No. 47 - Nope
I talk about Jordan Peele’s latest horror film and guest writer Charlie Sparks talks about a new show about the food industry. Yeah!
The Bear
Friend of the newsletter Charlie Sparks is one of the many people who have recommended the new Hulu/FX show The Bear to me. As both a former line cook and as someone who graduated with an English degree, Charlie’s perspective on the show proved too valuable to pass up as a feature in this week’s issue of the newsletter.
Up until Covid, I had been a line cook for over ten years. The pandemic gave me an opportunity to reevaluate my work life and make some changes that had been long overdue, namely getting out of the kitchen. Since then, I haven’t looked back. My fingernails no longer perma-reek of garlic, my forearms are void of oil burns, and my chef coats have found a new home buried in the corner of my closet. I’ve barely even thought of my former life in the BOH (Back of House). That was until the last couple weeks when my Instagram feed was inundated with memes from The Bear.
If you haven’t heard of it, The Bear is a drama/comedy about a young chef who leaves behind a meteoric rise to Michelin Star-studded culinary fame to take over a humble Italian Beef restaurant left to him after the recent passing of his brother. Carmy (played brilliantly by Jeremy Allen White) is challenged at every turn. He faces a poorly managed business (most restaurants), an apathetic staff (again, most restaurants), and the weight of his own grief. With every episode, we see Carmy achieve small successes before running into new roadblocks. The show does an incredible job of showcasing the “fragile ecosystem” that is the modern professional kitchen.
If you’re looking for restaurant realism, this show nails it. The pace ranges from the heart palpation-inducing dinner rushes, played to the tune of nightmarish kitchen printer chirps, to the nihilistic come-down after punching out—staring into the void as the sun comes up. It took me right back, for better or worse. After powering through the first episode, through gritted teeth, I leaned to my partner and said, “I don’t think I can watch this and expect to get a full night’s sleep.” But that is the reality of this line of work. It’s not a nine-to-five. You won’t sleep well. It's all-consuming. But, as Carmy evidences, it’s also deeply gratifying. The camaraderie of a kitchen brigade, the success of a new dish, or ending a weekend in the black are all victories that seemingly refuel the bottomless tank required to survive in the kitchen.
At the restaurants I used to work at, my coworkers and I would joke that before anyone patronizes a restaurant, they should be required to work at least one shift. That way they can see just how hard an entire team of people need to work to make each dish. I’ll amend that requirement; in place of working a shift, a patron could instead simply watch The Bear.
All episodes of The Bear are now streaming on Hulu.
Don’t Look Up
One of the best parts of Jordan Peele’s latest social horror film Nope is the terrifying sense of the unknown. Spielberg weaponized this unconscious fear of what we can’t see with Jaws back in 1975, and Hitchcock kept audiences on the edge of their seats with Psycho in 1960 when he revealed they had no idea what was really going on. Nope benefits from this sense of discovery, so in a moment, I will let you know when to stop reading if you want to keep yourself spoiler-free.
Nope primarily follows OJ (Daniel Kaluuya—and the name’s significance is not ignored) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) in a California gulch where they breed, train, and handle horse for movies. Neighboring them is a tourist ranch where Jupe Park (Steven Yuen) dazzles audiences with a family-friendly, sanitized version of the old west. Their peaceful lives are upset by a disturbing and bizarre presence that very well may be extraterrestrial life. Horrific events begin to occur. Some wish to document it, like electronics store employee Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) or sensationalize it like Jupe, with varying results.
Peele has found a happy medium between the social commentary of his first feature Get Out (2017) and the zany pop-horror of his second feature Us (2019) making Nope his most successful feature. The film is extremely tense and showcases some of the most horrific imagery I’ve seen in a mainstream film in a while, but doesn’t shy away from some relevant, but subtle, themes about how society and mass-media reckon with spectacle, making it a must-see film for this year.
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR NOPE
Early on in the film, OJ is given weird looks once attention is brought to his name, due to the association with the most famous OJ: OJ Simpson. Simpson’s highly-televised highway chase after murdering his wife, and subsequent court case in 1994, is what many people believe to be the template for how the United States media covers tragedies, like 24-hour spectacles. The horrific animal attack on the set of the fictional sitcom Gordy’s House, which Jupe survives in Nope, is similarly sensationalized, so much so there’s a Mad Magazine cover about it and a fabled SNL skit parodying the traumatizing event. The lesson that Jupe learns from it, and likely helps him cope with the trauma, is to look what he fears directly in the eye. He literally stared down the blood-soaked chimpanzee on the destroyed set and, by curating a room decorated like a shrine to the show, metaphorically faces that same event every day of his adult life.
The UFO, later revealed to be a large flying creature, resembles a gigantic eye gliding in the air. Jupe’s instinct is to make it an attraction, just like his shrine to his personal tragedy. This instinctual approach proves itself heinously incorrect when it causes the horrific beast to “abduct” Jupe and his audience into its maw and slowly crush them to death for sustenance. Their screams continue to echo as the creature flies around the gulch, sounding like a morbid rollercoaster. During any tragedy now, most find themselves scrolling on social media, unable to look away from the horror. The term for this is “doomscrolling,” and the feeling is not unlike being trapped somewhere, screaming for help, and still feeling helpless.
Fortunately for our heroes, Emerald and OJ, they find the easiest way not to become victims of the UFO is to avoid looking at it, as it identifies its victims by their eyes as they gaze upon it. Recently, I decided to delete the Twitter app off my phone. I was sick of doomscrolling and finding it to be detrimental to my wellbeing. The only way not to get “sucked into” the terror is to not look. Nope is not advocating “ignorance is bliss,” as the Haywoods make it their mission to wrangle some control over this creature and, eventually, kill it. Giving into spectacle and letting that void stare back at you isn’t helpful, but actual action is. Trivializing tragedy by making it a spectacle is such a disgusting act, but preventing another tragedy like that is a noble act. Hell, a heroic act.
Nope is in theaters now.
Quick Take: Fire of Love
I managed to catch a screening of Fire of Love (2022) a documentary about Maurice and Katia Krafft, a pair of married volcanologists, that almost exclusively uses footage from the Krafft’s archives and no interviews. The film is whimsical and fun that brought to mind the works of Wes Anderson and Hayao Miyazaki, but seriously advocates science and curiosity. Strictly on an aesthetic level, Fire of Love is just a gorgeous looking film. The archive footage is incredible and worth seeing on any screen.
Fire of Love is showing in select theaters now.
Stray Observations
With San Diego Comic Con not far in the rear view, there is always a host of new trailers and announcements. Most for sequels to superhero franchises, but there are always others too. One such being the fourth entry into a franchise that always delivers, John Wick. The overly elaborate plot, to this writer, seems superfluous to what the series is designed to do and that is to showcase brilliant hard hitting action choreography in gorgeous and immaculately detailed settings. Nevertheless, the titular John Wick, Keanu Reeves, is wanted by the league of assassins from which he found security. He must go on the run again and face incredible odds as it seems that this far reaching organization implicates every assassin on earth including one played by famed martial artist Donnie Yen. One character in this first teaser tells John “No one, not even you, can kill everyone”, but after seeing the other three films, I’d still put my money on John Wick. John Wick 4 comes out March 24th 2023.
With three episodes out already, Nathan Fielder’s latest docu-comedy series, The Rehearsal, is fast becoming one of the most bewildering shows I’ve seen. The show follows Fielder as he offers guests the opportunity to rehearse a challenging moment in their life by building sets and hiring actors to act out every possible outcome. Much like a favorite show of mine, Review (2014-2017), The Rehearsal’s host seems to take every opportunity he can to make each prompt on the show boost his own morale, but Nathan has to reckon with his abysmal self-confidence. The show has been compared to Charlie Kaufman’s film Synecdoche, New York because of its Russian Nesting Doll sets and insane attention to detail, but The Rehearsal is so much more outrageous that I am howling with laughter when I’m not in a furrowed brow confusion. The Rehearsal has new episodes every Friday on HBO Max.
Thanks again to my lovely girlfriend Brandy Perry for being my editor for this issue! She did a bang-up job on the Nope piece!
My birthday is on Monday! I’ll be turning 29. Many assign the age of 30 to a number of meanings, but, for me, it is mostly just a reason to celebrate. So like, comment, subscribe, and have a fun weekend. I know I will.