a message from Rahul Kohli 

BRENDAN FRASER accepts the award for ‘Best Actor’ at the 28th Critics Choice Awards (January 15, 2023)

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)  dir Rian Johnson

+ IMDB Trivia (insp)

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (2022)

Being trans is literally like going “I got a tattoo of a cat bc they are my favorite animal :)” and then a nationwide movement is created to go “but do you have proof that cats are your favorite animal? If we don’t have objective proof that cats are your favorite animal how can we know it’s okay to let you permanently alter your body? We should make tattoo parlors illegal because people might get tattoos of things that aren’t their actual favorite animal” like you realize you all sound insane right

I loved all of the celebrity cameos and name-dropping in Glass Onion, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how it plays into the characterization of Miles and Blanc.

Miles keeps mentioning how he has hired people like Gillian Flynn, Philip Glass, Banksy, etc. to create things for him. And we get to see how Serena Williams is on-call as a personal trainer for his guests. But…

When Blanc quickly solved the mystery game Miles had set up, my first thought was that it was really contrived and not well-crafted. The Hourly Dong was minimalistic, yes, but not Glass-like. As for the Piece-of-Shit dock, it didn’t seem very Bansky-ish (at least to me). It looked more like a generic ice sculpture than anything - interesting at first glance, but not really much beyond that.

Then, we have Serena Williams literally phoning it in as a personal trainer. She’s content to sit there and read, as she’s getting paid whether or not she actually does any training.

Miles is quick to drop these names as if all of these talented people are part of his entourage, but the quality of their work-for-hire demonstrates that they don’t give a shit about him and/or actively dislike him.

In sharp contrast, we have Blanc, who is actually close friends with people like Angela Lansbury, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, etc. These people are close enough to him to play online games with him and worry about his well-being. In fact, they’re good enough friends that Blanc’s partner can complain to them about how Blanc hasn’t left the bath for a week.

All in all, it’s a little thing in the grand scheme of the movie, but it does show just how much thought has gone into the characterization of the two male leads.

One of my favorite subtle things in Glass Onion is the way the characters wear their masks in the beginning of the movie.

Birdie, who cares about fashion, wants all eyes on her, is wearing a lace one that literally does nothing to protect her.

Lionel in his properly worn N95, like the scientist he is.

Claire, the politician, so aware of *looking* the part, quickly forgetting to keep her mask covering her nose.

Duke, in all his toxic masculinity glory, not wearing a mask at all, not caring about social distancing.

And then Blanc, who keeps his distance and wears his mask correctly, but it coordinates with his outfit because he is a bit flashy like that.

It’s such a fun and quick way to introduce the characters.

Glass Onion + Text Posts (part 1)

while the criticism of glass onion being a bourgeois art piece hegemonically negotiating hatred of the 1% into standard discourse is understandable, i think it's important to remember that rian johnson and daniel craig and whoever you want to criticise for making "performative" art about the systemic ways in which the ultrawealthy maintain power and specifically marginalize women of color are far closer in wealth to the average american than they ever will be to elon musk or any billionaire. daniel craig's net worth is $8 million dollars. his WHOLE net worth. you have to multiply that by 19,500 to get anywhere near elon musk's net worth of $156,000,000,000. and that's after he's lost $100bn this YEAR.

it's true that people shouldn't count watching movies as activism and definitely shouldn't see media produced by huge corporations as praxis, but that doesn't mean what political standpoints they do contain lack value or are disingenuous. the human mind is literally incapable of conceptualizing numbers after a certain point, so it's easy to think of hollywood rich and billionaire rich as similar, because both kinds of people live lives that most of us could barely dream of with privileges and access to resources that we will never have. but the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is the difference between being able to make a movie starring daniel craig and being able to bankroll dozens of politicians and buy one of the largest social media websites used by millions of people daily on a whim

as "rich people bad" movies go, glass onion deals with it REALLY well. the scene at the end when helen destroys miles's house demonstrates a very nuanced understanding of how billionaires maintain power; blanc recognizes and tells helen that even though they found the truth, they can't do anything legally because miles burned their only physical evidence and the courts will unequivocally side with the billionaire. again. so in lieu of any justice system that will work, helen starts breaking shit. but miles doesn't even care that much, because what's a dozen million dollar glass art pieces to a man who accrues that in interest every minute? even when everyone else joins in, he doesn't care. it's annoying, but it doesn't mean anything. so the other "disruptors" stop after they've gotten their minimal catharsis, having done no real damage to his reputation or, frankly, their reliance on him.

helen burning the mona lisa to take him down, and that being presented as the best option, is really significant. as movies go, taking the stance of "destroying priceless art and private property is not only justified and moral but effective in the face of a system that gives you no other option for justice" is pretty damn rare.

it's true that if glass onion or other high budget films actually tangibly threatened the system in any way they would never get funded or see the light of day. but the cool thing about stories, and about art, is that you can't predict the effects they have on people. anti-billionaire bourgeois art isn't direct action, it isn't activism, and it isn't even important politically, but that doesn't mean it has no effect on the discourse whatsoever and can't be important to how people see the 1%

tv appreciation week 2022  📺  the tv show with the best ending

You know what I think is really cool about language (English in this case)? It’s the way you can express “I don’t know” without opening your mouth. All you have to do is hum a low note, a high note, then another lower note. The same goes for yes and no. Does anyone know what this is called?

These are called vocables, a form of non-lexical utterance - that is, wordlike sounds that aren’t strictly words, have flexible meaning depending on context, and reflect the speakers emotional reaction to the context rather than stating something specific. They also include uh-oh! (that’s not good!), uh-huh and mm-hmm (yes), uhn-uhn (no), huh? (what?), huh… (oh, I see…), hmmn… (I wonder… / maybe…), awww! (that’s cute!), aww… (darn it…), um? (excuse me; that doesn’t seem right?), ugh and guh (expressions of alarm, disgust, or sympathy toward somebody else’s displeasure or distress), etc.

Every natural human language has at least a few vocables in it, and filler words like “um” and “erm” are also part of this overall class of utterances. Technically “vocable” itself refers to a wider category of utterances, but these types of sounds are the ones most frequently being referred to, when the word is used.

Reblog if u just hummed all of these out loud as you read them

Black Panther + text posts