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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNCmb-4oXJA Us is the second film from writer/director Jordan Peele, following his raucously successful debut as a filmmaker, Get Out. Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o), a mother whose past trauma has rendered her paranoid and cynical, takes her family on an idyllic summer vacation at their beach house, meeting up with some friends of the family. As Adelaide’s fears grow, the family is visited by doppelgangers of themselves, seemingly out to murder them. In between dropping probably the most critically acclaimed debut ever and heading up a new series of The Twilight Zone, Peele has been generous enough to drop us a new entry in his takes on socially-conscious horror. Get Out had a heavy element of cultural commentary to it, and you can probably expect the same here. As a result, please be extra careful about spoiling stuff. In this thread, you can discuss Us, Get Out, Peele himself, and even his previous comedy works if you’d like. You can discuss the social issues raised in his writing. You can hypothetically discuss his movies’ Tomatometers, but please don’t. Feel free to speculate on plot details, subtext, and all that stuff we like to shove our heads in our asses for fun over. Personally, while I find Peele to be lacking as a director, I think his writing is still top-notch, and I do hope he doesn’t take Get Out’s nigh-universal acclaim as an excuse to rest on his laurels. The trailer featured some slightly better shots than we saw in Get Out so hopefully he’s improved in that department too. In any case I think he’s a wildly exciting filmmaker and I’ll be seeing this tonight right after work. Pirate Jet fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 14:46
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So I saw this last night, and as much as I hate to get this thread started out on a negative foot, I really disliked it. It looked good, and was funny at points, but everything else landed way off the mark for me. You could tell Peele loves the genre, and you can see a ton of influences in Us, but the execution wasn’t there. It tried to be simultaneously campy, high concept, and genuinely scary and ended up being a mess. Maybe I went in with miscalibrated expectations or something, but I really wanted to like it. I spent a ton of time last night reading reviews trying to see if I was missing something and honestly I felt like a lot of the critics saw a completely different film than I did. For context I thought Get Out was alright, not bad, but not standing up to all the praise on its own. The main thing exciting about it to me was that it was a decent first film for a new and unique voice in the genre.
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Mar 21, 2019 16:44
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key & peele is the best sketch comedy show ever and i'm sad it's gone.
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Mar 21, 2019 19:53
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The guy from It Follows helped with the cinematography and man that was really for the best. It tried blending horror and comedy more with lightly mixed results; as a whole I thought it was good but some of the comedy in the moment of the terror was a bit too jarring. I was also expecting it to be more like Get Out and social horror but it's not, there's small seeds of social horror but it's more...existential horror, as in the horror of existence and the things we can't see. Also I lightly agree about the plot and ideas being kind of a mess, but if someone else tried to make this movie it would be annoyingly unwatchable. I'd give it a light recommendation; it's not essential to watch it but if you like horror you seriously could do worse and I don't feel like it wasted my time, I didn't spoil myself and was just enjoying the way it unfolded and the paths it took. The characters are interestingly and pretty realistically flawed too, I enjoyed that. Gabe in particular is very dadly and falls into dad horror movie problems but his dad horror movie problems have some realistic weight to them and as a whole the family is just...kind of accurate to life in their dynamic and the fact that they're together without being saccharine/unlikable horror movie fodder.
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Mar 22, 2019 03:31
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I liked it a lot. It reminded me a lot of 80s fun family r-rated horror movies like Poltergeist and The Blob. And it was very pretty. No way it was gonna live up to Get Out, obviously, but it’s a blast and the twists were perfect.
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Mar 22, 2019 03:34
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I just wish they hadn't cut in so many scenes from the beginning boardwalk sequence at the end. I think it would have been creepier if it wasn't so explicit.
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Mar 22, 2019 03:56
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The explicit stuff is slow and not fun. I want to steal this guy's review because it sums up my problem with the movie. quote:★★★½
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Mar 22, 2019 04:07
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Yeah I'll cop to that guy's review, that sums up how I feel about it pretty handily.
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Mar 22, 2019 04:08
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warez posted:I just wish they hadn't cut in so many scenes from the beginning boardwalk sequence at the end. I think it would have been creepier if it wasn't so explicit. In general I thought stuff was too explicit, the plot really only moved forward at two points and both times it was the same character giving a monologue explaining what happened. There wasn't a lot of mystery here.
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Mar 22, 2019 04:12
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I think it's a bit of a shame how like most horror movies, the movie got worse the more we learned. Subterranean science lab was just not a great setting and I found myself pretty bored through the climax in Act III. The stuff in the beginning was fantastic, and I think the movie could have been better if they limited it to just the Wilsons. I wasn't terribly stirred by the social commentary angle, which Peele took kind of seriously from what I have read. For instance, the monologue from the doppelganger the beginning was really chilling, about living a horrific and cruel imitation of her life, but I was a little less excited when the line about "only eating raw and bloody rabbits" was not just metaphorical, but it meant they were actually eating raw rabbits. Kind of like in the Dark Knight Rises where we learned "the pit that nobody climbed out of" was... an actual pit. Tim Heidecker was great, though. This made me want to watch Get Out again. There was just no fat on it. Man, that movie was a masterpiece. Mushroom Zingdom fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 05:10
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I found this pretty underwhelming but I'll still look forward to Jordan Peele's next movie. thanks for reading
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Mar 22, 2019 05:18
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i personally appreciated the long, zooming shot of "C.H.U.D." at the beginning and wonder if peele may be reading cspam
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Mar 22, 2019 05:36
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I dug this, though I'd agree with some others above that it occasionally wrong-foots itself by trying to play too cute with the line between horror and comedy. Although I've frankly never dug horror-comedy as much as most others seem to, and would almost always prefer a horror film simply play it straight. (The lone exception is Re-Animator.) Also, while I tend not to be much for guessing the twist, having been raised on The Simpsons, my mind went straight to that one Treehouse of Horror episode with Bart as the evil twin, so I have to admit I saw that coming. No biggie, though.Pirate Jet posted:In between dropping probably the most critically acclaimed debut ever ever? Criminal Minded fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 07:16
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Movie loving ruled
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Mar 22, 2019 07:38
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Movie was great if you didn't think about the actual plot specifics too hard. I kinda wish it hadn't pointed out so much of itself like when she literally says "whoa everything is syncing up in duplicate for some reason!" but I really loved all the allusions: Actual, literal chuds ascend to the surface in MAGA-hat colored jumpsuits, replace thinking people with incoherent violent simpletons who in the end gather together in a display of gaudy fake patriotism. It even ends with her descending down a loving golden escalator which was so absurd and on point i burst out laughing. Admittedly the symbolism doesn't really mesh with the actual personal drama of her vs. her doppelganger so it's less making a point and more just fun but it's still pretty loving funny. There were also a handful of film references I got and I'm sure a hundred that I missed but it was a real good time all the same.
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Mar 22, 2019 08:06
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Huh, I took it as the proletariat rising up and overthrowing the aristocracy. The red jumpsuits, the Soviet-colored shrine of scissors, the escalator only descending, and the main characters wearing all white, a tux T, a college sweatshirt and a designer top while staying in a summer beach house and keeping up with the Joneses.
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Mar 22, 2019 08:42
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Criminal Minded posted:having been raised on The Simpsons, my mind went straight to that one Treehouse of Horror episode with Bart as the evil twin
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Mar 22, 2019 08:53
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I steeled myself to be disappointed after all the hype this was getting, but I actually really enjoyed it. It was like a bigger, and ultimately sloppier, version of Get Out when it comes to a 'standard' horror premise that expands into something bigger and weirder. Pretty much everything worked for me. The Home Alone joke fell flat for me, but the kill count joke came close after and it got me good. It made me more excited for the new Twilight Zone show because the first 40 or 50 minutes would have worked pretty perfectly as an episode.
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Mar 22, 2019 12:01
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Das Boo posted:Huh, I took it as the proletariat rising up and overthrowing the aristocracy. The red jumpsuits, the Soviet-colored shrine of scissors, the escalator only descending, and the main characters wearing all white, a tux T, a college sweatshirt and a designer top while staying in a summer beach house and keeping up with the Joneses. Maybe I'm just cynical because of the modern world but I saw that as less communism and more the seedy underbelly of capitalism where the doppelgangers were going through the same acts of random consumption without thinking. The fact that it starts in the 80s which was when our current capitalist hellworld really kicked off also clicked, but that might just be an actual plot conceit based on the character's age. But Get Out was so good at satirizing the modern white liberal mindset that I can't help but feel its intentional.
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Mar 22, 2019 15:11
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One of the funny things small details I noticed was at the beginning in 1986 when Adelaide enters the hall of mirrors is the entrance painting had a stereotypical Indian painting. In the present, it got updated to Merlin to be more politically correct.
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Mar 22, 2019 16:56
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i was hoping that’d be the twist. it is a bummer you can figure it out if you remember a scene from the trailer though. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 17:52
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seiferguy posted:One of the funny things small details I noticed was at the beginning in 1986 when Adelaide enters the hall of mirrors is the entrance painting had a stereotypical Indian painting. In the present, it got updated to Merlin to be more politically correct. Hah, that’s great. Could anyone tell what the t-shirt moleperson 86 Adelaide was wearing?
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Mar 22, 2019 17:55
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anyone else think of this sketch at beginning? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCw-iEJoVfY
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Mar 22, 2019 18:41
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Groovelord Neato posted:anyone else think of this sketch at beginning? I watched this at an Alamo Drafthouse and they showed part of that sketch in the pre-show, so yeah, it definitely ruined any tension in her initially walking in there.
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Mar 22, 2019 18:49
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Oh, also, I think I noticed that at the very end, when we see the A/B shots of surface Adelaide and underground Adelaide, she walks by a couple leaning on the wall playing rock/paper/scissors. I'm unsure if I saw it right, but it looked like the counterparts in the underground are only throwing scissors. Cute touch!
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Mar 22, 2019 18:56
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1stGear posted:I watched this at an Alamo Drafthouse and they showed part of that sketch in the pre-show, so yeah, it definitely ruined any tension in her initially walking in there. LOL did they really? amazing.
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Mar 22, 2019 19:10
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That was Jordan Peele doing the voice in the hall of mirrors spirit walk right?
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Mar 22, 2019 19:24
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This movie played on my love for the Dulce Baseconspiracy and I love it for it.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:19
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Oh I think “US” is supposed to mean united states too, what with all the ”we’re Americans” talk and this definitely having something to say about capitalism and poverty.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:43
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I think it also means they matter as much as anyone. They were the forgotten. Left to roam in the underground areas alone, with no one to guide them, until Red/realAdelaide gave them a way out. The real Red stole the life that she was supposed to have, and forced her to where she was supposed to be. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but it felt like some kind of punishment for the whole thing, that got flipped sort of in the end. Could also be literal because Red is actually an American citizen wrongfully trapped in the underground. CelticPredator fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 20:47
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I feel like I was underwhelmed when the movie ended but even an hour later thinking on the themes and symbolism I’m enjoying it a lot more! Good flick! Edit: also, there’s definitely something about our main character being a black woman who spends much of the movie bound in handcuffs , right? Or Red leading the downtrodden to freedom...there being a literal Underground Railroad? Idk, I’m spitballing here. Conrad_Birdie fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 20:52
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Conrad_Birdie posted:Oh I think “US” is supposed to mean united states too, what with all the ”we’re Americans” talk and this definitely having something to say about capitalism and poverty. "We're Americans" means you can't point your finger at an Other as your tormentor, without looking at or dealing with the monsters in yourself first. That's why Jason's seemingly-flippant line about pointing fingers is a major clue to the film's theme, imo
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Mar 22, 2019 21:12
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Groovelord Neato posted:key & peele is the best sketch comedy show ever and i'm sad it's gone. Ya, it makes Jordan even more impressive that he could write such good comedy and now horror.
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Mar 23, 2019 01:05
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Ulio posted:Ya, it makes Jordan even more impressive that he could write such good comedy and now horror. I think there must be some intersection in the skill set required to write both horror and comedy. Two comedians also just wrote one of, if not the best sequel to Halloween last fall as well.
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Mar 23, 2019 01:11
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Literally just got out and, like others, my interpretation was that the movie was about an uprising of the proletariat or, at the very least, an explicit examination of how arbitrary and unfair the distinctions between the have and have nots. “Red” lays her cards out on the table in her opening monologue. If the Hands Across America was not obvious enough, there’s the literal red jumpsuits and the invocations of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Enjoyed the comedy a lot. Don’t think it was scary, but that could me being jaded. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 01:14
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seiferguy posted:One of the funny things small details I noticed was at the beginning in 1986 when Adelaide enters the hall of mirrors is the entrance painting had a stereotypical Indian painting. In the present, it got updated to Merlin to be more politically correct. I noticed this too. It also mirrors a small moment when Adelaide and Peggy from Mad Men are chatting on the beach and she shows Adelaide a magazine spread and says “isn’t it beautiful?” and you can kind of make out a Native American headdress. maybe pointing out that we’re still doing that poo poo just less obviously?
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Mar 23, 2019 02:10
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I do like that fundamentally the reason why they're wearing red jumpsuits with one glove is because Red was scared of Thriller as a kid and she based their uniform of terror on the last scary thing from aboveground. Actually in general I like that all of their terror and planning and tactics stems from a developmentally stunted kid clinging to their fears and memories and distorting them over the span of decades into cargo cult trappings. I like that angle in general but this worked especially great here.
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Mar 23, 2019 02:15
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Hostile V posted:I do like that fundamentally the reason why they're wearing red jumpsuits with one glove is because Red was scared of Thriller as a kid and she based their uniform of terror on the last scary thing from aboveground. i think that commercial for Hands Across America was one of the last things that Red saw before she went underground as well, so that angle definitely lines up.
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Mar 23, 2019 02:31
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I liked it alot though my only logistic headscratcher was I took the labs/underground as sci-fi themed yet it's got a supernatural aspects of people copying others on the surface, plus the girl who was underground was "real" and yet still mimicked the life of her double above. That part was a bit messy but I still think it was overall creative and really fun.
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Mar 23, 2019 02:37
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it's metaphor and not meant to be interpreted literally, imho. the (literal) underclass want to enjoy the same pleasures as those above but, because they've been deprived of the same opportunities by a vague and incomprehensible authority, the most they can muster is a hollow recreation of above-ground life. it's telling that the characters are all upper-middle class and that their doppelgangers seem really focused on adopting the displays of wealth of their above-ground counterparts. it's very much a movie about how the trappings of privilege allow the wealthy to pretend they are superior to their poorer counterparts. the movie goes out of its way to constantly reiterate that the doppelgangers are just as smart and capable as their twins but only act monstrous because they were raised in monstrous conditions. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 02:59
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