‘Nope’ could be a yup for awards season

I’m weighing the pros and cons about the return of the legendary Irv’s burger shack (good for my taste buds, bad for my waistline), while affirming this quote from Rose Ghavami, who, upon seeing a photo of the Clash displayed in the restaurant’s new dining room, said: “Well, if it’s good enough for the Clash, it’s good enough for me. I trust in Joe [Strummer].”

I’m Glenn Whipp, awards columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope’s Friday newsletter and dude who has used Joe Strummer as a north star since the sun’s been zooming in. Let’s round up the week’s news. My burger’s getting cold.

Big yes for Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’

I prefer to see Jordan Peele’s movies in a theater surrounded by paying customers because I like my psychological horror movies accompanied by visceral reactions and the occasional diaper change. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I haven’t caught his latest, “Nope,” yet, though I’m more intrigued than ever after reading Times film critic Justin Chang’s rave review.

Justin writes: “As in ‘Us,’ Peele shows a fondness for Old Testament scripture, opening here with a grim quote from the prophet Nahum: ‘I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, make you a spectacle.’ That last word, ‘spectacle,’ is crucial; it sets the stage for Peele’s inquiry into the business of exploiting Mother Nature’s creations — be they chimp or horse — for the purposes of mass entertainment. But it also suggests another kind of spectacle, the kind that transforms casual observers into camera-wielding obsessives, driving them to risk their lives and minds to prove that otherworldly phenomena exist.”

I mean, you had me at the prophet Nahum, Justin. Plus I’m long overdue for a “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” rewatch. Look at my weekend plans coming together!

Steven Yeun in Jordan Peele’s “Nope.”

(Universal Pictures)

Dawn Hudson leaves the academy. Her Oscars legacy? It’s ... complicated

When Dawn Hudson stood before the board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in spring 2011 to make her pitch for the newly created job of chief executive, the organization appeared to be operating on cruise control.

Ratings for the Oscars remained robust, with the previous year’s telecast watched by more than 40 million viewers. The academy’s TV deal with ABC guaranteed that a billion dollars in revenue would pump into the group’s already ample coffers over the next decade. The closest thing to recent Oscar controversies centered on taste — the much-maligned “Crash” winning best picture over “Brokeback Mountain” in 2006 — and whether James Franco was stoned when he co-hosted the show with Anne Hathaway in 2011.

Feeling secure in the group’s status as the prestigious, enduring face of Hollywood, some on the 43-member board believed the academy simply needed a caretaker to maintain the course set by retiring Executive Director Bruce Davis, who had held the position for 30 years.

Hudson — an academy outsider, originally from Hot Springs, Ark., who had spent the previous two decades running the far smaller nonprofit Film Independent — saw things differently, and she told the board so in plain terms. It would take two presentations to persuade the academy’s governors to hire her.

“There wasn’t an obvious crisis that said, ‘You’re heading for the iceberg,’ but I felt we were,” Hudson, 65, says over Zoom from her Los Angeles home, just days after officially ending her tenure as the academy’s leader on July 1. “We couldn’t continue being this exclusionary kind of ivory-tower academy and be successful, be relevant, be the leaders we wanted to be. I perceived a crisis in the making, and so did a majority of the board, which is why I was hired. Not everyone had that same perception.”

Eleven years later, not everyone has the same perception of Hudson or her transformative and often tumultuous tenure as chief executive. And as the academy begins a new chapter under Chief Executive Bill Kramer and a soon-to-be elected new president, the organization’s leaders and members are left to argue over Hudson’s complicated legacy.

My colleague Josh Rottenberg and I detailed those arguments in a recent deep-dive into Hudson’s legacy, talking to friends and foes alike.

“She’s a survivor,” says a former academy official. “She knew how to form alliances on the board that pretty much made her bulletproof, even with all the criticism.”

Former film academy CEO Dawn Hudson, who just stepped down after 11 years running the organization.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Our out-of-the-box guide to Comic-Con 2022

So, at the moment I’ve got an Irv’s burger run, another encounter with “Close Encounters,” maybe a hike, maybe a bike, some room for spontaneity and that’s about it for the weekend. I will most definitely not be wandering around the hallways of the San Diego Convention Center for this year’s Comic-Con, but I will be living vicariously through the reports of my Times colleagues as they pound down some grog at the pop-up Dungeons & Dragons tavern and report on all the doings.

What’s on their radar? Check out this exhaustive Comic-Con guide, which includes a “Severance” experience at the Hard Rock Hotel, which damn well better include an egg bar and waffles. If there were an Emmy for office food, this show would win!

Zach Cherry, Britt Lower and John Turturro in “Severance.” I’d like to think they’re looking at a recipe for deviled eggs.

(Wilson Webb / Apple TV+)