The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
July 22, 2022/ 85 min/ Sean Fennessey · Van Lathan
Sean Fennessey and Van Lathan talk through Jordan Peele's third feature, spoiler-free then spoilers, then Fennessey sits down with Peele himself.
5 films across 2 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Van Lathan on ‘Nope’spoiler-free, then spoilers
Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as siblings running a Hollywood horse ranch who try to film the thing in the sky. Van finds the first third clunky and Shyamalan-esque, warmer on it the more he sits with it; both flag that the crowd-pleasing win at the end undercuts the movie's own warning about profiting off nature. Shot on IMAX by Hoyte van Hoytema, scored by Michael Abels, cut by Nicholas Monsour.
The point of comparison both keep returning to. Van was a skeptic before release, then it blew him away; the pair credit it with making Peele a brand and reviving original studio horror.
Van didn't like it. Beautiful to look at, but more a museum than an experience, and it strains toward its final reveal. Sean thinks it works better as an episode than a single sitting.
In conversation
Peele on wanting a massive film, inventing horse trainer Otis Sr.'s fake career to get a 'Berenstain Bears' collapse of real and invented history, and building the chimp set 30% larger so Terry Notary's performance would read smaller. His line: people like movies more than messages.
Peele's answer to the show's closing question, the last great thing he's seen, partly because it gave him a shout-out.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Hoyte van Hoytema's résumé InterstellarDunkirkTenetAd AstraLet the Right One InHer
Influences and homages JawsAlienClose Encounters of the Third KindSignsThe Sixth SenseThe Thing
On the walls and in the frame Duel at DiabloBuck and the PreacherThe Scorpion King
The cast elsewhere Judas and the Black MessiahHustlers
Peele's own back catalog and its homages KeanuC.H.U.D.The Goonies
In passing The SquareDjango UnchainedTop Gun: MaverickJurassic World DominionThe Magnificent Seven
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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