Lightyear (2022)

Director: Angus MacLane

Cast: Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Peter Sohn, Taika Waititi

Have I Seen it Before: No.

Did I Like It: The movie’s pitch is an intriguing one. But can this movie really feel as if it came from 1995? Largely, no. For every moment where Lightyear blows on his autopilot cartridge to get it to reset, there are more than enough moments where the film is squarely in 2022. No, I’m not talking about Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) having a same-sex partner. That almost hints that the world of the 1990s in Toy Story (1995) is actually a better version of our world, one where that sort of thing wouldn’t matter*.

I’m more talking about the digital HUD displays and the films need to swing back and forth between IMAX and regular 2:35:1 aspect ratios. That was not a 1995 film thing to do. It has a tag scene—and an incredibly perfunctory one, at that—which doesn’t feel like something that happened before Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). There is very little about the film that doesn’t loudly proclaim its status as a product of its true time.

And yet, there are moments where it reaches for that quality. It is almost as if that pitch was far more pure in some stage of the film’s development, and cooler, more conservative heads at both Disney and Pixar prevailed to make it more pedestrian. The film couldn’t exist in a world where it could be anything other than  a simple story with a convoluted time travel gimmick at its heart…

…which, in and of itself would have been the exact kind of movie I would have loved in 1995. Something more than I originally thought of that original promise may have survived to the final film.

* Although the implications that Andy never bothered to get a Hawthorne (either of them) action figure—or that the toy company never produced one—is kind of a bummer. The idea that talking Sox (Sohn) toys weren’t the single most popular toy of that world’s 1995 also beggars belief.

Nope (2022)

Director: Jordan Peele

Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott

Have I Seen it Before: No. But, a word about the crowd which surrounded me. I saw the movie in IMAX (hopefully, you can do the same) at the first available screening on opening day. As I’m departing the theater, one of my fellow moviegoers is walking beside me and says. “I can’t believe I paid money for that shit.”

I tense up for several seconds, not sure if a real-life Twitter conversation might eventually unravel into gunplay. I eventually offer a strident, “Well… I like it.”

The two Beavis and Butthead types about ten feet ahead of us didn’t like that. Not one bit. They whipped around, as if I had said something about their collective mother/cousin. “You liked that piece of shit? That ending fucking sucked!”

They immediately zero in on the other guy, thinking he had given the film a positive review. I, sensing that the discourse that was about to follow wouldn’t precisely be enlightening, immediately moved toward my car. I wonder if a fight broke out. I wonder if they worked through their misunderstanding and became the best of friends.

So first thing’s first: while I still love taking in movies on the biggest screen possible, I’m quickly reaching my wits end with the strangers who show up.

Did I Like It: Second, I have a feeling this is going to be Peele’s most controversial film yet. Some will love it, but some will not know what to make of it, and decide that is more than enough to cause them to hate it.

And they will be wrong.

I’ve taken a good week to digest the movie, and I may still put it third so far in Peele’s canon (behind Get Out (2017) and my unassailably favorite movie of the last year before COVID, Us (2019)). The story of the Gordy incident and how it relates to the Jean Jacket’s reign of terror feels too tenuous to make this plot gel together as well as Peele’s other films. Sure, you can make the case that Jupe (Yeun) has a far greater sense of just what floats above him than he let’s on, but the two traumas feel mostly unrelated until its far too late.

But this is a minor complaint. The plot doesn’t really matter in the end. I don’t think I’ve been as terrified in a movie theater as when we see the immediate aftermath of Jean Jacket descending on the audience of Jupiter’s Claim, or in those tense moments before Gordy’s fate is sealed.

Nope is a genuine terrifying trip, forging the best parts of Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)) into something entirely new. When most films disappear like vapor the moment you leave the theater, this one begs to be talked about repeatedly and re-watched just as frequently. Every performance is a delight, with Keke Palmer displaying enough charisma to power several decades worth of blockbusters, and Kaluuya turns down his considerable charisma and screen presence in a mesmerizingly understated performance.

Just go see it, and please: if you don’t already know your fellow moviegoers, just leave them alone. Especially if you’ve only got talking shit on your mind. We don’t need that.