Nope (Jordan Peele)

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07-24-2022, 02:17 PM
Grouchy

Nope (Jordan Peele)

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07-24-2022, 02:27 PM
Grouchy

Wow. Get Out is still king on Peele's filmography but it's been a while since I laughed with wicked glee at a movie theater like this, and I could tell that the people around me were having the same experience. Peele has made a quirky science-fiction epic that pays heartfelt homage to ufology and weird tales while bearing all of his trademarks. He really excels at building endearing characters and a stand out here is Steven Yeun's former child star. I love how his subplot doesn't really add much to the plot yet it feels strangely integral to the film. There's been a lot of talk about tone recently with Thor: Love an Thunder (which I haven't seen yet) allegedly suffering from an inconsistent one, and Peele's mastery of comedy, Horror and western/adventure here is commendable.
07-28-2022, 04:04 AM
StuSmallz

Finally just saw this today, and there's plenty of things I could criticize about it...

[
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...for example, I could go on about the unnecessarily drawn out pacing of it, which strings the plot along without having much really happening, or the way it squanders certain actors/sub-plots, or its somewhat messy overall approach, which inexplicably includes TWO "cold open" shocks at the beginning, when one of them would've been a more than sufficient hook, but you know what...? I really didn't care that much about all of that; I mean, all of those flaws are still there, but I had a good time with it anyway, due to Peele's generally good grasp on atmosphere/tension, the way it sort of works as a "Jaws in reverse", with the predator hovering above in the clouds instead of down in the sea, and the way it throws out these batshit concepts/images with just enough coherency for them to stick. It's still something of a mess, but it's an entertaining enough mess to be worth watching at least once, if you ask me, and that's all I really needed from it, you know?

]
07-28-2022, 04:10 AM
StuSmallz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grouchy

Wow. Get Out is still king on Peele's filmography but it's been a while since I laughed with wicked glee at a movie theater like this, and I could tell that the people around me were having the same experience. Peele has made a quirky science-fiction epic that pays heartfelt homage to ufology and weird tales while bearing all of his trademarks. He really excels at building endearing characters and a stand out here is Steven Yeun's former child star. I love how his subplot doesn't really add much to the plot yet it feels strangely integral to the film.

Well, Yeun's sub-plot certainly tied a lot into the movie's central motif, but...

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...he still felt somewhat wasted here (like Keith David was), considering all the screentime the movie spent on his arc, only to end it halfway through with his rather unceremonious death; I can easily see an alternate, better version of this story where he survived the creature's attack on the theme park, and then joined the Haywoods in their attempt to photograph it, but ended up getting killed anyway because his greed/hubris leads him to still assume he can tame the beast. That would've made for a more satisfying, fitting use of his character, IMO.
]
07-29-2022, 07:05 AM
Grouchy

Agreed, he was probably wasted like that for shock value but deserved a bigger cathartic moment. Don't think I missed on the thematic links, but it's still unusual to have such a major random subplot.
07-31-2022, 07:31 AM
StuSmallz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grouchy

Agreed, he was probably wasted like that for shock value but deserved a bigger cathartic moment. Don't think I missed on the thematic links, but it's still unusual to have such a major random subplot.

Yeah, but it wasn't even much of a shock, so it doesn't even really work in that sense. Plus, they have the other sub-plot with the... [
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...cinematographer who gets himself killed in pursuit of the perfect shot, in a spot in the story that would've easily worked better with Yeun's character in his place, so adding Michael Wincott in that role just ends up feeling redundant.

]
07-31-2022, 04:54 PM
Grouchy

I think it comes down to - what is each character's motivation? Yeun's seems to be to put the trauma past him, or alternatively to understand why the chimpanzee spared him. He fulfills neither of them and just dies abruptly like you point out. Michael Wincott's motivation is not only to get a better shot but to be recognized as the hero of the enterprise instead of handing over the glory to O.J. and remain a technician. He wants the glory, he even says as much. I also think Wincott's character is important for Peele so he can work in the fact that a film camera is the only one that can get the shot.

By the way, I just thought how funny it is that a world-renowned cinematographer and a TMZ paparazzo are shown to have the same level of devotion to their craft.
08-30-2022, 02:45 AM
Wryan

Utterly fascinated and enthralled by this. Incredible atmosphere and texture on display, with bizarro beauty executed almost effortlessly.
09-07-2022, 07:48 AM
DFA1979

I loved it a lot
09-08-2022, 06:01 AM
StuSmallz

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFA1979

I loved it a lot

Good write-up, but how did you feel about what the movie did with [
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Jupe's sub-plot, or at least, didn't do, with the way it dropped it halfway through with no real resolution?
]
09-10-2022, 09:21 AM
Peng

Three films in and I find the quality of Peele's writing going in reverse with his direction, but the former is only like a slight downward slope while the latter feels rocketing up to more than compensate (Us is the sweet spot for me so far, even if the screenplay doesn't measure up to Get Out). The biggest drawback here is that, even if Peele's screenplay feels as intricate between how various story elements connect as ever, as a whole it feels too disparate and unwieldy, without a unifying center like his previous works. This either needs to zoom in on the sibling relationship more (Kaluuya and Palmer work so well together that it feels like a missed opportunity) or make the character motivation more seamless instead of coming off as theme delivery (the life-and-death stake here doesn't feel in sync with their ultimate goal of taking a picture).

However, Peele's genre formal chops has jumped in leaps and bounds since his first feature. The climatic stretch continuously sustains such a good build-and-release of tension with various expertly employed shorthands (tube man). Many sequences also linger in its memorable imagery and sounds; Gordy's scene is rightfully singled out as particularly nightmarish, but I'm also partial to the sequence right after Jupiter's Claim live show, of that claustrophobia-inducing close-up and those *noises*. The film may need one more script go-over to make the its ambitious story flow better, but as a horror/thriller this more than delivers. 7/10
09-13-2022, 05:49 AM
DFA1979

Quote:

Originally Posted by StuSmallz

Good write-up, but how did you feel about what the movie did with [
Show Spoiler
Jupe's sub-plot, or at least, didn't do, with the way it dropped it halfway through with no real resolution?
]

The movie definitely resolved it.
09-13-2022, 07:16 AM
StuSmallz

Well, I guess you could technically say that, but it wasn't a very good resolution, IMO; like, it felt like maybe the movie was trying to make the point that [
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Jupe hadn't learned anything from the Gordy's Home incident when it cames to not trying to tame wild creatures, but that message felt under-developed on the film's part.
]