Tag Archives: Daniel Craig

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review — That’s our wiggly wiggly

December 12, 2025 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Rian Johnson | 144 min | ▲▲▲▲1/2 | On Netflix An earlier capsule version of this review appeared during the coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival 2025. When I first saw Wake Up Dead Man at TIFF what struck me about the third mystery featuring Benoit Blanc (a brilliant, magnetic,… Read More

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery review — Delightful return of Daniel Craig’s brilliant sleuth

November 23, 2022 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Rian Johnson | 139 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | On Netflix from December 23 A version of this review was first on FITI in September from the Toronto International Film Festival. One of 2019’s unalloyed treasures, Knives Out brought ensemble mysteries in an Agatha Christie vein very much back into the mainstream with… Read More

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Empire Of Light reviews #TIFF22

September 14, 2022 flawintheiris

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Written and Directed by Rian Johnson | 139 min One of 2019's unalloyed treasures, Knives Out brought ensemble mysteries in an Agatha Christie vein very much back into the mainstream, with a delightful dollop of eating the rich. No shade on Kenneth Branagh's efforts to do the same… Read More

A look back at James Bond 007: the Daniel Craig Era (up to No Time To Die)

October 7, 2021 flawintheiris

Daniel Craig arrived with a flourish typical of a new Bond at a press conference on the banks of the Thames. The actor had proclaimed his tough guy credentials in a zippy crime drama called Layer Cake, and looked comfortable with props (like guns) in Munich, but seemed far from a shoo-in for the role… Read More

Top 10 of 2019

January 17, 2020 flawintheiris

First off, my apologies to anyone who's been waiting for me to get off my ass and publish this list. As I explained back in the first week of January—on my 2019 Under-The-Radar movies list—I needed to see a few more before I felt like I could put this out in the world. I caught… Read More

Knives Out review — Playfully brilliant whodunit draws blood

November 27, 2019 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Rian Johnson | 130 min | Amazon Prime Bravo, Mr Johnson! The American auteur has shown he's a clever storyteller every time he's gone to bat: the teen noir Brick, the con-men hijinks of Brothers Bloom, the time travel twists in Looper, even the flawed-but-dynamic Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But… Read More

A Brief History of Spy Movies: Part Two

June 29, 2019 flawintheiris

40 YEARS OF SPY THRILLERS In the first post I watched the Harry Palmer movies, and the third I look at the film adaptations of John Le Carré novels. Here's a cross-section of stellar—and not-so stellar—spy movies through the years. The Quiller Memorandum (1966) was directed by Michael Anderson, Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay based on… Read More

Johnny English trilogy review — Inept spy squeaks by on physical gags

November 11, 2018 flawintheiris

Johnny English Strikes Again | Directed by David Kerr | Written by William Davies | 89 min I'll admit it, I wasn't all that excited to see these films. The reviews have never been great—on Rotten Tomatoes, the second film has the best score at a whopping 38%. I have plenty of respect for Rowan… Read More

Logan Lucky review — Chill heist comedy from Oceans 11 filmmaker

August 28, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Steven Soderbergh | Written by Rebecca Blunt | 118 min | Crave Plus Steven Soderbergh has always been half in love with the form of film, the craft of it, and half in love with genres. In that he shares these preoccupations with the Coen Brothers—with the parallels between their styles maybe most… Read More

Spectre review — So Big, So Beautiful, But a Bit Blah

November 7, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by Sam Mendes | Written by John Logan, Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth, from a story by Logan, Purvis and Wade, based on the Ian Fleming character | 148 min "Bond is back... and this time, it's personal!" This could have been the cheekily lame tagline for each of the four Daniel Craig… Read More