Nope - Movie Review

Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yuen, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea and Keith David.

Written & Directed by Jordan Peele.

★★½ 

Jordan Peele knows how to take a benign setting and make it sinister, be it a WASPy dinner party in Get Out or Hands Across America in Us. Here, he points his camera at the outskirts of Hollywood. We follow the Haywood siblings (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer), who train horses for TV shows and commercials, and we have Jupiter's Claim, a third-rate theme park centered on Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yuen), a child actor now making his living exploiting the projects of his youth.

If you've seen the preview, you know at some point aliens come into play. I'm glad that's the extent of what I knew about them, so I won't reveal more than that. This movie is about how these people on the ground deal with what's up in the sky. It's hard to pin down one theme of the movie. "Spectacle" is one. "Bad miracles" is another. There's also a theme about animals who can go wild, be it the horses who get spooked, or as we see in the opening scene, a chimpanzee gets triggered on a TV set and attacks the crew.

The chimp was on a 1990's sitcom where Ricky was one of the actors, one of the only ones the chimp didn't attack. It's obviously affected Ricky, but I thought the movie would tie the past and present together in some "everything falls into place" way in the third act, and that moment never came. Peele leaves a lot up to the audience to interpret. 

While it had some decent scares in the middle, I'd say Get Out and Us were more suspenseful overall. This is his Signs. Signs was M. Night Shyamalan's third movie, and while it wasn't as good as The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, it was still okay. There's a lot I liked about this movie, but whenever I think about it, its problems are what I think about first. About coincidences, and characters jumping to conclusions that only movie characters would do. And that shoe. We see a shoe unnaturally standing upright in a scene, but it's never explained what made it stand up and why that matters. But it apparently does, because they refer to it a couple times. For some reason...

I think my expectations were too high. 

Thor still #1, Crawdads #3 at box office

For the weekend of July 15-17, 2022, Thor Love & Thunder didn't have to face any blockbusters in its second week and thus was able to easily continue its rule. A 68% drop isn't surprising, but it shows it's not going to catch the most recent installments of Spider-Man or Doctor Strange.

Of the new releases, Where the Crawdads Sing was able to get book-club members everywhere into the theater. Reviews were mixed so I don't expect it to have long legs. Paws of Fury was long delayed, and I expect it to be on Paramount's streaming service sooner rather than later.

Top Gun Maverick only having a 22% drop in its eighth week is amazing. It'll jump The Avengers and The Last Jedi sometime this week to become the 9th highest grossing movie of all time.

Jordan Peele's Nope opens this week, and that should toppled Thor in its third week.

Opens July 22

NOPE with Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yuen.

Emmy Nominations 2022

Here is the list of the 2022 Emmy Award nominations.

Drama Series

“Better Call Saul” (AMC)   

“Euphoria” (HBO)   

“Ozark” (Netflix)   

“Severance” (Apple TV+)   

“Squid Game” (Netflix)   

“Stranger Things” (Netflix)   

“Succession” (HBO)   

“Yellowjackets” (Showtime)  

Comedy Series

“Abbott Elementary” (ABC)   

“Barry” (HBO)

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO)   

“Hacks” (HBO)   

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon Prime Video)

“Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu)

“Ted Lasso” (Apple TV+)

“What We Do in the Shadows” (FX)   

Limited Series

“Dopesick” (Hulu)   

“The Dropout” (Hulu)   

“Inventing Anna” (Netflix)   

“Pam and Tommy” (Hulu)   

“The White Lotus” (HBO)   

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Jason Bateman (“Ozark”)  

Brian Cox (“Succession”)  

Lee Jung-jae (“Squid Game”)   

Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”)  

Adam Scott (“Severance”)  

Jeremy Strong (“Succession”) 

 

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”)   

Laura Linney (“Ozark”)  

Melanie Lynskey (“Yellowjackets”)  

Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”)  

Reese Witherspoon (“The Morning Show”)   

Zendaya (“Euphoria”)  

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Donald Glover (“Atlanta”)   

Bill Hader (“Barry”)  

Nicholas Hoult (“The Great”)

Steve Martin (“Only Murders in the Building”)   

Martin Short (“Only Murders in the Building”)  

Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso”)  

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)  

Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”)  

Kaley Cuoco (“The Flight Attendant”)  

Elle Fanning (“The Great”)  

Issa Rae (“Insecure”)  

Jean Smart (“Hacks”)  

Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Colin Firth (“The Staircase”)  

Andrew Garfield (“Under the Banner of Heaven”)  

Oscar Isaac (“Scenes From a Marriage”)  

Michael Keaton (“Dopesick”)  

Himesh Patel (“Station Eleven”)  

Sebastian Stan (“Pam and Tommy”)   

Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Toni Collette (“The Staircase”)  

Julia Garner (“Inventing Anna”)  

Lily James (“Pam and Tommy”)  

Sarah Paulson (“Impeachment: American Crime Story”)

Margaret Qualley (“Maid”)  

Amanda Seyfried (“The Dropout”)  

Variety Talk Series

“The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” (Comedy Central)  

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (ABC)  

“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (HBO)  

“Late Night With Seth Meyers” (NBC)  

“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (CBS)  

Competition Program

“The Amazing Race” (CBS)  

“Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” (Amazon Prime Video)  

“Nailed It!” (Netflix)  

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” (VH1)  

“Top Chef” (Bravo)  

“The Voice” (NBC)  

Television Movie

“Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers” (Disney+)

“Ray Donovan: The Movie” (Showtime)

“Reno 911!: The Hunt For QAnon” (Paramount+)

“The Survivor” (HBO/HBO Max)

“Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas” (The Roku Channel)

Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Patricia Arquette (“Severance”)

Julia Garner (“Ozark”)

Jung Ho-yeon (“Squid Game”)

Christina Ricci (“Yellowjackets”)

Rhea Seehorn (“Better Call Saul”)

J. Smith-Cameron (“Succession”)

Sarah Snook (“Succession”)

Sydney Sweeney (“Euphoria”)

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Nicholas Braun (“Succession”)

Billy Crudup (“The Morning Show”)

Kieran Culkin (“Succession”)

Park Hae-soo (“Squid Game”)

Matthew Macfadyen (“Succession”)

John Turturro (“Severance”)

Christopher Walken (“Severance”)

Oh Yeong-su (“Squid Game”)

Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Alex Borstein (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)

Hannah Einbinder (“Hacks”)

Janelle James (“Abbott Elementary”)

Kate McKinnon (“Saturday Night Live”)

Sarah Niles (“Ted Lasso”)

Sheryl Lee Ralph (“Abbott Elementary”)

Juno Temple (“Ted Lasso”)

Hannah Waddingham (“Ted Lasso”)

Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Carrigan (“Barry”)

Brett Goldstein (“Ted Lasso”)

Toheeb Jimoh (“Ted Lasso”)

Nick Mohammed (“Ted Lasso”)

Tony Shalhoub (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)

Tyler James Williams (“Abbott Elementary”)

Henry Winkler (“Barry”)

Bowen Yang (“Saturday Night Live”)

Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Connie Britton (“The White Lotus”)

Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus”)

Alexandra Daddario (“The White Lotus”)

Kaitlyn Dever (“Dopesick”)

Natasha Rothwell (“The White Lotus”)

Sydney Sweeney (“The White Lotus”)

Mare Winningham (“Dopesick”)

Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Murray Bartlett (“The White Lotus”)

Jake Lacy (“The White Lotus”)

Will Poulter (“Dopesick”)

Seth Rogen (“Pam & Tommy”)

Peter Sarsgaard (“Dopesick”)

Michael Stuhlbarg (“Dopesick”)

Steve Zahn (“The White Lotus”)

Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Hope Davis (“Succession”)

Marcia Gay Harden (“The Morning Show”)

Martha Kelly (“Euphoria”)

Sanaa Lathan (“Succession”)

Harriet Walter (“Succession”)

Lee You-mi (“Squid Game”)

Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Adrien Brody (“Succession”)

James Cromwell (“Succession”)

Colman Domingo (“Euphoria”)

Arian Moayed (“Succession”)

Tom Pelphrey (“Ozark”)

Alexander Skarsgård (“Succession”)

Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Jane Adams (“Hacks”)

Harriet Sansom Harris (“Hacks”)

Jane Lynch (“Only Murders in the Building”)

Laurie Metcalf (“Hacks”)

Kaitlin Olson (“Hacks”)

Harriet Walter (“Ted Lasso”)

Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Jerrod Carmichael (“Saturday Night Live”)

Bill Hader (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”)

James Lance (“Ted Lasso”)

Nathan Lane (“Only Murders in the Building”)

Christopher McDonald (“Hacks”)

Sam Richardson (“Ted Lasso”)

Variety Sketch Series

“A Black Lady Sketch Show” (HBO/HBO Max)

“Saturday Night Live” (NBC)

Variety Special (Live)

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards (CBS)

Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes (ABC)

The Oscars (ABC)

Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent (NBC)

Tony Awards Presents: Broadway’s Back! (CBS)

Variety Special (Pre-Recorded)

“Adele: One Night Only” (CBS)

“Dave Chappelle: The Closer” (Netflix)

“Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts” (HBO/HBO Max)

“Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special” (Netflix)

“One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga” (CBS)

Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series

Atlanta (FX) Hiro Murai, Directed by

Barry (HBO/HBO Max) Bill Hader, Directed by

Hacks (HBO/HBO Max) Lucia Aniello, Directed by

The Ms. Pat Show (BET+) Mary Lou Belli, Directed by

Only Murders In The Building (Hulu) Cherien Dabis, Directed by

Only Murders In The Building (Hulu) Jamie Babbit, Directed by

Ted Lasso (Apple TV+) MJ Delaney, Directed by

Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series

Ozark (Netflix) Jason Bateman, Directed by

Severance (Apple TV+) Ben Stiller, Directed by

Squid Game (Netflix) Hwang Dong-hyuk, Directed by

Succession (HBO/HBO Max) Mark Mylod, Directed by

Succession (HBO/HBO Max) Cathy Yan, Directed by

Succession (HBO/HBO Max) Lorene Scafaria, Directed by

Yellowjackets (Showtime) Karyn Kusama, Directed by

Minions: Rise of Gru exceeds $100 million

For the weekend of July 1-3, 2022, Minions: The Rise of Gru was the big winner. It's outperformed all other animated fare this year, and it was the second highest opening in the Despicable Me franchise.

The other new release was Mr. Malcolm's List. It felt like a limited release that was given wide-release treatment in hopes that the popularity of Bridgerton and Downton Abbey might get people out, but it backfired.

Meanwhile, on Tom Cruise's 60th birthday, he can enjoy Top Gun: Maverick still being in second place.

Opens July 8 

THOR: LOVE & THUNDER with Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale and Natalie Portman.