Sinners (2025) - who are your people?

A Southern Gothic tale - with all the symbolism you care to find from that genre.

What does it mean to belong? How does a community treat its undesirables? What role does religion play in defining good and clean? What do you have to give up to be part of the clan? This movie probes some very deep stuff.

If you just want the top-level show without all the questions this flick evokes - you get gangsters, vampires, and blues music. It is all the magic I found in a Pizza Hut Supreme when I was a kid.

Wonderfully grotesque metaphors. Moving scores. Impact through sound design, camera focus, tracking, color palette and lighting. This movie is brilliantly made.

I am trying to put my finger on a performance that is stand out, but I can't really. It is quite an ensemble.

I think if there is one series I loved it is when Stack goes to get supplies for the party: that negotiation with the girl by the truck, the greeting at the 'black' grocery, the shooting, the '1-shot' where we track Lisa fetching her mom from the 'white' grocery across the street, and the negotiation with Grace. All of that. Even Grace and Bo's speech patois to code themselves 'acceptable' to the people they served. It was a lived-in set of moments - the Chao's are probably my favorite characters. Also, I think I could watch Wunmi Mosaku (aka Hunter B15) spray paint a mailbox if anyone wanted to cast her in that role.

If you don't care for gore, I do not recommend this film. I did not find it scary, but it is messy. If you like rich, textured story telling - packaged for pop consumption ... you definitely gotta see this thing.

Comments

Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) - it is a good deal better than the remakes

I got around to watching the original 1958 comedy caper film - the one that "Welcome to Collinwood" was pantomiming. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" is hilarious. It is 25 minutes longer than the remake and never once did I feel the need to check my watch. I even paused to go refill my water glass. There will be no problem telling who is who or how the story goes - it is well shot and characters are unique. The story is a simple and fun. Comparing the "BDoMS" and "WtC" - they are identical in terms of characters and scenes. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" street is terrific, and "WtC" is a slog. The biggest difference is seen in the dialog. In "Big Deal" the people just talk, like you might expect people to talk. They are funny, but not odd. The colloquialisms happen, but they aren't hard to see through. In "WtC", they are using a vernacular to make sure you are immersed deep in an Eastern European ethnic nei...

Alien: Covenant (2017) - Jason X in a toga

A film that raises big questions—about gods, monsters, and the cost of creation—and then answers them with pseudo-intellectual hooha and a bunch of splatters. It’s poetry for meatballs. A creation myth written by someone who forgot the difference between being mysterious and confounding. There’s a premise here. But it never shows up on screen. The director described the film as having [layers of metaphor]. By minute 20, my response to him would be: “Uh nah bruh … you ain’t that deep.” The characters are emotionally unbalanced idiots. This crew is supposedly trained for deep interstellar colonization. No backup plan. No safety protocols. No sense of hierarchy or mission discipline. They panic, scream, and grieve like they’ve just lost soulmates—they are too young to have known each other or been through anything more severe than a power point presentation. They lack agency. They don’t make decisions—they react, flail, and sometimes avoid shooting themselves or blowing themselves up...

"Cocaine Shark" (2023) - Not since "Suburban Sasquatch" ...

Mark Polonia has made almost 80 films since 1985. That is 2+ per year. There was a 3 year pause in his proliferation after his twin brother & production partner John died in 2008. If you consider that he (they) didn’t really start cranking out this entertainment until 2000 - it is more like 3 per year. If he keeps at it as long as they did, he will pass Richard Thorpe and William Beaudine (credited as directing ~180 each). Wowzers. His particular craft is low-low budget. Lower than Roger Corman or Lloyd Kaufman even. Polonia’s production values are limited. You get 2 or 3 sets with plenty of establishing shots to fill the transition. You get special effects and creatures which look like they were assembled by a junior high art class. You will see the same actor playing multiple parts, married couples acting together, and a lot of the same names showing up in multiple different releases. You will see the same people + sets in 2 or 4 of these movies in a room; I assume many of them a...

Robs takes on Media and Entertainment

Search This Blog