Death on the Nile

With the success of “Knives Out,” it was a matter of time before Hollywood began spawning more ensemble whodunits. So why not return to a master – Agatha Christie? The 2022 remake of “Death on the Nile” has diversity to please modern audiences, but the ending is more like a Shakespearean tragedy (plus there’s a couple of head-scratching plot holes). Tortured genius Detective Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is trying to complete an investigation, but bodies keep piling up. Whodunit? Who’s left? Gal Gadot is a shimmering light of a co-star, but there’s too much brooding darkness in this classy but somber production.

100 words on actors and Southern accents

I would like to thank Kenneth Branagh for restoring my faith in good actors’ abilities to execute a Southern accent. I just got done watching “The Gingerbread Man” (which is from like 20 years ago, but it was new to me). Branagh sounds exactly like a Savannah attorney should sound like. Nails it. Last week, I saw “Misconduct,” in which Al Pacino half-asses some kind of Brooklyn-by-way-of-the-Bayou drawl to such an awful extent it becomes a distraction. I don’t know why he even bothered. Or why someone who is supposed to be such a good actor couldn’t have practiced a little.