd and in Finland on September 29th. YOU, ME AND DUPREE opens in Spain on October 11th, Turkey on October 13th, France on October 18th and Belgium on November 1st.