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shadowkatFinished watching the Jordan Peel flick Nope finally. I decided to rewatch from the beginning and at night. You can't watch it during the day - because the night scenes are impossible to see.
Still can't figure out how to get rid of the "horizontal" waves on the television set. May call the cable company - but I have a feeling my television was moved one too many times to fix the wall behind it - and the HDMI port got damaged. I don't want to buy a new television set right now - so I'm tolerating it until it gets to the point that I have to get a new one.
Anyhow, sorry for the sub-tangent, back to "Nope". My co-workers hated it. Particularly Chidi and BOSS. They said there was no plot? (I saw a plot, not sure...what their issue was.) Chidi thinks I like movies and television shows that he considers to be "basic". (I keep telling him that it is all subjective. We bring our own baggage to art, what we like or dislike tells people more about us than anyone else. If you dislike my art - that's not about me, or my art, or a commentary on my art - that's about you. It just tells me something about you. My brother's view - which is the conceptual take on art - that we interact with it, and art is meant to be interacted with. He did a show once - for his senior thesis - where it was basically plots of grass on walls, and bits of plants, and dirt below - and little name tags about how each represented different parts of the human anatomy. How people reacted to his art was part of the art. David Bowie had a similar view - and often created shows and art that reflected himself and the audience.)
Anyhow, my "visual" artist friends and the academics I've met online, loved the film and recommended it.
My take? I liked it, more than expected. It's slow to start - and there's a lot in there that you kind of have to pay attention to - in order to understand the film. Jordan Peel's films tend to be more conceptual in format than plot or character driven, which can make some folks nuts. Peel is into visuals and narrative style. That said - I felt this one was character driven and had a definitive plot, if a wee bit on the simplistic side.
The film is told in the present, but with various flashbacks to get across certain characters and themes. We have the horse trainers, OG and Keke Palmer's character (who portrays his cousin). I can't remember her name.
It's not mentioned that often. While she screams his quite a bit. He doesn't say much - nor does he have to - the actor's eyes speak volumes.
Along with OG's father (who is killed early on). Then there's the video camera/computer techie, and Steve Yeung who plays the former child star, rodeo king, along with the camera man for the film that the horse trainers were hired to provide stunt horses for.
The setting is Arizona or New Mexico. (But I bet money it was filmed in Southern California in the desert like 98% of all Westerns are.) And it's sometime around the 21st Century, possibly the present. The flashbacks are of the 1990s.
Peel is referencing a lot of 1950s sci-fi films. The alien saucer looks like something out of those films, and the film is very visual. (I have a feeling my brother would like it?) Lots of wide lens visuals. And references to camera work. They decide to fight about against the alien craft by getting it on camera. Preferably without getting sucked up into it and eaten. So they convince a professional camera man to help them, and set up the monster space craft to get caught on camera - as most likely can be expected? Things go horribly awry. That's the plot. There's a lot of subtangent's and character bits intermingled in there. Such as Steven Yeung's character's trajectory from child star to rodeo king who feeds horses to a flying saucer in front of an audience...until one day, it kind of goes south on him. Also, a clever visual trick is balloons. In this film balloons and flags are shown as a weakness of the monster, and a visual trick that the filmmaker references throughout. It's the twist. In the flashbacks - balloons set off a chimpanze on a children's sitcom -resulting in the chimp attacking everyone on set and going ballistic. But in the present, the balloons and flags...deflate when the saucer comes near, and cause issues when the saucer digests them. They are it's weakness. Interesting visual metaphor/gag.
Peel is a bit self-indulgent with his camera work - he wrote, directed and filmed this baby. And it has some of the same issues his previous films have - a bit too many fun visuals that don't appear to go anywhere or say much. In other words - I'd have made it a bit tighter? There's a heavy theme about trying to tame or set up a relationship with a predator for prophet - which I didn't totally get. And doesn't quite go anywhere. Since we don't really care about Yeung's character one way or the other. There's no emotional investment at all. Except bewilderment. I guess, Peel is commenting on how using people, animals, or anything for prophet can back fire on you? He has the horse trainers - and the horse that acts up on set, almost kicking poor Donna Mills in the teeth. And then the chimpanze who pulverizes the Mom's face on the kid's sitcom. And finally the saucer that sucks up Yeung, his entire family, wife, kids, and all his customers - after Yeung had been using the saucer as a sideshow act for years. Plus we have the camera man and his fascination of capturing and watching predators track and kill their prey on film - and needing to do the same with the saucer. Along with the obnoxious TMZ photographer who gets eaten by the saucer attempting to film Keke Palmer.
I'm not sure what the point of that theme was exactly? Unless it is - respect your local predator and don't try to catch it on camera? Ironic for a filmmaker. And from reviews and my co-workers, it appears to have been lost on them as well. Which is my difficulty with Peel - is his films are almost too idiosyncratic for their own good? The audience isn't always clear on what his themes are. It's kind of the opposite of preachy - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a touch confusing, and condescending.
I did like the ending. It has a clever ending. It's actually my favorite part of the movie.
I'd say its suspenseful, kind of quirky, a little slow in places, and kind of scary? But not that scary? Has a few jump scares. I didn't find it humorous (but we've already established that I've got a quirky sense of humor).
I'd recommend. But with the caveat - that it's very slow in the pacing department. And a bit on the self-indulgent side.
***
Also watched the first two episodes of Pretty Baby, the Brook Shields documentary on Hulu. It goes into how she was sexualized as a kid and how toxic this was. Also how she somehow survived and overcame it.
Actually, I think she was luckier than most. In part because as bad as her mother was at times, she wasn't the typical stage mother - and did protect her from some of it. I have more issues with some of the film directors who thought it was a good idea to do these films with ten and thirteen year olds. Kind of similar to Zeferrilli filming Romeo and Juliette and doing a nude sex scene with two people who were about fourteen at the time. Same thing happened with Skins in Britain. Here, Brook Shields was twelve years of age when she did "Pretty Baby" and was kissing Keith Carradine. (She reports that he told her it was make believe, not real, and that's how he got her to relax, and she taught herself to disassociate from her body and mind, pretend it wasn't happening to her and not real.) For Blue Lagoon, Shields was 14 and Christopher Atkins was 18 when it was filmed. (I didn't see it - since I was 12-13 years of age. Brook Shields is two years older than I am. We're about the same height, coloring, and bone structure. I've often been told that I look like her and Muriel Hemingway - because I have dark bushy brows just like hers, and similar physique. My face is a little rounder though. And I don't have the long lashes. I don't see the resemblance.)
If you grew up in the 1980s, you knew Brook Shields. She was everywhere. I never saw her movies - but I knew who she was - and saw the commercials and billboards. The documentary makes the point that back then there were just a couple of movie stars and highly famous people - so you knew who they were, now, you struggle - because there's millions. (Mother begged to differ - and got argumentative with me - arguing that no, this was true in the 30s-60s, but once you got away from the studio system, it got to be more varied. Also most people know who Tom Brady is.
Me: I don't know who Tom Brady is.
Mother: Most people do. You'd have to be living under a rock.
Me: I'm guessing he's a football player.
Mother: OF course he is!
ME: You do realize that I don't give a shit about football right?
Mother: That doesn't matter! Most people know!
Me: Probably plays for the Patriots? (Either that or the Eagles - based on co-workers complaints about him. Cubical Mate hated him.)
Mother: He used to, now he plays for..(god knows, I can't remember the team she mentioned and don't care).
Mother is into sports much to the chagrin of the rest of her immediate family who isn't. Although she is right, I do know some of the sports figures such as Tiger Woods. But most, not so much.
We got into an argument over what most people know or don't know. And she also begged to differ on another point the documentary made - which was that Hollywood didn't begin to sexualize young girls until the 1960s post the Women's Lib Movement.
Mother: they did it in the 1950s and 40s. I mean what about Sandra Dee -
Me: Sandra Dee wasn't sexualized.
Mother: Lolita was in the 1950s - that movie -
Me: You mean the James Mason version -
Mother: Yes. Also, what about Jerry Lee Lewis who married the 13 year old?
Me: Okay, I'm guessing your point is this has always been the case?
I have a feeling mother wouldn't like this documentary?
I didn't keep going. It's painful. Also they do make a lot of generalizations, which is par for the course with these things.
***
Didn't do much today besides laundry and slept. I did start and almost complete another watercolor - so there's that. (Probably won't share it with DW - you don't appear to be into watercolors and paintings that aren't fandom related. FB on the other hand does like them. Social media and the internet never fails to bewilder me. Why people respond to the things they do. SMH. I'm a why person - I'm always trying to figure out why people do, think, say, the things they do. My niece is pretty much the same way - or so I've discovered. It's why she switched from astrophysics to sociology. She wanted to know how the world works - and realized that astrophysics wouldn't teach her that, but sociology might - studying people as opposed to scientific theorems and astronomical events. So, her latest project? She's applying for a Fullbright Scholarship to go to a school in Northern Spain that is over two centuries old and specializes in her field - human rights advocacy. I'm not sure what's more bewildering - 1)there's an ancient school in Northern Spain that specializes in human rights advocacy, 2) she can get a Fullbright to go there and study, or 3) she wants to go to Spain of all places to do it? I need to talk to my niece - getting this through my mother, who got it via my brother - is kind of like getting information from a gossip train.)
At any rate, I got up at 6:06 am, ran downstairs to do laundry. Came back, made the bed. Wrote the morning pages (which was mainly whinging about doing the morning pages at 7 in the morning). Putting away laundry. Getting breakfast, then falling asleep while watching Grey's Anatomy. (I missed nothing). Gave up, took a long nap. Then got up again and took a shower. So I basically slept most of the morning. I needed the sleep. I've been sleep deprived and its made me cranky and irritable. Sorry about that. I'm not pleasant online when I'm cranky.
Also, watched television. Basically did nothing most of the day. It was lovely. I may do it again tomorrow - we shall see. My goal is to see RRR on Netflix this weekend, and start Shadow & Bone S2, also Yellowstone S4 or 5, and Extraordinary Attorney Woo (which one of my co-workers is obsessed with).
Still can't figure out how to get rid of the "horizontal" waves on the television set. May call the cable company - but I have a feeling my television was moved one too many times to fix the wall behind it - and the HDMI port got damaged. I don't want to buy a new television set right now - so I'm tolerating it until it gets to the point that I have to get a new one.
Anyhow, sorry for the sub-tangent, back to "Nope". My co-workers hated it. Particularly Chidi and BOSS. They said there was no plot? (I saw a plot, not sure...what their issue was.) Chidi thinks I like movies and television shows that he considers to be "basic". (I keep telling him that it is all subjective. We bring our own baggage to art, what we like or dislike tells people more about us than anyone else. If you dislike my art - that's not about me, or my art, or a commentary on my art - that's about you. It just tells me something about you. My brother's view - which is the conceptual take on art - that we interact with it, and art is meant to be interacted with. He did a show once - for his senior thesis - where it was basically plots of grass on walls, and bits of plants, and dirt below - and little name tags about how each represented different parts of the human anatomy. How people reacted to his art was part of the art. David Bowie had a similar view - and often created shows and art that reflected himself and the audience.)
Anyhow, my "visual" artist friends and the academics I've met online, loved the film and recommended it.
My take? I liked it, more than expected. It's slow to start - and there's a lot in there that you kind of have to pay attention to - in order to understand the film. Jordan Peel's films tend to be more conceptual in format than plot or character driven, which can make some folks nuts. Peel is into visuals and narrative style. That said - I felt this one was character driven and had a definitive plot, if a wee bit on the simplistic side.
The film is told in the present, but with various flashbacks to get across certain characters and themes. We have the horse trainers, OG and Keke Palmer's character (who portrays his cousin). I can't remember her name.
It's not mentioned that often. While she screams his quite a bit. He doesn't say much - nor does he have to - the actor's eyes speak volumes.
Along with OG's father (who is killed early on). Then there's the video camera/computer techie, and Steve Yeung who plays the former child star, rodeo king, along with the camera man for the film that the horse trainers were hired to provide stunt horses for.
The setting is Arizona or New Mexico. (But I bet money it was filmed in Southern California in the desert like 98% of all Westerns are.) And it's sometime around the 21st Century, possibly the present. The flashbacks are of the 1990s.
Peel is referencing a lot of 1950s sci-fi films. The alien saucer looks like something out of those films, and the film is very visual. (I have a feeling my brother would like it?) Lots of wide lens visuals. And references to camera work. They decide to fight about against the alien craft by getting it on camera. Preferably without getting sucked up into it and eaten. So they convince a professional camera man to help them, and set up the monster space craft to get caught on camera - as most likely can be expected? Things go horribly awry. That's the plot. There's a lot of subtangent's and character bits intermingled in there. Such as Steven Yeung's character's trajectory from child star to rodeo king who feeds horses to a flying saucer in front of an audience...until one day, it kind of goes south on him. Also, a clever visual trick is balloons. In this film balloons and flags are shown as a weakness of the monster, and a visual trick that the filmmaker references throughout. It's the twist. In the flashbacks - balloons set off a chimpanze on a children's sitcom -resulting in the chimp attacking everyone on set and going ballistic. But in the present, the balloons and flags...deflate when the saucer comes near, and cause issues when the saucer digests them. They are it's weakness. Interesting visual metaphor/gag.
Peel is a bit self-indulgent with his camera work - he wrote, directed and filmed this baby. And it has some of the same issues his previous films have - a bit too many fun visuals that don't appear to go anywhere or say much. In other words - I'd have made it a bit tighter? There's a heavy theme about trying to tame or set up a relationship with a predator for prophet - which I didn't totally get. And doesn't quite go anywhere. Since we don't really care about Yeung's character one way or the other. There's no emotional investment at all. Except bewilderment. I guess, Peel is commenting on how using people, animals, or anything for prophet can back fire on you? He has the horse trainers - and the horse that acts up on set, almost kicking poor Donna Mills in the teeth. And then the chimpanze who pulverizes the Mom's face on the kid's sitcom. And finally the saucer that sucks up Yeung, his entire family, wife, kids, and all his customers - after Yeung had been using the saucer as a sideshow act for years. Plus we have the camera man and his fascination of capturing and watching predators track and kill their prey on film - and needing to do the same with the saucer. Along with the obnoxious TMZ photographer who gets eaten by the saucer attempting to film Keke Palmer.
I'm not sure what the point of that theme was exactly? Unless it is - respect your local predator and don't try to catch it on camera? Ironic for a filmmaker. And from reviews and my co-workers, it appears to have been lost on them as well. Which is my difficulty with Peel - is his films are almost too idiosyncratic for their own good? The audience isn't always clear on what his themes are. It's kind of the opposite of preachy - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a touch confusing, and condescending.
I did like the ending. It has a clever ending. It's actually my favorite part of the movie.
I'd say its suspenseful, kind of quirky, a little slow in places, and kind of scary? But not that scary? Has a few jump scares. I didn't find it humorous (but we've already established that I've got a quirky sense of humor).
I'd recommend. But with the caveat - that it's very slow in the pacing department. And a bit on the self-indulgent side.
***
Also watched the first two episodes of Pretty Baby, the Brook Shields documentary on Hulu. It goes into how she was sexualized as a kid and how toxic this was. Also how she somehow survived and overcame it.
Actually, I think she was luckier than most. In part because as bad as her mother was at times, she wasn't the typical stage mother - and did protect her from some of it. I have more issues with some of the film directors who thought it was a good idea to do these films with ten and thirteen year olds. Kind of similar to Zeferrilli filming Romeo and Juliette and doing a nude sex scene with two people who were about fourteen at the time. Same thing happened with Skins in Britain. Here, Brook Shields was twelve years of age when she did "Pretty Baby" and was kissing Keith Carradine. (She reports that he told her it was make believe, not real, and that's how he got her to relax, and she taught herself to disassociate from her body and mind, pretend it wasn't happening to her and not real.) For Blue Lagoon, Shields was 14 and Christopher Atkins was 18 when it was filmed. (I didn't see it - since I was 12-13 years of age. Brook Shields is two years older than I am. We're about the same height, coloring, and bone structure. I've often been told that I look like her and Muriel Hemingway - because I have dark bushy brows just like hers, and similar physique. My face is a little rounder though. And I don't have the long lashes. I don't see the resemblance.)
If you grew up in the 1980s, you knew Brook Shields. She was everywhere. I never saw her movies - but I knew who she was - and saw the commercials and billboards. The documentary makes the point that back then there were just a couple of movie stars and highly famous people - so you knew who they were, now, you struggle - because there's millions. (Mother begged to differ - and got argumentative with me - arguing that no, this was true in the 30s-60s, but once you got away from the studio system, it got to be more varied. Also most people know who Tom Brady is.
Me: I don't know who Tom Brady is.
Mother: Most people do. You'd have to be living under a rock.
Me: I'm guessing he's a football player.
Mother: OF course he is!
ME: You do realize that I don't give a shit about football right?
Mother: That doesn't matter! Most people know!
Me: Probably plays for the Patriots? (Either that or the Eagles - based on co-workers complaints about him. Cubical Mate hated him.)
Mother: He used to, now he plays for..(god knows, I can't remember the team she mentioned and don't care).
Mother is into sports much to the chagrin of the rest of her immediate family who isn't. Although she is right, I do know some of the sports figures such as Tiger Woods. But most, not so much.
We got into an argument over what most people know or don't know. And she also begged to differ on another point the documentary made - which was that Hollywood didn't begin to sexualize young girls until the 1960s post the Women's Lib Movement.
Mother: they did it in the 1950s and 40s. I mean what about Sandra Dee -
Me: Sandra Dee wasn't sexualized.
Mother: Lolita was in the 1950s - that movie -
Me: You mean the James Mason version -
Mother: Yes. Also, what about Jerry Lee Lewis who married the 13 year old?
Me: Okay, I'm guessing your point is this has always been the case?
I have a feeling mother wouldn't like this documentary?
I didn't keep going. It's painful. Also they do make a lot of generalizations, which is par for the course with these things.
***
Didn't do much today besides laundry and slept. I did start and almost complete another watercolor - so there's that. (Probably won't share it with DW - you don't appear to be into watercolors and paintings that aren't fandom related. FB on the other hand does like them. Social media and the internet never fails to bewilder me. Why people respond to the things they do. SMH. I'm a why person - I'm always trying to figure out why people do, think, say, the things they do. My niece is pretty much the same way - or so I've discovered. It's why she switched from astrophysics to sociology. She wanted to know how the world works - and realized that astrophysics wouldn't teach her that, but sociology might - studying people as opposed to scientific theorems and astronomical events. So, her latest project? She's applying for a Fullbright Scholarship to go to a school in Northern Spain that is over two centuries old and specializes in her field - human rights advocacy. I'm not sure what's more bewildering - 1)there's an ancient school in Northern Spain that specializes in human rights advocacy, 2) she can get a Fullbright to go there and study, or 3) she wants to go to Spain of all places to do it? I need to talk to my niece - getting this through my mother, who got it via my brother - is kind of like getting information from a gossip train.)
At any rate, I got up at 6:06 am, ran downstairs to do laundry. Came back, made the bed. Wrote the morning pages (which was mainly whinging about doing the morning pages at 7 in the morning). Putting away laundry. Getting breakfast, then falling asleep while watching Grey's Anatomy. (I missed nothing). Gave up, took a long nap. Then got up again and took a shower. So I basically slept most of the morning. I needed the sleep. I've been sleep deprived and its made me cranky and irritable. Sorry about that. I'm not pleasant online when I'm cranky.
Also, watched television. Basically did nothing most of the day. It was lovely. I may do it again tomorrow - we shall see. My goal is to see RRR on Netflix this weekend, and start Shadow & Bone S2, also Yellowstone S4 or 5, and Extraordinary Attorney Woo (which one of my co-workers is obsessed with).
no subject
Date: 2023-04-08 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-08 04:11 pm (UTC)I'd argue that it wasn't as blatantly obvious back then...I mean in Pretty Baby - she's shown kissing him and auctioned for her virginity.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-09 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-11 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-09 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-09 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-09 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-10 01:16 am (UTC)Good luck to your niece on the scholarship application!
no subject
Date: 2023-04-11 12:19 am (UTC)