PEELE'S NOPE LOTS TO UNPACK

Daniel Kaluuya is haunted by a UFO in NOPE.

The best science fiction and horror tales don’t just describe weird monsters from another world or a supernatural dimension. They investigate those bloodthirsty veins of dark emotion in our souls—fear, greed, hatred, bigotry, jealousy. Stephen King understands this, as did Rod Serling before him and a whole host of the New Wave SF writers.

Jordan Peele is their inheritor in film these days, and his latest SF/horror mashup, NOPE, is a perfect example of how the external alien monster is just a projection of the human victims’ inner demons. Oh, it’s scary enough—and the special effects make it eerily beautiful to look at once it shows up in its full, day-lit glory—but the truly frightening stuff in Peele’s film is found in the hearts of some of his human characters.

This is a dense film, full of symbolism and lots of Easter eggs for film fans, SF fans and horror fans alike. I enjoyed putting together all its puzzles, but I will admit I needed to do a little research online to help me figure a few things out. If I’d had time, I would have just watched it again. I don’t agree with critics who have called it disorganized. That is most definitely not the case; there is just a lot to absorb here on one viewing.

Let’s start with the title, NOPE, which is the typical reaction from both Black folks facing a dubious situation and anyone who runs screaming from the idea of watching a horror movie. (I have a few of those friends.) Peele is playing off both those cliches in his title, and he makes use of the quote multiple times in the film, too, when his Black protagonists see something scary, in much the way we Southerners might say, “Oh, hell no!” But there are a lot of online commenters who insist the title stands for NOT OF THIS EARTH, giving us a hint of what’s to come in the film.

Peele has plenty to say in the film, starting with a quote at the beginning from the Bible’s Book of Nahum: I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle. Though that’s not a particularly familiar Old Testament verse, the word spectacle is key to what Peele is trying to get to in NOPE—that we humans will do just about anything, pay just about any price, to watch a sufficiently entertaining spectacle. We’ll rubberneck an accident on the highway, watch “contestants” backstab each other to win the affection of THE BACHELOR, seek out gory slasher movies, and laugh at wipeouts on silly TV obstacle races or RIDICULOUSNESS videos. And some folks will do much, much worse on YouTube.

In NOPE, Peele focuses his lens (and his symbolism) primarily on animals as the unhappy subjects of these spectacles, and the consequences of exploiting trained animals (like horses and chimpanzees) for our amusement. But that’s just a plot device that allows him to say something about the exploitation of people of color and/or the lower classes for the benefit of white, upper-class society. All of which could be tedious in the extreme if Peele weren’t such an entertaining filmmaker, and this film weren’t full of action, jump scares, cool special effects and great acting from principal actors Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Stephen Yuen.

But what is the film about? Well, briefly, it’s about the Haywood siblings (Kaluuya and Palmer), who have just inherited a failing ranch in the California hills that trains horses for the Hollywood film industry. As Palmer’s character puts it, “Since pictures began to move, we’ve had skin in the game.” Close to bankruptcy, they’ve been forced to start selling off the horses to the owner of a neighboring theme park, Jupe’s Claim (Yuen), who, it turns out, is putting them to a nefarious use. When a UFO starts stalking the remote valley, all parties try taking advantage of what they see as an opportunity. It’s useful to remember that opening quote, though, and the idea that wild things can’t be controlled.

It's difficult to say anything more without giving everything away. (Hear my spoiler-y complete review here.) NOPE may not be the simple, straightforward science fiction/horror mashup that audiences expect, but it’s chock full of great characters, interesting ideas, thoughtful themes, eye-popping effects and dark humor. Keep your mind engaged, and I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.

Cheers, Donna

ARMY, UFO GROUP EYE 'ALIEN' MATERIALS

So, this week, another post in the category of truth is stranger than (science) fiction.

UFOlogists have been telling us for decades that samples of materials taken from crashed alien spaceships exist here on Earth and that governments are using them to “reverse engineer” our own futuristic technologies.

Now comes the proof—or something very close to it. According to Tom McCay in a post on Gizmodo.com, Blink 182’s Tom DeLonge’s To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA) just contracted with the U.S. Army to investigate materials in its possession that are supposedly of otherworldly origin. The object of the agreement between the two organizations, called a “Cooperative Research and Development Agreement,” which is something less than a formal long-term production contract and more than a handshake, is to examine the materials for their potential use for, well, I’ll just let the Army speak for themselves, otherwise you might not believe me. The CRADA is established to:

“Perform assessments, testing, and characterization of Collaborator-provided technologies. The Government is interested in a variety of the Collaborator’s technologies, such as, but not limited to inertial mass reduction, mechanical/structural metamaterials, electromagnetic metamaterial wave guides, quantum physics, quantum communications, and beamed energy propulsion.”

Some of this stuff I just don’t have the brain to interpret. But “inertial mass reduction”? Honey, I shrunk the soldiers? Cloaking technology? “Quantum physics”? That could be anything from a transporter to a warp drive. “Quantum communications”? How else do you communicate across the vastness of space? And “beamed energy propulsion?  Let’s hope they mean warp drive and not some kind of weapon.

Alien metamaterial--or just a piece of slag?

 All these wild notions are based on the possibility that the materials TTSA possesses (the UFO research organization calls them “meta-materials”) are actually not composed of isotopes of elements found on Earth. Some professional debunkers have claimed  the photos of the materials TTSA has posted on Instagram are nothing but common industrial slag. Presumably, however, TTSA, whose members include former Lockheed Martin Skunk Works exec Steve Justice and former Department of Defense Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) official Luis Elizondo, would have conducted its own tests to rule out that probability. And the mystery is intriguing enough to have attracted the attention of the U.S. military.

That in itself, of course, is not always a guarantee of research validity. As one commenter pointed out in response to the Gizmodo post, the CIA spent lots of taxpayer money futilely trying to prove that humans could view the battlefield remotely with their minds. As he reminded us, The Men Who Stare at Goats was nonfiction, after all.

 

Cheers, Donna

MY FIRST TRIP TO S.P.A.C.E.!

The Brown Mountain Lights shine on.

In a remote area of western North Carolina stands Brown Mountain, site of the Brown Mountain Lights. These mysterious glowing blue-white lights, first seen hovering or speeding over the hulking mountain by the Cherokee in times past, have contributed to North Carolina’s reputation as a target of UFO investigation for decades.

So it’s only fitting that now, just over the ridge from Brown Mountain in neighboring Mitchell County NC, the first annual Spruce Pine Alien Conference and EXPO  (S.P.A.C.E.) is planned for June 14 and 15. The two-day fun-filled event schedule features an alien costume contest, panel discussions, night-time “dark sky” tours, decorated bike and river raft races, live music, dozens of vendors, a beer garden, a stage for folks to share their “alien encounter” stories and appearances by Mike Bara of the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series. I’m an SF con veteran and I’m way excited by this line-up!

Of course, I may be too busy to enjoy much of S.P.A.C.E.’s offerings. I’ll be signing books at my own vendor booth on the main drag (the town has closed Locust Avenue to vehicular traffic for the event). I’ll also be one of several “experts” on a speakers’ panel discussing “Aliens Among Us.” Squeee! 

Spruce Pine Reimagined for S.P.A.C.E.

And, dear readers, the organizers are expecting 10,000 visitors for this thing! If they get even half that number, it will be more than twice the crowd that usually attends Shore Leave or RWA Nationals. Wowzer!

The little town of Spruce Pine, population 2175 at the last census, is probably not prepared for this influx, but no one can fault the conference organizers for their initiative in finding a way to capitalize on the local UFO connection. The outer space tie-in includes not just Brown Mountain. Mitchell County provides most of the quartz used in telescopes and microchips in the U.S. The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) designated the Mayland Earth to Sky Park and Observatory outside Spruce Pine as the first IDA-certified Star Park in the southeastern United States. 

With all this excitement it’s hard to know how to prepare for S.P.A.C.E. Our own town of Marshall has grown the June 8 Mermaid Parade and Festival from a wildly creative, but small, gathering of sea princesses and pirates to a day-long extravaganza of seafood contests, splash-y fun, arts and crafts, and live music, as well as the climactic parade in just four short years. Folks come from the big city of Asheville and surrounding counties to spend the day (and their tourist dollars), turning our sleepy little town into a celebratory crazy place.

A festival dedicated to aliens has the potential to bring in folks from all over the country—if the organizers have done their promo jobs right. That’s a little scary for me, much less for the residents of Spruce Pine. But it can also be a heckuva lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to my first trip to S.P.A.C.E. Wish me bon voyage!

Cheers, Donna