In this episode, Danny Cherry, Jr., author of THE PIKE BOYS and owner of Big Easy Press, joins me to discuss Rian Johnson’s sophomore outing in the KNIVES OUT series, THE GLASS ONION. With a bigger budget and more eyes on his homage to Agatha Christie, Benoit Blanc takes on corruption in out-of-this-world orders of magnitude with a very human price: the lives of innocent people he once considered friends.
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https://books2read.com/thepikeboys
Chapters
- 00:00 The Glass Onion: A Sequel Review
- 03:05 Influence of Agatha Christie
- 04:10 Journey to Becoming a Writer
- 05:46 The Role of Sleuth Characters
- 09:55 Character Dynamics and Nuanced Portrayals
- 13:09 Exploring Genre Fiction and Character Archetypes
- 17:01 Evolution of Sleuth Characters
- 23:01 Class Divide and Character Relationships
- 28:48 Class Portrayal in Literature
- 29:28 Personal Experiences as Personal Assistants
- 31:19 The Process of Ghostwriting
- 32:33 The Impact of Deadlines on Writing
- 40:10 The Appeal of Crime Fiction to Journalists and Writers
- 36:13 The Significance of Constraints in Storytelling
- 44:06 Portrayal of Humanity in Crime Fiction
- 53:22 Character Dynamics and Performances in ‘Glass Onion’ (Knives Out 2)
Transcript:
Emily Edwards (she/her) (00:00.93)
Greetings, gumshoes, and welcome back to another episode of Silver Screen Sleuths My name is Emily Edwards. I am the author of the Girl Friday Mysteries, starting with Viviana Valentine gets her man, and friend and host to you all, hopefully. we have a wonderful guest today. I am tripping over my words because I’m so excited to chat with him. Today, my guest is Danny Cherry Jr., the author of The Pike Boys and owner of Big Easy Press, like so accomplished, and you’re like
so much younger than me and I’m just like, my God, you’re so cool. Danny, how the hell are you today?
Danny Cherry Jr. (00:32.989)
I’m doing very wonderful. Thank you for for her so much for asking. I’m excited to be here.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (00:37.93)
Yay, hooray. Like I always hope I don’t drag someone in kicking and screaming. Cause usually when I ask someone, I’m like, you’re not allowed to say no, you just have to choose a movie.
Danny Cherry Jr. (00:46.526)
Yeah, no there’s definitely a movie would love to talk about, so happy to be
Emily Edwards (she/her) (00:52.224)
so excited because we already chatted with shelley cubitz about knives out and that was a really good conversation so we’re gonna follow up with chatting with you about its sequel The Glass Onion and you know I think we all have sort of mixed feelings about this movie because it came out during essentially during lockdown during the pandemic and so like when you saw that Knives Out was getting a sequel how did you how did you were you excited? Were you like
Danny Cherry Jr. (01:12.864)
Yeah, right.
Danny Cherry Jr. (01:22.017)
I don’t know, I’m always like split on sequels because like I always feel like there’s that was the word I’m looking for, sophomore slump and I felt like the knives out movie was such a great movie. So there was this part of me that was like, Don’t do this to this film, like why are you doing this? But I was actually like pleased with Glass Onion and I’ve I’ve recently rewatched it in preparation and it’s a lot better than I remember it. Like it was good on it was a good rewatch, yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (01:46.841)
Yeah, that’s awesome. You know, I found the same way. I remember watching it right off the bat and I was just kind of like, that’s novel, you know? And then re-watching it for the show, I I it really drove home that it’s it’s a really very, very well crafted, you know, sleuth movie. Now, my question for you is, I I apologize, I’ve not yet read your book, but is it the same sort of like sleuthy concept or i is it a different crime fiction altogether?
Danny Cherry Jr. (02:15.752)
It’s a different type of crime fiction. I would compare it more to like Sopranos, Peaky Blinders, Boardwalk Empire, that type of stuff. it’s like yeah, it’s like those shows. I’m I was about to be redundant, but yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (02:30.904)
But no, that’s so interesting. So what made you choose glass onion over something that was maybe a little bit more geared towards organized crime or or crime families?
Danny Cherry Jr. (02:43.336)
I just really enjoy a good mystery. Like, even though I knew it was gonna happen at the end, it was still like very enjoyable to watch. And I also, earlier this year went on like a binge fest of Agatha Christie’s books. I think I got through twelve of them. She wrote so much stuff, like it’s yeah, yeah. So whenever I thought of a movie, I was like, Okay, I’m wanna watch something that gives me that vibe of a Agatha Christie book.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (03:05.272)
Totally. Totally. What’s your favorite Agatha C Aggie novel?
Danny Cherry Jr. (03:10.712)
crap. It’s the one where well I was about to spoil it. Roger Aykroyd. Yeah, right that is true. The Murder of Roger Aykroyd, I believe it’s called. I think I might title, but
Emily Edwards (she/her) (03:16.44)
They’re a hundred years old. It’s fine.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (03:24.734)
Yeah. The first time I read that one, it pissed me off so badly.
Danny Cherry Jr. (03:30.728)
Hmm. Yeah. One thing I like about her writing is you always feel like you know where things are going. You’re like, okay, this person is obviously the murderer. And then at the end is like, holy shit, okay, I was wrong. She did it again.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (03:44.335)
Yeah. She gets me. I remember the first Agatha Christie novel that I read was And Then There Were None. And I read that in middle school. And that’s one where they’re all on the island and you have to try to figure out who’s who’s murdering people in sequence and why. And it was so gripping to me because it was probably the first adult mystery I ever read, where it was like wasn’t specifically written for a child audience.
And that was definitely when I was like, this this is my genre. Like this is, you know, what I need to to focus on. And I was wondering, did you like what was your journey to becoming a writer? What why did you write a crime fiction novel?
Danny Cherry Jr. (04:14.164)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (04:26.196)
So my journey actually started when I was a kid. Like ever since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Like that’s something like if you talk to my uncle, he brings that up a good bit. He was like, You remember you wanted to be a comic book writer? Yeah, I wanted to be a comic book writer at first. Then I get to college and I start looking up like what that entails. And it’s like winning the lottery. Like I would have a better chance playing the lottery than becoming a comic book writer. And then I was I was like, Okay, I can go indie. Like people go indie all the time, like the guy from The Walking Dead started off as an indie
Emily Edwards (she/her) (04:44.322)
Yeah, b
Emily Edwards (she/her) (04:53.976)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (04:55.872)
That’s what I’m looking for, writer. But then I realized how much it costs to get an artist. And I was like, you know what? Prose is cheaper. So then I that’s just honestly like, don’t get me wrong, I always liked prose books, but I was like, okay, I feel like I can write a comic book. Holy shit, this costs a lot of money. I’m gonna teach myself how to write prose. And then I went to my school library and it had this like ancient book about the art of writing fiction. I don’t even remember the name of it.
And then I read it and I just fell in love. Like I was like, okay, this is how this is done. It was almost like I was learning a secret to a magic trick. And that’s when realized there is like a not a formula to writing, but like, you know, the basic, like first act, like the what’s the word I’m looking for? The hero’s journey. And then once you learn that, you can kind of put your own spin on it.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (05:40.448)
Exactly. No, that’s so cool. And you also run a a program for young writers, don’t you?
Danny Cherry Jr. (05:46.791)
yeah, it’s a non profit. It’s it’s an all age invite. Well, okay, we meet at breweries and bars and stuff like that. So maybe, you know, depending on where we’re at, you probably can’t get in if you’re under twenty-one. But we’re open to everyone. And essentially we put on about damn, I think at this point, six events a month. We start at like doing two and we have writing groups where we just meet up and as per name, we write together. But we also have industry panels and we also do a reading series and we’re
We do too much, one might say.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (06:19.712)
No, there’s no such thing as too much, especially, you know, it it is so daunting to think about writing and you know, to think about how you’re gonna break into the industry, how you’re gonna learn what to do. You know, we all have different access to like writing courses and things like that, that it’s just it can be very, very, very overwhelming when you decide that like you have a story you wanna tell and how do you even go about doing that? And w there’s this belief right now because you know, because
Self-publishing or independent publishing has gotten to be such a significant portion of the industry that, like, air quotes, anybody can do it. And that’s a really, frankly, insulting thing to to believe because it really does take practice and skill and and you know, it’s just the general know-how of where to start. it it it it is a very skilled trade. And a lot of people,
Danny Cherry Jr. (06:59.338)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (07:14.966)
you know, truly believe, especially in the era of AI, that like all you need is the idea and all you can do is and then all of a sudden magically an 80,000 word book is going to show up, or a three picture deal like Rian Johnson with his knives out series. And it’s like, no, that’s that doesn’t happen for anybody. And it really does take a phenomenal amount of work to get even like one book done and readable.
Danny Cherry Jr. (07:38.464)
Yeah, my first book, I did self publish because that was like a dream of mine to just get my work out there because I didn’t want to like wait on anyone’s permission to start publishing. And I knew it was a good book. Everybody I had so many beta readers and all but one did not like it very much. He was very critical of it. So that almost kinda like
Emily Edwards (she/her) (07:44.6)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (07:58.444)
pushed me off that path, but then I was like, you what, fuck this. I’m I like it’s a good book. I mean, if however many people out of this many people like it, it can’t be a bad book. And then I did try to query it for like a couple of months and then that’s when I was like, this sucks. This
Emily Edwards (she/her) (08:12.878)
It sucks. You know, it’s funny because Rian Johnson, you know, we think about him and his his dire his writer directorial like arc is, you know, he did the Star Wars movie that I loved and all the Star Wars fanboys hated, and now they’re like wildly critical of him. And a lot of people don’t know that his first movie outside of film school, which is this noir neo-noir movie called Brick, it took him ages.
To get that made. And it in I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but it’s an absolutely brilliant, like noir sort of murder mystery novel and or movie. And that is someplace where he’s very clearly very comfortable. And so it’s really interesting to think, and it was an independent film, but again, it costs millions of dollars to make. you know, filmmakers are working on a slightly different scale of money than we are when it comes to publishing, even though self-publishing is very expensive or it can be very expensive.
You know, i it’s a really he’s a really interesting creator and writer to look at when it comes to career arcs and what you know, the fruits of your labors can be. Because re you know, Netflix bought the second two Knives Out movies for half a billion dollars. It’s a huge
Danny Cherry Jr. (09:30.561)
Yeah, that’s a significant a lot of money. Like a lot.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (09:34.112)
It’s huge and both so apparently I was like kind of getting into the nitty gritty of it yesterday while I was researching, but Rian Johnson, Daniel Craig, and Rian Johnson’s producing partner apparently each took home over a hundred million dollars for the second two knives out movies.
Danny Cherry Jr. (09:50.709)
That is insane. Like I don’t even know what I’d do with that much money.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (09:55.201)
No, no, it’s like an ad it’s just like a clearly just like otherworldly amount of money, and which is very odd because I feel like you know, Glass Onion, and that wasn’t production, you know, like they they bought the rights for a hundred million dollars, or you know, they they got that amount of money for the rights to the two movies. And I don’t think that included like production budgets. So, you know, Glass Onion is such a visually interesting movie. and normally when you think one of my favorite things about it.
Is that normally when you think murder mysteries, you think something like the first Knibes Out movie, which is like this really sort of like gothic, dark, New Englandy old money, you know, aesthetic, or you think something along the lines of Peaky Blinders where it’s like foggy city streets, you know, dark alleys and things like that. And my favorite thing about Glass Onion is that it takes place on an island in Greece, and it’s nothing but bright sunlight, no shadows.
No clouds. And I was wondering like, you did that it did it kind of like catch you off guard with this sort of aesthetic that he was working with?
Danny Cherry Jr. (11:05.119)
Honestly for me, I actually really liked that, you know, the filmography of it or whatever the term is. But yeah, the cinematography, yes, that’s it. I think it lended itself well ’cause it like the movie, how kinda put it, balanced tones. Like it’s obviously a murder mystery, but it was also really funny at points.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (11:11.47)
the cinematography of it, yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (11:24.726)
Yeah. And and you know, and I think the other thing that really kind of caught people off guard, especially compared to the first Knives Out movie, which was again very like new New Englandy, old money, this one established family, even though like obviously there there’s such like a like a class and and racial component to the first Knives Out. But the second one is you know, the cast is way more diverse, which I really, really appreciated because when you go back to the old Agatha Christie novels.
It’s almost exclusively like stiff upper lip, rich white British people. And I really and I saw some people kind of going, the diversity of glass onion was really I felt was really forced. And I didn’t find it really forced at all.
Danny Cherry Jr. (12:10.686)
No, I I don’t think it was forced at all. I mean, we live in a very diverse country. I mean, it’s I think it was just a sample size of what America looks like. I mean, so I don’t think it was forced at all, in my opinion. So that’s just maybe.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (12:23.5)
Yeah. Yeah. And I was really unfamiliar with Janelle Monet’s acting before she was in this movie. And she was just absolutely incredible. Like
Danny Cherry Jr. (12:30.143)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (12:38.32)
yeah, I feel like that entire cast killed it. Dave Batista, in my opinion, is a better actor than what he gets credit for.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (12:46.386)
No lie. He’s so good in this movie. I think, you know, I know that in the past when he was in Guardians of the Galaxy, you know, that is a very sort of like direct, you know, acting job for him. And I think it’s really important because a lot of people with Guardians of the Galaxy and Drax, like I saw a lot of people talking about like
How the character reminded them of being autistic and, you know, and just sort of taking everything very literally. And I thought that was a really interesting read on the character. But this, and again, knowing Dave Bautista’s like politics and his own personal, you know, leanings towards things, is he’s a super lefty, like really cool guy. And for him to play this big, like meathead men’s rights activist, I thought was just a really, really interesting casting.
Danny Cherry Jr. (13:33.172)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (13:37.942)
Like wha the politics at play in this movie are they’re very like bald faced, like they don’t lie about what the politics are, which I think is really interesting for a murder mystery, because normally murder mysteries are about secrets.
Danny Cherry Jr. (13:45.536)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (13:54.121)
Yeah, I agree with that. I love the way that like this feels like just a call back to Agatha Christie. This feels like an Agatha Christie story, but with modern sensibilities. Like I I loved him as a right wing influencer. And I also love the part where like where you know he’s streaming and then we realize, he’s in his mom’s basement.
Like I feel like that truly encapsulates like part of this like movement, like that trope of like these guys shit posing from their mom’s house or their parents’ house. Like I just I found that so funny.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (14:24.877)
Yeah. And I and I love that like his mom solves the puzzle for him. Like he doesn’t. It’s so good. But he still has like it’s funny because he still has like the trappings of like the hot blonde girlfriend. And I just love that sort of playing with you know, just like power and who has access to power and things like that. Because another one of my favorite characters in in the movie, again, it’s not a huge cast, but there’s more
Danny Cherry Jr. (14:29.512)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (14:39.616)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (14:53.305)
People than you expect there to be is Catherine Hahn’s character, where she’s playing like the governor of my home state of Connecticut. And I think she does it really, really well. And it understands the politics of that sort of you know, we mean to do well, but we’re gonna do it by like looking down our nose at you, where she’s like, she’s kind of a bitch the entire time.
Danny Cherry Jr. (15:11.967)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, especially towards my god, I’m blanking on the name. She’s the supermodel, but she’s kind of ditzy. yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (15:23.9)
Birdie, yeah. Kate Hudson’s character.
Danny Cherry Jr. (15:27.784)
Yes, Kate Hudson’s character. Like she was mean to her the entire movie. I feel like.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (15:32.751)
I and I like the conceit that they’re all best friends and it’s like they hate each other so much.
Danny Cherry Jr. (15:39.23)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (15:43.851)
Yeah, I I kinda really like that dynamic because it also kinda shows how the billionaire guy kinda all had them by the by the balls pretty much because he they all relied on him. So that kind of forced them to kinda have to like stay together so to some weird extent because they all had to suck up to him because in various ways he’s funding their lives.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (16:00.62)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (16:05.359)
Absolutely. I and I like so the introduction of Benoit Blanc into this group of characters, you can tell that they’re all so uncomfortable. They have no idea why he’s there, they have no idea who he is. And I think one of the things that again, Agatha does so well in all of her books is you know, because I
Benoit Blanc is someone I would love to be friends with. He’s so smooth. He’s so debonair. He’s so, you know, he has that movie star charisma because he’s he’s Daniel Craig. That, like, if you’re not a bad person, you’re gonna be drawn to his sense of confidence and his sense of power. And I think it’s really interesting for Rian Johnson to have made Benoit Blanc this really charismatic.
Danny Cherry Jr. (16:43.87)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (16:49.727)
Yes.
Danny Cherry Jr. (17:01.984)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (17:02.239)
interesting magnetic guy when a lot of Agatha Christie’s sleuth characters like Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot are really off-putting people that no one really wants to be around.
Danny Cherry Jr. (17:16.094)
They are. And I feel like Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, like he really like enhances that movie. Because there’s like I feel as though at least there’s these like PI tropes of just being so down and dour and just like, my past trauma informs who I am now. Whereas like with Benoit Blanc, him being kind of like quirky and upbeat and charismatic enhances the movie. Like it helps with this tone of like how it’s a murder mystery, but it’s also kind of fun to watch.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (17:44.249)
Yeah, like have you spent a lot of time reading things like Maltese Falcon or any of the the or like I’m sorry?
Danny Cherry Jr. (17:54.689)
I’m no my wife had to run in the room and grab something. It’s okay.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (18:00.304)
Don’t worry about it. I just thought you said something and I was like, I don’t want to interrupt
Danny Cherry Jr. (18:04.914)
No, no, you’re good. She forgot something up in there she had to grab, so
Emily Edwards (she/her) (18:11.311)
I always want to say hi to people who walk through the room. but have you spent a lot of time reading things like the Maltese Falcon, like the Sam Spade novels or the Philip Marlowe novels, where like the big famous noir detectives from sort of like post World War One, post World War Two?
Danny Cherry Jr. (18:26.27)
Hmm. I never got into the Maltese Falcon, but I did read the Fault Philip Marlowe books. But one thing is my god, Teddy. Sorry.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (18:36.223)
He’s fine, don’t worry, he’s so cute.
Danny Cherry Jr. (18:38.816)
But one thing about those books is that they are confusing as hell. Like I feel like there’s just so much, but like it’s something about Raymond Chandler’s writing style that I really like. So that carries me through to the end. And they’re not very long books either, in my opinion. So it’s like I kind of put up with the confusingness of the plot. But like he layers plot point over plot point. And if you forget something, you’re like, where the hell did this come into play?
Emily Edwards (she/her) (18:43.479)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (19:06.681)
Yes. Like they they are really confusing. I’m trying to think of The Long Goodbye, which is I think is one of Robert Altman’s like best movies. It’s the one with Elliot Gould playing Philip Marlowe. And it’s really, really, really good. And it’s very 1970s, but it does a really good job of streamlining that book because you’re right, like they’re unbelievably confusing. They will mention
Danny Cherry Jr. (19:26.4)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (19:31.097)
people by the first name in like one sentence and then they bring them up like forty pages later and you’re never like I never have any idea who any anybody is. Everybody’s on drugs all the time and it’s just like it I you know, and and the PI is half the time too, where you’re just kind of like, I get you were passed out drunk, but like I didn’t glean anything from that chapter.
Danny Cherry Jr. (19:43.209)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (19:55.679)
Yeah, no, like I remember I made the mistake of putting down one of Raymond Chandler’s books for like a week or two because I had, you know, life was lifing. I had stuff going on. And then I tried picked it up like two weeks later and I was like, I have no idea what’s going on.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (20:09.241)
have to start all over. But they are really depressing. Like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade are s are deeply messed up. and you know, a lot of Noir is just like, I was in World War One and now I have mental health issues that I the people of my generation have no concept of and nothing is gonna treat it except for Burton. And like it’s it’s really an interesting like time and like capsule of time for things.
But we did really get caught up for a very long time that every PI, every sleuth, every mystery has to be about like your own personal demons. And I like that to an extent. Like I really, really like those books. But I love the fact that Benoit Blanc has no demons. He is just, you know, he’s just it, he’s just a guy who’s gonna find.
Danny Cherry Jr. (20:50.623)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (21:07.693)
this the the answer. And it’s really refreshing that we have this generation of sleuths that are allowed to care about other people as opposed to do everything through like being jaded and angry.
Danny Cherry Jr. (21:23.218)
I agree with that. And like this okay, so this series is I didn’t even begin this series yet, but Benoit Blanc actually inspired a character that I do wanna write about one day. this would be a horror mystery novel, like it’s solving more murders but with ghosts involved and stuff like that. And like
Emily Edwards (she/her) (21:38.627)
I need this.
Danny Cherry Jr. (21:40.041)
Yeah, and I do because like I do write a lot about trauma in my work, even in my like sci-fi stuff that I publish with magazines. And there’s a part of me that’s like, I c I feel like there’s more to life than just straight up trauma. Like not everybody’s informed by their past trauma. So I want a character that’s like, you know, he had a normal childhood. Like he like some people do have normal childhoods and like that did inspire this like PI to
detective that can see the dead and whatnot that I do want to write about one day.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (22:10.491)
I’m so excited about this. That that sounds really, really fun. I feel like there’s there’s been a lot of crossover in genre fiction lately. Like this huge bestseller that just went absolutely banana pants like earlier this year was like a romance mystery, like a romance who done it. And you know, it read very nice it also took place in LA. So I was like, let’s see what they’re talking about, because it was fun to to see that. But I thought that was a really interesting, you know.
Different dynamic to to that. and now I think I think horror mystery is going to be a huge thing in a couple years. So please write that right now because I think it’s gonna be really, really exciting. but I feel like at first, when I first saw that they were casting Daniel Craig to be a sleuth and
Danny Cherry Jr. (22:51.24)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (23:01.269)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (23:02.849)
It’s one of those things where you’re like, good, a handsome man is gonna be the leader of a movie. Ooh, groundbreaking. But I think ever since he retired from Bond, Daniel Craig has done has always chosen. I don’t think he’s played heterosexual in a movie since he left Bond, which is a really interesting choice for him. And I think it’s it’s also really interesting that Rian Johnson.
Danny Cherry Jr. (23:10.229)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (23:27.646)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (23:32.451)
Who’s married to Karina Longworth, who’s really, really cool and you know, she’s just a fantastic human being. I th I I wonder how you feel about ma explicitly making Benoit Blanc gay in in the second movie.
Danny Cherry Jr. (23:49.218)
I had no problem with it all. I actually kinda like it. That kinda also just tears down this archetype of the Machismo PI, like the gruff, like, I drink all the time and I’m so sad. Like archetype that has existed in mystery for so long. Like I really genuinely like the fact that Benoit Blanc is the complete opposite of all that. Like he’s just so charming and like it’s just he really does like make every scene.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (24:17.439)
really does. Like, there’s no aspect of because part of like the womanizing aspect of a lot of different, like sort of mid-century PIs is they, you know, they they drink, they womanize, they get into bar fights, they fight with the cops, and you’re just kind of like the self-destructive bent is interesting, but I can’t imagine that it lends itself to crime like good crime fighting in any way. You know what I mean? Like
Danny Cherry Jr. (24:46.921)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (24:47.929)
Like to me, this is a very again, the way that I write is that the person they can have emotions about things, but you know, figuring out a murder mystery is a very poiro sort of all I need is my brain in order to sit and think about how these things go together. And I always thought it was really interesting that we got
into the mode that like, no, a barroom fight is going to solve this mystery. And it’s like, a bar room fight is not going to solve a mystery. It’s just not.
Danny Cherry Jr. (25:20.681)
Yeah, like when I was younger and I started getting into mystery fiction, I kinda liked that entire like what you’re talking about, like the bar f barroom fight scenes, the the self destructive nature. But the older I get, I kinda really like the more what’s where I’m looking for? People just using their brains. Like people just, you know, like kinda like Hercule Poirot or like Benoit Blanc. Like I actually
I don’t know, I guess probably ’cause I was in my early twenties and I liked shit like that, like just the violence of it all, but like I actually appreciated now that I’m er older, you know, people being able to think their way through things.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (25:55.907)
Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, I don’t think that media informs people’s actions to the same extent that like when I grew up in the nineties, where like Al Gore’s wife was like, my gosh, if you listen to music with swear words, you’re gonna end up being like this horrible person. And I don’t think that or video games is the reason why everything is happening. Like, obviously, I grew up with enough of that messaging to know that that’s false. But I do really like you know.
Danny Cherry Jr. (26:20.395)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (26:24.247)
Rian Johnson’s characterization of these people in that especially with Glass Onion, it’s a lot of what’s happening is cause people are really fucking dumb.
Danny Cherry Jr. (26:38.537)
Yeah. Yeah. Like that one thing Rian Johnson did that I appreciated this time around that I didn’t really catch the first time is that he really did add some nuance to the character of Duke’s girlfriend, Whiskey. Like she started off kinda like the what’s where I cut, how can I put this? This Ditzy girlfriend blonde archetype but then as she went on you start to realize, this is actually a very nuanced character. And like, you know, and then
Emily Edwards (she/her) (26:39.439)
Ha ha ha.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (26:53.304)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (27:05.731)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (27:08.447)
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Like where I was like, Okay, this is actually a lot more a nuanced character than I remember.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (27:14.583)
Yeah, I I think her character and the assistant character to Bertie, whose name I’m forgetting off the top of my head. I’m gonna look that up. Peg, who’s Bertie’s assistant. Like I she because you know, we have again another sort of thing that happens a lot notoriously in Agatha Christie novels is that you have the divide between upstairs and downstairs. You’ve got
Danny Cherry Jr. (27:40.981)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (27:41.028)
The lords and ladies walking around upstairs. And then you’ve got the maids and the cooks and the butlers downstairs. And the maids and the cooks and the butlers, they see more than, you know, and and every, you know, mustache twirling sort of sleuth is like, I know I’m gonna go talk to the maid because she’s gonna have all these secrets. And it’s like, yeah, that’s not novel. We all kind of know that by a certain point. But when you put them on a high tech island where, you know,
Up or downstairs has been sort of taken over by Alexa, essentially, you know. I really like the fact that the people with servants, they don’t see their servants as servants. And I think that that’s a really interesting thing he did with this because these are the type of terrible people who truly believe that they don’t live in a society with class anymore. You know, they don’t see
Like, well, because she is not wearing a black and white uniform with a little, you know, apron on, she’s not my maid. And I think that that was a really smart thing for Rian Johnson to sort of pull front and center.
Danny Cherry Jr. (28:44.085)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (28:48.997)
I definitely agree with that. And yeah, you’re exactly right about how Agatha Christie portrayed class in her books. Like, yeah, I never thought about it that way. Like I always knew it was there subconsciously. But yeah, there definitely was that upstairs, downstairs divide. Whereas like it seemed like, you know, Bertie and Peg were somewhat friends, like, even though like Peg was her assistant. So I’d really appreciate that. Like he really did truly
Emily Edwards (she/her) (29:11.492)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (29:14.815)
Just I know I probably keep talking about Agatha Christie, but I love her work so much. He really did enhance a lot of the tropes that she started. But for modern sensibilities, like it really yeah, I just I l I love his series, the Knives Out series.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (29:28.995)
Yeah, like I was someone’s personal assistant when I was in my twenties. And it was the weirdest experience, like working experience I’ve ever had, because like he was a wine critic. And so I would I would go and pick up like his prescriptions and his dry cleaning and stuff like that. And his wife would send me on errands all the time. But like I was also his ghostwriter. So, you know, if he had a he had a daily radio show on like major radio networks.
Danny Cherry Jr. (29:33.749)
Things
Emily Edwards (she/her) (29:57.238)
in LA in New York City. And then I also like one day he just declared it was like, we’re going to have a two-hour internationally syndicated radio show about like fine fine food and wine and things like that. And you and you’re gonna be my producer. But I was still also expected to like pick up his prescriptions and like run errands for him. And so it’s this really weird balance that you have where it’s like I
Danny Cherry Jr. (30:18.153)
And
Emily Edwards (she/her) (30:24.641)
was asked to shuttle him to events all the time and like I had to like watch his grandkids and and like take care of the dog. You know, and you’re treated sort of like don’t be shown. But then like when they need you to care about their own personal lives, then all of a sudden you’re a friend and you have to listen and things like that. And it’s a really uncomfortable dynamic
When you know that, like if they weren’t paying you $30,000 a year, like, you know, you would not give a rat’s ass about these people. And I feel like Rian Johnson really captures that sort of, you know, I realize I’m getting to do things, I have access to things by being this person’s assistant. But if they were not paying me, I would be happier and not here. And it would be way better if I wasn’t here.
Danny Cherry Jr. (31:18.431)
Yeah. Yeah. got a question for you. So you were said you were a ghostwriter for this guy as well.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (31:19.503)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (31:25.047)
Yeah, yeah. I I wrote a lot of articles for his magazine and things like that as well.
Danny Cherry Jr. (31:30.081)
It’s like what is that process like? D did he provide feedback or were you able to like sorry if I’m derailing the conversation?
Emily Edwards (she/her) (31:36.632)
no, it’s fine. No, no, it was it was very it was a free for all, like truthfully. Like, I had had a little bit of experience prior to working for him, but it was just sort of like you’re gonna do these things to the best of your ability. Essentially, whatever I wrote, he was just like fantastic and slapped his name on it and it was fine. So, you know, I I learned a lot.
doing that, but at the same time, it was very bizarre to sort of never get feedback, to never really I don’t know. It it made making a podcast really easy because once you have a deadline, and this is something that like I think a lot of writers struggle with, is that once you have a deadline, you become a much better writer. And so like there’s no time to sit and think and get lost in your thoughts and get lost in your panic and things like that. So
You know, there were certainly shows that I did that were way better than others, but you know, you always hit a certain level of quality when you have to do the same thing every single day or every single week. And you have to make sure that every Saturday morning I had to have a show ready to go. You know, and I was only one person. Other radio shows have staffs of like five people. And I was one person, you know, scheduling the interviews, editing the interviews, you know, writing.
you know, 10 minutes of chat, you know, and th or like monologues that he would write and stuff like that was a two hour show. And so it was like, yeah, that had to happen. And so you just get really good at it. And I think that’s not enough people who are writers in a s in even fiction writers give themselves hard enough deadlines.
Danny Cherry Jr. (33:23.765)
Yeah, I really agree with the whole deadlines thing. Well, first of all, that sounds very hardcore that you were able to do all that by yourself. I just wanna I don’t wanna like bypass that at all. I probably would have crumbled under all that pressure if I’m being real with you. But Yeah, I would imagine not. Jeez. But yeah, I do agree with the whole deadlines thing because I was muscle journalist and
Emily Edwards (she/her) (33:37.465)
Thank you. It wasn’t fun.
Danny Cherry Jr. (33:48.712)
One thing that in my opinion that you don’t want to do is to constantly tell your editor like, okay, I’m gonna need an extension. Okay, I’m gonna need an extension. I need another extension. And I write for mainly a monthly magazine. And just the way that the nature of the publishing works is that if a story so I pretty much have to plan my stories out like six weeks in advance. I have a story that needs to be out in September. I gotta start planning that shit in July so I can have it to the press.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (34:08.899)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (34:16.927)
the so it could be printed out in mid August. So like that deadline actually helped me become a better fiction writer too. Because now I was able to like put what’s what I’m looking for. Once I had limits put on me, like a deadline put on me, I was able to then put it on myself because it forces you to not think about it too much. Like I remember my first deadline for the first like big magazine that I wrote for was Buzzfeed News. I picked
Emily Edwards (she/her) (34:44.471)
Ooh.
Danny Cherry Jr. (34:45.185)
On a Wednesday, they accepted my story on a Friday. And then they told me, Can you have this in on Monday? And I was like, Holy shit, okay, I have so like I sat there churning out word after word. In total, it was about two two thousand words, but I probably wrote eight thousand because I I kept starting over and I just slapped what work together and I was like, Okay, this is my story. I hope you like it. I mean
Emily Edwards (she/her) (35:08.269)
Yeah. Exactly. This is the best I could t my my husband used to work for my husband’s a composer for film and he used to work for another composer. And my favorite bit of advice that I ever got or that came from this man was nobody cares what you can do. They care what you can do in two hours. And I think that that is like the most wonderful advice about working in a creative field. It’s just like ever someone
Everyone has a modicum of genius in them somewhere, you know, about what they can create and what they can do. Whether or not you can work on a deadline is an entirely different thing.
Danny Cherry Jr. (35:46.24)
Yeah, yeah, those deadlines could be killer. It’s but I do I’ve learned to appreciate them because it also gets me to turn off my internal editor. Like I’ve been doing this for a while now, like taking writing seriously as something I want to do full time as a career. And for me, a deadline is no better way, like there’s no way better than a deadline to help you shut down that internal critic because you don’t have a choice. Like you have to get it done.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (35:53.943)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (36:08.811)
Mm. Yeah.
Totally. No, and you know what? I’m gonna bring this around because it’s gonna be really I hope this makes sense. But one of the things that I think Rian Johnson does exceptionally well in all of these movies is that he does create constraints really, really well for all of for all of his things. And you know, so knives out, you knew that the murderer had to be in the family because it was all about the family and it all has to be about these horrible, selfish, you know, self-centered people.
Danny Cherry Jr. (36:37.28)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (36:42.839)
And I think one of the things that’s really great about Glass Onion is that he made he made the very specific point of having it be on an island. And and I think that’s one of my favorite things that I have grasped onto. Have you watched Widows Bay yet? The show on Fantastic, you know, and there’s there’s a line in it, and it’s sort of like a comedy horror mystery thing. Really, really good like overlapping of of genres. And you know, at some point the mayor
Danny Cherry Jr. (37:04.939)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (37:11.989)
goes like, you you have to put up a perimeter. He’s trying to tell the police chief, you have to put up a perimeter. And the perm and the police chief goes, there is a perimeter. We’re on an island. And I think and I think that the the wonderful play that Rian Johnson does in Glass Island or Glass Onion is that you think that everything is what it is because it’s specific people are invited to an island.
Danny Cherry Jr. (37:22.218)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (37:41.545)
And he does so well at finding weak spots in the constraints that he’s put upon himself by, you know, it seems a little cheap, but having Andy or Janelle Monet’s character be an identical twin is, you know, he he kinda I was reading an interview with him and he was like, I hate that I kind of wrote myself into that corner.
Danny Cherry Jr. (37:57.451)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (38:06.138)
But it does work really, really well in this because that is the weakness in the wall.
Danny Cherry Jr. (38:09.066)
It does.
Danny Cherry Jr. (38:13.097)
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s definitely true. Like, I really liked the twin pli the twin twist. Jesus. I think it did work very well because, like, I mean, as a fellow writer, like sometimes you do write yourself into these like walls. And I mean, I’m sure some people didn’t appreciate it, the the twin twist, but I couldn’t I liked it. Like I, you know, this time around I not only watched it for the film for enjoyment, I watched it for the
Emily Edwards (she/her) (38:31.47)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (38:41.611)
craft aspects as well because mystery fiction in some ways also does work like sci-fi and fantasy because like once you get into genre you have to set rules. If not, nothing you does like will make sense to the reader. And if anything can happen, that loses the stakes. And like I like that like all the puzzle pieces he put there were right there in that room in the constraints that he built. And
Emily Edwards (she/her) (38:52.048)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (38:58.565)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (39:06.751)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, he did lose use a loophole to write himself out of that constraint that he put himself in. But again, it works, especially with the twist being that she wasn’t actually killed. You know, the whole hot sauce scene where he puts hot sauce on her and when they’re outside the house. Yeah, so I yeah, I think, yeah, d to me, I think the layering of those twists and the constraints you’re talking about, like it’s it worked very well for me.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (39:22.136)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s so smart.
Danny Cherry Jr. (39:33.683)
I did also read some reviews of the movie online because I was just trying to see what other people were saying about it in preparation for this. There were some people that did not appreciate that, but you know, people are haters.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (39:41.649)
Yeah, exactly. No, you know what’s really interesting to go back to something we were chatting about three minutes ago is almost everybody that I’ve spoken to for this show, and this is I’m wondering why, and I don’t have an answer for this. most of us have at least an editorial or journalist background. And I wonder what you might think it is that all of us who have crafted
you know, stories that go out to the public or radio shows in my case that went out to the public. Why we seem to like crime fiction so much?
Danny Cherry Jr. (40:23.231)
Honestly, I never really thought about that. That actually is a good question.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (40:26.692)
Yeah. Like I wonder if it’s the hook aspect of it. Like when you’re writing a piece that goes out and you’re like, so when I was in college, I had this professor. I took a class in magazine writing. And I had this professor, and she was my favorite professor ever. And whenever I tell people the story of what she used to do to us in class, they’re like, This woman was your favorite. And I was like, Yes, she was. Where we had to pitch her stories like she was the editor of our magazine. And we would come up with a pitch.
Danny Cherry Jr. (40:38.646)
Mm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (40:48.237)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (40:55.906)
And she would sit there and scream at you. I don’t care. Like, I don’t care. I don’t care about the story. I don’t care about this story yet. I don’t care. I don’t care. And you had to on the fly change the pitch of what you were telling her for the story that you wanted to write until you found the hook of the story. And she’d be like, that’s your story. Go and write it.
And so we would have to, you know, and she would sit there and she always wore bright red lipstick and it smeared all over her teeth. And she was just like the most interesting older woman I’ve ever met in my life. And she had a cane and she’d shake it at you. It was great. And I loved her class because she always got me to find the hook. She she really trained my brain to figure out like what someone was gonna give a damn about in the story that I was writing. And I think that crime fiction.
works really well if you’re really good at finding the h the soul of a story. You know what I mean?
Danny Cherry Jr. (41:55.946)
Mm-hmm. I definitely agree with that. And I can see why that person was your favorite teacher, in my opinion. Cause I have an editor I work with. her name’s Holly. She works at Anti-Gravity magazine. And she’s really liked that with me. Like she really did help me become a better journalist because I’ll send in a draft and it’ll just be red ink. Well, we’re in Google Docs, but figurative red ink over everything. And she’s like, Danny, what is this story about? Like you’re almost there.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (42:17.711)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (42:23.155)
And then like it’s not like she would give me the answer. And like there was one story where she almost broke me, but the story was like better for it. So anyway, I like that type of editing where it’s almost like you were with a physical trainer and so somebody that wants you to be the best that you can be. But Yeah. I’m still thinking about that question of why journalists are drawn to crime fiction. That really is a good question that I’ve never thought about before.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (42:39.29)
Yeah Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (42:47.034)
Yeah, ’cause I’ve never I’ve never done investigative journalism. I’ve always just written about like lifestyle stuff. You know, it’s like, you know, this new wine is coming out, this restaurant is opening, stuff like that. And and do you you have to get you have you know, but my friend Keith, who’s been on the show multiple times, he was a straight up like investigative journalist in Indiana. And he was like, Yeah, you know, that
That trope of like a journalist sitting in the car, you know, like waiting for someone to get in the car and like give him information. He’s like, Yeah, we actually did that in the 70s and 80s. And I’m like, I I could never do that. That would scare the living shit out of me. But like there is something about like wanting to write for people and just like and get into their brains and figuring out like how to sort of
I don’t want to use the word manipulate, but it is manipulation to get people to care about something. Because I’m I’m really fascinated by why we care about murder mysteries and why you know the social justice aspect of it. Because one of my favorite things about Cozy Mysteries, which this sort of is, and private investigators, is how the people in the characters in the story decide who gets justice and why.
And I think what’s really fascinating about Glass Onion at the end is all these people are committed to being reprehensible. They’re like, this man is terrible. He’s killed someone we supposedly cared about, but he’s got all the money. So we’re gonna have to continue to kiss his ass. And within the matter of minutes, Rian Johnson explosively blows that up.
Danny Cherry Jr. (44:36.233)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (44:36.28)
And then all of a sudden shows them having a change of heart. And you hate them for it a little bit, but you understand that the second he doesn’t have money, they’re happily like happy to drop him like a hot rock and walk away. And it’s so incisive into like personal, you know, politics and things like that.
Danny Cherry Jr. (45:00.341)
Yeah, and I think that might be part of why like a lot of journalists may be like drawn to crime fiction the more think about it.
Because okay, so I’ll use myself as an example as to not write talk about all crime writers. The reason why I’m drawn to crime fiction is because I feel as though that’s like if there’s a Venn diagram, crime fiction would be in the middle. And then there’s politics, there’s classism, there’s race. Like there’s a lot of politics in my first book, The Pike Boys. And I was able to apply context for people listening. I’m a political journalist, that’s the type of journalism I do.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (45:12.718)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (45:36.585)
I was able to put all of my knowledge about politics, about classism, social, political stuff into that book in a way that I just would not be able to in sci-fi and fantasy. I hope I didn’t piss off anyone that likes sci-fi and fantasy. I’m sure that that you can do classism and racism and that stuff too, but anyway. But yeah, I feel like it lends itself better than to to crime fiction.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (45:59.494)
Yeah. Like I one of the things like I started writing my first book kind of like right after Trump got elected. And I was just, you know, and everybody was walking around going like, we’re gonna go back to the great American nineteen fifties. And I, you know, this is nothing new, but I was just like, Let’s write a crime fiction novel set in nineteen fifty and tell everybody how much it fucking sucked. And so it was just like I got to go into, you know, New York City in nineteen fifty and be like
You know, Robert Moses was tearing down the city and, you know, and and ruining neighborhoods and flattening neighborhoods. And you couldn’t have certain jobs if you were certain genders and there weren’t queer people weren’t allowed. And, you know, all immigrants became cops because it was the only, you know, job, but it also gave them a semblance of power and things like, you know, that they felt powerless. And that’s what led to corruption and the mafia and all that stuff. And like, you know, people pick up this book, and there’s a huge subset of people who will pick up my book and be like,
I want a cute mystery novels that 1950 where the girl does it and then they get like halfway through the book and they’re just like, no, this woman is not conservative and not talking about how great the 1950s were. Like she really gets into the nitty, I really get into the nitty-gritty of like how much the 1950s sucked. And it’s I’ve gotten some really bad reviews from people who are like, you know, kind of affronted with this.
And I think that’s one of the like the like the secrets that we get to keep in our back pocket when it comes to writing crime fiction is that like you get to make the villain villainous for more complicated reasons than just like he’s the bad guy.
Danny Cherry Jr. (47:35.177)
Mm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (47:41.344)
Yeah. Yeah, no, I definitely get that. Yeah. I’m trying to think ’cause I’ve also gotten like bad reviews for my book and the criticism is the fact that I do focus so much on the sociopolitical stuff and the like character development instead of like, you know, I I think some people expected it to just be like all rum running and bootlegging and like people getting shot at, which that’s in there, but that’s not what I wanted it to just be about. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her) (48:09.872)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (48:11.071)
Yeah, I’ve had similar reviews.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (48:13.937)
They’re really fun and educational because I know I there’s been like a huge upswing of people, again, like across threads, especially, is where I’ve seen it, where people have read their bad reviews and then they attack the reviewer. And one of the things that I think Rian Johnson does really, really, really well that I like to emulate in a professional life is that.
You know, he gets so much unearned shit because of what he did with with Star Wars, and people really expected a different kind of story out of him. And granted, the it’s a lot easier to do when you have a hundred million dollar check in your back pocket, but he’s just like, Nope, I’m gonna write what I’m gonna write and screw you if you don’t like it. And that’s just like it’s a really good takeaway. You know, granted, I also wouldn’t give a
Ass about what anybody thought of me if someone handed me a hundred million dollar check. But, you know, it is something to keep in mind as you go forward, which is, you know, he’s always been this guy. He’s always, you know, written in the same genre. He’s always been really, really fascinated with, you know, who’s who what victims get looked into. You know, like his first movie, Brick.
Danny Cherry Jr. (49:08.159)
Mm-hmm.
Danny Cherry Jr. (49:17.675)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (49:31.459)
If I recall correctly, it’s like this a teenage girl gets murdered and everybody just kind of goes like, well, she deserved it because, you know, she was kind of like a slutty teenage girl. And he, you know, he really gets people into the like, no, she didn’t deserve whatever happened to her because, you know, teenage girls are also people and their murders should probably be investigated. And like, he gets really into, you know, like giving people.
Danny Cherry Jr. (49:48.129)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (50:00.342)
Humanity in a w like that’s my favorite thing about crime fiction, especially PI fiction, was like you get to give people the humanity that the rest of the world doesn’t want to give them.
Danny Cherry Jr. (50:10.593)
That is very true. Like it’s almost like to some extent crime fiction can be a window into how can I put this? Sorry, my dog’s distracting the line right now. Anyway, I had a tr he made me he started doing that thing dogs do when they just start shaking. Anyway, I was about to say something.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (50:20.379)
That’s fine.
Danny Cherry Jr. (50:28.551)
Okay. Yeah, I feel like crime fiction can be a window into someone’s soul. It can be a magnifying glass on society. And there’s this quote that Dennis Lahane once said that as I am talking, I realize I do not remember how it went. But anyway, there is Yes. Okay, one second.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (50:43.729)
Do you want to look it up? We can if you want. Totally. That’s why I edit. I do stuff like this all the time.
Danny Cherry Jr. (50:54.847)
I’m typing as fast as I can.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (50:57.167)
You’re good. I don’t care.
Danny Cherry Jr. (51:05.473)
he said so much cool shit. okay, this is gonna be hard to Google. but I will paraphrase wait, hold on. I’m having some tech issues now. Can you hear me? Okay. So I’ll paraphrase and said that, and say that he said something to the effect of that like Shakespeare or, you know, those type of plays is about people falling from the greatest heights, whereas crime fiction can be about someone falling from the curb. Like as in like, you know, you can like
Emily Edwards (she/her) (51:15.056)
You’re good.
Danny Cherry Jr. (51:35.071)
You can zoom in on people and their everyday issues if that makes sense. He said it much better, but anyway, I hope that made a modicum of sense. If not, feel free to cut this out.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (51:44.107)
No
No, that’s absolutely brilliant. Like I’m I’m thinking about that in like that that’s a beautiful way to cy to, you know, sum up crime fiction of, you know, I’m gonna be thinking about that for a little while because that no, it’s so true. Like I like to a lot of people think about crime fiction through the lens of like puzzling and putting and you know, I did an episode on Sherlock Holmes with Katy Watson earlier this year.
And or earlier in the season. And she was like, you know, British people, we like setting everything back to rights. You know, you like setting everything back into order. And I feel like American crime fiction is slightly different because we have America doesn’t have the same adherence, essentially, to social order. Like obviously we got one, but like it’s it’s a slightly more malleable dependency.
Danny Cherry Jr. (52:38.443)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (52:41.163)
especially depending on where you live, concept of what is order and what is disorder. And I think that one of the things that Rian Johnson does really well in his movies is that w setting things back to rights is not giving people their money back, you know, or letting Miles Braun, or who’s like Ed Norton, who’s absolutely brilliant in that movie, which, you know.
We’ll just say that he’s absolutely brilliant, but like it’s not letting him continue down the pathway that he has. Like setting things back to rights might be taking things away from people. And that’s like something Rian Johnson does really, really well in these movies.
Danny Cherry Jr. (53:22.751)
Yeah, I definitely can agree with that. And one thing I appreciated about this ending of Glass Onion, spoiler alert, I mean, but the movie’s been out for four years at this point, is that it wasn’t just a straight up like Benoit Blanc, you know, going around explaining the crime to everyone like it would be an Agatha Christi novel, you know, where Perot will spend like thirty pages explaining the murder to the suspects. I like that it was a deconstruction to some extent.
Of Miles Braun’s ego, like just slowly, like I mean, yeah, he does eventually get arrested, or it’s implied he does. But I like the fact that they started tearing his shit up, that they blew up his literal glass onion. Like I feel as though that was a more affecting ending because these billionaires that get away with murder in some way literal cases, but anyway, moving past that. in
If he would have been arrested, in my mind at least, I would be thinking to myself, like, okay, he’s gonna get some good lawyers and get out of this shit. But no, along the way, the the characters, they’re tearing up his house. They get rid of the the clear, you know, that power resource that he’s working so hard on. They’re attacking his ego, and that’s what those people care about. They care about their ego. And to me, that’s like that’s what hurts him more than going to jail. And I feel as though like that was more affecting.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (54:46.007)
Yeah. No, you’re so right. Like I you know yeah, no, like they’re really good at he’s really good at finding like the incisive attack that’s going to take someone down. You’re right. Like he there’s nothing left for Miles Braun to steal from someone else. So he’s finished. And that’s such a really brilliant way to to wrap him up. And again
Everybody in this movie really delivered just like phenomenal performances. We talked about Jeanelle Monae we talked about Catherine Hahn, we talked about Dave Bautista, who’s great in everything. But like I think it was a really interesting choice to grab Ed Norton for this character because he, you know, he’s had such a widely varied career. Whereas like a lot of the times we think about him in really, really, really serious stuff. You know, like I’m thinking like.
He was like American, what was it? American history X when I was in high school. And that was that’s just like an earth-shattering like concept, you know, or earth shattering movie. And you know, you’ve got Fight Club and stuff like that. But one of the movies that kept coming up when I was reading Rian Johnson interviews about why he wanted to hire Ed Norton is this really weird movie called Death to Smoochie, and it’s a very funny, like dark comedy, and it’s got Robin Williams in it, and it’s super fucking weird.
Danny Cherry Jr. (55:42.582)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (56:08.554)
And I think having Ed Norton, who’s considered like a very serious actor, do something this buffoonishly large is is really is really insightful casting on Rian Johnson’s part.
Danny Cherry Jr. (56:25.533)
I agree. I feel like these Glass Onion movies, like or not Glass the Knives Out franchise movies are always so well casted. Like and he does kill it as like the douchebag Edward Norton I’m talking to, the douchebag billionaire. Like he really delivered on it. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her) (56:39.516)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (56:42.913)
Feel like I was watching Mark Zuckerberg and how these you know, these other tech billionaires actually act where they’re like think they’re saying something profound, but they’re really not. Like the scene I’m thinking of is whenever he’s going on a rant about them all being disruptors. And and another quote I’m about the butcher where Benoit Blanc is saying, speaking without thought is not speaking, shit, what’d he say? Yeah. So like yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (57:07.47)
Speaking truth. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (57:11.295)
But just I I’ve really loved his movie. It’s a part of it. But yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (57:13.862)
Yeah. No, thank you so much for getting me to rewatch it because, you know, I rewatched Knives Out and I really, really loved it for like earlier this year. And then, you know, I was I remember not really connecting with Glass Onion to the same extent because partially it’s because like Knives Out takes place in a place that I’m really, really familiar with. And so I was like, it feels very like homey and comfortable.
you know, it but fantastical at the same time. And I remember not really connecting with Glass Onion to the same extent, but I think it’s a movie that has aged phenomenally well.
Danny Cherry Jr. (57:51.424)
yeah, definitely. I definitely agree that it’s it’s aged wonderfully. I’m not crazy about the third one in the Knives Out movie. I’ll have to rewatch that one. Maybe on a third rewatch I’ll, you know, like it or a second rewatch. I mean, anyway. But yeah, one thing I really appreciated about Glass Onion is that even though Benoit Blanc is the central character, he’s almost like the what’s where I’m looking for, the anchor to which everything else is tied. Like it’s almost like he provides us, you know.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (58:02.673)
Yeah.
Danny Cherry Jr. (58:21.149)
a glimpse at the ensemble cast if that makes any sense at all. Like it’s not just him. It’s like he allows us to a window into the lives of these people because as he’s snooping around, we’re getting to learn a lot about who these people are, like the rest of the cast.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (58:25.19)
Totally. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (58:37.658)
Yeah. No, it’s so good. Thank you so much for suggesting this movie. I really, really appreciate it. Danny, how can everybody keep in touch with you and your work?
Danny Cherry Jr. (58:46.705)
I am so online. I’m trying to pin narrow it down to where I’m actually I’m on so many. So I started a second TikTok this week. It’s TikTok account. Like it’s a problem. But the places where I actually interact with people are Instagram and Blue Sky at DCherry Rider. That’s D E E Cherry, like my last name and then writer, like what I do, or who I am.
and I do have a second book coming out next next year, just to plug that. Almost forgot about that. and if you wanna be, you know, up to date on stuff related to my books in general or my short fiction, you can sign up at big easy press dot beehiiv dot com and it’s beehive spelled like B E E H I I V. Yeah, I get it kills me when these tech companies try to put spin on words. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her) (59:17.798)
Wonderful.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (59:37.424)
Okay.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (59:42.128)
Why do they do that? It’s just killing everybody.
Danny Cherry Jr. (59:43.657)
It killed me. Like but yeah, that’s the size of it.
Emily Edwards (she/her) (59:50.749)
That’s that’s awesome.
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