This Had Oscar Buzz - 279 – Nope

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

With another Oscar ceremony coming to a close, it’s time to crack the seal on the Class of 2022 movies and we couldn’t wait to talk about Jordan Peele’s Nope! Priming audiences for a big summer alien invasion film, Peele also delivered a film with a lot on its mind about society’s relationship to witnessing and … Continue reading "279 – Nope"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Melon Hack, Millen Hacks and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. What's a bad miracle? They got a world for that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, nah, nah, nah. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that is a baby, after all. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and were here to perform the autopsy. I am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my favorite cinematographer taking a break from his snake movies to shoot a home movie and IMAX in my backyard, Joe Reed. What if I told you that we are here to record a podcast?

I was trying to remember the whole jupe spiel. What if I told you? Okay, so Michael Wincott made that camera, apparently, in the plot of the movie. but then has an iMacs logo on the can't did the man make an iMacs camera or is he using an iMac's lens on this crank camera i would say that's probably more likely that he's sort of salvaged parts from his job and i'd love that you're leading with michael wincott because of course you are but also like what a fun performance that he just didn't their chain smoking watching old movies of snakes killing tigers.

It was a one-eyed, one-orned, flying purple-debel eater. Our first, our only second Michael Wincott movie ever, and our first in several years. He was in... From the very beginning. This had Oscar Buzz No. 6, 1402, 1492 Conquest of Paradise. And then now. So, welcome back to the podcast, Michael Wincott. And what, I'm so glad.

So first of all, we should say, we're breaking the seal on 2022. We are coming to you from the past where this year's Oscars have not happened yet. But as tradition, that Oscar, we are putting that Oscar ceremony aside by cracking the seal on the class of 2022 movies. This was the one we were, I think, both most excited to talk about. So we couldn't wait. any longer. Certainly one of my favorite movies of 2022. And this rewatch really cemented.

Yeah. I think this is my favorite Jordan Peel movie. It's certainly the most rewatchable for me. It's definitely the one I've seen the most, and it's the one I will continue to watch most often of his movies so far. Which isn't to say anything bad about Get Out or us, because I think all three of them are masterpieces. No, I mean, he's three for three.

He's three for three. He also has, as I've said before, because I'm a dumb bitch, he has a filmography that if you say them in order, is a conversation, which I always love. Get out. Us? Nope. That's a, that's a whole scene. That's a whole scene. The next Jordan Peel movie, which I think is supposed to come out in 2026, is going to be called, I'm staying. Yeah. Sit your ass down. We're filmed by Jordan Peel. No, among the many pleasures of Nope is finding how many times somebody says nope in this movie, beyond even the obvious. The obvious ones are when anything spooky happens, and Daniel Kaluya just goes, nope. And Jordan Peel has talked about when he did press for the movie, how... Jordan, I met Julian was speaking to me about the film, and then for whatever reason,

he was developing, and I was like, what's it called? I just never asked him what it was called. He's like, nope. And I laugh for 30 seconds. Like, I was like, that's so funny because he said, that's the reaction that black people will have when they watch it. Like, they're like, nope. Not doing it. Not like, especially in like horror movies where it's just like, you know, something ridiculous happens and the characters will go like running in the completely wrong direction.

And you're just like, nope, not doing it. Well, and you watch any type of horror trailer and someone in the audience is bound. to go, nope, or absolutely not. Don't do that. Don't open that door. Don't go there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Which is all, again, part and parcel of Jordan Peel's themes for this movie, the most obvious of which is the idea of the spectacle, right? Spectacle's another word that gets repeated a lot in this movie. And the idea of, you know, what do we put on the line in order to be

so dedicated to this idea of spectacle and who are the people who put the work in and sort of, you know, are maybe not recognized for this industry that is so dependent on spectacle. And it's also notable that in this, you know, this movie that talks about spectacle and talks about, you know, it makes you think of like, well, what are the big sort of like movies that are providing spectacle, that Nope is the only, it was pretty much the only big movie in terms of like scope and, and audience reach and, you know, story it's telling to be completely original last year among this like sea of sequels and franchises and remakes and continuations and whatnot. When I say last year, I mean, 2020. So, like, every weekend there was room for one movie, and for many of those weekends, it was Top Gun Maverick, and, you know, everything else was kind of falling by the wayside. And Nope was given this, like, lack of context and perspective of seen as a box office disappointment at that time. So it gives the movie.

Well, it also got, it got hustled out of. iMac screens way too quickly was my recollection of it too and was it that big bullet train i think is that what it could lord i think it was bullet train so much of the economics of i feel like this this past year we've become a lot more aware i've certainly become a lot more aware of the economics of the iMac screenings and the large format screenings and how much they impact the box office fortunes, which to the point where you can really kind of anticipate what movies are going to do well by how much of a share of the IMAX screens they're going to be getting during their theatrical run. Something recently, I think, was the first, like, number one movie to not have IMAX screens.

It's very rare. Like, you might get a weekend or two where their number one movie is not on an IMAX screen. What was it, too? It was something very recently. Hold on. I'm going to look this up because it's going to bother me. It wasn't Five Nights at Freddy's, or maybe it was. Was it? I thought five minutes. I thought it was more recent than that. Hold on. There was something, I think, semi-recently that opened to more than 50 million without IMAX screens, and it was just like not. What did Mean Girls open to? Mean Girls did not open that big

Yeah, I just didn't open that big Although Mean Girls has done very well The 30s, I think Yeah, I think that's probably right Um Wonka would have been on large format screens Um

No, wrong Sorry But Nope is also in the tradition Of a summer movie that like It's a movie that's meant to play for a long time and like get repeat viewings. People like bringing more friends who hadn't seen it, you know. Yeah.

And it wasn't given that type of consideration. I think because box office was so dire and post-COVID, you know, it's like everything needs to be a mega hit right away. When there's like, you know, people were still getting into the habit of going back to the movies and like knowing what's even in theater. And yeah, I didn't get a chance to see Nope in IMAX and I'm really like kind of pissed about it because I did. It looked incredible. I'm sure it did. I watched it last night on my, you know, nice new 4K TV, but I watched it on Peacock. And so it was. I watched the 4K disc last night and it was incredible. I need to get the 4K disc. All I spent watching, especially like the night scenes where you first see. the alien flying above the clouds and whatever. It's just like, oh, I want to be watching this on the 4K disc, for sure.

That day for night photography is so beautiful in this movie. It's so beautiful. It's so... They did a great job. Yeah. You know, making it convincing day for night photography, which I don't know if we've seen much of that on, you know, IMAX cameras like this was shot in. we talked about this last year

when we were when we would talk about the Oscar race and how annoying it was that even though nope even you know granting that nope wasn't showing up in the major categories like we wanted it to but that it couldn't crack any of the crafts categories which was so

frustrating and especially because this is a movie where cinematography is part of the plot and normally not normally but like in the past movies about fashion design or costumes get costume design nominations it happened last year with Mrs. Harris goes to Paris right

got a costume design nomination in part because that was part of the story that fashion was part of the story it happens all the time and it's really annoying that it didn't carry over for nope which could have you know production design

and cinematography and editing and, you know, sound. I think the culprit here is, you know, my enemy all quiet on the Western front, which was pretty late breaking in the season and did very, very well, became this, like, down-ballot movie in some ways, and Netflix's big play, and it showed up in all of those categories. Right. But it's also that thing that we've...

I don't know if it should have been in a one of them. Yeah. It's also that thing we've talked about. though, in terms of the craft's categories are hewing far, far closer to the best picture lineup in a way that really makes the nomination, the entire, like the overall Oscar ballot, a little more boring, and it's too bad. Kiki Palmer got some attention early on in the season, got the New York Film Critics Award for Supporting Actress.

We'll talk about it. We will. I have opinions on it. But, you know, glad to see her, see that she got something. for that because, you know, as the season went on, she sort of disappeared. I think she's so good in this movie. Also, um, Kaluya doesn't get enough credit for how good he is in this movie. We definitely will. We absolutely will. I think it's a great cast, top to bottom. Um, and just in general, Jordan Peel is kind of holding the line right now for

a certain type of large-scale studio filmmaking that is completely original. And in some ways, I feel bad. You watch this movie and you see how ambivalent Peel clearly is about

creating spectacle, right? This pressure for his movies to be, I imagine, bigger with each successive one, right? Us has to be bigger than get out Nope has to be bigger than us. Whatever's coming next, you know, they're going to want to be bigger than nope. And, you know, it does feel like he's acknowledging the fact that this can be a trap, this sort of, you know, dedication to spectacle.

While at the same time, he's the only one doing it on this kind of scale in the studio, with studio movies. And we desperately need that. Well, I mean, I would say it's not even that he's holding the line for original studio product, but original studio product with big ideas. Yes, yes. And like, it feels like this is maybe his, if not biggest, but broadest thematic effort in that he's tying together some big things about who we are as people. and I think who like where we stand I say I don't I am not of his you know creative environment but where like the film industry stands at that time yeah that like I don't think there's anybody doing those type of things like this is you know this feels more like his I've seen people compare it to like his Spielberg movie which I think is you know I think he's a very referential filmmaker in all of his work and I think this is the most referential Spielberg's work, but, um, where am I going with this? I, I'm excited to find out. I'm very, you know, it's very, it's very frustrating and it was frustrating in like the

immediate reception of this movie that like this movie wasn't celebrated more in the moment and talked about in terms of, I think if this movie was immediately talked about in terms of, awards, it would have had a better shot towards the end of the year. And it's a summer movie, so sometimes I still think we fall into that thing of, are you a money movie, or are you an awards movie? And hopefully one of the things that Barbenheimer does is sort of really hammer home this idea that, like, you can be both, you can also be neither, but our podcast is, argues that you can be neither. You can be neither. Meet in the middle. Dance all

night. but like down to there's so much there's so much going on ideas wise with nope and theme wise with nope down to the fact that like your two main characters are named OJ which like that's one kind of spectacle right where the entire country run OJ run like that's not accidental that that line is in this movie right like it is you know the whole country sort of like gathered around their televisions and watched this spectacle play out where he's, you know, speeding down the highway in a Ford Bronco. And then the other main character is Emerald, which to me makes me think of The Wizard of Oz, which is, you know, that ties you

into this, like, the spectacle of classic Hollywood, right? Where, yeah, and, and I think you find those kinds of things. It's also just a very smart movie about media. All the stuff about Gordy's home and, you know, that sitcom. And Jupe explaining down to the most minute detail, the SNL sketch about the massacre on the set at Gordy's home, is so smart about the ways in which we process spectacle and horror. And obsess over it and get down to, like, minute details and not let it go. Process it through humor and sort of, you know, it goes through the churn of the culture and it becomes something. thing that is divorced from its horror, the fact that Jup can talk about it in this sort of like, man, it was so cool. Look at my nostalgia. And like, and even when he snaps back into a memory

of it, he can snap out of it and sort of like put it in a glass box somewhere. And it robs it of that sort of essential horror that he felt. And this movie is so smart about the way it like pieces, like it, bit by bit hands you the Gordy stuff, which is so, which ultimately is not plot-wise very important at all, but it's so thematically important. And it's so. Yes, agreed. And the Gordy scene, especially is the movie, like, when people were like, I don't do horror movies and that movie looks really scary.

And I was like, oh, you can, if you can watch Independence Day, you can watch this movie. And you forget. After I say that, I'm like, well, there's one scene. There's one scene that is not on that level. Yeah. But the thing about Jup and the whole Gordy thing is like his only way and back to the spectacle of it, it's just like the only way he can process it is by obsessing over it, turning this traumatic thing that happened into him into a museum for himself. Yep. Like he has to, like, it's not even just a compartmentalization.

it's like a crystallization. The big Polaroid well camera thing, which is ultimately the thing that, like, you know, at the climax of the movie helps them defeat the alien, is a photo op for his dumb fucking poster, his holes-esque movie poster, where he's kid sheriff, like, peering down into the well. And it's like, oh, so you and your, you know, friends or whatever can get your own version of the kid sheriff poster. and um but also tying into what where he thinks cinema is at and like the fear of dying cinema the way to defeat the monster in this movie is through analog yep yeah you know yeah and i want to say for like the spectacle part of it too it's not just like big things that happen or like you know big spectacle it's spectacle of trauma he's interested in like we're we're at a point in cinema where we're turning and he is like you know the kind of grand usher of it of we're doing satire and we're taking satire and making entertainment out of very traumatic things yes but also we're a culture you know coming out of the trump administration and coming out of covid and coming out of the

George Floyd protests where it's like we as a culture are obsessed and locked to horrible things happening and like horrible things happening on a very grand scale that we can't turn away and what does it mean to turn art out of that to entertain people or to captivate people or even like what does it mean to profit off of all of these horrible things? Well, so this is my open-ended question for the end of this movie is, do you think, and classic this had Oscar buzz, we're talking about the ending at the beginning. Do you think, after all this happens, that they continue to run their business? Do you think they continue in the movie industry?

Or do they, like, keep the house maybe and, like, you know, raise the horses, but maybe not, you know, I had that question. Or do they become, like, ghost hunters, host? Do they get out of the business of, you know, providing animals for movies after this? I don't know. Certainly, O.J. seemed like he wanted to get out of that business. O.J. doesn't want to do that anymore. I don't know. I mean, that's maybe something the movie isn't interested in providing closure for. No, I don't think it should.

Where the closure comes from is that this is a story about a family. This is about a brother and a sister. this is sibling cinema. That's the thing that makes me so emotional about this movie. It's weird. This movie succeeds on so many levels, especially to the point where I'm like, the people that don't like this movie can fully get bent. It's also a movie about,

it's sibling cinema, but it also is sibling cinema that becomes a movie about a rag-tag group of strangers who have to unite for a single purpose to defeat an enemy, defeat the monster, because it's angel and it's, Michael Wincott and

their little sort of group anything that has a group strategy session around a table with such a group of people is like, I'm so in, I'm totally in. It has, I reference the flying purple

people either scene, which is very much talk about your Spielberg references, that's very much a reference to Jaws in a way that I found deeply funny. You know what I mean? In a way that Jaws is kind of funny. Like, the Robert Shaw character is this, like, you know, gruff and growling sort of character, but he's also funny. And, you know, and Winkot is the same way in a little maybe

more of a winking way, but I appreciated it. It is so structurally similar to Jaws, but also completely different. Yeah, while also having a lot of imagery that feels connected into something like close encounters. Right, right. Though, we'll talk about, uh, to what extent is this an alien movie and to what extent is this just a monster? A monster movie. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, uh, we can't get into it yet. Maybe it's both. They can be both. Um, yeah. Meet in the middle. Dance all night. What is that that you're referencing?

What, what lyrics are you, uh, Beyonce? That's, okay. That makes sense. Um, something from Renaissance, I would imagine. Yes. Okay. alienated Money bitches, bad bitches.

Okay. All right. I get it. I get it. Both. Me in the middle. Dance all night. I don't know Renaissance stuff.

I genuinely don't. We'll get you there. We'll get you there. Will we? I don't know. Anyway, I'm still getting out. Now that I know this ain't Texas. That's what I need to know.

I know this ain't Texas, which is the new meme. And that's all I need to know for a little while. Listen, if there's any reason. to re-watch Nope, listeners. I shouldn't have to give you one. But this is a movie about Black Cowboys. That's true. And it ain't Texas.

It's California. It is Southern California. It's slightly outside. Where is Aguilse? It's the closest desert to... Aguiluilse is Southern California. Yes, it is. As I'm looking at it on a map right now,

it is definitely Southern California. I mean, it's got to be close enough to L.A. that you can, like, drive there in a commute, you know what I mean? Sure, sure, sure. And the weird thing in, like, that patch of desert is there are these weird little tourist trap spots. Last year I drove from Vegas to Palm Springs. Right, that's right.

Like, you will just see shit like that on the side of the road. Yeah, that's cool. Because I'm like, Jupiter's claim seems boring. But, like, it's also for a lot of people who have nothing else. do. Right, right. Well, and that's why you get a lot of sort of this Hollywood myth-making around things like, you know, such and such as house. And I know Laurel Canyon isn't far away from, you know, that's sort of in the hills, but still, like, or are the Manson family ranch, you know, the spawn ranch or whatever. And this sort of like this geography that feels a little bit removed

from this idea of Los Angeles as, you know, Rodeo Drive and, you know, the Walk of Fame and all this sort of stuff, which I always find very interesting. And I think this movie does that classic, you know, thing that a good movie does, which is, here's this thing that you are always, you know, that you know exists, which is, you know, horses are in movies. And they're like, yeah, but have you ever, like, given a whole lot of thought to, the people who like for a living train those horses and then have to be the people on set to give the like I was so into the um the preparation announcement that they give to the movie set about like here's how you know to to handle the horses and if there's anything that you feel unsafe about you know come talk to me and of course Emerald puts her little like you know the zazzy spin on it or whatever her own spectacle on it. That's true. That's true. We've got to find another word. No, well, we shouldn't because Nope uses it, nope uses it 8 billion times, so we're going to, you know, do the same. But yeah,

what's the difference between OJ's approach to his job and Emerald's approach to her job? It's spectacle. She's a showman, and she's a, you know, classic showman. And OJ. isn't, which is why I sort of feel like he'd probably be just as well getting out of the business entirely and, you know, raising the horses for some other, for some other purpose. well like this is this is also like an element and like we should say for i think one of everybody kind of dogs this movie for saying spectacle so many times but it's like this movie has a million other big themes that it's all tying together that it doesn't make so explicit like it's all just intrinsic to the material of the images the plot yeah characterization it's all

intrinsic and like you can infer and like dive deeper into all of the things that's interested in the movie or you can just enjoy it as a monster movie and what I think is so interesting specifically about OJ wanting to get out of the business or maybe being forced out of the business we are introduced aside from the prologue where his father is killed we're introduced to what this business is and like where they stand within the industry and what the history of their business has been through a sequence that is like on a CGI set. It's on a green screen set. Yes.

So the suggestion there. Donna Mills is being careless with the horse and not landing zone Donna Mills. Some of the like Scorpion King jokes that they were eventually, they were supposed to be there and they were replaced by camels, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But they're being pushed out by the. the advancements of CGI so that, like, real horses are not used as much. So, like, this is part of the reason why their business is failing. And, like, who is maybe one of the first businesses to suffer that used to be, you know, a bountiful business. It's a black-owned business.

The industry is shoving out this black-owned business. While at the same time, this movie uses a CGI chimp, right? That's not a real animal. That is A.A. So, um... A jean jacket is real, too. That's not CGA. Well, right. They found jean jacket, hiding behind a cloud in New Mexico. God, what a star.

What a star breakthrough? Gene jacket. Stars statements. What's the category is? Uh, fuck. Star's statements and something. God, I can't remember it now. Anyway, um, flop.

What a flop I am. Um, actor or star. Gene Jacket, though. Yeah. Not CGI. Yeah. All right. I'm going to cut all that out.

Let's maybe, we're already diving into themes and plots. Joe, let's take a little break, and you can talk about our Patreon. Oh, I can't. Oh, God, I can. What was that voice? That was plasma as Barbara Streisand. RIP, plasma. We don't want to dog on plasma too much, but that was a B minus dry sand at best.

It was, but I will say, everything else about plasma this season. season, I actually grew to really enjoy. I was, by the time Plasma exited that stage, I was a fan. And, um, is this had Oscar Vos officially Team Sefira? I am Team Seferra. Well, yeah, I don't know how you, what's the other option? A lot of people I see are very Team Nymphia, which I like Nymphia. I would understand several weeks ago as of recording.

I like her a lot, but she's a lot more limited than I initially thought. Well, this week, this week, she should have won. I thought she should have won this week. She should have be Q. Here's, okay, let's talk about that Q. This is the, we're talking about this, the night after the goth runway. And the thing about Q is, it's such an impressive work of garment construction. Sure.

That to me is all wrong in terms of it doesn't fulfill the brief because it's not goth. Those fabrics- I've never seen goth pocadots in my life. I can't believe they complimented the, the lining. I know that doing the lining was very impressive to have the time to do it. The grandmother shower curtain lining. It was so fucking ugly that lining. I couldn't believe that they complimented it. It was ridiculous. And yet it's also, I was talking to friend and former once in future guest Kevin O'Keefe on text.

And he's like, yeah, I agree. But also she might be like the most talented, like, design person they've ever had on the show. And like, that is also true. I don't like Q. I think Q gives me bad vibes. I just think the Q is incredibly annoying. The vibes are bad. The vibes are bad. So I don't want to, like, underrate her accomplishments because I just find her so fucking annoying. There's clear skill there, absolutely.

Clear skill and talent there. But where is? Best design. The taste. I think is. In the history of the show, I don't, I don't know. I defer to Kevin, because Kevin is the scholar on that. I root for Dawn.

I want Dawn's output in drag to match her output in sound bites because she's so confident in like shading the rest of these girls relentlessly. The Donesty. The Donesty.

And I don't mind it as much if she will just back it up a little bit more in her performances. And then I would root for her to be the runner up to Safira. I'm absolutely rooting for Sifira's whole like exhausted

goth like office manager or whatever thing that she was doing was so fucking funny every single expression she gave I was on the floor laughing it was so good I would also say in contrast to the lining of Q's coat Sefira's look made me like

that ugly fabric yes yes because Sefiras also was like on the boundaries of is this goth like this is probably not goth but she sold it to me with her personality so much more And honestly, there were a few details I thought that made it. This was a thing that plasma was getting into, I think, in Untucked, which is, and it's a thing I had already expressed when I was texting Kevin earlier, which is, I respect people who can, what are you laughing at me for? I'm laughing remembering Plasma's outfit. Keep going.

No, Plasma's outfit was bad, but the thing that she was saying backstage, which is, you know, self-serving to her, but I also agree with it, which is, like, garment construction and, like, fashion design. are all incredibly valuable talents. It, to me, is a little wild that Drag Race puts so much emphasis on a really highly specialized skill. I think being good at making a very complicated garment like that is a lot different to me than being good at improv comedy for seven minutes. Do you know what I mean? Sure. You can fake your way. You can personality your way through one thing.

I don't think there's a way to just sort of like confidence your way through a design challenge. And to me, I think then you're just saying that like certain people can't advance past a certain point when you're doing that. Well, I mean, I think it's less about can you sew something well or like can you can you and your point of view prevail over something that's maybe not your skill set? Can they still understand who you are and where you're coming from? I agree with that, but I think at some point, point of view runs up against the brick wall of can I actually turn my point of view into something that actually you can wear. Do you know what I mean? You run up against a like a Bosco brick wall where it's like, well, Bosco's point of view is a lot of strappy lingerie and like slutty looks. So it's like, I just think there's a way.

That is not as celebrated. If somebody isn't good at performance or comedy or whatever, there's a way to just be like, well, just muster up all your confidence and like barnstorm your way through it and you will at least get the respect of the judges. There's no way to do that with design challenges. There's no way to just like, I'm going to, you know, drag queen my way through this when it's like, no, you have to actually be able to like, so and, you know, you. know, put something together and, like, construct a thing that people go to, like, school for for years. Well, but there's also a lot of people who've won sewing challenges that are not... Sure.

...would not consider themselves fashion people, like, controversially, Georges' win, less controversially, Bend de la Crem's first win. But I would bet that those people have a little more training than they're letting on. Do you know what I mean? Sure, sure. Anyway, this is all which is to say... for lost time because we have not on mic talked about drag race at all

I know but Joe this is the danger of us recording on a Saturday morning when we haven't like yeah yeah yeah yeah all right anyway tell our listeners about the Patreon we haven't talked about drag race at length on the Patreon but maybe that's a debatable too at some point this at Oscar Buzz turbulent brilliance we are in full swing

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It's all there in the motion picture. Nope. Can I tell you, Chris, I made such a mistake. I mentioned cheesy cordita crunch and I haven't eaten yet today. I would now murder a person for a cheesy gordita crunch right now. Was it our Sundance little bonus episode where you slowly were losing your voice over the course of the episode? Yeah. It was class of 2023.

One of them. You will slowly be losing brain function throughout this episode. Listener beware. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to like dip into a fugue state and just think about a cheesy gordita crunch. I'm absolutely ordering Taco Bell the second I hang up the phone. So that's all that there is to it.

Okay, anyway, continue. Nope does not have a cheesy gordita crunch. You know, when they go to that little like cheeseburger diner after, you know, the biblical reign of blood on the house, they should have gone to a Taco Bell. They should have. You know, like, the one, and like maybe it would be gross given thematically what this movie is on to, but like, in the, 90s, this would have had some type of cross-promotional play. Like, there would have been, like, a Taco Bell game where it's like, if you get, you peel it off of your cup and if you get three jean jackets, you get a free cheesy

Gordita Crunch. Yep, yep, yep, totally. It really recalls back to that era. Honestly, a Sonic menu, a Sonic menu for Nope. By the way, I was in New York City last week. Brooklyn has a Sonic now. Taco Bell Cantina. I didn't, but Brooklyn has a sonic now.

So did I order myself a cherry limeade? You bet your fucking ass I did. So I was very happy about that. I used to do cranberry lymates because they were like sour-ish. And I like sour things. Chris isn't like the other girls. Chris likes sour things. Oh, yeah.

I'm like, you know, in the 90s when you had regular candy and they started introducing sour candy. And like they, like the commercial was all about. about, like, she's a bad girl. Chris is a bad girl. He likes sour skittles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

One of my most, like, very specific, but strangely homosexual obsessions online is when you see gay people talking about the sour sucker altoids online. And it's always a gay person. And I don't know why the, like, sour, tangerine altoids are so specific to gay people. It makes you seem dangerous. It makes you seem edgy. Your regular alt-oids are not enough to satiate my needs. I need a sour tangerine.

When I say I want to have a little treat, what I mean is I want to have one of the sour altoids. I don't like sour stuff. I've never been a sour-patch kids person. I know some people revere sour-patch kids. If I wanted bitterness, I would like have something like actual... Lemon flavor. I don't know. Do you do the watermelon sour patch kids? I don't do sour patch kid.

This is the thing. I think you would like the watermelons because they're not actually, they're not sour. They're just sweet. If I'm going to do something gummy like that. I'm going to do a Swedish fish. I'll do a Welch's fruit snacks. I'll do, if I'm feeling ambitious, I'll do a gummy bear. Although the older I get, what's that? How do you feel about a nerds rope? I don't mind a nerds rope.

I, it's, it's specific. Honestly, sit me down with a packet of Twizzler's nibs, and I'm a, I'm good to go, man. Not red vines, red vines are, um, I don't even know, the devil's urethra tracks. I don't know, it's something. Oh, Jesus. I was trying to think of imagery. Like, what, what does the devil have that's shaped like that? But anyway, red vines are gross.

They're devil penises. I'm pretty sure I had a bag of Twizzlers when I saw Nope. I definitely had pretzel bites. Of course. This episode's going to have everything. I had a movie theater hot dog the other day. We're talking about snacks. We're talking about drag race.

We should do a all snacks Patreon episode. Just about movie snacks? Movie snacks. strategies. I used to think that, like, my favorite movie snack was booze, but, like, anymore, I just want a good coffee. I want a coffee. There's no cachet to booze anymore now that you can just, like, go to an Alamo draft house and order, like, a giant beer. $20 for the worst cocktail you've ever had in your life. I will say, as somebody who grew up, um, being so enraptured by the idea of tiny little liquor, bottles. I still enjoy sneaking a tiny little liquor bottle into a movie theater and just sort of

I've done that as recently as like two years ago. Just like on my way up to, especially when I lived in New York, you've like passed 12 different liquor stores on the way to your walk to the movies. And I would just like duck in there and get like a bunch of little bottles of Tito's and

dump it into, you know, your diet Coke and it's a time. It is a time. All right. Let's let's get into the 60-second plot description. We have a lot to talk about this movie. I don't know how we're going to talk about everything we think about this movie and then still talk about the awards for it. Listeners, we are here talking about Nope, written and directed by the one and only

Jordan Peel starring Daniel Kaluya, Kiki Palmer, Stephen Yun, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Renn Schmidt, Osgood Perkins, the director, Osgood Perkins, here as a director of a commercial or whatever. Whatever. that thing is at the beginning of the movie with Barbie Ferreira, and, of course, introducing jean jacket. Introducing the ingenue herself. Yes, the enchanou jean jacket. The movie opened wide July 22nd, 2020. Mr. Joseph Reed, are you prepared to give a 60-second plot description of nope?

Sure. All right, then your 60-second plot description starts now. O.J. and Emerald are Hollywood horse trainers six months removed from their five dying in a freak accident from falling debris, and they're on the verge of having to sell the business to fucking Jupe, the former child star who runs the amusement park down the road. When Jupe was a kid, he survived a chimpanzee rampage on the set of his hit sitcom, but that's a whole other thing.

One night, as OJ is trying to chase down a horse that got spooked, he sees a flying object in the air. Emerald convinces him that they need to get photographic proof so that they can sell it to Oprah or whoever and save the ranch. They end up enlisting the help of Angel, a surly geek squad twunk, who watches a lot of ancient aliens. Meanwhile, Jup has also seen the alien ship and has planned to

carnival spectacle around it, despite having no idea what it's capable of. This turned out to be a bad idea when the alien ship hovers up jupe, his audience, and half of his set, and digests them in its soft, silky intestines. Because it turns out it's not a spaceship, but an animal itself, one that hunts, feeds and shits out its bloody extrament all over OJ&M's house. So the plan shifts to capturing the alien creature on film and destroying it, the form of which they enlist the help of gravel-voice cinematographer, Antlers Holst, and his hand-cranked camera.

That effort hits some snags, and Holst eventually sacrifices himself to save sweet, dumb angel, and M finally learns, lures the alien to Jup's Park, snaps a cartoonishly large Polaroid of the creature in flight, and then tricks it into swallowing a Bob's Big Boy balloon, which pops and kills it, RIP parachute monster, and the ranch is saved. 15 seconds over. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Lots going on. I purposefully didn't get into the weeds in the gorty thing, because I knew we would talk about it anyway. And, um, I would have absolutely gotten lost in the weeds of the gorty stuff.

Sure. It's easy. It's easy to. Not to mention the in the weeds of like what actually killed their father. So, okay, first things first. Keith David is perfect casting for this because he's such an embodiment of like black excellence in genre filmmaking, right? I always think of the thing when I think of Keith David. Not to mention. like they live and whatnot. But like the thing especially, him and Kurt Russell as sort of like the last two staring at each other and being like, are you the alien or am I the alien? It's so good. I love him so much. I still, I still say perhaps the greatest single line reading I've ever heard in movies is Keith David in, there's something about Mary where he leans forward and he goes, Is it the Frank of the Bean? Is it the Frank of the Bean? It's so fucking good. Legend. Screen legend. So he's the father.

He's on horseback. The debris that kills him is money. It's a nickel. That really struck me this time. Yes. Yeah. Like money falling out of the sky. An act of God that should be a good thing.

What's a bad miracle, right? That's... Exactly. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Totally.

And that scene is filmed so, perfectly because we don't get a ton of stuff between him and Kaluya, but we get enough of the sense of there's a business, there's sort of, you know, he's at some point he's going to want to hand it over, there's some estrangement going on with his sister, and then in, you know, this great over-the-shoulder shot where there's some commotion and then like all sound drops out. This is another reason why, like, the fact that this didn't get a sound nomination is insane. The way this plays with noise and silence is so good. And then over collude his shoulder. When jejacket's flying over them and you can hear faintly in the distance all the screams. Yes. That in IMAX was psycho.

I bet. That's one thing that watching it at home really did not compare in any way. It's like that sound moment. I'm sure. Oh, God. but the shot of the camera pans away far enough so that Keith David is out of frame just for the instant when he gets hit with the nickel.

And then by the time he go back to him, he slumped over on horseback and the horse sort of walks out of the pen and he falls off and it's so sort of tragic. And then you get that scene where he's driving in the truck with his dad kind of like slumped against the window and he's naming all of the horses, and ultimately he doesn't make it. So then we pick up six months later, and O.J. is struggling to hold the business together, and we get the great sort of sibling relationship between him and M, where they have, like, there's tension between them.

There's old, you know, obviously the thing that can happen with, you know, a parent dies, and a parent who, from what we find out later in the movie, sort of favored O.J. over M., or at least, was a little, was, you know, sexist in his ideas that, like, well, obviously O.J. will inherit the business because he's the boy, and he's the one I'm going to train, and M might have been better with horses, but we'll never know because she wasn't trained on them and that kind of thing. And she genuinely seems more adept at running the business when we see from the scene we get at the movie set where she's, you know, better at interacting with other people, right? OJ is very standoffish and quiet and, and you also get this very, like, quintessential, favored child, unfavored child dynamic of the one who isn't the first. favored child is the showman, is the, you know... Because she's had to work harder to... To get attention, basically.

Yep, yep, yep, yep. Meanwhile, you know, OJ, who's spent his life with horses, his behavior... This is one of the things I love about colloquious performance. His behavior is like a horse. Like, he is skittish in the way that a horse is. And, like, when he's back away from something, you know, the way his head he holds his head is very much like a horse observationally um yeah that's a really good point that's that's that's very well observed because that's totally true he gives and like

it's the contrast in performance styles too between the two of them and it's very intentional where kuluya is all stillness and wariness and kiki palmer is all she's loud and she's impulsive and she's ready to jump in and like she wants to get this photo and yet they have this bond between them where they can be like the Oprah shot it's the Oprah shot you know what I mean like they can like or the um the scene where uh Wincott shows up and he's got his hand cranked camera and she's like I told you he would have a he would have a non-electronic camera and they do the they slap fives they do the really like shorthand slap five thing which was the thing I wanted to find the Hollywood Reporter clip from the one roundtable, but somebody asks him, what was that hand slap?

Was that like, you know, a secret handshake between them? Like, what was the significance of them slapping hands like that? And he's like, no, that's just like, black people do that. Like, that's just like a black thing. And it was so funny. And he's on the panel with somebody else. And so it's a similar thing. Is this handshake improv? Like, what is that? So no, that's not important. That's just a black thing. Oh, I mean, they were like hard. I love it. That's just that.

Yeah, yeah. And they just like share a look, and it's so funny because it's just like, no, that's like, that's not really anything. That's just sort of. If it was the writer's roundtable, that probably would have been Shinonia Chuck Wu. Yeah. This writer's round table, it's like all writer directors and then Tony Kushner. And then Tony Kushner. It feels like it's also a director's round table kind of.

It does. It's Chenonia Chuklu, Daniel Kwan, Ryan Johnson, Martin McDonough, Ryan Johnson, and Tony Kushner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, somebody, if you can find that and point that to me, I tried to find it and I couldn't. But anyway, they have this shorthand between them, right?

They have this essential bond that you can't fuck with. And so there's no question that they, like, love each other intensely and would protect each other and they can keep it real with each other in this way where he like he can say something like, you know, what's a bad miracle? Is there a word for that? And what does she say to that? She says, nope. And so she understands how she doesn't question him, right? It's immediately like, what did you see? And we don't have to go through this whole rigmarole of like, you're crazy, that doesn't exist, you know, like immediately he sees it, he tells her about it, And she's like, we got to get a photo of it.

We got to get, they need to get better, better quality photo, video evidence of this than anybody has ever had. And that's how we're going to make money. That's how we're going to save the ranch. That's how we're going to do it. And they go to whatever knockoff Best Buy this is. I can't fries, I think, is what they call it? Which we do not have out here, but it was apparently a business that went under the year they filmed the movie. Oh, that's tough.

just if the movie could have done a little bit better I guess for them but so this is where we meet baby boy Brandon Perea now Joe five minutes to go off about Brandon Perea Brandon Perea was in the first season of the OA I love the OA very much and I especially loved Brandon Perea's character whose name was French who was you know a little sort of standoffish and like low-key bullied at school he was like definitely the sort of the quiet sweet one In the second season, he, like, hooks up with a guy, so it's just like, yeah, that's what I thought he's queer. That's why I liked him so much. Gives a really sort of, like, lovely sensitive performance, and it's, and then I hadn't seen him in anything for a few years. And so I was like, oh, remember French from the O.A. And then the trailer happens, and there's this, like, Spielberg shot of Perea sort of looking at the screen, right? That's sort of, like, you know, staring in wonderment at something.

thing. It's when he's looking at the cloud. And I was like, that's French from the O.A. French, he's in this. And then he proceeded to, like, have the best fucking time on this press tour. He so had such a little brother vibe with Kaluja and Kiki Palmer, where he was always just sort of like, and like genuine little brother where they're just like, yeah, like, cool. And he's like, this is great. We had a great time. Bo blah, blah. He's all full of energy and whatever. he's in Twisters coming up. Can't wait for Twisters. What's that?

Cannot wait. Cannot wait for Twisters. So anyway, the OA is definitely one of those shows for me that, like, if you were on that show, you hold a place in my heart, especially, like, from that first season. So I was so happy to see Brandon Priya here. And I think he's so funny in this movie where he's so just like surly and angry. and you don't know why. And then at one point, he just sort of screams. And he's like, sorry about that. I just ended a four-year relationship. And he's like showing OJ her photo on his phone. I mean, while OJ's like, do you want to get started setting this stuff off? He sort of like insinuates

himself in their situation. He like watches their camera feed from fries, which he shouldn't be doing. As Emerald points out, she's like, that was illegal. But like, he also like is the person to spot the cloud thing and goes over and shows them a brilliant visual idea that like jean jacket is in the sky as a cloud but a cloud that doesn't move to all day so it's like you would never spot it so it's like evil is lurking there yes hiding amongst you know the natural landscape and he's so psyched to like be part of this but he's also so realistically scared like the whole you know the scene where he's the alien nerd among them he's the one yeah he's He boars OJ for like five minutes talking about ancient aliens and why they're called UAPs instead of UFOs.

What is it? Unidentified. Oh, I just looked at this up. No, it's, fuck. Unidentified anomalous phenomenon is UAP. And he's like, that's because they don't want you to know about it. And he's great. I love him so much.

He's so funny in this movie, but I think one of the G. things about this script is like you can't even call him a comedic foil no because in any in like anybody other anybody else's other version of what this movie is or what it would be he would be the comedic relief but it's like everybody's kind of a comedic foil to everybody else he has her moments stephen down comedic energy to this movie that is in direct contrast with the rest of the characters even like michael wincott who gets to play like the weird grumbly old Werner Osgman coming into the third act of the movie sitting there smoking watching his like snakes eat tigers.

Oh my God. Which is like a metaphor. This movie has this whole running theme of like the untamable beast or like the fallacy of the tameable beast. You know, they're horse ranglers. You know, they train horses. But like horses, this is why I'm afraid of horses because I just don't. fuck with them. They will, like, turn on you and do whatever they want at any given time.

They'll fucking kick the life out of you. You can't actually, like, train them to never do that. Right. And this is maybe where I get into, like, is this a monster movie or is it an alien movie? Because you have the whole Gordy theme in this movie. Well, that's what I wanted to talk about Jup and Gordy and then get into, like, the construction of the alien. And then maybe, like, that's the place to talk about the animalness of it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not to like overly, I know that we, we hardly ever go by structure here, but like, um, because the thing you talk about the untamable animal makes

me want to talk about Gordy really quick. So like, um, the horse farm is failing and OJ has to sell horses off to like pay the bills essentially. And he doesn't want to sell too many and he wants to make sure you can sell them back. So he has this meeting at Jupiter's or at, uh, what's the, what's the theme part called? Jupiter's claim. Jupiter's claim. Thank you. Um, with, uh, jupe, which is not his name.

It was its character's name in, um, uh, Kid Sheriff, which I think is so funny, but he still goes by Jupe, Stephen Young, who has this amusement park, uh, museum to his own child starness, uh, posters of his stuff all around. He's such a dweeb, but he's also so fucking confident in, his hustle, right? Like, he has hustled his way from Childstar who, like, barely survived a massacre

to some kind of degree of success at this theme park, right? He's made something out of his life as an entertainer. And, but we also see that, like, he's clearly this archetype of, like, you have no respect for

this thing that you wield. And what he's wielding is spectacle, right? Of course. wielding this like the attention for an audience you know he's like Jordan Peel is so brilliant to not reduce it to something as simple as this but he's like influencer culture yes on some level yes yeah he's he's he's a he's TikTok right he's he's you know he's a vlogger absolutely and so one of the the the big mistake he'll ultimately makes is he we find out, and this is again, sound design, right? When O.J. can see the lights of Jupiter's claim in the distance, and you can hear the sound, the PA system of Jup rehearsing his spiel about

what if I told you that in an hour, you were going to walk away changed, and how for the last, what does he say, the last 30 days or something like that, he and his wife every night at six something the alien, you know, the alien ship comes by. And so when he finally delivers this spiel to a half full, I love how, like, it's not a packed crowd at Jupiter's claim. He's not packing him in. He really needs something like this to turn his business around. And so he has decided to get in bed with this, like, UFO that he doesn't know anything about other than, like, he sees it flying around. And he thinks that he can, like, lasso this thing and make it work for him.

And feed it a horse and then everybody calls it a day. Right. And so, of course, it all goes terribly wrong. You never see, you only see Yun's face as he's like staring up at the thing. But you hear everybody screaming and this thing hooveres up everybody. And then it gets to the single weirdest shot of the entire movie, which is inside because first of all, I'll let you get into the whole animal of it and how it looks, because it does look like curtains. At some point, it just looks like curtains.

And inside, it looks like you're inside a pillow fort. And you're just sort of being like, but this pillow fort is ingesting you. It's a pillow fort. It's giving magic mountain. But it's also like peristosis, right? It's literally just like squeezing you. That's why the snake imagery is so good. But it was like squeezing you down into its whatever.

and they're screaming and they're being digested by a pillow for it. And it's so the look of it, it's, you've, I've never seen anything like it before. Especially on an IMAX screen, it was like, what the fuck am I looking at? What am I looking at? The, the, like, wrongness and rightness of that, like, tension of, like, this doesn't look like meat, you know? It looks like. Right.

It looks like fabric. Yeah. And, like, but it's also still very terrifying and unnatural makes the scene even scarier. And then later on. And it also has a direct visual parallel to the opening credits of the movie, which is set on the inside of a camera. So it's like, well, you, when it unfurls itself, it's got that square, it's got that box, right? That, like, pulses and sort of, like, re, like, skin, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't even know what it does, but, like, that effect.

But it sets the visual. idea in your brain that jean jacket is in some way a camera or an audience and then of course when you see jean jacket like you get your first glimpse it looks like an eye well at various different points at various points it looks like an eye it looks like a um one of those things that you put to like uh blot out the sun on a set you know what i mean uh you know what i mean like a i don't even know But, like, you know, deflector. Deflect, thank you. It looks like different, like, equipment at different times.

It sometimes looks like an old-timey, those box cameras. And I think all of that is intentional. And then so after swallowing all of the audience and the performers at Jupiter's claim. This growing audience. This growing audience. It flies around in the air for a while. And then as Angel and M are huddled inside. the home, it

hovers over their house and shits out and this is, like, there's no other way to put it. This is excrement. This is the detritus of all of these people, and it's whatever was jangling in their pockets and all of the like debris, but it's also

like buckets of blood. It is all of the blood of all of these people that it does not need. It's like a biblical plague. And it is diarrhea shitting all over this house that, and it's so fucking rose. But it's also fascinating to watch it from like, and again, this is, if you go, you know, if you take the theme of it, right, is we're taking this, you know, spectacle that we

thought we could control, and it got away from us, it has devoured us, and now it is, you know, going by the people who have been work it, you know, the work-a-day people in this industry, this, you know, a black-owned business of horse trainers. And it's literally shitting all over them as an afterthought, right? You know what I mean? It's so thematically rich while also being just viscerally awful. And like, Perea's reactions to it are so like horrified thing that it's like the slightest nitpick is like, well, why does Jean Jacket choose to do that over the house? Like, has this ranch already been targeted by this monster?

And that's maybe something we don't ever have explanation for, which is totally fun. OJ mentions at one point when he says it's not a spaceship, it's an animal, and it's territorial and it's marking its territory. I could see that that's like, you know, shitting on this house in that way is like marking its territory in a little way. You know what I mean? Right. Well, and like this is, I think, maybe where I say it's a monster movie. It's not. Yeah, yeah. Talk about this because you're absolutely spot on.

Well, I mean, there's that line right there that you say. But also, the movie is chaptered by the name of all various animals and the last chapter is Gene Jacket. Right. Oh, right. Yeah, because Gordy also gets Gordy's own chapter. So it's like all of these untameable beasts, this thing that we think we can control, but actually it has a mind of its own. It has its own biology and it will. you know, not, it's not something that we can contain as much as we think we can. It's not, you know, a weapon we can wield. It's not entertainment we can provide. It is, you know. It's also, I was trying to think of, like, what makes an animal in this context scarier than a UFO?

And I think it's the fact that if it's a UFO, you imagine that there are multiple intelligent beings on it that you could at least try to rationalize with even if you wouldn't be successful. Whereas if this thing is just like one animalistic organism with no eyes and no mouth and no like

actual like there's no rationalizing with it. There's nothing to do but run from it. It didn't come from somewhere. It just is. It just is. It exists. It is a being and it looks like nothing you've ever seen before.

Whereas if it's a UFO, it looks like what you've seen before. And you can't even really reconcile with what its motives are or what its intentions are or what it's trying to do. You can only, the movie only provides what it does, how it functions. And what that is is to consume it is to, you know, create destruction, cause chaos. And it's, well, there's also the element of. of the design aspect for Gene Jacket is like a biblically accurate angel. So it's not just a beast.

It's not just an animal, but it's also an act of God. What's the angels in America line about I unfurl my wings spread sharp in front of you? You know what I mean? Like that whole thing. It's like, I want to do that dialogue, but like under the scene of Gene Jacket. Really, Gene Jacket is just trying to fuck OJ and instill the book within him. So, but the other thing that I love about the way this movie is constructed is this thing attacks multiple times, right? There's the time where OJ's at the ranch, or whatever, Jupiter's claim, and it comes by and he has to hide from it.

There's the, you know, multiple times where it sort of like swoops down by the house. And every time it does, we learn a little bit more about it. And so, and it's usually OJ. And like, I like that kind of story construction. I would also say that OJ scene where he goes to the. amphitheater, and he's, like, calling his horse, but at the same time, Gene Jacket is coming out of the cloud. So it's like, calling the horse is also calling Jean Jacket. Yes. Yes. But every little time, he learns a little bit more about it, and they're building

their sort of, like, knowledge base about it, and that all informs how they're going to ultimately try to capture it on film and then kill it, which is just like, it's very simple construction, but it makes the end of the movie very propulsive where it's like there is a task to be done. They are collecting their weapons. It's very, you know, hero's journey, right? They are collecting weapons. They are getting, you know, information now that they know that if you don't look at it, very Simpsons Halloween episode, Just Don't Look.

Jurassic Park. Also where I thought of the Bob's Big Boy thing. The, you know, if you're looking down and away from it, it won't know, no, you, it won't go after you, and they just, like, they know certain things about it, and then once they see that it, like, opens itself up and how it sort of, like, consumes, and they figure out a way. They also learned that it doesn't like the flags when it tried to eat the plastic horse. It didn't like that, and it, like, rejected it or whatever, so that they know that this thing can't digest everything

so there are certain things that they can do to like gum up its works. And so then they come up with this plan to ultimately feed it the big balloon Bob's Big Boy. I know that's not what it is, but that's what it looks like to me. And I love...

Just also, we should say, fucking crazy images. The idea that like these images which are absurd and funny and terrifying are just living inside of Jordan Peel's brain. Yes.

And then he's putting them in these big giant studio movies, these very strange images. It just makes me so happy to be alive while Jordan Peel is making movies. There are like five or six things in this movie that you've never seen before in a movie. Like, it's so rare to be able to say that in a movie that this big. I also love that the climax happens in broad daylight. There's no hiding it behind darkness or whatever. that thing explodes in full, you know, in full view. And it's incredible.

It's incredible. You also have that great climax with Michael Wincott and, you know, sort of dying the way he lived, you know, doing cinematography. And I was very concerned about Angel, whether Angel was going to survive or not. It's just a very, but it's, it's, it's, we talk about the themes so much and it's very much thematically on point, but it doesn't sacrifice a good adventure. You know what I mean? Yeah, you can watch, enjoy, and love this movie and get everything you need to out of it, just watching it as a piece of entertainment. Yeah. Like, I'm sure that there's plenty of everyday moviegoers who saw this movie and just consumed it as such. And, like, the idea of some of these themes might not have crossed their mind, but it might, like, pollinate in how they observe other movies.

The one thing I didn't get until this time around, the fact that the balloons popping are what sets Gordia off. And obviously, a balloon popping is what kills Gene Jack. it at the end. Oh, that's, that's fun. Right? It's stuff like that. It's not even that deep, but it's just like, oh, that's fun. But I think, like, there's so many things that tie together in this movie that are just

like buried and intrinsic into the images and into the substance of the plot of the movie, that, you know, satire is kind of, you know, I think Jordan Peel is something. who really kind of ushered in this era of, you know, satire and satire for genre, and he's, without question, the best one doing it. And that's because you look at something like Nope, where all of the ideas and all of the themes are not presented didactically. He is not concerned that you get everything that he wants to do. I think he has a lot of trust in the audience to pick up on these things and to grapple with them themselves rather than

telling you what his ideas are telling you what to think about them totally and you know giving it all in a package that is ultimately more reductive than any of his ideas and I think that's what a lot of people who are trying to

do the things that he does in movies don't succeed at I don't I think you know he has a lot of trust in the audience and he's not you know, he's not giving it to you in a didactic packet. Right. So, we probably sound didactic unpacking it all in a way.

That's the danger of the, of unpacking movies like that. And I'm fine with that because I think the conversation is ultimately rewarding. But yes, you do risk sort of sounding dull. Well, I want to take it a little bit back to, like, the behavior of Jean Jacket and how it, like, ties in dramatically. Yes. And the idea that Gene Jacket is something. like biological creature that has always been there that's always lurking in the sky but like it this movie does increasingly become more and more violent and jean jacket is increasingly more and

more destructive and kills more and more people and that's because jupe is feeding this monster jupe is luring this monster and calling for this monster and of course things progress and like that I think is maybe the simplest, but the, like, key to a lot of these themes that, you know, if somebody, if a viewer hadn't really thought about this movie beyond the surface, that's maybe the, the avenue in to, like, look at it more unreal, like, not pure realism. Should we talk a little bit about the awards run for the movie? Yeah. And we can come back to some of the substance of the movie. We sort of talk about, like, why did, you know, such and such movie have Oscar buzz and whatnot? And this one seems pretty cut and dried, I think.

We talked about it when we talked about us, which is that, like, Jordan Peel makes the directorial debut with Get Out sort of shows this whole new side of him. He was, you know, this sketch comedian part of a duo, and then he breaks out as this solo directorial talent in a genre that is, if not entirely outside, because there's a lot of comedy to get out. but it's obviously it's got a lot more going on than that and Best Picture nominee, one of the biggest movies of that year, he wins the screenplay Oscar and becomes one of

the premier filmmakers in Hollywood kind of immediately. From that moment, everybody was wildly interested to see what the next Jordan Pell project was going to be, and I think that is a thing that he has kept going from film to film.

Without being overhyped is the other thing, because I think with us and with Nope, there were detractors with both of those movies, and I think there were sort of quibbles with both of those movies. And for as annoying as I found, especially with Nope, where I'm just like, just, you know, appreciate this masterpiece for what it is. But it also keeps it from from him getting overpraised or sort of, you know, deified in this way. So I also think if you're if you're making movies that are as interested in themes and like big themes and kind of burying them within the plot of your movie, it does open it up for nitpicks a little bit. But I also think people over nitpick Jordan Peel. We talked about that, I'm sure, when we talked about us, a movie that a lot of people really, really hated unfairly.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. But I love that, again, we have this filmmaker making original movies whose movies are events. Like, the next Jordan Peel movie will be an event. When they announce what, I don't think they've said what, specifically what he's working on, right? It's being. I mean, luckily his projects have secrecy around them, but he has, he has something on the books. I think it's scheduled for 2026. Yes. So it's going to be, yeah, so it's going to be a bit. I don't want to know. I want to know as little as possible. But like when we get a title for that movie, it's going to be big news. When we get a trailer for that movie, it's going to be big news. When we get casting for that movie, it's like everything about that is going to be big. And I love that. And it's a lot of pressure on him, I'm sure. And it's a lot of expectation on him. So I'm sure it's not easy for him. But like, I love, just for the industry, I think it's good. I think it's healthy for us. to have filmmakers like that, and I think we need more. I think that's why much as I love the idea of like, what's Greta Gerwig going to do with Narnia, I think she's another filmmaker who could easily be that like, what's she going to do next? She could do anything and

maybe take advantage of that a little bit more. Do you know what I mean? But whatever, I'm not going to tell somebody to not make the kinds of movies they want to make. Yeah. So Peel wins the Oscar for Get Out. Caluia is nominated for that performance. One of those things where I could easily see a universe where that performance was overlooked because of the other elements of Get Out.

You know what I mean? And I'm... Well, and Peel is so much the story. Right. Or was at the time. Right. But, and it's like, yeah, but Daniel Kalulia is also giving this incredible performance in it.

Well, and like the other thing about Daniel Kalulia, too, like, the Academy doesn't historically nominate that many black actors, but it also really doesn't historically nominate that many young actors, too. It's like, we don't talk maybe enough about Daniel Kaluja in, like, he's not as young as, like, Timothy Shalame. Right. But, you know, he's got an Oscar. Younger than 40 years old. They don't nominate many men. Right. Well, and so, so Kaluja's career, hold on a second, let me bring it up, because he's a English actor, born in London, and yet beyond

Black Mirror, I don't know how many times... Oh, well, also, he's a voice... He's a Skins actor, right? He's one of the Skins members, do I remember the Kirkland? Yes, I think he was in, like, second generation skins. Oh, okay. Or maybe even third generation.

See, when people are like, yeah, we know that person from skins, I just kind of lump it on a pile, and I can't distinguish generations, American skins, British skins. Well, American skins only lasted one season, but British skins lasted seven seasons. And the first six ones were three two-season groups of, like, the first two seasons were one cast, and then seasons three and four were a second cast.

And that first group was Dev Patel and Nicholas Holt and Joe Dempsey from Game of Thrones And then that second group was Kaya Scolidario, Jack O'Connell, who else from that group? And then the third group is, where did Kalulia fit in? Kalulia might not have even come out until later than that. I'm trying to think of who else was on the show.

Kvon Novak from What We Do In the Shadows was on the show. Ali Alexander was on it for a while. He was in the first... Oh, he was actually in the early seasons. I guess I didn't clock him there. I got to go back and watch. He was in the first three seasons as Posh Kenneth. Okay.

The first thing I remember noticing him, and was Black Mirror. I'm not a Black Mirror person, so the first time I saw him was in Sicario, where he's Emily Blunt's partner, and just like, I remember being like, this guy has way more screen presence

than is necessary for this very small role, but like a lot of screen presence. Like, this guy's going to be someone's about, and then, of course, his next performances get out. Yeah. His episode of Black Mirror, is like the second episode of Black Mirror. It's like very, very early on in its run,

episode called 15 Million Merits. So then Get Out happens and obviously a huge breakthrough, Oscar nomination. Those Oscars are, it's really interesting to watch, to look at that where it's like, it is him and Shalame as like the young, you know,

the youngens in that one. Because it's also Daniel Day Lewis for Phantom Threat, and Denzel Washington for Roman J. Israel Esrile Esquire, who are like the veteran, you know, it's interesting. God, what a fucking great lineup. And then Oldman wins for Darkest Hour, a movie I like, but, like, not a performance I would have given an award to. Safely, my fifth place. I mean, like, we're not anti-Darkest Hour on here. Not at all.

I think that movie's perfectly fine and watchable, but, like, safely fifth place among that best actor lineup. Yeah. Agreed. So follows up Get Out with, well, first of all, Black Panther early 2018. So like that's still like while that Oscar nomination is happening, he plays one of the, he's, is it that he's Lupita? No, he's. Denai Guerrero's. Deni Guerrera's love interest who turns on Tachala and the. the, you know, the kingdom to go fight for the other side. Would you kill me, my love, for Wiconda without question. Oh, that's good. Best moment of the movie. It's good. It's great. And again, he just like, his, he has this unreal face. Like, it's like, you know, it's this very norma desmond. Should have been nominated for widow. We had faces then. So, like,

yes. So that, I was sort of building up to that. He's in widows late that year. And again, it's this thing where he doesn't speak a lot, but, like, he has a whole scene where all he does is stare down this one guy, and it's the most terrifying thing you've ever seen. He plays the, like, the psychopath of that movie, and he does it so well. I know some people would have given him an Oscar nomination for that. I only wouldn't because I would Maybe give it to Brian Tyree Henry instead. I don't know. Give it to both of them. Or give it to them and Colin Farrell.

There's a lot of awardsworthiness going on in widows. Maybe I do give it to. I feel a widows rewatch on the wind. I'm going to need to soon. So then Queen and Slim, which is a movie that, I mean, we should do Queen and Slim. A lot of expectation on that movie. And it doesn't deliver in some interesting ways where I think. it was a little overdetermined to be the next moonlight, you know what I mean, in terms of, like, the way it was pushed.

Melina Manzukas, too, people were very, very excited. And, like, I think as a visual storyteller, that movie has some interesting things going on. I just think it's so formulaic to this, like, road movie on the run type episodic structure that, like, it's hindered by that. It also got caught up in the Lena Waithe backlash. Was it just the thing I've always, I can't really speak to because a lot of that is from, like, within the black community. And there's a lot of sort of, you know, dissatisfactions and frustrations that go on that I'm not entirely privy to. And I can't really speak on that. But, like, I thought that was kind of fascinating that Lena Waith seems to be a pretty big lightning run.

odd of a figure in that community. But anyway, so he's a voice in whatever version of a Christmas carol came out in 2020, which, all right. Then comes Judas and the Black Messiah, which was definitely a movie I had my eye on early on, you know, before, because this was a 2020 movie that got technically pushed to early 2021 because you could do that with the Oscars that you. because of the pandemic. He plays Fred Hampton, the titular Black Messiah. The Oscar trajectory for this movie is kind of fascinating, where I think initially people

were looking at it as a Daniel Kaluya supporting actor play, and kind of nothing else. And then it just kept building and building, and it ultimately gets, what did it get, like, five Oscar nominations? It got... I thought it got like eight. It wins two Oscars because he wins and it wins Best Original Song. Six. Six nominations, including Daniel Kaluya and a shocking surprise Lakeith Stanfield,

both in supporting actor, even though Lakeith Stanfield is the lead of the movie. It's odd that they would take... If you're not going to say Lakeith Stanfield is the lead, then you kind of have to put Kalui in the lead. It's one of those frustrating things that it's like a movie, what ultimately happens is this like suggestion that there's everybody's supporting in a movie, which it's just like, or maybe there's three leads, there can be three leads of a movie because like I would argue maybe that Kaluya is a lead of the movie as well. Uh-huh. I think you can make that argument a lot easier than you can make that there's no leads in the movie. There are certain movies that are full ensembles.

There are certain movies that are- Yeah, this isn't shortcuts. It's not the big chill. You know what I mean? It's like, yes. It's weird. I mean, even the Big Chill has leads, but it's not like, you know. It's not a full ensemble.

It's not Gossford Park. It's not crack. You know what I mean? Like, it's not that kind of thing. Yeah. It's not a Christopher Guest movie. Right, right. Deeply weird.

But so it gets like picture nomination, screenplay, cinematography. It probably came closer to a director nomination than I think, you know, we realize that. Oh, yeah. I mean, give that. give that movie maybe in a normal season give that movie another few

It had a lot It had a lot of time But it was also like The runway on this season was pretty long It was late April The very last Breaking movie Because it even premiered at that

Sundance That's how I first saw it Right Yeah yeah yeah So Wynn's original song For ladies and gentlemen her highway robbery, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't have anything. Well, I have more against her now that I've seen the color purple, where she gives easily the weakest performance in that movie. In a character, as a character that no one talks about. No one talks about Squeak. Listen, Ray Don Chong did perfectly well with Squeak in 1985, and nobody complained. But, like, highway robbery, I'm sorry. that hers fight for you from this movie, this snoozy-ass little song that does not stick in your brain for more than a second, and it beats my beloved Hussevik from Eurovision Song Contest, which is a worse movie than...

A nominee that would not have happened, if not, in the pandemic year, though. But, like, maybe you would make the same case. But it was a pandemic year, Blanche. It was a pandemic year. So what are we going to do about it? It's a better song. And... infuriating, anyway. I mean, I think that win goes to show the strength of that movie amassed throughout the season, you know? I think that's right. Is this Sean Bobbitt's first Oscar nomination? It is shocking. First and only to this point, that he wasn't nominated for 12 years of slave or any of the other fantastic work that is to date his Sean Bobbitt's only Oscar nomination, which is.

insane um i mean that movie looks incredible so yeah deserved not just because he you know just regularly deserves this nomination so kaluya kind of like cleans up in that oscar season there's no there's never really any consideration that anything else is going to win and it's a very deserved performance but it also by that same token i don't think it is remembered as strongly as get out or widows or you know nope or any of these other things do you You know what I mean? So it's interesting to see because so much of the pandemic year is kind of siloed away. Yeah, we never hold everything from that movie because you think about movies like Nomad Land or Minari, speaking of Stephen Yun, who was nominated that year. Like, those are very, we're very, very beloved movies that we just don't talk about.

And then after Judas and the Black Messiah, it's an open 2022. And then he's a voice of sort of like punk, spider. Man, he's Spider-Punk in across the Spider-Verse. Easily, my favorite, into the Spider-Verse had about six voice performances that I was super, super into. And across the Spider-Verse, one of the things that sort of, you know, I'm hung up on with that movie in terms of it not being as good as the first one, is that there aren't nearly as many voice performances that I was really into. Kaluja is absolutely the exception.

He's absolutely the best one of all of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But so you look at Get Out was at this point, because Get Out came out so early in 2017, that movie is seven years old at this point. And he's really only made one, two, three, four, five live action movies since then, and then two voice performances. And then he was a producer on Honk for Jesus Save Your Soul, and it was a producer on a movie last year called The Kitchen. And I believe it dropped on. Netflix this January. Oh, okay. It's his directorial debut, co-directing. Oh, he co-directed. I didn't even notice that. Yes, yes. Boy. It got a somewhat quiet premiere at London Fest last year. Yeah. And then

kind of quietly released on Netflix. Well, that's a bummer for Daniel that it happened so quietly. I don't know. Sometimes for actor directors. Maybe. To get their first one out of the way. It can be a good thing. And it almost felt, it felt like there was a little bit of intentionality to the quietness of this like let them get their first one on the books figure out what directing is like and if he wants to continue directing that's a good point then like you know you know the one that people maybe have more attention to is can be a little bit more accomplished yeah that's a very good point well uh so many uh directorial debuts from already famous people yeah have you know hindered them in that way so it's like let it be quiet yeah we can catch up to it definitely

So, yeah, I think Kaluya is easily one of, I think the fact that Kaluya and Stephen Young are both in this movie, two of the sort of young lead actor types that we're very excited for. I'm hoping that the fact that Stephen Young just won all of these awards for television doesn't make people think that he can only cast him in television things. He's absolutely worthy of being a movie star. He's so good. as Jupe in this movie and I just really love him I would have nominated him for a supporting actor Oscar for Nope I think he's that good

in the movie What are you It's hard for a performance like Kaluias in this movie that's so incredibly understated that is like intentionally understated

it is like text of the movie that he should be the way that he is it's hard for a performance like that to get arrested in any type of awards race, even for critics, sometimes even especially for critics. Yeah. But he is tremendous in this movie.

And like all of these Caluia performances that we're talking about, there's not a one of them that is alike to the other. No. You know, an incredibly versatile performance. Without having to like, you know, put on a wig and a hat, you know what I mean? It's like he doesn't take these like big, big broad swings to differentiate his roles, but in these very subtle ways, you're right.

There's no mistaking one for the others. And again, it's all in the face with him. It's all in those eyes. Those eyes are so expressive posture, right? He's got, as they say, control of his instrument in a really, really fascinating way. I think he's just tremendous. Favorite performance in the first?

film, however, belongs to Kiki Palmer. Kiki Palmer. So, a child actress who, you know, has that sort of, she's, I mean, yeah, she's always on, right? She's always going to, she's always giving you something, right? She's a fantastic talk show guest. She's, you know, we'll give it her all when she's hosting a game show or something like that. Um, Akila in the B is the first thing. Uh, I know she was in barbershop too back in business, but the first thing that I took note of her in I think most people was Akela and the Bee. I know you didn't watch Claim to Fame, the best television show on network television. Very first season of Claim to Fame was won, ultimately, by Kiki Palmer's sister, Elsie, whose name is, I think just goes by Lauren, but she went by Elsie on the show.

But anyway, and nobody, one of the reasons why she won is because nobody knew, like, nobody ever clocked that she was related to Kiki Palmer. One of the things that was so funny, though, was that people did think she was related to Lawrence Fishburn. That was the sort of wrong. And so all of these clues that pertained to Akila in the B, they all just chalked up to being like, oh, right. B, it's a bee, it's Akela and the B, it's Lawrence Fishburn. And so that was one of the things that really helped her win was she was sort of like camouflaging as... Because they read the wrong star of the movie. They read the wrong clues and it's really, really funny. God, I loved her. What a great season. A credit to Kiki that the family line is that strong. I mean, also just a

performer who is so multifaceted in what she has done. and what her skill set is. I mean, I think you can attribute some of that to her idea of, like, she's talked about this in interviews where, you know, she's interested in trying different things. And, like, she's less concerned with is something beneath her stature of, like, hosting game shows and such. But it makes her such a unique talent that she can, like, go and make music.

She's been in Disney shows. Right. She's in comedy. Right. She's been, like, hosting game shows. She can kind of do anything. She feels so much more like a star from like 50 years ago. Like, some people might clutch their pearls at this, but it's like she feels like she's our Carol Burnett in that it's like you could put her in any scenario and she's going to excel, like, in terms of the entertainment industry. I think that's true. Between... She's done so much TV. That's the thing. She's a Broadway star.

Like, yep, yep. She checks off like every type of entertainment box. And it's just like to some extent, you know, it feels like she's maybe spread thin because it's like we should be having movie star vehicles for Kiki Palmer. But I don't think she's interested in being so pinned down to any one thing. And yet, I do feel pretty strongly that, by the way, she was also. also in that 2012 movie Joyful Noise, which was kind of the next thing I saw her in after Akila and the B.

Incredible. With Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah and Jeremy Jordan saw that movie in the theater. Same. I do have a really strong belief that she is going to be, she's going to win an Oscar one day. Like I just

100%. I absolutely think so. We also are of the opinion, and I know that we've talked about this with Katie. Perfect. A perfect choice to host the Oscars at some points also. I thought I saw that she was asked if she would do that, and she said she wouldn't turn it down, or that she wants to do it. I think they need to pick the right co-host for her. I think she should, I don't think she should host alone.

I think she should host with a co-host who has a different energy than her so that they can kind of bounce off of each other. And I'm trying to think of who that would be. But, I mean, the issue. issue with the multiple co-hosts thing is that it feels like the modern idea of it with multiple hosts is that you basically divide and conquer everybody goes and handles different parts of the show yeah i don't want that need in multiple multiple hosts for the oscars is them actually yes working together yes to create a dynamic and i'm not sure who she would you would pair her with either, but, like, that's not necessarily a bad idea because I think some of the concern

is, like, is she as big of a name to, like, is she monoculture enough to basically be a host? Right. But she would just be so good about it. And it's like, she loves movies. She's a cinephile. You listen to these interviews with her, and it's like she knows her shit about movies. She's one of those people who you feel like you could sit down with for an hour and you would have eight billion things to talk about. That's why she's such a great talk show guest. Then, of course, she's in... It's so funny when, like, you think about, like,

oh, what are the Kiki Palmer movies? It's a real small handful, right? Of, unless you really want to get into things like Ice Age movies or whatever. But, like, the ones that, like, made any impact... It's, you know, Akela and the Bee, Joyful Noise. And then, like, kind of nothing until hustlers comes along in terms of film...

Hustlers. She's in, uh, nope. She's in a voice in light year. She was the same year in in a movie called Alice, which was, remember that like micro trend of like, um, this is a movie where you think it's about slavery, but what it actually is, is it's set in the presence. And this one, I think was one of the, this movie wasn't necessarily well received, especially at that sundance, but it was. was better received than... What was that called? Antebellum. Antebellum.

And I think there was even another one. Antebellum, the thing where it's like, isn't it a gag? It's slavery. And it's just like, oh, God. Like... It's like... Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so I don't... Alice didn't really...

I didn't see it at that Sundance, and then it didn't really make much of a splash after that. So, um... Unforch. Um... year, she was in an animated movie, seemingly called Under the Boardwalk, that I must admit exists in some way or another. Her, Michael Sarah, Bobby Conavale, Russell Brand, John McGarro. It's not a bad voice cast.

Ron Funches, one of the best voice actors in the business. And then coming up, she's got a bunch of stuff that she's working on. It looks like the Aziz movie that got shut down because of Bill Murray, his bad behavior, looks like Aziz assembled some of the people, including Kiki Palmer, for a different project. I see. That I'll be interested to see. I will be interested to see that as well. And then, of course, television-wise, she's, you know, bopping all over the place. The one I want to single out is, I know, again, Ryan Murphy's tastes are not for everybody.

but she was so funny on Scream Queens. She was one of the heroes of that show, and Nisi Nash's character, who plays like the on-campus rent-a-cop or whatever, one of her things was, despite all of the evidence pointing in any other direction, she zeroed in on Kiki Palmer's character, Zay Day Williams, every single time as like, I know it was you, Zay Day Williams. I know you did this. And she's like, what are you talking about? It's just like, all this evidence points every other way.

And she's like, I got you. She's like, it's just very funny. She was in Greece Live, if you remember. As Marty. As Marty. She's like one of the best things about Greece. She's in, she co-hosted, along with Joel Kim Booster, a singled out revival on Quibi, were we ever so young. She voices a, is it a love bug on Big Mouth?

I think that's her, I think that's her role, is that she's a love bug on Big Mouth. She'll just like, again, as you say, she'll do it, she'll do it all. She can do it all. One of the bummer things about- Completely unpretentious. about any of it and why she is such a multifaceted star. The good thing about the after party getting canceled after two seasons is that they would have had to have found a way to ditch Tiffany Haddish anyway after all of this, well, I don't

know. Lord knows what gets you canceled these days with geopolitics, but going to Israel and doing comedy shows with that porn producer who was... Oh, boy, I did not see this. Yeah, Tiffany's not been covering herself in glory these days. But anyway, the cliffhanger going into season three was that it was going to be on the set of a movie, and Kiki Palmer was going to be the actress playing Tiffany Haddish's character in the movie they were making of the first season of the after party. So, like, I was going to be interested in that, especially with Kiki Palmer there.

Anyway, oh, boy. To talk about this performance, I mean, it's, this is, I mean, like, this is why I think this movie qualifies as sibling cinema. is I think it is so very delicately interwoven with what Daniel Kaluya is doing in that it's such an opposite and it does feel very older younger sibling in a way

they're complimenting each other constantly and like we maybe she maybe gets more praise out of it because it is the bigger performance than his but like I don't know I feel this real emotional attachment to this sibling relationship to and the like

basically passing of the baton of who gets to be the hero of the story from OJ to Emerald is she should be the one running the business and that's sort of how it moves it's it's so like delicately staged throughout the script

that it has this emotional payoff at the end and you know she gets to do the Akira's shot in the finale that's just like a fucking scream every time I watch it Um, but like it also feels like an anointing of her as a movie star. What is the Akira shot? Oh, the motorcycle slide. Oh, yeah.

It's directly lifted from Akira. Nice. So cool. Oh, I love that. Um, but like, the structuring of all of this feels like it's anointing her as a movie star. And because I feel like it is so the. the brother-sister relationship of this movie is so intrinsic to everything that it's doing

made me even more frustrated that she was campaigned as supporting. That's true. On top of all of that, yeah. I feel like I remember her being asked about it and like she had no qualms about it whatsoever. And like it does seem like it was one of those kind of blatant things that it's like, well, she has more chances in supporting than she does in lead.

And, like, as much as I would have enjoyed a Kiki Palmer Oscar nomination, and as much as I would love to see it, it feels categorically wrong to what the arc of the story is. Well, she made my ballot as a lead. I'll tell you that much, so. I forget what my ballot is in most of these years, but I would be willing to bet that she was on mine that you know it's the so much of the story aside from the monster movie of it is that m is an equal to oj and you know yeah i don't know i just found that frustrating but like she won new york film critics as a supporting whatever gets you there you know what i mean yeah whatever gets you there um all right we are we're running so long how do we do this how do we

do this. I know how we do this, but I'm asking a physician's question. Let's just, before we move on to the IMDB game, let's talk about this movie a little bit on the craft's front. Let's do it. You know, I think the one that people were hoping for most was Hoyt van Hoytama for It's a mystery. It's a real fucking mystery. I'm very happy that Hoyt van Hoitima seems like he's going to win an Oscar this year for Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer. And I really thought that he had more than two nominations, but he only has two. It's Oppenheimer and Dunkirk, which is wild, but he also, I guess, has a slimmer filmography than I expected. He came to a prominence through Let the Right One in, which is a gorgeously filmed movie. But, like, he wasn't nominated for Interstellar, wasn't nominated for Ad. Ashtra. I know. It's crazy.

I mean, some of my favorite work of his is not the type of thing that gets cinematography nominations, but I think her is a gorgeous movie. It is. It is. It should have been nominated for Nope. Nope. Nope also gets a contemporary film nomination from the Costume Designers Guild, but I think more interestingly got a fantasy film nomination from the Art Directors Guild.

This would have been a rad production design nomination. It would have been. That's for all of the, like, chinty, you know, soft-serve ice cream vibes of Jupiter's claim. Yeah. I believe they built that damn house. If I'm doing the nomination, let's count them up. I nominate this movie for Picture, director, actress. I don't know if I do actor, although now that, like, we've been talking about Kului, I don't know how I don't.

But anyway. I can't remember the screenplays, so let's maybe even, like, conservatively say it misses screenplay. Then, cinematography, editing, production design, sound, visual effects. Yeah. There's eight. There's eight nominations right there. All deserved. All deserved.

It got zero. So there. There you have it. Um, costume design is an interesting nomination for this. You don't really think of it too much in terms of, I know that, like, contemporary costume design is the, like, shallower category because, like, they all like to nominate period finery and whatnot. Well, but you think about all of the, like, drag that Stephen Ewan is in, all of the, like, Orville Peck minus a mask outfit. No, the mask went to his on-screen sister. King hoodie and the jersey that M wears at the end of the movie as like heroes garb, you know? Yep, yep, yep, that's true.

It's like simple costume, costuming choices that, like, on screen feels iconic in a way. And I guess things like the motorcyclist's helmet probably fits into that too, right? Is that costume or is that production design? I guess it's a helmet's costume design. Um, that was that, to me, the helmet being an exact replica of the, um, the thing that spooks the horse, the sort of the lighting thing that spooks the horse at the beginning is really kind of amazing. Um, but what was I going to say about, oh, I love the glass onion won this costume designer's guild award for contemporary film because so much of the, for Kate Hudson's, uh, rainbow dress. bathing suit that is just a jacified jean jacket that too but also Kate Hudson's

rainbow dress and also Kate Hudson's mask that isn't a mask that it's just sort of like woven threads it's so good Kate Hudson Benoit's bathing suit

Benoit Blanc bathing suit Benoit Ascot like there's a lot going on there all of Benoit's island wear truly in that movie. Highly deserved. Okay. Also nominated were Tar, Top Gun, Maverick, and Women Talking. Sure.

Tar is a good nomination. Everything that Tar wore, um, yeah, Top Gun Maverick, whatever. And women talking... I will be re-watching Tar again soon. Like, yes, you dress them all like Mennonites and Women Talking. You know what I mean? Like, okay. It's all different fabrics.

Sure. You know, you got to give authenticity to that world. That's a sneaky way of doing a period nomination in a contemporary. movie. You know what I mean? That is a, you know what I mean? That's, that's, I think, I think based off of the case that it's from, I think it still qualifies with what they're, they have like a year range within that guild that it qualifies. I'm not saying it doesn't, I think it definitely does qualify, but it also appeals to all of their tendencies to nominate things from period pieces. It's just set in a contemporary setting

macronistically, you know what I mean? Like, they are, you know, they exist sort of outside of time in their community, which is part of that story. All right. Are we basically taking away all of All Quiet on the Western Front's nominations?

It's true. And giving them to nope. I wanted to sort of quickly there was that opening quote in the movie that is from a book from the Hebrew Bible about, I will set you to filth or something like that. I'll make a spectacle of you, all this sort of stuff. Another spectacle. So many mentions of spectacle, I just sort of wrote them all.

Every time they mention it, I wrote it down. But I also thought it made me think of, so you know, there's this eclipse happening in April that's. Yeah, you're going to, it's going to be right there. I wish I could come up and see it with you. Well, you're probably better off not, because all of the local talk is of just how many people are going to be coming here and whether this city can like accommodate it. They're saying it could be up to a million people flocking to Buffalo and the greater sort of Buffalo area to see this movie, which is like good for businesses, but it also could like functionally shut down the city. Like they're telling people to like stuck up on growth. They're essentially telling people to prepare for it as if they're preparing for a snowstorm

appropriately enough because it's like you might not be able to drive anywhere because the roads might just like, at some point, at the moment of the eclipse, just expect for all road traffic to stop. Like, we're in fucking Independence Day or something like that. It's the wildest shit. I need to find a way to get a, like, Venus fly trap delivered to you that day. Preferably, like, it arrives as soon as the eclipse is over. Freak me out, man.

Then I'm going to have to feed that thing. Human meat for the rest of my life. A dentist. You're going to have to feed it an entire dentist. I know. But anyway, so that's what the note made me think of this time, this idea of this spectacle. And it's again, it's going to be all these people staring right up into the sky. And like, you know, we are drawn to these moments that are bigger than ourselves, right? This sort of this thing where we can all sort of stand in awe at this one thing. And it's going to be wild, I will say. The other thing, last thing I wanted to say, that shoe, though. That shoe. That's a production design nomination. That is the confluence of costume and production design too, right?

Good design. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you had to give that shoe to a prop master probably so that it could perfectly balance the way that it was, or they finagle some type of thing that we cannot see on screen. The aftermath of the Gordy attack is so horrifying to look at, where it's just the legs. of the one actress, and you don't know whether she's dead or not, except for after he starts poking her enough, she starts whimpering. And then you're all watching it from underneath the table. So, like, when the dad comes and tries to, like, run past and he gets clobbered

and the shoe is standing on its end. Tablecloth, also a genius addition to, you know, mask any... CGI. Yep, I thought that, too. Maybe less than perfect. I thought that too. Yep. And also the first ever exploding fist bump, which was the thing that Jup says early on, which I think is so funny.

We were the first. I mean, to me, the terrifying thing about that scene is like all of this destruction. You have Gordy covered in blood. Yeah. And like, this is, of course, the thing that maybe creates a weird attachment on Jup's part because, you know, we've essentially seen. or bared witness to Gordy decimating several people

but then when he comes to Jup he has no violent action towards him. He recognizes him and doesn't want to hurt him or doesn't have the impulse to hurt him and he does this like fist bump thing because that's who he recognizes this child as and so that becomes very formative for Jup of like rationalizing Gordy's behavior

or like understand Well, he also thinks he's special. He also thinks that he has a special ability to commune with wild nature, and he gets all sorts of fucked up. I guess my last note on this movie, maybe, is my rewatch in my brain really paired it with asteroid city in a very strange way, not just because these are both movies set in the desert. We're an alien visit. but kind of as an opposite to this movie because they were both conceived during the pandemic. And, like, Jordan Peel has, you know, talked about the genesis of this movie was like, what's going to have some appeal to people once we're through COVID?

And he was like, open range, the sky, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's also, like, the idea of all of these themes and all of the things that were terrifying and... you know, creating existential dread at that time that asteroid city and Nope almost kind of go in opposite directions. I think Nope is kind of the darker side of coming out of all of those themes and finding, you know, reminding us or showing us what the horror of kind of that time, whereas Asteroid City follows a lighter path than a more hopeful path. Maybe this is something I should develop a little bit more, but I did kind of tie those two movies together in a way that I found really interesting. And like telling stories through, you know, those times of struggle or like existential

threats. I would maybe even go the other way and pair it with, I'd love to program it back to back with Jurassic Park, particularly the Laura Dern, Richard Attenborough, scene in Jurassic Park where she's like, you know, I was in awe of that power too, but I, she's like, I made a mistake too, and now they're out there, and where people are dying, and the sort of idea of, you know, balancing awe with these spectacular creatures while also having a healthy fear of them and being able to, like, the only reason why,

you know, not the only reason, but like, there is a skill to what OJ is able to do as a horse trainer, right? To sort of take this unruly, untamed beast that could, you know, really fuck somebody up. And it's not like, it's not the jupe, the thing that jupe thinks that like, oh, something is intrinsically within me that allows me to, you know, communicate with animals. It's like, no, it's just, it's work and know-how and skill and experience. And that's why OJ can tame these horses.

And that's why Jupe cannot tame jean jacket, ultimately. Gene jacket's got a silk jacket. let's be honest right it's something sort of satiny it's something all right wow two hours and i feel like we've only scratched the surface i really do feel like we've only scratched the surface i could talk about this movie for a day i love this movie so much so yeah yeah yeah yeah welcome to the 2022 class of uh this had oscarbus episodes we'll be the gates are open dipping jean jacket is ready to suck up those episodes Here we go. All right.

Joe, would you like to explain the IMDB game for our list? Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, wherein we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress, and we try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for, if any of those titles are television shows, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits. We mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue.

And if that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That's the IMDB game. Are you giving or guessing first this week? I'll guess first. All right, so I went into the Jordan Peel filmography and emerged with none other than Bradley Whitford. Oh, wonderful. Only one television. Is it the West Wing? It is indeed the West Wing.

Okay. So three films is one of them Get Out. One of them is Get Out. It's one of them Billy Madison. No, no Billy Madison. Miss Lippie's car is green. Is one of them saving Mr. Banks? Yes, I never would have thought you would have got it. I've told you my saving Mr. Bank story with Bradley Whitford, right?

No. I think I have, but I'll say it very briefly on here. So I went to a performance of how I learned to drive. a sort of staged reading of it, anniversary performance, because I love Mary Louise Parker so much. And because it was this sort of like anniversary thing, there was this reception after with like a lot of dignitary, like a lot of people famous, essentially, who were there for Mary Louise. And my roommate at the time had been Mary Louise's dresser on doubt, or on proof, rather, not doubt, on proof. And so, like, we went to this reception after, and I got to meet Mary Louise Parker, and it was very, very wonderful. Mike Nichols was there looking as old as I've ever seen anybody look in God's Green Earth.

I did not have the guts to go up and introduce myself to Mike Nichols, but I did introduce myself to Bradley Whitford. And so I chatted with Bradley Whitford for a few minutes. And that was in 2012. and I had seen Cabin in the Woods earlier that summer, and I was very, very high on Cabin in the Woods. And, of course, Bradley Whitford shows up in that movie towards the end with Richard Jenkins. And so I said to him, I said,

you were actually in one of my favorite movies of this summer. And he's like, oh, really? Which movie? And I said, Cabin in the Woods, expecting him to be like, oh, yeah, like, great, you know, loved that movie. And he goes, and he goes, huh, that's interesting. And I go, oh, okay. And he's like, you know what movie I made that hasn't come out yet, that is one of the best scripts I've ever read, one of the best movies I've ever made, it's going to be phenomenal. I can't wait for people to see it. I'm like, oh, what's that? Because it's saving Mr. Banks. It's, you know, he was so excited for it. And I was like, it really just sort of goes to show that you don't know. You know what I mean? Like,

Other people's, the experience of making that movie must have been tremendous for him. And they were, you know, they were so incredibly happy with how that turned out. And it's just like the gulf between the movie you make and the movie as it is received by people is just very, very different. That should be an exception soon. We should do that as an exception. What was that nomination? Maybe we'll just write it right down. Score.

Score, of course. Danny Elfman? Yeah. Thomas Newman. Oh, okay. There we go. All right, anyway. Positive that it's.

the score. I could be wrong. So you're giving me Bradley Whitford and I've got two correct and I've got one strike. No, you have three correct and you have one strike. What's my third? I got West Wing. You said get out, West Wing and saving Mr. Banks. Oh, so Mr. Banks was right. That's right. Okay.

Yeah. Um, and now my fourth I'm going to guess the post. Incorrect. Okay. I really thought I was doing something here. Your year is 2011. That's not the correct year.

Oh. So it's 2012 from a 2011. Was it Cabin in the Woods? Is it a cabin in the woods? I'm sorry. Your fucking story ruined. My story ruined your great plan. That's so funny.

You ruined Christmas. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that. You should be. You should be. I thought I was giving you something difficult and you had a skeleton. in key. I did. How are you to know? You didn't know. Okay, so, um, which way am I going to go? I'm sort of, I'm still deciding whether, okay, can I give you a choice or no, do you not want a choice?

No, just do what you do. Okay, so, um, Kiki Palmer, of course, in 2024, um, was one of the actors asked to participate in a little project, called Jennifer Lopez. This is me Elipsis now. Playing one of, I believe Kiki Palmer is one of the Zodiac.

I still haven't seen it. I still haven't seen it. I have to find the time to devote. But I think Kiki Palmer is playing one of the Zodiac signs. Have you seen this yet? I saw that clip.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We both have to watch this thing, Chris. It's her. It's Jane Fonda. It's Kim Petrus. Yes. Obviously, Jane Fonda, Kim Petrus, and Post Malone together at last. Kiki Palmer plays Scorpio.

And as Gemini, there is, of course, the great Jennifer Lewis. Now, Jennifer Lewis is known for, has two voice performances, but no television. No voice performances are coming to the forefront for Jennifer Lewis. This is going to be hard. This is going to be hard. This is going to be hard. Jennifer Lewis is, they call her the mother of Black Hollywood? Or is she like the Queen of Black Hollywood?

She's all of it. I think it's the mother of Black Hollywood. She's all of it. Mother has arrived. Wow. No, this is going to be so hard. Do you want me just give you clues from the start? I don't want to punk out.

Sister Act is not going to be there. We just talked about that. We did just talk about that. Um, maybe the voices are the way to go. She can't be amused from Hercules. I don't think that that would show up on a known for. Is she a muse in Hercules? No, but that's a good guess.

I think it's a very good guess. I only remember Lilius White, but there's other famous names in there. Yeah, there are. I'm going to have to punk out What other? See, there's no TV? No TV. See, that's where I know Jennifer.

That's like the things that immediately come to mind for Jennifer Lewis. So I'll just say Systract and get my years. No, not Systerect. So your years are 1996, 1996, 2009, 2006, and 2009. Okay. Which ones are the... The latter two, 2006 and 2009. Okay.

I wonder if they'll have her singing. I will say none of these movies are obscure movies. Right. That's the thing. She shows up for a scene in every, like, monoculture movie. And that's... The, like, people who are in big movies for one scene are the absolute hardest thing. able to do known for us for because it's like you know somebody for doing that but you don't

always immediately recall like the individual if you're an animated movie and you're not obscure what are you probably like you're a disney movie so princess and the frog correct princess and the frog that's your 2009 if you're not a disney movie though you might also be uh Pixar right for 2006 would be No, no. 2006 is pre-Ratatooe post Monsters, Inc. So that would, well, there's also Cars. Cars is 04. What's the 06 Pixar movie?

I would have been at college. It's not Wally. Wally's 07. So what was before Wally's O'A? Wally's O'A. Oh, 8, okay. Ratatouis 07. Thank you. You mentioned Reda Chooey already That's why I felt free to mention it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is that Pixar movie? It's not up. Up is 09 or 10. Oh, 9. One of those two years. It's not a sequel, is it? Not a sequel.

What Pixar movie am I forgetting? You're not forgetting it. Listeners are screaming. You're not forgetting it. Oh, did I say a wrong year? Yeah. Is it up? No.

Is it Monsters? No, it's not Monsters Inc. It's... What did I say already? Not Ratatouille, not Wally. Yeah, what was on the other side of that? There's like three voices in Wally. You said something was 2004 and it's not.

Cars? Cars was 2006. Oh, I hate that Cars is in her known for. I know. I don't know any voicing cars, except for like Bonnie. Paul Newman. Paul Newman. Owen Wilson. All right.

So, your two live actions are 1996 and 1999. Okay, so 90s movies. Great. Perfect. What genre is she probably going to be in? Comedies. Right. In 99, comedies from 99.

The 99 comedy is an ensemble comedy. I have seen this movie, and I don't remember her being in it. Interesting. It's not like a teen ensemble company, isn't it? No, it's an adult ensemble comedy. Because, like, that... 1999, we never really talk about colleges when we talk about 99? We don't.

This movie was kind of like a little bit of a disappointment, given its cast and given its premise. I think people were like very excited to see it and they were kind of a little bit let down. I think it's pretty good. But I haven't... Is it a reunited cast? Nope. It's original. It's an original thing.

But sort of commenting on things that aren't original things. okay so is it like a movie satire it's not quite it's it's not a satire about the movies it's a satire about um entertainment no like a type of story a type of um a type of movie but more it's like a type of characters got it oh like superheroes uh huh is it mystery it is mystery men yeah all right Wow. These are not any of the things that I, like, I'm like, monoculture, and it's like cars and... Yeah. 96 is the one I thought you might be able to remember as her role. She's probably the, at-worst, fourth lead. It's not, the movie is not about her. The movie is very much about its two central stars. The movie is a remake. It had a successful soundtrack.

okay um here's the hint i'll give you 96 i'm guessing it's like a romance or romantic comedy jennifer lewis plays the main character's mother even though she's only six years older than the actress who plays the main character right right right because she's played angela bassett's mother in what's love got to do with it right oh is that true this this is this is not what's Love got to do with it. In this movie, she plays... Was it What's Love Got? She's famously played, I believe, multiple times. Several actresses, mothers being of their generation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, 96th, though. 96, though. 96 remake. Follow Angela Bassett, though. What was Angela Bassett making around that time? 95 is the big Angela Bassett. Why? I don't know if Angela Bassett has a 96th. Right, but why was 95 the big Angela Bassett year? What's she in?

That's strange days. That's waiting to exhale. That's... Right. Follow some of those paths down the road. Whitney? Oh, it's preacher's wife. There you go. It is the preacher's wife. That was a tough one, I admit. I did want to just talk about Jennifer. Don't place that as 96 in my mind. I place that as like 94. Well, your sixes and fours have got... It could use some work, which we... that in cars. Is it what's love got to do with it where she plays? I don't remember. Let's see. Jennifer Lewis, 93. Or it's just that the actress, yeah, she plays Angela Bassett's mom in that movie. That's so funny. That's one of those things where I'm like, why didn't I just guess that movie? But I shouldn't have guessed that movie?

Angela Bassett, born in I want to get the the gear difference. IMDB is so slow these days. Have you noticed that? Yes. And it doesn't tell you right off the bat. See, I hate defaulting to Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is the better reference. Like, it just is. I'm sorry.

That has to be one of the hardest IMDB games. it was because it's just like you go you go into like the foggy space with like character actors like Jennifer Lewis I agree um where it's just like their whole career becomes a morass and all you can think of is like the thing that they do Jennifer Lewis is a year and a half older than Angela Bassett I guess Angela Bassett in the early part of that movie is playing much younger than herself but still like yes It's sort of the Sally Field in Forrest Gump thing, where everybody was like, Sally Field playing Tom Hanks' mother, and they were, you know, peers in Punchline. It's like, yeah, she's playing old-ass, old-age makeup mom to, like, tiny little, mostly child actor before Tom Hanks. Like, let's everybody chill out.

Right. Remember when everybody got mad about Marissa Tomey being cast as Aunt May? And it's like, she's exactly the right age to play Tom Hullin's aunt. Like, what are we talking about? How old do you want this teenage boy's aunt to be? Like, they wanted to just be like, you know, fucking glorious steward out there. And people got to calm down, man. I don't know.

Everybody calmed down. All right. That's our episode. If you want more, This Head Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoskbrose.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Please also subscribe to us on Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Socials at Joe Reed,

read spelled R-E-I-D. Also play Cinematrix on Vulture every weekday. I am making puzzles and having fun and would like to continue to do so. Let's do that. People are really enjoying. Play the game.

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