SXSW: Jordan Peele has another winner with "Us"

Guest contributor Tony Ruggio reporting from SXSW

Between the ages of thirteen and twenty-five years-old I witnessed what they would call the 11:11 “phenomenon.” Essentially, I saw a three or four-number combination of 1 in all walks of life. I saw it on television, often the last four of a Crash Bandicoot lawyer’s telephone number. I saw it during lunch time, the split-second moment a microwave hit that magic number. Most of all, I saw it on a clock, at least once a day every day. The paranoid and pretty rad among us consider this phenomenon many things: good luck, a sign from God, a glitch in the Matrix, a pang of the end times, or even a calling to those chosen to effect change and save the world from itself. Jordan Peele must have been a “witness” himself or simply heard about it and did his research, because Us is littered with references to this numeral phenomenon and the conspiracy theories that have sprung of it. More traditional horror than Get Out, and a better film too, Us gets hung up on making a big statement, but ends up making a great horror film regardless.

This might be sacrilegious to those already devoted to Peele: Get Out is a good film, one whose merits lay more in writing than in directing. Silly folks label it a thriller, denying it “horror” status. Even if you grant that Get Out was not a horror film in concept, it's definitely a horror film in execution. Therefore, I knocked it at the time for not being scary enough. With Us, Peele is firing on all scary-movie cylinders, and doing so with a wider array of tools at his disposal, chief of all his confidence...

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YNMS: "Us"

by Chris Feil

Yesterday, Jordan Peele was our Santa Claus doling out cinematic gifts. First thing Christmas morning, the writer/director of the Oscar winning Get Out dropped the trailer to his follow-up to that mega-smash, the cryptically titled Us. And the internet promptly snapped - or snipped, given the film's scissor fascination.

Curiosity would naturally be at a fever pitch for what Peele has in store for us for his sophomore feature, and Us has smartly been quiet until now. The film centers around Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide, a mother taking her family (including Winston Duke as her husband) on a beachside vacation only to be visited by a menacing family of their doppelgangers, The Tethered.

The trailer, which really plays like an extended teaser, gives us hints at the themes Peele is working with - family, trauma, self-reflection. And if Peele's promises that this film would be more firmly planted in horror elements hadn't convinced you, hold onto your butts...

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This & That: SAG fallout, Beale St agnosticism, Kidman's AACTA win

December is a bear, isn't it? It just keeps on coming at you and more intense as it goes, too. We're so far behind, we're just going to do this with no structure and no editing. Here is a list of lots of news-items or curiousities that are probably worthy of their own articles  but they aren't going to get them! We need a big staff (now seeking volunteers!) Okay, here we go...

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Us Links

Click to enlarge• Vanity Fair Everything thats known about Jordan Peele's Get Out follow up Us and a nifty teaser poster for it to your left! Like Get Out it's going for a first quarter of the year release. Yes! We love it when films don't feel the need to open in October, November or December. 
• Viacom on Younger's successful social media strategy
• Coming Soon That didn't take long -- Focus Features has asquired Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows for distribution after its Cannes bow
• Variety Empire star Jussie Smollet wants to be 'the black male Barbra Streisand,' adds directing to his repertoire of talents
• MNPP Justin Theroux ten times
• Deadline Nominations for the Golden Trailer Awards honoring the best in film marketing and promotion are out
• IndieWire Terry Gilliam will be debuting his 20 years in the making The Man Who Killed Don Quixote at Cannes
• MNPP fav movies of 1970 (since it's our year of the month, I was searching and now i'm linkin' up)
• Boy Culture Madonna at the Met Gala - she performed!
• THR will the Academy's wave of expulsions prompt more of the same. Some are happy, others claim "moral policing"
• /Film Well, that negotiation took a long time. We've known that Quentin Tarantino wanted Margot Robbie to play the actress Sharon Tate (Roman Polanski's late wife, murdered by the Manson family) in his next film for an entire month. She's finally signed on.

Blueprints: Post-Oscar Stat Madness!

Here we are. The Oscars are over. After six months (this was a long season!) of never ending think pieces, desperate For Your Consideration ads, and prediction anxiety, we can finally take a breather.

So, before we’re ready to start doing it all over again (because, let’s be honest, despite everything, we love this), let’s decompress a little. And if you’re like me, there’s nothing better than a good list of stats and numbers to clear your mind.

As a pallet cleanser, and as a farewell to Oscar season for now, here’s are some statistics and data about the screenplay categories. Where we were before Sunday, where we are now. And how far we have yet to go.

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