Nope

Leading up to its release on July 22, Jordan Peele kept his highly-anticipated third film, Nope, tightly under wraps. The trailer is little more than a spooky montage of dark forces and craning necks, and Peele was very cagey about what happens in the movie in the few interviews he’s given. His elusiveness sparked a whole host of Well, two TIME reporters saw the film—and walked out of it with even more theories and questions than when we walked in. Nope, which is available to stream on Peacock as of Nov. 18 as well as to rent on other digital platforms, is a transfixing and hugely ambitious movie with a perplexing array of disparate characters and symbols: a murderous chimp, inflatable dancing men, a flying saucer. By the time the film has ended, the A-plot has resolved itself neatly. But in the two packed theaters where we screened the film, theatergoers remained silent and still as the credits rolled, suggesting some sort of confusion, or at least unease, with the whole thing. Courtesy of Universal Pictures Jordan Peele’s movies beg to be closely scrutinized: they’re full of historical and cultural Easter eggs, double meanings and sociopolitical commentary. His first two films, Get Out and Us, have provoked endless analysis from professors, psychologists, and historians, with Get Out even inspiring a Vanity Fair in 2017. But in the last few months, Peele has signaled that Nope is different in that regard, that his intentions may be more visceral and surface-level. “I wro...

I’ve always had begrudging respect for a filmmaker who refuses to cater to a viewer’s pre-ordained expectations, even if said viewer is yours truly. It’s why I attend After the massively entertaining, Oscar-winning calling card of “ Prior to the pitch for work scene, Holst and Emerald met on the set of a commercial he was shooting. She arrived late to assist her horse-wrangler brother Otis Jr. ( The rest of the cast features Steven Yuen as Jupe, a barker who runs an alien-based carnival of sorts out in the same middle of nowhere the Haywoods have their ranch, and Angel ( With “Nope,” Peele continues to explore and repeat certain elements of his prior works. Like “Us,” there’s a Bible quote that may be another breadcrumb to follow. This time it’s Nahum 3:6, which says “I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.” There’s also a focus on animals, with horses playing a major role here. Unlike the deer in “Get Out” and the rabbits in “Us,” symbols of creatures being preyed upon, Peele reverses the power dynamic by turning into prey the most dangerous predator of all. There’s also the unusual use of an inanimate object; in “Us” it was scissors, in “Nope” it’s a fake horse and those weird, swaying air-filled things every used car dealer seems to have. “Nope” is not as good as “Get Out” or “Us,” but it’s definitely Peele’s creepiest movie. He’s always been more Peele also gets good performances out of Kaluuya and Palmer, who believably wor...

1 A film about ‘nope’ Spend any time online and you’ll hear about “nope” scenes in movies; moments that are jarring or off-putting or downright stupid enough to make the audience think “Nope”. A couple of years ago, someone on Quora asked: “What is the best ‘NOPE’ scene in a movie?” Another user mentioned the Brian Yuzna horror Society, most notably 2 A Get Out sequel The three actors who appear on Nope’s poster are Steven Yeun, Keke Palmer and, reuniting with Jordan Peele for the first time since Get Out, 3 A film about a cloud Just because 4 A film about The Great British Bake Off You will notice that the cloud in the Nope poster is trailing a string of bunting behind it. In truth, that’s what makes it so disquieting; there is nothing as innocently joyous as bunting, and to see it limply flapping from a dark cloud hints that we are witnessing the aftermath of some unspeakable devastation. My theory here is that the cloud descended from the sky and ate the bunting-bedecked Great British Bake Off tent. I don’t want to get too excited by something that hasn’t been confirmed, but I am certain that the scene in which Paul Hollywood frantically flings a procession of fairy cakes at an evil sharp-toothed cloud to stop it from biting him in half will win an Oscar. 5 A film about a two-year-old Perhaps the scariest film of all is a film that just trains a camera on a two-year-old in the middle of a mealtime tantrum. Please can you eat your dinner? NOPE. Just three mouthfuls? NOPE...

Meara covers streaming service news for CNET. She recently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where she wrote for her college newspaper, The Daily Texan, as well as for state and local magazines. When she's not writing, she likes to dote over her cat, sip black coffee and try out new horror movies. So you just took in actuallybe about. When I walked out of a screening a few months ago, a sense that I wasn't getting the big message weighed on me like an ominous cloud over the Southern California desert. Peele has touched on what the film is about in interviews, but first let's break down that ending. Nope runs more than two hours and follows horse trainers (and siblings) OJ and Emerald Hayworth, who discover something large and mysterious is lurking in the sky near their ranch. Park your horse here if you still haven't seen Nope. There are spoilers ahead. What plan do OJ, Emerald and the others devise? OJ and Emerald are set on getting proof (the "Oprah shot") of the extraterrestrial creature in the sky, even after it snacks on Ricky "Jupe" Park and others at the nearby Jupiter's Claim theme park. (I don't know about them, but the sight of blood rain would have signaled the end of the road for me). They team up with cinematographer Antlers Holst, who has a non-electrical film camera (the beast produces an "anti-electric field" that renders things like digital cameras useless). They also deck out the area with tons of inflatable tube men. When those fall down,...

In Six months later, his children, Emerald "Em" Haywood and a depressed Otis "OJ" Haywood Jr., are fired from a set after their horse, Lucky, reacts violently to its own reflection in a mirror. To raise money, OJ sells some of the horses to Ricky "Jupe" Park, who operates a Western theme park called Jupiter's Claim. Jupe exploits his past trauma as a child actor, when a chimpanzee named Gordy maimed his costars on the set of a sitcom, but left him unharmed. One night, the Haywoods notice their electricity fluctuating and their horses violently reacting to an unknown presence. They discover an The next day, Em attempts to recruit famed Jupe introduces a live show in Jupiter's Claim where he plans to use Lucky as bait to lure out the UFO. For months Jupe has been feeding the UFO the Haywood’s horses for shows. But the UFO arrives early and devours Jupe and the entire audience, leaving only Lucky. OJ, attempting to retrieve Lucky, realizes that the UFO is actually a territorial, predatory organism. After the creature showers the Haywood household with the detritus and regurgitated remains of the crowd, OJ realizes that it only attacks those who look directly at it. He devises a plan to record it. Em and Angel are hesitant until Em receives a call from Holst, who now agrees to help. OJ names the organism "Jean Jacket", after a horse that Em as a child was promised to train. To circumvent Jean Jacket's effect of shutting down all electronics nearby, Holst brings a hand-cranked ...

Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Nope is a sci-fi/comedy horror movie from writer-director Jordan Peele about humans and their fraught relationships with other species. It may not live up to Peele's previous films Get Out or Us in terms of cultural impact, but it's a diverse, well made,… some Showcases teamwork, inclusiveness, and problem-solving in an attempt to defeat impossible odds. Two major themes -- which are thought-provoking, if not precisely "positive" -- involve humans' efforts to tame and control other species, coupled with our tendency to film everything. • Positive Role Models Excellent representation on-screen and behind the scenes, including Black lead characters, a major Asian character, and a Black writer-director. Inclusion information: Black directors, Black actors, Black writers Inclusion information powered by Did we miss something on diversity? • Violence & Scariness An unstable chimp covered in blood bashes a child's face (off-screen); child's feet are seen as she lies unconscious. Kids in peril. Chimp shot with bullet from behind (blood spurt). Blood smears, spatters. Character's eye hit with projectile: blood spurts, gory wound. Lots of blood "raining" from sky above, running down windows of house. Person with mangled face. Motorcycle wreck. Scary noises. Scary stuff. Jump scares. Violent nature footage (animals killing one another) seen in film-editing bay. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scarine...