Earlier this week, the 2023 Oscar nominations were announced. Among the nominees is last year’s audience favorite Everything Everywhere All at Once, the German Oscar hopeful Nothing New in the West and Steven Spielberg’s new film. Also at the forefront: The Banshees of Inisherin and the Elvis biopic, which has been causing a stir since Cannes.
Prestige cinema meets indie surprises: With Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water, two genuine blockbusters have even found their way into this year’s Oscar circle. That of all people most inspiring blockbuster of the season didn’t get a single nomination, but then it amazes. Jordan Peele’s new film, Nope, could fit in just about any category.
Science fiction meets horror meets western: The Oscars have forgotten the most exciting blockbuster of 2022
Five years ago, Peele was a big name in the Academy circle. With his acclaimed directorial debut Get Out he made one Victory in Hollywood that got him to the Oscars. The satirical horror comedy was nominated in four key categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor), which is by no means a given for an independently produced genre film.
You can watch the trailer for Get Out here:
Get Out – Trailer (Deutsch) HD
At the end of the evening, Peele went with him Oscar for Best Original Screenplay home and proved with his next film that he got it right. In 2019’s We, he reasserted himself as an exciting filmmaker just beginning to explore the possibilities of cinema. The wild genre mix Nope marks the temporary high point of this development.
Imagine a sci-fi horror film that doubles as western, comedy and Meta comment on Hollywood understands. Jaws meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind in a mystery plot, while Peele populates his film with idiosyncratic characters and expands it with excellent dialogue. Nope’s script is funny, playful, and has many layers that only emerge over time.
Oscars 2023: Nope would have been a clear nominee for Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture
If someone had asked me earlier this week which film would definitely be nominated for Best Original Screenplay this year, I would have answered Nope without batting an eyelid. Hardly any other film was so bubbling with ideas this year and promised us a fresh blockbuster cinema. As much as I love Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick, they just can’t match Nope’s love of discovery.
Nope
Nope would have been a nominee for Best Picture and Best Director. Especially as a director, Peele has one remarkable leap did. Even more so than in Get Out and Wir, Nope reveals his ambition to create great, curious and reflective cinema. His film deals in detail with the question of the price of the spectacle and finds unexpected and clever answers.
A key ally in the spectacle is cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who is responsible for the stunning imagery of recent Nolan blockbusters, namely Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet. that his outstanding work plays no role at this year’s Oscars is incredible – the same applies to the great cast around Keke Palmer, Daniel Kaluuya and Steven Yeun.
Not a single Oscar nomination for Nope: This is a bitter step backwards for the Academy
Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects: I don’t want to go through every Oscar category. But one thing is important to me: the best film music. Michael Abels’ score is Nope’s biggest surprise and sums it all up Imaginative direction and screenplay on a musical level. The game is particularly successful with familiar Western sounds that are anything but dusty.
When Get Out triumphed at the Oscars in 2018, it seemed like the Academy’s view of genre cinema had changed. Instead, with a few exceptions, the current nominees only include films for which there are numerous role models in Oscar history. The freshness of Nope is present at most in Everything Everywhere All at Once. And there Nope is the better film in every respect.
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