The very beginning in the funhouse was great, and that twist at the end - which I winced at right after it happened (didn't see it but I never try to work stuff out in advance) and then it worked its way through as mirroring the kind of confusion that we find ourselves in. Until then this settled into a serviceable enough Romero-by-numbers with a hint of Haneke's Funny Games, with its play and violence in those well-off settings, but that ending hasn't yet let go.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 29 March 2019 23:18 (five years ago) link
Haunting. Movie will stick with me. Great performance all around.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Saturday, 30 March 2019 06:59 (five years ago) link
this was great, all the performances were so excellent. i did sense the twist coming, starting from that early scene in the psychologist's office, but the movie didn't depend on the twist being surprising, necessarily.
― Neus Anneus (voodoo chili), Monday, 1 April 2019 00:23 (five years ago) link
Re: the final twist, is there anything really gained by that? I suppose it's just the final character beat of a villain who has played a veeeeeeery long game, but even so it (like the film) might have been a little more effective with some more ambiguity, though to be fair the movie's already ambiguous enough to bear a few different interpretations. Anyway, it's the rare movie definitely worth thinking about despite any number of elements that you're better off not thinking about. Peele toes a pretty precarious line with the exposition drop and the final twist, but he's such a good director and the acting is so good that he pretty much pulls it off.
Ending, fwiw, reminded me of the ending of "The Invitation." Lots and lots of echoes of "The Birds" in this, too, ending and all.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 03:05 (five years ago) link
all the performances were so excellent.
yeah, I'd give this the imaginary casting Oscar
― steven, soda jerk (sic), Monday, 1 April 2019 03:13 (five years ago) link
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, March 31, 2019 10:05 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
something i read pointed out that the final shot of lupita was a wink towards the final shot of the thriller music video and that makes so much sense
― Neus Anneus (voodoo chili), Monday, 1 April 2019 16:58 (five years ago) link
Huh. Yeah, I like that!
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 17:01 (five years ago) link
That owns
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Monday, 1 April 2019 17:07 (five years ago) link
I was always struck at what a good actor Peele was (along with Key) in their show, which made the parodies and skits really convincing, but the downside is that every time I see him interviewed now I keep thinking he's playing a character.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 17:14 (five years ago) link
lol maybe he is, did you see his Jack Torrance outfit?
― flappy bird, Monday, 1 April 2019 17:17 (five years ago) link
Winston Duke as Gabe = Winston Duke as Jordan Peele
― Neus Anneus (voodoo chili), Monday, 1 April 2019 17:28 (five years ago) link
saw it again. decided that the ending isn’t illogical at all really, it makes the film make sense
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Monday, 1 April 2019 17:36 (five years ago) link
i think it’s undercooked
― flopson, Monday, 1 April 2019 17:56 (five years ago) link
feels like ‘the metaphor’ was left ambiguous for the sake of interpretive ambiguity, but there’s not actually much there for rich inrerpretating...
― flopson, Monday, 1 April 2019 17:58 (five years ago) link
Haven’t seen again but my sense is that the “nonsensical” part is not at all the carefully foreshadowed ending but the expository speech in the dénouement, which was the one part I struggled with when I saw it.
i mean yes, it totally is, and yet i'm also not really bothered by the expository speech especially bc, even without the twist, it's much less expository than it seems
my feeling is that adelaide's submerged memory of being one of the tethered resurfaces gradually over the course of the movie though it also doesn't require this reading at all to *work* bc either way... she's a survivor in every negative and positive sense, whether she's aware of how corrupt her moral compass is or not
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 1 April 2019 18:01 (five years ago) link
also, the script wasn’t actually that good..? the dialogue between the family in the beginning felt stiff, most of the character development was cliched; dad is goofy (the scene with the boat fell flat, like the physical comedy wasn’t even well-timed), daughter’s on her phone, mom stares out window with uneasy dread... i really think this is a huge drop off after get out
― flopson, Monday, 1 April 2019 18:04 (five years ago) link
All fair enough, I need to rewatch both (and I am never your man to talk to about “character development”)
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Monday, 1 April 2019 18:17 (five years ago) link
yeah I thought the same thing about the script flopson, remarkably awkward & stilted dialogue, and not the actors' fault (who were all great in this)
― flappy bird, Monday, 1 April 2019 18:52 (five years ago) link
i'm probably ruined forever re: being able to tell when dialogue is stilted but also i don't really care. all the character development seemed credible and felt to me
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 1 April 2019 19:02 (five years ago) link
Eh, family stuff was pretty solid, imo. Dad was a buffoon, but a plausible one. There was a really good line in the Lane review:
What the Wilsons encounter, in the course of the plot, is harrowing and outlandish, but they have too many wits to be frightened out of them, and it’s the very normality of the family that sees them through. If Pixar made an animated version of “Us,” it would be called “The Credibles.”
I think this is one of the best aspects of the film. They're freaked out to begin with, but it doesn't take them long to get into the swing of things (so to speak), and during the brief respite when it transitions from a take on a home invasion movie to, essentially, a zombie comedy, the family dynamic played out pretty amusingly. Speaking of swinging, what was up with the golf gloves the morlocks had on? Or, for that matter, the bloody handed guy who is the first of his kind we encounter on the surface?
I also don't know what to make of all the 11:11 stuff, other than ... twin numbers. By why those numbers? Anyway, Red Letter Media guys made a really clever observation that the Golden Gate Bridge and Twin Towers from the Hands Across America video are visually pairs of "11," too.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 19:49 (five years ago) link
Or, for that matter, the bloody handed guy who is the first of his kind we encounter on the surface?
blood dripping from his hand was from his double whom he had just killed
i didn't notice the first viewing that he's the first person in the hands across america chain
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 1 April 2019 19:52 (five years ago) link
11:11 is explicitly linked to a bible verse, that’s why those numbers
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Monday, 1 April 2019 19:53 (five years ago) link
it was also pointed out to me that the black flag logo is 1111
pretty sure this isn't significant but it's funny
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 1 April 2019 19:53 (five years ago) link
Black Flag shirts show up twice, iirc.
I thought Lupita's double was the first to lead them up, but I guess it was already in progress? So the "real" 11:11 guy, the one being loaded into the ambulance, had he then apparently been killed by his double? He seemed really old, but the bloody guy seemed young.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 20:09 (five years ago) link
And xpost my friend and I both thought Jeremiah was a made up book of the bible!
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 20:10 (five years ago) link
So the "real" 11:11 guy, the one being loaded into the ambulance, had he then apparently been killed by his double
yes
the bloody guy seemed young
you don't see his actual face until later in the film and he's the same actor so ... idgi
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 1 April 2019 20:11 (five years ago) link
I probably just missed it. I guess 11:11 guy just jumped the invasion gun.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 20:15 (five years ago) link
11:11 guy was there freaking out red before she even went into the funhouse so both versions of him are kind of outside of the plot
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Monday, 1 April 2019 20:22 (five years ago) link
Yeah, he was there in 1986. But that wasn't "red" then, that was "real" Adelaide. Right? So he was probably just the "real" version of 11:11 guy, and bloody guy at the end was the tethered one who had replaced him. Def. a lot of things to miss/catch in this, I look forward to seeing it again.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 20:38 (five years ago) link
NIV: "Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them."
KJV: "Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them."
― steven, soda jerk (sic), Monday, 1 April 2019 20:42 (five years ago) link
i mean wins is still technically correct. but yes def see it again josh xp
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 1 April 2019 20:42 (five years ago) link
AD: "And As It Is Such, So Also As Such Is It Unto You"
― steven, soda jerk (sic), Monday, 1 April 2019 20:46 (five years ago) link
Yes, red is “real” Adelaide sorry for spoiler josh
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Monday, 1 April 2019 20:57 (five years ago) link
But before she first went into the funhouse and was kidnapped and brainwashed she was just regular ol' Adelaide, right? So the first time she sees 11:11 guy he is just weird 11:11 guy, but the second time, as an adult (and only in her son's picture, right?) 11:11 guy is her bud from the Underneath. Right?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 April 2019 21:05 (five years ago) link
Yeah the person we know as red is the grown up version of the original Adelaide My whole point is that that guy already points to what’s up in the “normal” world, hence “kinda outside the plot”. Literalist version: proximity to tunnel entrance and marginal status make him sensitive to the underground worldNon-literalist version: it’s a freaky thing that peele put thereIn both versions it makes sense that he’d be in the vanguard of the invasion
― A funny tinge happened on the way to the forum (wins), Monday, 1 April 2019 21:17 (five years ago) link
overworld Adelaide sees overworld 11:11 guy before going into the funhouse and getting snatched
underworld Adelaide does not have active memories of the underworld for the next thirty years, so we don't know if dead overworld 11:11 body reminds her of an underworld 11:11 pal, or of the first overworld human she set eyes on when she swapped
but either way it reminds her of the 30-years-ago trauma she has been trying to avoid by staying away from the beach
― steven, soda jerk (sic), Monday, 1 April 2019 21:17 (five years ago) link
some have theorized her voice was so labored not because she hadn't spoken in 30 years and was out of practicce, but that her voicebox was injured due to the choking she was subjected to by her tether and of course, no doctors below, so the damage was never repaired and she was Tha D.O.C.-ed
― Buttigieg comes right from the source (Neanderthal), Monday, 1 April 2019 21:19 (five years ago) link
I assumed it was Red violently lunge-choking her (plus disuse) as soon as Red violently lunge-choked her
― steven, soda jerk (sic), Monday, 1 April 2019 21:27 (five years ago) link
So last night for our mom/son movie weekend, I picked “The Shawshank Redemption”. Tonight he picked “Us”. 😳 #NoComparison #IWillBeSleepingWithTheLightsOn@JordanPeele— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) May 5, 2019
― omar little, Sunday, 5 May 2019 14:52 (five years ago) link
This was kinda bad...? Just on a structural level - too little characterization, way too much exposition (which still managed to somehow leave tons unexplained), a “twist” ending that I had watched the whole film assuming was the case, loads of flubbed beats/things that should’ve been scary but just came off stupid. Great cast all around, looked great, good score, loved the Santa Cruz stuff but all in the service of some not-too-well thought out ideas.
― Οὖτις, Sunday, 8 December 2019 21:59 (four years ago) link
yup. huge disapointment
― flopson, Monday, 9 December 2019 02:01 (four years ago) link
I'll still watch whatever he does next - I liked that one Twilight Zone episode of his that I saw - but it was weird how slapdash this felt, plot-wise. Really everything that was wrong with it came down to the writing.
At least Heidecker was reliably hilarious.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 9 December 2019 20:40 (four years ago) link
This really seemed like a script that had been gathering dust until Peele had the breakthrough hit, and then it got made without anyone giving it a good old once-over like it needed. Still looking forward to his next move though.
― Sent me the wrong t-shirt it says let’s summon demons (Matt #2), Tuesday, 10 December 2019 01:10 (four years ago) link
'antebellum' apparently... trailer looked intersting
― ingredience (map), Tuesday, 10 December 2019 01:15 (four years ago) link
thought it was interesting, with the dichotomy of “them” and “us”, where the monsters are almost exactly like the heroes
― Dan S, Tuesday, 10 December 2019 01:23 (four years ago) link
as he said, the fear of american society
― Dan S, Tuesday, 10 December 2019 01:24 (four years ago) link
and Lupita Nyong'o was amazing I thought
― Dan S, Tuesday, 10 December 2019 01:37 (four years ago) link
This really seemed like a script that had been gathering dust until Peele had the breakthrough hit, and then it got made without anyone giving it a good old once-over like it needed. Still looking forward to his next move though.― Sent me the wrong t-shirt it says let’s summon demons (Matt #2), Monday, December 9, 2019 8:10 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink
― Sent me the wrong t-shirt it says let’s summon demons (Matt #2), Monday, December 9, 2019 8:10 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink
otm, although apparently he only started writing it after Get Out was a hit. It shows - huge expository dump at the end just sinks the whole thing.
― flappy bird, Thursday, 12 December 2019 21:12 (four years ago) link
It's no more egregious in length or scope than any other horror denouement.
― master of nuggets (Neanderthal), Thursday, 12 December 2019 21:15 (four years ago) link
i also thought this was kinda bad. although i didn't really love get out either tbh. *runs away and hides*
― #FBPIRA (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 12 December 2019 21:17 (four years ago) link