Overlooked Inventory 1: “Nope”

I see a lot more films than I write about. Even if this were a paying gig, that would be the case; I would most assuredly not write about everything I see. However, there are a lot of films from 2022 that I rather wish I had written about but that, frankly, I figured would be more analyzed by others and likely better, so I could take a powder.

Butchaknow? There are movies that have been on my mind since I saw them and I regret not taking a look at. Here’s two: “Nope” and “She Said.” 

I loved both and for reasons as different as the types of movies they are. Both shared substantial weight in terms of themes and deftness in execution. Both are formidable additions to their respective genres and both transcend those genres, as well.

“Nope” grew on me. The first time around, I was content to let it rest as a Spielberg-level sci-fi adventure with family at the center; but it’s Jordan Peele and there is plenty more on his mind than just spectacle. 

“Nope” ensnares you with the upfront apparent assault of a chimpanzee taking a break amongst carnage and then breaks to the central story of the HHH ranch owner trying to keep the enterprise alive, especially after an accident with a horse on a set. From the outset, Peele nabs the attention with just the sequence; but what emerges along with it is why the director won’t listen to OJ’s admonitions about how to keep the horse calm. The point is driven home earlier that the Black man on the back of Eadweard Muybridge’s famous horse sequence is the family’s great-great-great grandfather with “skin in the game” going back to the foundation of cinema.

It is obvious that from the outset that over a hundred years of cinema, Black voices are still minimized, if not ignored, if not outright silenced. Peele doesn’t reiterate this point; he doesn’t need to. Minimizing non-white voices and people is answered by the very existence of this movie in which people act the way you would think they would; the Haywoods do what they can to keep the ranch going, including OJ’s selling livestock to Ricky “Jupe” Park the grownup child actor who survived the ape’s slaughter of the cast of “Gordy’s Home” who now has a “western experience” theme park business. 

Joining OJ in the what feels increasingly quixotic effort to save their family’s heritage is his sister Emerald and it’s here I have to stop and bow before the greatness that is Keke Palmer, but also Daniel Kuluuya, each bringing two fascinating characters to life. Separately, they couldn’t seem to be more different, but together, yeah, they are brother and sister, each dealing with resentment for their own reasons, but also working together because that’s what siblings do. 

Early in the film, we know something’s not quite right when OJ, Senior meets his end by being fatally killed in a rain of coins from the sky. This is dismissed as an aerial accident that is highly unusual, but has been known to happen. But of course, there’s more to it than this; weird stuff happens across the board; power fluctuations, vanishing horses. The culprit is a real honest-to-God flying saucer, one of the slyest winks in a filmography full of them; however, given the circumstances, you’re more likely to gasp than chuckle, particularly when the craft pretty much just vomits blood and inorganic matter on their house.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that all the Haywood kids need is footage of the E.T. Recruiting Angel Torres from a Fry’s Electronics (did my heart good to see the chain resurrected, if only for a movie), they set up surveillance cameras. Unfortunately, between the UFO generating interference and preying mantis, the first pass is scotched. However, in  a cinematic nod, no, addition to the discovery of things unseen earlier, they discover in the footage a cloud that doesn’t move. Add this to “Blow-up”, “The Conversation”, etc. It’s beautifully done and it helps that Angel, as played by Brandon Perea, is a guileless guy who seems to be eager to be part of history.

In the meantime, Jupe has his own plans to capture the UFO. He organizes a live show with Lucky, one of HHH’s horses, as bait to lure the UFO into the open. And here, kids, if you haven’t seen the film, stop and go watch it or just accept that it’s spoiled right here and now.

It’s not a spacecraft. The E.T. is very much and E.T. It devours everyone present and takes off; but OJ, observant in a way that too few in movies are, recognizes a predator’s behavior when he sees it. It goes after anything/anyone that looks directly at it, but ignores those who don’t. OJ figures out that applying horse-breaking techniques, they can capture footage of the creator without getting eaten. 

Another pause to refresh. I’m glossing over Jupe’s story and how it is woven into this tapestry of terror. After Gordy did his deed, it’s safe to say that Jupe experienced trauma beyond his years. Stephen Yuen brings a quiet pathos to a guy who’s life has gone in the opposite direction from what it should have been. In the moment, we take all this in and square it with the character before us, but you do get the feeling that Jupe’s a marked man. When his time comes, it’s not a surprise narratively, but witnessing how inconsequential humans and horses are to one of the most disturbingly beautiful extraterrestrials on film, the sense and scope of tragedy lands hard.

When OJ and Emerald decide to forge ahead, you do have to ask “what are they thinking?” But you know what they’re thinking and honestly, who blames them? Aside from being able to profit from this and save the family business and homestead, they are pioneers and on the forefront of the first point of confirmed contact with a very different life form not of this planet.*

They hire Antlers Holst, a great cinematographer/documentarian, to capture the creature on film. What follows is one of the most exciting and taut moments on film. Using a bunch of tube men (you know, those big balloon people at car lots..they’re pretty goofy, but here, really useful) to lure our flying friend out in the open. Of course, it happens that a TMZ reporter on a motorcycle happens to show up with a rig to get a shot of the UFO. Well, the dumbass gets thrown from his bike when it goes dead and winds up as a meal for what is the most apex of predators.

In another case of too much dumbass, Holst himself is afflicted and trying to get “the impossible shot” becomes a snack, too. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded, but the IMAX camera he captured everything on gets swallowed, as well. Just as a quick aside, to ensure that the camera doesn’t die, it’s hand-cranked! Now that, friends, is thinking. Still gets eaten, but - a hand-cranked IMAX camera! Can I have one? Please?

Emerald finds herself the next meal and OJ is able to draw Space Critter away from her by making eye contact. She’s able to hop on the TMZ photog’s motorcycle and head for Jupe’s theme park where she releases the park’s mascot (a huge hydrogen balloon of Jupe, RIP). I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think Em or OJ really thought what would happen did. Em uses the analog camera in the park’s wishing well to get a shot of the ET dining out on Big Rubber Jupe. Personally, it didn’t occur to me that this would lead to the flying terror’s demise but holy shit, yep! That was all she (well, Peele) wrote on that wrap. 

The suspense keeps up to the last until we see prints of the encounter issue from the camera’s printing rig, just in time as the area is swarmed with press. The last thing Em sees (well, the last thing we see) is OJ (and Lucky! He was saved from chow time by being held in a plexiglass cage at Jupe’s little exposition/mealtime.)

This is the movie in pretty broad strokes; I really hope that some bright young scholar runs with Peele’s filmography as social commentary, historical analysis, and pure cinematic accomplishment (it’s not too late to start, right?)

As I mentioned earlier, that this film exists as it does is the biggest statement. It’s not just that BIPOC people can create works as magnificent as anything their white counterparts can (see also, Coogler’s two Black Panther films, among others); it’s that we live in a period where this is still considered groundbreaking. This larger context infuses the film with an energy rarely felt in cinema. It is exciting and it is important. 

It also helps that this is a genuinely kick-ass piece of work and one I’m really happy I saw on the big screen, in large part because Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is (once again) remarkable. I first became aware of his work with “The Fighter” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” But he grew more exciting with “Her”, “Interstellar”, “Spectre” and most recently, “Tenet.” It’s small wonder he was nominated by the Academy for “Dunkirk.”

Also, it’s reassuring that Peele’s editor Nicholas Monsour (who goes back to the “Key and Peele” days) is still with him. Film may be a director’s medium, but editing is the grammar. I should do a whole entry on editors, I think. They are the oft-unsung heroes of cinema.

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