Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Here it is, folks: the first movie I've seen set during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically May 2020. That said, we don't see people wearing masks or keeping apart for long, thanks to an oral spray that supposedly protects everyone from infection. Either they put too much confidence in a dubious treatment, or it's a sci-fi premise. It wouldn't be the only one herein, despite the previous Knives Out not having any.

Eccentric industrialist Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites five pretty close acquaintances, along with a couple plus-ones, to a weekend on his private island, home to a mansion aptly called the Glass Onion, to solve the mystery of his "murder." PI Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), the only returning character, also gets an invitation, tho Bron didn't intend it. Almost equally out of place is Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), Bron's former business partner, who's bitterly disenchanted with him and all his suck-ups in attendance. Blanc notes that every guest besides himself has a motive to make the pretend murder a reality. Well, someone dies before long....

No Time to Die (2021)

So much for my prior perception that Spectre would be Daniel Craig's last turn as James Bond. Well, it makes sense that an agent like him wouldn't stop having adventures just because he had resigned from MI6 after capturing Spectre leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). Spectre holds a grudge, for one thing.

Bond's long-time CIA buddy, Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), first asks his help to locate abducted MI6 scientist Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik), whose work with nanobots could make it way too easy for terrorists to kill everyone with a genome sufficiently similar to a given target. Bond doesn't sign on until hearing from the new Agent 007, Nomi (Lashana Lynch). Blofeld is indeed still a player from within his prison, but there are more than two sides in play here....

Road to Perdition (2002)

This is one of those rare times that I allow myself to review a re-viewing because I'd mostly forgotten the first viewing. I have a friend (also a bit relevantly forgetful) to thank for convincing me to give it another go, as well as for helping me understand and appreciate what was happening.

In peak Al Capone-era Chicago, 12-year-old Michael Sullivan, Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) knows that his father, Mike (Tom Hanks), has a dangerous job but gets curious about the unstated details, so he stows away in the car one night. Mike turns out to be a debt collector for the Irish Mob under John Rooney (Paul Newman), and Michael sees John's hotheaded son Connor (Daniel Craig, attempting a U.S. accent again) commit a murder even John wouldn't approve. Fearing that Michael won't keep his promise not to talk and resentful of Mike winning John's favor, Connor attempts to kill, directly or indirectly, the entire local Sullivan family, ironically missing only the two most important targets. Mike plans to take Michael to a relative in the fictitious town of Perdition, Michigan (modeled after Hell, Michigan?), but first he wants to neutralize the Rooneys' pursuing threat, possibly with Capone's aid via the one other real gangster mentioned, Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci).

Knives Out (2019)

For the first time in about 11 months, I watched what my dad chose to rent. It just so happened to be the last item on my own Netflix queue, whether I had added it most recently or simply moved more recent additions higher up. I could not tell from advertising whether there was anything innovative about the plot or it was simply another facetious whodunit, but its popularity told me to try it.

The morning after his 85th birthday, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), multimillionaire crime novelist and publishing company owner, is found bled out next to a knife in his Massachusetts home. The police are inclined to call it an open-and-shut case of suicide, but at least a few of the many people who'd recently seen him doubt it very much. So does Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), if only because an anonymous source hired him to investigate. The motive for killing a rich old man would be obvious....

Infamous (2006)

This movie was, if you will, infamously unfortunate in its timing: It came out months after Capote and had a very similar focus, so many dismissed it. It doesn't enjoy quite as high ratings from IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes. But maybe a decade of distance will help me evaluate it on its own terms.

As in Capote, Truman Capote (Toby Jones herein), already a bestselling author, gets engrossed in researching two men on death row who murdered a family after an unsuccessful burglary. Here, however, we get to see him express deeper feelings about one murderer, Perry Smith (Daniel Craig with an American accent). While partner in crime Dick Hickock (Lee Pace) is a mostly amoral motormouth, Perry is both morally and intellectually complicated -- and slow to trust anyone with his life story, tho Truman threatens to make stuff up for his new quasi-reporting style. In time, they almost develop a romance.

Spectre (2015)

I've had mixed feelings about the post-reboot James Bond series, just as I've had mixed feelings about the series as a whole. Casino Royale had a lot going for it, but not the story; I could've done without the extensive poker. Quantum of Solace was more Bourne than Bond, mainly for the worse. Skyfall became one of my favorites thanks to Javier Bardem's intelligent villainy, but it still dispensed with a number of elements we've liked about the franchise.

A title referring to the organization that Bond most frequently opposed during the Cold War seems promising for a return to the old ways. Here Bond (Daniel Craig) and his associates on Her Majesty's Secret Service gradually discover the existence of an even more secret yet powerful group, even as its influence on the government threatens to disband theirs. (Reminds me a bit of another movie from 2015.) And once again, the enmity gets personal.