Hunter/Hunted

Film: Nope
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on the kid’s television.

I’ve been in St. Louis since last Saturday. Like last year, I’m pet sitting my daughter’s dog while she is on vacation with her boyfriend’s family. I’ve been watching sitcoms mostly for the week while I’ve been grading papers, but now that I’m pretty much done with my papers for the week, it was time to sit back with a movie. Naturally I brought some discs with me, and I figured this would be as good a time as any to finally catch up with Nope, Jordan Peele’s third film.

Musicians often have a sophomore slump because all of their best songs that they’ve worked on for years go on the first album, and the second one ends up feeling rushed. Movies tend to drop off in the third film these days—think of all of the trilogies you can. With rare exceptions like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the third movie tends to be where things drop off. It’s true of most genres, goes back at least as far as the Star Wars trilogy, and is true of unconventional trilogies like Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy. It’s also true of Jordan Peele’s first three movies.

Wednesday Horror: Us

Film: Us
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on basement television.

A couple of days ago, I looked at the Original Screenplay race from 2017 and I put winner Get Out and screenwriter Jordan Peele in fourth place. I admitted then and will admit now that that placement does bother me a little, because Peele is a talented screenwriter and he has a great deal to say. I’m pleased that he’s won an Oscar, though, because he well may not win another. Peele seems to be dedicated now to working in genre film, something Oscar typically turns up its nose at. That being the case, Peele will get plenty of acclaim from fans, but little from his peers. It’s a damn shame, too, because while I don’t think Us is as good a movie as Get Out, it’s a much better (and much more original) screenplay.

It’s also a difficult movie to describe to any depth without giving away the game. We start in the mid-1980s with a family on vacation in Santa Cruz. While on the boardwalk, young Adelaide (Madison Curry) wanders into a funhouse where she meets something like a double of herself in the mirror maze. Jump to the modern day and Adelaide (now Lupito Nyong’o) is married to Gabe (Winston Duke). They, along with their two kids, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) are heading to their large summer house in, well, Santa Cruz. Everything seems normal, at least at first.

Welcome to Stepford

Film: Get Out
Format: HBO on hotel television.

When Get Out became the sudden darling of the movie world. I was intrigued. That happens with a horror movie now and then, and tends to happen with a horror movie that really deserves it. There was huge, worthy buzz surrounding films like It Follows, for instance, and while opinion is divided on The Blair Witch Project, there’s no denying that it was influential in no small part because of the huge sensation it caused. But, I don’t go to the theater that often. It’s been almost two years since I’ve sat down in a crowd to watch a film, and I knew that if it were big and important enough, it would show up on my television eventually. Well, it showed up on a hotel television, and that’s good enough for me.

Let’s first of all be honest about one thing: Get Out was hailed as being incredibly and fiercely original. It’s not. In many ways, it’s a racially-based riff on The Stepford Wives with a bit of Being John Malkovich thrown in for good measure. That’s simply true, and it also matters not in the least. That’s because Get Out feels incredibly new and original from the moment it starts to get a little odd to the third act when it spins into full-on, violent horror. Good filmmakers can make the old feel new and can give an old idea relevance in the modern world. That’s precisely what writer/director Jordan Peele has done here.