PATTERNS ***

 Like a lot of American movies in the fifties, "Patterns" began life as a television play. It's unusual in that it's a film about corporate business and a very realistic one, a subject that in itself was hardly a box-office draw. Van Heflin is the out-of-towner who begins work in a large New York corporation only to find he's being groomed to take over from a man who's been with the firm for over 30 years, (Ed Begley), and who is now being unceremoniously side-lined and pushed towards the door by cold-hearted boss, Everett Sloane.

With a cast that also includes future Oscar-winner Beatrice Straight and Elizabeth Wilson you know it's going to be a well-acted drama and, of course, it is and with a Rod Serling script it's also an intelligent and well-written one. The drama comes from the fact that Heflin is a decent guy who likes the man he's pushing out and can clearly see what's happening. The director was Fielder Cook and this was his first film but he never went on to have the career of a Lumet or a Frankenhimer, spending most of his life in television. Hardly ever revived, this is a film worth seeking out.

NOPE *

 Only a few years ago we hadn't heard of Jordan Peele, the director, whereas now, after only three films to his credit, and three 'horror' films at that, he's 'a name' that can actually draw an audience to a multiplex and although his new film, "Nope" stars Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya I'm sure it's Peele people are coming to 'see'. The question is, after "Nope" will they be as quick to rush to the next Jordan Peele opus? Unfortunately, I think the answer may be nope.

He won an Oscar for his first film "Get Out" which very cleverly blended racism, white supremacy and the Frankenstein myth into a fairly intoxicating brew. His follow up, "Us", wasn't quite in the same class, settling in large part on the fright factor but in that department it certainly delivered. "Nope" takes us into the realm of sci-fi and while he again uses black leads, (Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as a brother and sister, both very good), their ethnicity isn't really central. This is basically a homage to the kind of alien flics we enjoyed in the fifties, (think "It Came from Outer Space"), and with a better class of alien it might have been very enjoyable.

Sadly Peele doesn't seem to know that if you're making a monster movie you need a convincing monster or at least a scary one and simply tweaking the flying saucer genre won't cut the mustard. There are no real 'jump' moments here, (there's a subplot involving a killer chimp that never goes anywhere), and as "Nope" progresses it just gets sillier. This might have made for a good one hour episode of "The Twilight Zone" but stretched out to 130 minutes in an attempt to draw in the multiplex crowds, seems to me something of a con-trick. In a word, nope.