Netflix Movie Review: ***^ Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

This is a very good Netflix film.  It is part of the Knives Out franchise and has the same detective, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).  However this is a different case, and a different bunch of suspects.  Blanc invites himself to a murder mystery party at the request of Helen Brand (Janelle Monáe), the twin sister of Andi Brand.  She suspects Andi was murdered, she did not commit suicide.  They are sure someone at the party is responsible.  Helen also is coming to the party as Andi to help with research.  The party is hosted by Miles Bron (Edward Norton).  The invited friends are: Claire (Kathryn Hahn), Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.), Duke (Dave Bautista), Peg (Jessica Henwick), Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and Whiskey (Madelyn Cline).  They are all enmeshed with Miles, and lied for him in court so he could take over Andi's business.  However she found some information that would prove the case, and that is the night she was murdered.  Claire is a politician dependent on Bron for support, Duke is an internet personality and hopes Bron will put him on t.v. news, whiskey is his girlfriend, but she sleeps with Bron and it is known to Duke.  Peg is Birdie Jay's assistant.  She is negotiating with Bron about a mistake Birdie Jay made.  Birdie Jay is a former model, now fashion designer and her business is dependent on Bron.  Lionel is a scientist and working on a new energy source.  Bron announces that he has used this new volatile source in his home.  Lionel protests for the lack of testing.  It was this source of energy that lead to the split between Andi and Bron.  Andi did not believe it was a viable product.  So there are a set of people who would benefit from Bron's death, here to play a game of Bron's murder.  Turns out Duke saw Bron leaving Andi's house, and so he is murdered via pineapple to which he is highly allergic.  He steals Duke's gun and shots Helen, but a book in her pocket stops the bullet.  Helen finds the evidence in Bron's glass onion room; but Bron burns it.  Sounds like everyone will lie for Bron again, so Helen starts to destroy his things, and everyone joins in.  The energy source explodes.  Everyone makes it out, and it sounds like Bron's friends are remembering things and appear willing to testify.  Money cannot buy everything forever.   

TV Review: ****Wanda Vision

 I was a faithful watcher of WandaVision as the series ran on Disney +.  It was very hard to figure out at first, and was very confusing as they went through different decades of television sitcom styles.  However the characters are very intriguing with Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda and Paul Bettany as Vision.  The sit-con episodes center around them but Vision slowly realizes that things aren't as they seem.  The have twins, Billy and Tommy played by Julian Hilliard and  Jett Klyne, who age very quickly but have their own superpowers.  Kathryn Hahn plays Agnes, who plays an important part but unwilling to give the show away won't say more.  Teyonah Parris plays Monica Rambeau (a character introduced in Captain Marvel.) Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) also shows up.  She is a character from the Thor movies and has expertise on unnatural phenomena, because the town of Westview where everything takes place is very strange and has a protective energy field around it.  Rambeau and Lewis are studying this energy.  Another interesting additional character is Pietro, Wanda's twin brother who died at the end of Avengers Ultron.  However things are not quite right as he is played by Evan Peters, who played a similar character in X-men universe rather than Marvel.  With these characters we have the making of a very good time and that is was this series is; a very good time.  I really enjoyed myself.  It will be interesting to see how these characters play into future Marvel offerings.

Marvel Universe