Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Alas, we have reached that point in the summer season where it still being “summer” feels like a cruel joke, as leaves fall and the winter chill returns. Every year, I run a version of that me sowing/me reaping tweet regarding the summer season, delighting in the fact that “it’s still the spring season! There’s so much summer left!” through June, and raging at the reality of “it’s already fall! This summer season is a lie!” in September. Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of films here to keep my mind off things, which this week included Jordan Peele’s outstanding new feature. Peele’s films always impress me, but I think Nope might actually be my favorite of his films, and I’m eager to tell you why. Let’s get to it!
Our first feature of the week was Miller’s Crossing, a prohibition-era neo-noir by the Coen brothers. Miller’s Crossing was the brothers’ third film, and with Raising Arizona preceding it and Barton Fink following, it seems the duo’s appetite for whimsy was entirely sated at the time they produced it. What remains is austere, gripping, and without embellishment; an essentially perfect movie, and one of the most gracefully executed gangster dramas I’ve ever seen.
The film stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom Reagan, the second-in-command and brains behind Irish mobster Leo O’Bannon (Albert Finney). When local rival Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) demands the head of crooked bookie Bernie (John Turturro), Leo refuses, largely because he’s dating Bernie’s sister Verna (Marcia Gay Harden). In spite of Tom’s best efforts, Leo and Caspar’s disagreement soon blooms into a full-on gang war, a situation further complicated by Tom also being involved with Verna.
Miller’s Crossing presents a roiling nest of alliances and loyalties, yet never feels cluttered or difficult to follow. Tom’s navigation of this rapidly escalating disaster feels like a series of predetermined chess moves, wherein a master on the backfoot is forced to make whatever play simply prolongs the game for another turn. Though he offers Leo what advice he can and manipulates all others with extreme skill, Tom’s pride makes it certain almost from the start that he will not cleanly resolve this catastrophe. His undoing is gracefully underlined in one of his rare moments of honesty, wherein he tells Verna of a reoccurring dream where his hat blows away in the forest. Verna promptly ad-libs “and then you chased it, and when you caught it you realized it had turned into something amazing” – to which Tom sharply responds that no, he didn’t chase it, and no, it didn’t become something amazing. After all, there’s nothing more foolish than a man chasing his own hat.
Tom’s refusal to chase his hat, to accept insults to his pride and embrace solace that’s been sullied by disgrace, ensures there is no happy ending waiting for him. He contorts himself into unimaginable shapes in order to save Leo from his own foolishness, but can find no joy in his victories; whatever part of him truly loves Leo is terribly distant from the pride and pragmatism that drives him, leaving no room for romanticism or forgiveness. His early confidence and cheer are buoyed up by his general distance from the muddy day-to-day business of mafia violence; when he is stripped of his titles, he first becomes vengeful, then becomes desperate, then becomes simply cold. There is humor in Miller’s Crossing, and a deft lightness to its crime drama theatrics, but the character study at its core is as haunting as anything in the Coens’ catalog. A graceful and unforgettable film.
Our next watch was the light heist comedy Tower Heist, wherein Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, and a handful of their compatriots conspire to take down a Bernie Madoff-like, using their knowledge as former employees and residents of his tower to take down its malevolent owner. The film is indifferently scripted and functionally shot, so it’s basically just exactly as good as those actors running through a boilerplate heist film together. Which is still pretty good! Ben Stiller is excellent at imbuing somewhat underwritten characters with a sense of emotional depth, Murphy’s comic genius shines through, and Broderick definitely collects a paycheck. If you’re looking for a light afternoon film where a guy who really deserves it truly gets it, Tower Heist is a fine enough feel-good adventure.
After that was The Deeper You Dig, a ghost story filmed by a couple and their teenage daughter for just eleven thousand dollars. And god damn does this movie put those dollars to work; its mournful environmental photography reminded me acutely of The Wailing, while each indoor composition is dressed up into a symmetrical little tapestry. The Deeper You Dig possesses an urgency and an expansiveness of aesthetic tools that’s pretty common to independent personal projects; it feels like their creators have everything to prove, and that expresses itself through the film’s aggressive cinematography, stark lighting, and bold array of scene transitions.
The Deeper You Dig is also just a fine ghost story by any metric, featuring plenty of novel creepy flourishes, and benefitting from rich performances from its two adult leads. The film’s “villain” is not so much villainous as he is desperately afraid, and driven by that fear into a series of increasingly abominable actions. Through the sympathetic clarity of his expression shifts, his emotions are always clear and deeply human, giving his slow dissolution a tinge of genuine tragedy. Meanwhile, his pursuer’s journey through the occult offers a dazzling series of surreal visual setpieces, culminating in an incredible confrontation between her gleeful false self and the sad clown she has become. The Deeper You Dig leans pretty significantly into that “it was all a dream… or was it?” space that I tend to despise, but each individual moment is so striking and well-acted that I couldn’t really complain. A remarkable demonstration of horror’s amenability to budget productions, and hopefully the first of many films from this talented family.
Lastly, with Nope finally popping up on streaming, I was at last able to watch Jordan Peele’s latest masterpiece. And yes, it is a goddamn masterpiece – horrifying, thought-provoking, and still wildly entertaining, Nope feels like a version of Jurassic Park updated for our modern anxieties, presenting setpieces of such scale and majesty that you can truly feel the smallness of our species.
Each Jordan Peele film is about something, though he’s been employing a lighter touch on themes versus spectacle as his career has continued. Get Out cornered the complacent white liberals of the late Obama years, while Us cast its eye more broadly, exploring the fundamental class hierarchy of American society. With Nope, it feels like he’s created a film that can speak to anyone hoping to survive our blighted near-apocalypse, as we are forced to perform for strangers with pennies while the threat of oblivion looms ever closer.
The film could be framed in a variety of genre terms, though it is perhaps most accurately described as a deconstructed western. Protagonist OJ and his father live on a ranch where they train horses for Hollywood, taking pride in a familial lineage that dates all the way back to the first black jockey pictured on the first series of moving pictures. When a freak plane accident sends a piece of debris into his father’s skull, OJ and his sister Em struggle to carry on their family legacy – only to soon realize a force beyond comprehension has begun stalking the skies above their ranch.
Though it has no traditional cowboys or bandits to face, Nope is nonetheless steeped in both the iconography and the thematic concerns of classic westerns. OJ and Em’s father built something, something real, and in our present world, creating such a lasting impact seems like a fantasy only a child would believe in. Just like the great heroes of classic westerns, OJ is determined to preserve this small patch of independence and identity, even as the future threatens to swallow his family’s home. And so, rather than informing the police or government about their ranch’s new inhabitant, OJ and Em resolve to film the invader, get on Oprah, and preserve their father’s ranch for good.
The bitter concerns of Nope’s heroes map to a pattern emblematic of our modern age. Our parents were able to build homes and businesses, establish lasting, impactful legacies, and hopefully leave something meaningful to their children. Meanwhile, we dance for tips from gleeful strangers, turning to the internet for both validation and financial support, and never even dreaming of building something to last. OJ’s determination to save his ranch might seem crazy, but I felt his pain and conviction completely – he may not bring something to this world, but he’ll be damned if he lets this creature destroy what his father built.
The suicidal determination of our leads dovetails neatly with another of Nope’s thematic concerns, one which it also shares with its classic western compatriots: the unknowable terror of the wild. Just as John Wayne’s characters know the west cannot truly be claimed and conquered, so does OJ understand that, for all we humanize and rely upon and take animals for granted, a wild animal must always be feared, respected, and treated on its own terms. The film’s framing device concerns a TV chimp who one day goes ballistic, destroying the TV career of OJ’s neighbor Jupe (Steven Yeun), but also giving him an implacable certainty that he can stare down the beast and emerge alive. Jupe is wrong, terribly wrong, but it’s hard to blame him for it; he’s simply trying to turn a slice of the infinite into financial security, same as OJ and Em and the rest of them.
Caught between his respectful fear of the wild and his desperate need to save his father’s legacy, OJ’s quest eventually shifts from discovering the nature of this beast to jousting with it for the crowds, the only way he can turn an encounter with the abyss into a hopeful future. When the team gathers before the final battle, one member hesitantly asks “we’re doing something good, right? Like, this is going to help people?”, only to receive mumbles and silence from his compatriots. We’re all too desperate and hungry to be thinking of saving humanity – that ship has long sailed, and only the sordid business of fighting over table scraps remains. Rather than chastise its heroes for dancing with the devil, Nope celebrates their cunning and courage in rallying against the last sunset of the world their parents built. We all know the beast is untamable – but some things are worth more than our own lives.
Also, it’s a beautifully shot, terrifically acted, ingeniously constructed, and occasionally terrifying action-adventure-horror spectacle. Absolutely my favorite film of the year so far. Go see this goddamn movie.
