I'm wary of parasocial relationships, especially with actors [knowing look], but goshdarnit I just love a movie that seems like a bunch of friends having a good time that you the audience get to feel like you're in on. I know he's garbage but the idea of Shakespeare nights at Joss Whedon's house is still a charming one. This feels like the best version of that sort of thing.
I will admit, this one doesn't hold up 100% on the rewatch. For whatever reason, unlike with every Agatha Christie story I come across, my brain held onto who, in fact, dunnit. It's still a romp and the performances are more than worth it, but I wish I could shave 20 minutes off of it now that I know the plot.
Ana de Armas is perfection in her role. She's so perfectly unassuming in this, which was the first movie I saw her in, that Ben always has to convince me the absolute bombshell that shows up in her more recent films is Marta. Michael Shannon is always a source of joy for me - the quintessence of weird tall guy-hood. I appreciate how restrained Jamie Lee Curtis is and I could stand to have even more of Toni Collette's Definitely-Not-Gwenyth-Paltrow insanity.
But for me, this movie belongs to Daniel Craig and Chris Evans. Two incredibly talented actors who have been pigeonholed for their Big Brand roles, finally get to break out of them. I love asshole Chris Evans. Goodness gracious I can watch him be a villain alllll day. The little thrill I get from him rolling his eyes and mouthing "wow" sarcastically at the camera is not unlike the first bite of a luxurious dessert I feel guilty about ordering.
And Daniel Craig's bloodshot "simple country investigator" bit never tires. Never. Fuck Poirot, this is a Blanc household. All his lil sayings? I want them embroidered into my every day vocabulary. "What's the cheese?"?! What indeed.
Rian Johnson is a popular subject of ridicule in social media film discussion but he's really pretty solid. He needs to trim up the length of his pieces a little but his overall pacing and interstitial visuals are top notch. He's starting to out Edgar Wright Edgar Wright with his quick edits. I love Knives Out and Glass Onion and I cannot wait for the next installment. MORE BENOIT BLANC PLEASE!!
A Who-Donut and A Hugh-Donut
Takeaways:
-Woof. This was a long day in the kitchen of a lot of things going pear-shaped. I had rise issues with the yeast-y dough I used (though the crumb is beautiful?). I was stoked to try making donuts in our brand new fancy stove that has an air fry function because I hate deep frying on the stove (stinky! for days!) but I am unimpressed. My lil royal icing knives were problematic from top to bottom. I went about them with the utmost confidence despite very little experience with piping and royal icing. (Honestly, in hindsight, I'm mostly proud of how confident I went into this one and how well I handled how wrong I was to be confident.) I don't know how to fill donuts as I have, in fact, never made donuts before today, and that turned out predictably. I watch so many cooking shows and have seen so many jelly donuts fail ("you filled it when it was still warm and it disappeared!") that I really thought I had a handle on it. Ah well.
-My favorite part of these is the jelly filling for the Hugh-Donut which was the least planned out element. I grabbed a jar of seedless raspberry preserves at the store and when I was prepping it thought, "oh I should add some Grand Marnier" and I did and it's great.
-I worried that the idea for this one was too obvious given Benoit's hilarious lil donut diatribe but then I thought of the Super Yaki shirt "It's a Rian Johnson Whodunnit, duh!" And giggled to myself saying, "Who-donut." And here we are.
-It's also a movie about sweaters and I wanted to represent sweaters somehow, so I once again tried something I've never done before: royal icing -> cable knit sweater texture. It worked to varying degrees of effect. I thought I made a stiff as hell icing but it still spread a bunch while it hardened. Oh well.
-It's been nearly six weeks since I finished a piece for this project. I'm thrilled to be back in the saddle. Just as I head into the hardest month of the year at work, pretty much guaranteeing it'll be another six months. Ah well.
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