Sinners Seen it Thread

Cafe Society
1

Saw this tonight and I can’t stop thinking about it. It was a really good movie. I told my wife afterwards (no horror movies for her so she sat this one out) that movie was about Music, Race and Vampires, probably in that order.

So many layers to this. This is a movie that can and will be dissected in years to come in film schools and online and deservedly so.

I saw a lot of “you must see this on the big screen” and I don’t know about that. I think it would have been fine in a nice home theater but I am very glad I saw it.

2

I personally am glad I saw it on the big screen. Amazing movie but the soundtrack is the best part of it.

3

Aw, I assumed this was going to be a personal confession thread about the various sins we’ve witnessed (possibly while committing them). I clicked this link from the ‘Latest’ column on the main board page, so I didn’t notice the ‘CS’ category at first.

But now that I know what it’s about, I have seen commercials for it, and it does look good. Will probably catch it on streaming at some point, since I don’t get out to see movies in the theater much anymore, unfortunately. Here’s a trailer:

4

Oooooh, wow. This was terrific, especially the back half of it.

Yeah, this is the kind of movie we need. It’s an original idea, not an adaptation of a book or comic? I hope so.

Loved it.

Edit: Cake day! Huh. 25 years on the web and more from the AOL day.

5

Yes it’s original. Not based on a comic or anything.

6

I am very glad I was able to see it in 70mm IMAX. The full IMAX 1.43:1 screen during several scenes, including the dances, was incredible!

7

DAMN that movie was good.

I really don’t like horror movies as a genre (they scare me), but I do like really good movies. So, I suffered, but it was worth it.

I guess we moviegoers have nobody to blame but ourselves if we’re getting really good thoughtful movies in horror-movie wrappers, though. Look at Coogler’s 2013 Fruitvale Station: a brilliant and thoughtful movie about race and violence in America, a solid succes d’estime, but, y’know, kind of a downer? Did fine but certainly no blockbuster, at under $20 million worldwide box office IIRC.

Then the genius that is Jordan Peele realized that you can make lots of money with brilliant and thoughtful movies about race and violence in America: just add murderous bodysnatchers! Get Out grossed over $250 mil in 2017.

Tell you what: make the murderous bodysnatcher network bigger! Peele’s 2019 Us, also over $250 mil.

How about extraterrestrial monsters? Peele’s 2022 Nope, a mere $170 mil (still pandemic times, though).

And now, vampires, with Sinners already passing the $200 mil mark.

I am never not gonna be interested in brilliant and thoughtful movies about race and violence in America, but the jump-scare packaging is starting to take it out of me.

(Okay, that was kind of tongue-in-cheek; I’m sure the filmmakers are in fact genuinely interested in experimentation with the horror genre, not just using it to bump up the superficial entertainment value on more “serious” films. And of course Coogler’s Creed and Marvel films did well too. But if some director wants to make a brilliant and thoughtful movie about race and violence in America in the form of, I don’t know, a historical needlework documentary or something, I will very much appreciate the change of pace.)

8

I liked most of it, except for 1) Miles Caton’s performance and 2) the quick-cut spoonfeeding flashbacks. Other than that, I thought everything worked well, including the past-and-future spirits sequence (which might have turned out terrible).

9

Man, I thought Miles was the standout performance. If I had a complaint about this movie it would be the action scenes, which is usually where this type of movie falls apart. Having what looked like at least 30 vampires rush in and attack five people and it not being an instant slaughter makes very little sense. Also when the vampires rush in at least three people go down that we had never seen before.

10

Really Really liked it. I thought the vampires added an extra layer to the story beyond a pair of brothers trying to open a juke joint in klan country. First they supported the idea that Sammy was a kind of magician. But more I thought the lead vampire was interesting. He was very old and had his own experience of being disposessed and opressed. I’m glad the movie respected Irish music.

I liked the garlic scene, which I’m pretty sure is an homage to the blood scene in John Carpenter’s The Thing.

It was cool to see Buddy Guy as old Sammy. I was at his club in the early nineties, though it was much different than depicted in the movie.

George Clinton played right next door to where I saw the movie, which I thought was a happy coincidence.

11

I loved it. Just an amazing accomplishment. It’s so great to see an original work that’s so well written, performed, and executed.

12

It occurs to me that, in the credits scene, Stack and Mary are much less bloodthirsty, and much less deceitful, than they were in the juke joint. This wasn’t explicitly shown, but I think they were under the thrall of the lead vampire, and when he was killed, they were free to be themselves, at least to some degree. Presumably still hungry for blood, but now on their own terms rather than for the lead vampire’s whims.

13

I think their “bloodthirst” left when Annie died. Once their chance at their big happy immortal family went out the window when Smoke staked Annie they didn’t see much point to it. Neither of them went outside with lead vampire, they just stayed in the juke joint.

14

I saw it today. I tried to avoid spoilers, though I knew it was horror and I really don’t like those movies. (In particular, I hate torture porn like the Saw movies or gross-out stuff like The Human Centipede, neither of which I’ve seen but for some reason I’m not bothered by most vampire movies.) And yes, I enjoyed this movie. The music was great. Though one nitpick; the scene at the end in which Smoke killed the racist assholes was actually quite satisfying, but in the real world, the retaliation for that would have been brutal and deadly.

And by the way, I read that Ryan Coogler, the writer and director of the movie, demanded that the studio distributing the movie return ownership of it to him after 25 years. That’s unusual.

15

Retaliation towards who? Everyone there that night was dead or missing.

16

The nearest African-American community probably. Like Sammie’s father’s congregation.

17

There was already at least 30-40 black people dead and I didn’t get the feeling the juke joint was very close to anywhere.

18

Anyhow, I didn’t know in advance that there was an end-of-credits scene but fortunately I lingered long enough to see it.

19

Also, the military-weapon-armed killer of the (murderous) Klansmen was very obviously the perpetrator, and he was very obviously already dead, along with all his family (apparently).

That, plus the sudden local shortage of murderous racists, makes it not wholly implausible to me that this particular killing spree didn’t end up genocidally metastasizing in the community. It wouldn’t have been seen as a local “uprising”, so much as a mostly intra-racial “savage” wave of criminal bloodlust* that “tragically” swept up the local Klan members as well when they butted in.

(*) Sorry, no pun intended, believe it or not.

20

Fitted alongside the also twin based film Oddity this weekend, Sinners was a good watch. I’d not realised it was Coogler who directed it, and having looked up his films, I’ve pretty much seen them all back to Fruitville station.

I liked the removal of Christianity from the vampire mythos, no churches, no crosses, no holy water. That made much more sense for immortal monsters than the weird churchy crap we’ve had all these years. It reminded me of True Blood, which was good for a season or two before it descending into weird faerie crap.

I did think it was vague on the ending, but whatever (how did they get out when it was daylight? Thralls seemed to die when lead vamp died). But overall a decent one worth the rewatch and the music did make it.