Critical Darlings: Sinners And The Academy’s Growing Genre Acceptance with Sam Sanders

9:48David Sims:To build.

9:48Griffin Newman:Yeah. And I don't think she was doing that. Yeah. And I want to say, I might have discussed it on this show or one of the shows that I listen to in this awards industrial complex. They were like, oh, yeah, this season, Chalamet has pulled like a really interesting sleight of hand.

10:04Sam Sanders:Yeah.

10:04Griffin Newman:Because, you know, for the earlier part of his press store, he was performing on Light and Troll, if not a white kid with the black scent hanging at the cool kids table. and then all of a sudden he turned it around and was like the grateful young earnest artist shout out to the code switch yeah but I noticed yeah I was like okay it's like a concert

10:26David Sims:he's doing costume changes yes right or just you know

10:28Sam Sanders:when you're doing multiple characters in a one man show and then you're suddenly like and you're like that's Shaliman yep exactly yeah

10:35David Sims:and in so doing I think has not tired people out as much you know I keep watching yeah it's interesting

10:41Sam Sanders:he also like he has maintained a bit of aloofness which I think is very canny. You know, even when he is doing these outrageous stunts, there's a bit of a move that I think he understands, like, to be a movie star now, it is helpful to still retain whatever the very contemporary version of, like, having a little bit of aloofness is. And some mystery around it. Yeah, yeah.

11:01Griffin Newman:A mystery. Yeah.

11:02David Sims:And I would hope in terms of, like, the long campaign trail that because Sinners came out, you know, I mean, like, almost a year ago at this point, it was like nine months ago, that they had little downtime maybe and then could kind of reunite. you know in the fall and be like oh how was your summer you know well it went pretty well I guess so yeah I mean I think that that may be a credit to like a couple movies like Everything Everywhere that come out a bit earlier in the season then you kind of get a reprieve and then have that new energy yeah

11:29Sam Sanders:but like we used to assume that that was impossible yes you can't do it you can't do that you have to do fall you have to start at one of the ideally one of the fall festivals or just have a premiere then and then you just follow the plan you build from there the idea of being like Like, you came out in the spring, which actually now has been not that—it's not unusual. It feels like we're seeing a new—I don't know—new rhythms for how you can do that award campaign. We've kind of broken the old plan of our awards.

12:00Griffin Newman:And Sinners has broken so many of the old plan, so many parts of the old plan. Like, it is a horror film. It is a serious best picture contender that rarely happens. Although I think one could argue the extent to which Sinners is a horror film. We'll talk more about it later. But watching it back, I said, this might just be an action movie with vampires, which fine. But is it horror? That said, I feel like in spite of the length of the Sinners Award season, all of the big moments in the award season for that movie have come externally, not internally. I remember the first moment in which everyone said we need to have an Oscar shot about this movie was in the backlash to the skeptical coverage of the film's first week box office take.

12:40Griffin Newman:And then now I've seen another renewed kind of conversation about the way this film, this type of film, a black film made by black people, how it moves in this world after the BAFTA Tourette's incident. And so so much of the ways in which the community is considering sinners, it's like these external things that are happening, which is I kind of like it. Everything about Sinners in this awards season is making Hollywood as an enterprise ask some hard questions of itself. Namely, are we the vampires? Sure. Which I'm here for it.

13:17David Sims:Yeah. Can we rewind a little bit to remind everybody what happened when Sinners came out? yeah so basically at that time there was this speculate that the two heads of Warner Brothers you know who were working under David Zaslav were like rumored to about to be fired wait if Sinner gets

13:35Griffin Newman:best picture does Zaslav get a win too no

13:38David Sims:I don't think he has a producer credit on it so he's not going to be on a fun stage they can put the trophy in their lobby or whatever okay it doesn't go on his desk but basically like he was unhappy you know they were spending too much on movies whatever and then people looked at the slate and they said like, I don't know, this like vampire movie from the Black Panther guys, that could make much money these days. No one's going to theaters. And then one after the other, starting with, I guess, the Minecraft movie, Warner Brothers just started having hits after hit. But it was a little bit later that the press caught up to that.

14:11David Sims:So when the movie was coming out, there was all of this doubt about whether or not this movie would do well, you know, for all these various reasons. And when the movie was a massive hit, people were like, wait, why were you counting this out?

14:23Griffin Newman:Well, and there were headlines after that first amazing box office. And I think it was like 40 something million dollars it made and did well internationally, too, which folks say a black film can't do. Right. Right. A lot of the headlines ended in question marks. Is this really enough? Is this big enough? I think I was most offended by an episode of The Town, a show which I love, where Frank and Leonard of The Blacklist had to basically school Matt Bellany and say, everything about the way you're talking about this movie reveals some problems on your end, not the movie's end. And I think that the reaction to that and the ways in which the trades had to change their tune, I felt like that was when the Oscars race for sinners began in earnest.

15:28David Sims:Comfortable. Secure. We love them. They are a global film company of champions grade cinema. Iconic directors. Emerging auteurs. Always something new to discover with MUBI. Each and every film hand-selected. So you can explore the best of cinema. Nothing more to say, I guess. Wrong! There's a new film coming to theaters. Yep. Movie theaters. February 13th. The first Nigerian film ever in official competition again. That's pretty wild. This is a film by Akinola Davis called My Father's Shadow. It was BAFTA-nominated, poetic, tender portrait of a father-son bond framed within the political landscape of 1993 Lagos in Nigeria.

16:08David Sims:It is about a father and two young sons as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, reckoning with their relationship, navigating the city that's in the middle of a democratic crisis, written by real life brothers Akinola Davis Jr. and Wally Davis. Love it brothers. Co-wrote this groundbreaking feature debut and you've got Sofei Dorisu oh from Slow Horses I love him. I hope I'm saying his name right. But he's a really good actor and he's the star. It's worth seeing. It's in theaters. It's great to go to a theater. It's in theaters. We love that Mubi puts Mubis in theaters before ultimately ending up on their wonderful platform.

16:53David Sims:dang right. I'm just looking at some of the stuff they got right now. Die My Love, of course. Yeah. An important watch, a necessary watch for any blankie. La Grazia. La Grazia, the new Paolo Sorrentino movie, which I missed in theaters. Good moment to catch up with it. The Great Shall We Dance. Oh, the classic? The original. Oh my goodness, that's fun. Like a restoration? Yeah, and look what they got a collection called Heartthrob Nicolas Cage. It's young dreamy Cage. Well, still dreaming to me. Hey, you're very open-hearted. Anyway, to stream the best of cinema, you can try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash blank check.

17:31Griffin Newman:That's M-U-B-I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. And then go see my father's shadow in theaters. Please, thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Thank you. Very kind.

17:49Griffin Newman:Martin's Supreme may-ish make his money back, but as soon as that movie did okay over the holiday season, some of the trades called Timothee Chalamet the king of Christmas.

17:58Sam Sanders:Yeah.

17:59Griffin Newman:You remember that? Sure. Yeah, yeah. What? Well, he did kill Samantha Clause,

18:02David Sims:so he is technically the king of Christmas.

18:04Sam Sanders:That's a weird portion of his Wikipedia when he's really dived deep into that.

18:07Griffin Newman:Personalize. Yeah. I cut you off. I'm sorry.

18:09Sam Sanders:Oh, I was going to say, We should also touch on the unusual and kind of like, not first of its kind, but very, very rare deal that Ryan Coogler made for this film. He gets the rights to it in 25 years. Negotiating for the rights, like when there was a bidding war for the rights, right? It was Final Cut. He won in Final Cut. And then, yes, the ownership reverts to him in 25 years, which is just not something that you see a lot of filmmakers being able to do. But also, when I was talking about that with friends of mine from Texas, where I'm from.

18:39Griffin Newman:Yeah. And I was like, this is a new thing.

18:41Sam Sanders:Yeah. My friends were like, well, shouldn't it always be that way? Right, exactly. Shouldn't it always be that way? Yeah, yeah.

18:46Griffin Newman:So, yeah, I mean, it's shout out to Ryan Coogler to getting the industry to a place that one would have assumed it could have been at decades earlier. Right.

18:56Sam Sanders:I mean, you have to become one of this, like, very small group of, like, very powerful filmmakers to apparently pull off what feels like a deal that should be available to filmmakers all over the place. Especially when you're like, this is your intellectual property. A new idea that he wrote with his wife. Like, come on.

19:14David Sims:And, you know, the fact that, like, whoever was, you know, giving him that deal was, like, looking at it. So, well, you've only directed Black Panther. It's a successful sequel. Directed or produced three really box office hit boxing movies. Yeah. Like, it's like, that should have been an easy yes. Yeah, totally. He doesn't miss, really. Yeah.

19:33Sam Sanders:But I do think that part of that kind of like the trade that kind of like was like rooted a bit and being like, oh, and you want this deal? How dare you? You know? Yeah. There was a bit of like, this is not how things work. Yes. This is not how we do business.

19:45Griffin Newman:And it is very, whether you mean it or not, when you're making that kind of statement of this is not how it works, you have to understand that the way that those opinions are perceived is informed by the race of everybody involved.

20:01Sam Sanders:Sure.

20:01Griffin Newman:It is, you know? And I think a lot of folks at the end of this Oscars campaign season compared to at the start of it, they've had a little bias training 101 dealing with this movie and how we talk about it. And you know what? Good for them. Learn some lessons. Learn something from this.

20:20David Sims:Well, and there was also when it was when the kind of gaze on the movie was like, OK, we admit it. It is a huge hit. Well, OK, is it an awards movie? part of the reason some people doubted that it might be was that, well, Warner Brothers has this big Paul Thomas Anderson movie coming in a few months and that clearly... Not as big as Sinners. Well, exactly. But I do think that, and I don't want to give credit where it's undue, but like someone on that side of things did manage to successfully run both of those campaigns. And they don't seem to be fighting. No. Like everyone's getting along. They're complimenting.

20:51David Sims:It's a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing. And that behind them, the studio is in this crazy disarray in terms of... They're probably guaranteed the best picture win. This studio. One of them will most win. And it might be their last ever? We don't know.

21:05Sam Sanders:As we're recording this, Paramount has just seemingly won and beat out Netflix in terms of acquiring this kind of battle to acquire Warner Brothers. At least they have made what has been declared the better offer and Netflix has declined to counter.

21:22David Sims:AKA the one that Trump doesn't want to kill. Right.

21:24Sam Sanders:And, you know, this whole thing has felt like a real...

21:28Griffin Newman:Susan Rice is involved for some reason. There's a lot going on.

21:31Sam Sanders:I mean, you have like, yeah, like Trump like putting his thumb on the scales and you also have Netflix being like, sure, we'll keep putting movies out in theaters. Like, we won't put it on paper, but like we definitely will.

21:43David Sims:Did you say theater or theaters? Right, exactly.

21:46Sam Sanders:So like watching this whole thing, you just feel like whatever happens here, it is going, the consolidation is going to be bad news.

21:53Griffin Newman:Yeah, well, and will this new company post-merger be more or less likely to green light a film like Sinners. So, as you said, Oscar voting has started.

22:04David Sims:Do events like this affect voting or have they? Do we have any way of knowing that? My hunch would be if there is an effect on Sinners in specific, I think it would only be positive. Because I think, like you're saying, it's a great economic story for the Academy, for the industry. People genuinely love that movie. It got the most nominations. And I think if they think it's facing unfair headwinds because of corporate stuff happening. I mean, most of the Academy, there are a lot of producers in it, but it's a lot of artists, you know, not that producers aren't artists. But like, you know... Thank you.

22:34David Sims:You know, they are. Creative producers are, anyway. But like, I think that there's enough sort of narrative in there about, yes, the film itself and what the film itself is saying, but also what it's kind of, the economy around that film is saying, that people would want to champion it even more because it's, the future of movies like it seems to be in jeopardy.

22:53Sam Sanders:Yeah, I also, I mean, It feels like Warner Brothers is going to walk away with Best Picture, however it goes, right? For Minecraft. For Minecraft.

23:02David Sims:A write-in.

23:04Sam Sanders:As the first write-in winner. But I feel like there are, however people make this connection in their head, they're both stories that feel like they're going against the grain of this inevitable push towards even more and more corporatized, IP-driven media to be like, oh, these are two auteurist films. They are movies that are made with these intensely personal visions that audiences have responded to. And yeah, that's what you think would solve all of Hollywood's problems, right? This is what we're asking for. And of course, instead, everything's crumbling in the background, just walking away from the explosion.

23:45Sam Sanders:But at least for now, we have this big last hurrah of celebrating these movies as the structures that make them.

23:54David Sims:Our executive producer Griffin had a great line about it where he was like, it feels like they're planning both a birthday party and a funeral for the same night. You know, because it's like, this could be the end of this thing or the beginning of a new, or ever renewed era of big, robust studio films with something to say that make money winning awards. I'm excited to see Barry Weiss as Wonder Woman. What? Wait, is this? No, no, no. if Paramount were to buy Warner Brothers. Yeah, they'll do some synergy and Nellie Bowles will play somebody. Oh, God. But yeah, I think regardless of how Sinners performs in a couple Sundays from now, like, it is one of the huge success stories of the year.

24:36David Sims:I think it will perform well. We were saying... There's no way it can't. 16 nominations. Yeah, that's it.

24:41Sam Sanders:It's got a record-breaking...

24:42David Sims:Well, tell Scorsese that because he's walked in with 11 nominations and walked out with zero.

24:46Sam Sanders:I am on the record as saying, like, right before the nominations, I was feeling like this, like, entirely vibes-based, like, uh-oh, I'm worried about Sinners. And then it went on to do so. My vibes radar is clearly off. But, like, yes, you never know. Like, I feel like, again, you're dealing with this mysterious body.

25:02Griffin Newman:Yeah. Although, I would put money on Ludwig. Oh, Ludwig. Lundgrenson. He's getting that Oscar. How do you not give it to that man?

25:11Sam Sanders:I feel like.

25:12Griffin Newman:He's also very handsome.

25:13Sam Sanders:Yeah.

25:13Griffin Newman:Oh, I need to Google. That is what is important.

25:16Sam Sanders:I feel like I can see a world also where best picture and best director is split you know and you know Ryan Coogler has had to of course then answer this question so many times from like various he's got a pretty face I'm not sure it's not entirely sold

25:36David Sims:honestly it depends I just remember seeing what he won for something yes and I saw him on the stage and I was like oh hello he's got great hair yeah He wrote This Is America, the Chachi Gambino song. Did he? Yeah, he did. He's multifaceted. But yes, I think you're right, Allison. There could be a split. I think that Paul Thomas Anderson is like going to win Best Director. I think that Cooler probably will win Screenplay. Yeah. And then it's a matter of like which one takes Best Picture. But it will walk away with awards for sure. Oh, yeah. So you mentioned that this has been a long campaign. Yes.

26:05David Sims:But I guess this is in two phases, right? Before nominations are announced, you've got people kind of campaigning in a like, please notice us sort of way. and then after the nominations come out, you sort of campaign formally. But are there specific rules or ways that you play that that are different? I mean, phase two, which they call post-nominations, you know, in the campaigning biz, that you'll see a lot of movies then sort of start to take on a different message. Like the secret agent has like kind of a new tagline in its campaigning. So does sentimental value. I don't have it. on the tip of my tongue, but it's something...

26:45Griffin Newman:This movie's kind of confusing.

26:47David Sims:Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bless it. It's actually a poster with just like a small font description of what happened to the movie. No, but like, you know, the imitation game year after they got the nominations, the campaign became, you know, honor the man, honor the film. So they start to try to... Nora was Dream... No, no, that's Marty's dream. Nora was like choose love or something like that. They try to condense the messaging of the movie into something that's really sellable. I don't think Sinners really needs to do that. Well, Sinners is like, don't be the vampire. Right, right. Like, it has its own thing.

27:17David Sims:You know what to do. There's also, like, don't scare the chickens, you know? Like, they've all come together around your movie. Now you only have a few more weeks. Don't get them to run away from you, you know? Don't put a foot wrong. And I don't think that Sinners is in danger of that.

27:30Griffin Newman:No. This is also what I've been noticing with everyone that's on the campaign trail for that movie. One, they've got them all out. They're all out. And all of them are so incredibly poised.

27:40Sam Sanders:Yeah.

27:41Griffin Newman:they like they're not slipping they're not tripping they know how to do it they look good they sound good like that whole operation feels like to the extent a movie's campaign for Oscars can be a well-run ship is that fair to say I don't know like oh yeah they've got it together

27:56David Sims:yeah no I think that there's a sleekness to it that it probably began with like just a well-run production you know on set you know that then kind of carries through and it's a nice mix of like first-time nominees and people who've been to the party many times before and so it's just yeah i i'm i'm impressed by what they've done and i don't know when my doubt about it being an oscar movie went away but it was pretty early on i think in in the whole story of that like because it just seemed like it had that juice yeah well it is interesting

28:24Griffin Newman:seeing sinners do it all with all of their top line folks and comparing that to one battle and i'm just like where is sean pinn where is benicia looking catholic and globes yeah yeah But like they're not doing the circuit, which fine. I don't believe in the circuit personally, but like this is what we have to do. The big names in that film aren't doing as much, which fine, right? Yeah.

28:48Sam Sanders:I mean, I feel like also, well, I'm sure they're like, they just don't want to put Sean Penn out there that much. And they're like, you have Leo. I mean, Leo, I don't think was ever a front runner in for really. I just don't think. Yeah. I mean, like we've been talking a lot about how at this point we feel like you have Timmy and then Wagner Mora, like really coming up behind. And like if there is an upset, like he would be my guess. But Leo is also just like he's not someone who wants to put himself out there a lot. And also everyone is like, he's got it.

29:15Griffin Newman:He's good. He has his award.

29:16Sam Sanders:Yeah.

29:17Griffin Newman:No one feels the need to give this guy an award because he needs this one.

29:21Sam Sanders:Exactly. Yeah.

29:22David Sims:There are too many photos of him on yachts. And Dr. Moore is doing a smart thing. We're at these FYC parties. If you ask nicely, he'll softly whisper the explain the plot of the movie in your ear. How long does it take? Well, as long as you want. But yeah, I mean, I think that like if we want to get into the movie a little bit.

29:42Sam Sanders:Can we first also like touch briefly on, I feel like you brought up the idea of like how much of a horror movie is this? Oh, well, yeah. And I think like it is an interesting question because like part of the, you know, one of the challenges that has been put forth towards Sinners is that genre movies, well, like specific genres, right? Like mostly like horror, sci-fi, like they can get nominated, but we still tend to see them getting like technical awards more. Like there's an idea that they're not as serious or somehow they're not like they don't quite fit within the rubric of an Oscar movie.

30:13Sam Sanders:So there have been one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven, I think films nominated that fought like horror films before. So we have The Exorcist, Jaws, if you count Jaws, which I would, Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan. if you count that which I think is pretty arguable psychological

30:31Griffin Newman:Get Out

30:32Sam Sanders:and The Substance one of those is one you know

30:36David Sims:Silence of the Lambs which by the way came out February of its year so it was it won the Best Picture Oscar over a year after it came out

30:44Sam Sanders:yeah it's a rare story there

30:45David Sims:but like not

30:46Sam Sanders:a genre that a genre that's had to really fight for the win

30:51David Sims:but also because Silence of the Lambs has overlap where it's also a police or FBI procedural which like the 70s they were given a Best Picture a French connection and stuff like that. Right, right.

30:59Sam Sanders:There's no element of the supernatural in it, which is like the test.

31:03David Sims:Unless you count the performance.

31:06Griffin Newman:Otherworldly. Yeah. Yeah. My biggest genre question of Sinners is actually like what genre is it?

31:13Sam Sanders:Yeah.

31:14Griffin Newman:I am not sure it's a full-throated horror film. I think it's more of an action movie.

31:19Sam Sanders:Yeah.

31:20Griffin Newman:Y 'all's colleague and one of my favorite critics, Angelica J. Bashan, in her review, she said that the movie is always a little bit afraid to lean into the full horror of it all. There are moments that are gory and disgusting in the way that vampire body horror should be, but the pure jump scare horror feeling that you think you get a lot in a horror movie, you don't get a lot of it in this one.

31:42Sam Sanders:No.

31:43Griffin Newman:And so for me, it's like, is this a horror movie? Is this an action movie? Is this a race movie? Is this a musical? Is it, in some parts, when it's really being earnest about race and history, is it a little bit after-school special? I like that. I love that school special. But yeah, this movie, the longer I sit with it and the more I rewatch it, I'm like, it's not a horror movie.

32:05David Sims:But that's okay. Yeah, I think the question of is it a horror movie, like when I first saw it, I was like, well, he kind of really rushes. Like he takes 40 minutes before you even really get to like you see Jack O 'Connell the first time. Yeah. And then, you know, you have the music in the barn and all that. And then the violent stuff happens incredibly quickly. and then it's kind of over just as quickly.

32:27Sam Sanders:It's like half an hour, I think, or less.

32:28David Sims:And at first I was like, is that a failure? Does maybe Kugler, for all of his talents, not really have a keen command of horror? But then re-watching it, I was like, oh, I don't think that's what he's intending it to be.

32:40Griffin Newman:And he's talked about the impetus for making the film. It was about his uncle, who was a blues musician, I think. This movie, at its emotional core, is a drama about the relationship between black music, the sacred, and the secular. This is a music movie, right? And so to make it also function and be okay as a horror vehicle, as a vampire vehicle, as a period piece, it speaks more to his skill than to maybe his lack of focus. Yeah. I think that there somewhere in here is a 90-minute movie that is leaner and has fewer moving parts and is more one thing, but I'm okay with what this is.

33:20Sam Sanders:Yeah. Yeah, I love how many ideas it's filled with and the fact that it pulls from different genres. I would agree. I don't think it is really a horror movie. I don't think he seems to have a lot of interest in that aspect of when the vampires do appear, he deliberately cuts away from, right? Every time when you have a character is walking back and then you see Jack O 'Connell's character leap up into the air and then it cuts.

33:45David Sims:Yeah, with Nellie Steinfeld.

33:46Sam Sanders:Yeah, exactly. He cuts away from a lot of the things that you would expect of the scare.

33:51Griffin Newman:I also just wanted more of Jack O 'Connell's character.

33:53Sam Sanders:Yeah. A little more backstory.

33:55Griffin Newman:He's so good. He is very good. He's so good.

33:57Sam Sanders:He's always been really good. Remember when there was that moment where you're like, oh, he's going to be the next big star? He's the one. And then he kind of like, it didn't quite work out.

34:04David Sims:Well, he was like, okay, character actor route. That's what I'm going to go. He's a really good character actor.

34:08Griffin Newman:He's too pretty to be a character actor.

34:10Sam Sanders:But I like him being... Welcome to the New Hollywood.

34:13David Sims:Sadly.

34:13Sam Sanders:I like him being this kind of unsettling. And like, like, I feel like he uses his looks well for that. But yeah, I mean, I do feel like for me, the part of the movie that kind of, I like drops me out of it a bit is when it gets into the action. I think because it's so much less interesting to me than the kind of incredibly like rich dynamics that it was setting up before. It's a result, like, I mean, it's not quite the resolution, but it is a kind of like the, a resolution that like, feels to me less, less interesting than what everything that came before, you know? Well, and I feel like so much of Ryan Coogler's work, if I had to put like a North Star or a mission statement on it, it is trying to have anyone who views this movie to begin to respect

35:00Griffin Newman:and understand the ways in which you do not have an America or Western culture without black people. Mm-hmm. His movies are asking Americans to look at Blackness and understand its importance to the lives that all of us live today. And those are the most interesting parts of Sinners for me. The horror is secondary. The vampires are cute, but secondary. But, like, when this movie is dealing with race, very few filmmakers can make a race movie that's also a blockbuster. And that is when Ryan's in his bag, I think. Same with the Black Panther films. Like, he made a race movie. Two of them. Like, these really progressive films on ideas of race, also blockbusters.

35:43Sam Sanders:I mean, I thought Creed should have won Best Picture. Like, I love Creed. I think it's incredible. And I think one of the best aspects of it, beyond just that it's such a good boxing movie, like a kind where you want to, like, cheer and cry. Yeah. Like, if you actually want. Yeah, like, in the kind of final fight, are the ways in which it uses, like, the original, like, text of Rocky to then kind of subvert and critique. Yes. And like also with a lot of obvious affection as well to like critique the kind of racial dynamics of that movie and the ways in which this character is held up basically as like the great white hope without him ever acknowledging it.

36:16Sam Sanders:You know, like it really like overturns that and is like incredibly just so thoughtful in how it interrogates the material. I think, yeah.

36:26Griffin Newman:He makes these race films that don't, you go in not knowing that you're going to get a lesson. and I like that.

36:38David Sims:There's also a class politics to sinners that like, the Jack O 'Connell character being like, look, we're all fucking under the thumb of the hierarchy and there's a sort of anti-capitalist thing where it's like, he has this kind of currency, we should honor it because he worked really hard. Why do we have to subscribe to this one system that's been imposed upon us? you know and to get that also in a big studio blockbuster is like wait is this kind of like

37:05Sam Sanders:a socialist right like yeah it is i mean you have these different points of view right like you have uh like smoke really being like the only thing that counts is power and power comes through money and it's fully being like this may not be an affair or at all workable system like in the way in the position i've been put in it and the way it works for me as a black man in 1932 yeah but uh But it is still the only route towards power. I've been around the world. I've seen everything else. And that is the only way. And the movie has a lot of ambivalence towards that. But it's also, he's not wrong.

37:41Sam Sanders:Like, you know. I don't know. I mean, I think one of the things that is so interesting to me about this movie, but also that I feel like I'm still working it out, are the ways in which the vampires offer this image of collectivism. Oh, yeah.

37:56Griffin Newman:They end up in this multiracial dance circle. Exactly. And they're like, can I be on that side?

38:01Sam Sanders:And they're like, kindness and love. That is literally like fellowship, right? We're offering you fellowship. But also they're like, we're going to kill you.

38:07Griffin Newman:We're going to come and kill you first. It almost feels like it feels vaguely similar to the stakes of Pluribus.

38:13Sam Sanders:Yeah, yeah.

38:14Griffin Newman:Fully. We're the bad guys, but we've made utopia. But it's all good. Right. Yeah.

38:19David Sims:You have to lose yourself in order to sort of become this new thing. Or I guess Jack O 'Connell would say it's an ascension, but maybe we wouldn't see it that way. But yeah, I mean, he is arguing that there is no perfect, seamless way into this other thing. You know, there's going to be pain involved. Well, and, you know, just talking through these ideas present in the film, it felt so much easier to pinpoint exactly what those beats were and those points were.

38:46Griffin Newman:I remember leaving one battle after another and saying, did I forget what they were like blowing this stuff up over? Do I remember what it was? Because like at the first, was it about, is it climate? Is it immigration? That film felt political in a very ambiguous way. Sinners felt political in an incredibly direct and pointed way. He wants you to know what he's talking about. And I didn't feel that kind of certainty with some of the stuff happening in one battle. I don't know.

39:16David Sims:Yeah, which again might be kind of the point. It's sort of this pinching sort of abstraction. It's not supposed to be, it's not supposed to represent one activist group. But yeah, that was one of the big criticism of One Battle when that movie started getting backlash was like, from an activist perspective. Like, what are we activating? Yeah, this is all over the place. Like, what are they trying to pinpoint? I think that Sinners, it sort of obscures its metaphor in a good way, in part by not making the white supremacists who do figure into the movie significantly. They are the vampires. They're not the vampires.

39:47David Sims:Whereas the sort of very obvious metaphor would be to make them the vampires.

39:52Sam Sanders:They're the record labels. Yeah, but it also like, I mean, I think there is that obvious kind of like, yes, like the record labels, the industry, the idea of kind of like corporate assimilation.

40:07David Sims:And film studios, I would assume he's also talking.

40:11Sam Sanders:the first time I watched the movie I was very much like oh this is yes like kind of so much about corporate assimilation and also like corporate diversity you know like corporate diversity speak but then re-watching it I was like I feel like it's meant to be much more slippery than that like to the point where I was almost especially and we can wait till after spoiler warnings to talk about the coda like to the point where I was like oh I feel like even he feels a little like not quite settled on where he stands with the vampires because Because, you know, like, he has cited, I think it's called The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank, which is like a Twilight Zone episode, as like one of his major influences.

40:50Sam Sanders:And it's this, it's like an episode that is about a guy, it's in the 1920s, a guy who dies and then comes back to life. And he doesn't seem to have a pulse, but he seems otherwise really normal. And the town folk are like unsure about whether they should like, he's like, yeah, like a vampire or someone, the undead come back. and they're like going to kind of like, they're all gathering around to deal with this evil and he gives this speech about how, you know, they shouldn't be afraid of him and he should be allowed to remarry, like marry his like fiance. But there's also this sense that like he is different.

41:18Sam Sanders:Like he seems to have supernatural powers. So it's like slippery. You're not sure where to stand with this character. And I do feel like you are kept shifting constantly with regard to the vampires throughout the movie. You know, like in the beginning, they're really frightening. and then you're kind of like, okay, but what are they offering? Everyone who gets turned is like, this is great. Aside from the fact that I was just horribly murdered. But then you're like, have they lost themselves? Are they really soulless?

41:49Griffin Newman:And then for a second, the most likable, enjoyable, viscerally engaging character on the screen, is Hayley Seinfeld. Yeah. Like, oh, give me. Give me a spinoff for her. Yeah, I know. She's like, all of that.

42:02Sam Sanders:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

42:04David Sims:Yeah, I mean, I think that Hayley Seinfeld, if we want to segue into a different part of the film or is that like or a big blockbuster studio movie it's incredibly forward blunt sexuality i think is like really interesting and cool and i was thinking that like that's a there's a pointed statement in that too i think that like google are looking at like a history of like black representation in studio films that maybe win awards or don't or whatever and like being really desexualized or or or it's there's a violent aspect to that or whatever and he's like no the people of all decades all centuries spoke up front about this and enjoyed sex yeah wanted it and women wanted it men want it you know yes and i think that like that all of that is so i mean it's close to the center of the movie yeah

42:50Griffin Newman:you know that's impressive yeah watching the back i kept saying to myself oh this is a guy who wrote this movie with a woman yeah i felt like this movie especially when compared to one battle after another respected the women on screen more and gave them more to do on the screen you know my biggest gripe about one battle is you get tiana taylor giving you these wonderful minutes at the top then you do not see her again whereas every time i see a black woman enter the situation in centers and even a not quite black woman like hailee steinfeld's character they're fully formed and they keep showing up and i even think about the sex scenes in that movie they they seem to have a gender parity in the way that the bodies are moving together and who is in control and not in control.

43:36Griffin Newman:And it felt like, particularly in the way it treats and observes and allows Black women on a screen to be fully embodied, it felt like it hit the mark on that more often than one battle did. I know that I'm having this conversation in a room in which there are no Black women, But I'm saying, you know, for me and in my conversations with folks, I felt that. Yeah.

44:01Sam Sanders:I mean, I feel like it does make me think of The Secret Agent in that way, where it is very much about how this kind of, there is like joy and sexuality, like even within a situation that is like fundamentally oppressive. Yeah. It is like constantly, like that does not go away. That is always there. And like, it should not be erased in like also depicting the seriousness of the situation. Well, and the sex in Sinners felt, it felt like it was delivered with a certain kindness.

44:35Griffin Newman:And I felt, not to keep comparing it to One Battle, but there were some of the sex scenes in One Battle that were just meant to be sensational. And they worked. Like, it's sensational. And yeah, there were moments when the sex is happening in Sinners where I'm like, oh, this feels kind. I don't know.

44:53David Sims:and I think a lot again a lesser movie I apparently like to do this to set up straw man movies that don't exist but I think that Wumi Misaku's character would be so much more like rigidly and faintly drawn and that she would kind of be like no you left like he would have to like work to get her back and now you know by the end of the movie or whatever and in this it's like there is this complicated understanding between them where they have issues she's angry at him he's hurt they're both hurt but they still have this intense like loving bond that

45:23Sam Sanders:you know is shown that way yeah uh i was gonna say two things uh i do appreciate a movie that is uh states what has always been obvious which is like when we musaku is like such a babe you know and you're like this is a movie that's finally like yeah like obviously she's such a babe but also that i was thinking like actually this this crop of best picture nominees has like it it has a fair amount of sex you know for like yeah we keep thinking about hollywood and hang like being defense. Yeah, you can have it. I know. Like this here is actually like pretty good by that regard and like...

45:55David Sims:K-pop demon hunters. Right. F1. F1.

45:59Griffin Newman:Or as I call it, F you.

46:02Sam Sanders:Like sinners is definitely the most overtly sex positive. Not just the depictions of sex, but also cultivating the idea of like it as something people do together. Totally. You know, like having a whole monologue on how to give oral sex to a woman and having that be like, this is the thing you do and you do it together and this is great.

46:24Griffin Newman:That said, the first cunnilingist joke, okay, girl, the third or fourth, wrap it up. It starts to feel a little bit fetishy. That was the one point where I was like, you didn't need to do all

46:36David Sims:this, man. I almost wonder if he was like the raptors in Jurassic Park, like testing the fences to see how many he could get away with.

46:42Sam Sanders:I think that one of the things I appreciate about Ryan Coogler, even at times where it doesn't work for me is that he's willing to go do a big swing he's willing to put himself out there he's willing to do something that might come across as corny yeah and i feel like you know like the big showcase scene in this where uh musical montage it could have been corny like so easily it's yes and i feel like the fact that it rides that edge yes but it's so earnest about what it wants to depict which is like everyone's like ancestors in the room and like and like future like language in the room and it's so like this is this is we like I mean he has talked about this in interviews being like I wanted to do this it was not something I initially had in the script I wanted to use the language of film to depict this thing and you're like yes it is like oh yeah well because there's

47:26Griffin Newman:there's one moment in there where I'm like oh you really got away with that because like in the montage it's like it's a dancer in the jazz it's all these black performers but then they bring in I want to say a Chinese performer

47:37Sam Sanders:like in Chinese opera makeup yeah

47:39Griffin Newman:And you hear the gong and the cymbals and you're like, girl.

47:43Sam Sanders:Yeah.

47:43Griffin Newman:But OK. Yeah. You're like, let him get away with it. Yeah. Because it's so technically brilliant. Like, this is the thing about it. Whenever Ryan Coogler movies are about to go into like after school specials like territory, which he likes to be there. Yeah. Whenever he's about to go there and it's about to be corny or about to be cheesy, you just look at it and hear it. And it's so technically and beautifully well done.

48:06David Sims:You'll allow it. If that sequence was not so like warmly lit and the camera's moving in such seductive, interesting ways. And like, because, you know, on paper, if I were to say, oh, Ryan Coogler, this great director, made a movie that's set in the 1930s. But there is one scene where there's a breakdancer in a bucket hat. You'd be like, that sounds horrible. But somehow it's beautiful. And I like, like when the guy in the purple kind of jumpsuit with the guitar, I kind of got teary. Because like you said, it's such a bold swing that connects. Like it actually works where, you know, 99 other times it wouldn't.

48:40David Sims:Yeah.

48:40Griffin Newman:Well, and watching it back the second time, I noticed two things. The sky is beautiful and vivid throughout. And two, you're never not hearing music. This thing is scourged to a T. And it helps set you up for the ride to the big musical montage. The music is constantly getting you ready for more music. I think had this not been handled by someone who's so good at like scoring film, it wouldn't have worked. But you're primed for that musical moment because you're actually always hearing music in that film in a really nice way. Yeah.

49:11Sam Sanders:Yeah. The sky thing. I mean, like I noticed a lot of the second viewing in particular. I mean, there there's a shot when like Sammy gets in the back of the car with the twins. And you see it. And it's shot in this way that I felt like is meant to evoke not just an old photograph, but almost like a polarized photograph. Yeah. Like you see the cotton fields in the back behind him. Yes. And it's focused on his face as they're driving. And I felt like that spoke to what Kugler was trying to do so well of being like, this is the past. And he is like, obviously went through a lot of pains to recreate the detail.

49:41Sam Sanders:But also it is a bit mythic, right? Like it is this place that feels like rich and alive with magic.

49:47Griffin Newman:And that, I think, stands in stark contrast to what often happens in Black period pieces in this set in this time period. They're usually just suffering. Slavery is bad. Jim Crow is bad. They're getting beaten. They're getting killed. everything about this movie respects and appreciates the magic of black life in the South in that time period, regardless of the oppression that was also there. This is a guy who loves black people, loves the South and thinks that those two things were also lovable in that time period, you know? And I think that felt that made me all warm and fuzzy. Like this This is a guy who is not coming to us and saying what we usually get, which is if we have a period piece in this period of time with black people, it's like suffering first.

50:40Griffin Newman:He doesn't do that. I mean, the vampires make them suffer, but that's a different kind of thing. Yeah.

50:45David Sims:They don't suffer until, you know, near the end of the movie. And you kind of almost wonder if that there's something that he's saying in that where he's like, you know, the more that kind of other culture kind of like imposes upon us, like our narratives do kind of tend toward violence because that's been asked of us.

51:00Griffin Newman:Because black movies. A lot of black movies are actually white movies. Well, right. Right. Like a lot of black movies are actually about the pain of putting on them by white people.

51:10David Sims:This is not quite that. And I think a great example of that is like the minister father who, you know, again, in this lesser movie would be the sort of tyrant and his son is fleeing to go practice his art and all that. But the father is depicted as like understanding. He lets his son go. He's like, OK, well, but, you know, come back for church, you know. And then, you know, his cousins ask him, like, does he hit you? And he's like, no, I mean, you know, nothing more than the standard, you know. and I think that like again that's a nuance there that it's like yes there is a graciousness and a love that is passing in this community that you don't often see

51:46Sam Sanders:but this movie also like directly links the vampires in the church like that yeah true it is very much like like when you get that like you know before it flashes back like he goes to see his father in the church and it intercuts like the images of the vampires attacking like like the major kind of like song set pieces in this you know there are there are like a few and like there are the ones at the juke and then there's the ones of the vampires and then there's like this little light of mine at the church you know and I feel like it is not a movie that is sparing with the church like it is very critical of the church.

52:22Griffin Newman:Yes and that is a conversation as someone who grew up the son of a Pentecostal church organist and played in a church band my whole life the conversation about the sacred and the secular and how black music plays into it that is a conversation that black people are having amongst themselves that is really tempered by white voices and white opinions and so to see kugler spend so much time on that as an idea in the film it almost like helps it pass this like racial bechdel test like can we have black people talking about a thing with emotional stakes that isn't purely tied to suffering at the hands of white people yeah and you rarely get that in period pieces with black people and he does it and i think it's because of the musical aspect of it and i find that as i was saying earlier much more interesting than like

53:08David Sims:the vampires killing them or not killing them yeah can you tell me a little bit more about that tension between sacred and secular music i mean is is it indeed a tension or is it just more of a question of like music history like what informed what and and what is that relationship like as you

53:25Griffin Newman:see it it is a central dichotomy of black american music so i interviewed the guy who wrote the song that leads to the montage raphael sadiq uh he has written hits and produced hits for the likes of d 'angelo beyonce solange and more for decades he grew up playing in church um and a lot of the way that he plays now and makes music now is informed by the church but he like me when you were growing up in a black church playing black gospel music, you weren't technically allowed to even listen to the other stuff. You shouldn't listen to it. You should not play it. I still, if I drive by a church and I'm playing secular music, I turn the volume down.

54:07Griffin Newman:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's just like in us. But then when you think about every American musical art form that we enjoy in the Western world, it has a direct tie to black church music, right? Like country doesn't exist without the banjo. The banjo was brought to America from Africa. And the first people making music with the banjo were making songs about God. Right. Everything like rock and roll came from the blues. Blues came from people who were playing the same music in a church setting. So like for me, the story of like American popular music is actually the story of black sacred music and how it has just infused everything else.

54:53Griffin Newman:I don't know where I was going with this and I forgot the question. And yet there is still kind of that opposition, like even today.

54:58David Sims:Even today, yeah.

54:59Griffin Newman:Like even today, there are still, you know, I remember when I was a kid, the big tension was like trying to create artists who could cross over. And so white Christian music did this first, but black gospel artists have done it as well. There'll be some Christian artists that like make a song. Yeah, Mary Mary. Like they're a big hit. They don't say Jesus, right? Switchfoot, who I love. They're like this Christian group, their biggest hit, Dare You to Move, they don't say God or Jesus. And I remember in church, they would tell us how this was bad because these evil record labels would make these Christians sign away their right to say God.

55:36Griffin Newman:These are the stories I was hearing in the 90s. Right? So it's still there. It's very interesting to watch how this conversation becomes different in what I feel has been the last year or two in the rise of like Hillsong culture, which is like a white Christian rock culture. It is a similar but different conversation that is another episode of some other show. Yeah. We have to talk a lot about emo, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah.

55:58David Sims:Also, I love that we got in a Switchfoot reference in this sentence discussion. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's our version of the Buckethead breakdancer in Sinners.

56:14Griffin Newman:My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink, then straight to the gym. Pre-K pickup, back home to meal prep. Time for my fire station shift. One more Celsius, gotta keep the lights on. When the three alarm hits, I'm ready. Celsius. Live, fit, go. Grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com.

56:38Sam Sanders:Should we move into spoiler territory? Yeah. All right. Okay, so let's talk about, I don't, like, where would we say, when the Grace Maybe screams come on in, like the, that's like the... That's probably where the spoiler is really.

56:52Griffin Newman:I don't think this movie is spoilerable.

56:54Sam Sanders:I think that for many movies, but people do not agree with me. Very upset.

56:59David Sims:I was once, I think I might have said this on the podcast before, I don't remember, but I, when Joel Cohen made that Macbeth movie, I reviewed it from the New York Film Festival. And I'm not making this up. Someone on Twitter said I spoiled Macbeth. I was like, please be trolling me. And I don't think they were. Also, this film has been out for a year. Yeah. It surely has. Right? Yeah. And it's widely available. And yes. But yes. Yes. We are now in spoiler charge. Okay.

57:24Sam Sanders:All right. Yeah. I feel like, I don't know. I do feel like the action part is the least compelling for me. For sure. Yes. I'm also just like, maybe because I don't know what resolution would feel like it had been worthy of that incredible setup.

57:40Griffin Newman:And the post-credit scene undoes any resolution you thought you felt.

57:43Sam Sanders:Yeah. Okay, so how do we feel, I guess? How do you leave this movie thinking about the vampire experience, let's say?

57:52Griffin Newman:I was thinking, oh, they're going to do a sequel.

57:53David Sims:Sure. That was my first thought. And honestly, like early 90s with that fashion. I know. Would you sweat it? I would watch it.

58:00Sam Sanders:I would watch it. The hoops are incredible. I know. It's such a good visual.

58:04Griffin Newman:Sinners 2, 90s Boogaloo. It's such a good visual.

58:08Sam Sanders:Like a New Jack Swing soundtrack.

58:12Griffin Newman:Oh. Have Eddie Murphy be a vampire. Yeah. He's done it before. Yeah. In Brooklyn. Wait, have we written the sequel? Right. Call it.

58:21Sam Sanders:We'll take a story credit. That's right. Yeah. But I feel like it is unclear throughout like how much you lose your sense of self. Like the mythology, which we're never sure like how much is true because like these are people who are figuring out how vampires work as they go. They know some, they have some ideas about it, but like they have not gotten to watch as many vampire movies. It's 1932 as we have to come up with lore. That, you know, we learn a bit about the idea that their souls are stuck in them, that they can't kind of like go on.

58:56David Sims:But also they share consciousness maybe. But unlike a haint, they won't die if their creator dies. You have to kill each individual.

59:04Sam Sanders:But they share his pain, Remick. And then also, Remick is able to speak a dialect of Chinese after he bites.

59:12David Sims:Well, no, he says he studied abroad in Beijing. He's like, I did that semester.

59:16Griffin Newman:I taught English. Mostly conversational. But he was only friends with other Americans. And it's like some of the normal beats. Not normal, they're vampires. Some of the beats that you always expect with this. Like they can't come in a door unless they're invited in. Like that tracks. I get that. And the garlic I get. Steak in the heart I get. But there were other things where I'm like, what is the vampire rule that you've established here? Is there a rule or not? Like I kept wondering how much free will the vampires had. Yeah. Were they slaves to the vampiric mission of just getting everyone you could or can?

59:50Griffin Newman:Or do they have choice? Because in that final post-credits scene, we find out that one of the vampires made a choice to not do a bad thing. You know? Yeah.

1:00:00David Sims:And held that promise for decades. Yes.

1:00:02Sam Sanders:Yeah. Yeah. And then they all kind of, they sit and listen to him play. You know, then they play. And then they kind of have this fond goodbye.

1:00:11Griffin Newman:And he's not like, oh, I want to suck your blood.

1:00:12Sam Sanders:Right. And so it does kind of, it does suggest that there is like a lot more complication to this thing that is not meant to be an exact allegory anyway, right? Like it's meant to be a very kind of like malleable allegory. But it did, I feel like that I continue to wrestle with that coda because I think it is a lovely image and it's also a funny image when they first walk in. But I do feel like it leaves me feeling unsettled about like kind of like what is being like preferred in terms of this metaphor.

1:00:40Griffin Newman:It makes me question how much of these norms for the vampires were rules or not. You know, why do you think that it's in the post credits area?

1:00:50David Sims:Like, is that just runoff from MCU experience or or is that? I like that. But it's just it's a really interesting formal choice, like not to just stick it at the end of the movie. Well, every Oscar nominee was required to do it this year. So there's a hamnet one. Right. No, that's a good question. I think that might be a hamnet one. he's alive Hamnet will return it's the musical number

1:01:16Sam Sanders:Hamnet shows up in a coochie sweater

1:01:19David Sims:and a lollipop

1:01:21Sam Sanders:I've been on Deb this whole time

1:01:23David Sims:chilling it's really sad actually the same Max Retro music is playing but I don't know my hunch about it is that he wants to give you a sense of time passing and so you get the end credits and the music and so you're kind of like okay, the story's over, but something... I think it kind of... It almost feels like it's transporting you across six decades and then plopping you back down in.

1:01:47Griffin Newman:Because the credits do run six decades long. Well, right.

1:01:50David Sims:These movies these days.

1:01:51Sam Sanders:And then you get this very last end scene, too, of Miles Caden playing this little light of mind, right? So there is an actual end credits. There is the thing that plays through the credits and then the end credits. Yeah, I don't know. I do feel like it gives... I mean, it feels like that marks it as a coda so strongly to the point where it almost feels like the film, right? The actual part of the main part of the film is over. And this is something that feels not like you could take or leave it, but like it feels almost like it is deliberately being held.

1:02:21Griffin Newman:Yeah. I will say watching it in the theater and seeing it come up post credits, I think it made me be a little more locked in than I would have been had it just been at the end of the film because this film is over two hours.

1:02:32Sam Sanders:Yeah.

1:02:32Griffin Newman:And as much as I enjoyed it by the end, I was like, thank you. And something about staying for the credits and having it pop back up, I got to like reset and like refocus. I think I took it in and ingested it more because of where it was.

1:02:49David Sims:Yeah, I think that's that's right. Yeah. And I mean, my sort of question about the sort of plotting of it is like I get this. I mean, I love the lines about like it was the best day of my life until things happen. It's really, it's moving. And, you know, and they both kind of share that. And so I get why the affection would be there in terms of like, God, I haven't seen your face. And you still look like you did like all those years ago. And like, I think that he's kind of glad that they're still alive, you know, because he did love them in one form or know them at least in one form. And but I also I'm kind of like, right.

1:03:26David Sims:But you did fucking kill all these people. Like you did terrible things.

1:03:31Sam Sanders:And also your brother has this kind of like beautiful, but like kind of like, like kind of reconnection with his family in the afterlife, which presumably is not available to all of these people who have been turned into the undead against their will. So, yeah, I feel not that I need vampire lore to be extremely coherent, but I do feel like it. There are parts of like, I feel like the emotional train of the movie and the metaphorical train of the movie that I feel unclear on. Yes.

1:04:01Griffin Newman:Because of the code, mostly. Well, and this is where I think it's like, Ryan Coogler is a visionary of a filmmaker, but he also understands what makes a box office smash and a hit movie. And he knows that, like, sometimes the least important thing is logic.

1:04:19David Sims:Does this movie feel good? That's true. And it does. And you don't want to turn into, like, Cinema Sins and be like, well, actually. Yeah. That sweater was not manufactured until 1993. Yeah. But yeah, I also think that there could be something about like if the vampirism in the movie is presented as a different way to exist in America, either kind of underground or outside of the norm. And Miles Caton kind of doesn't I mean, it's sort of chosen for him that he's going to go a slightly more mainstream route. It's these two differing ways of being alive in America intersecting 60 years later. But is the question, is it the other way around?

1:04:57Sam Sanders:Or maybe it is. I mean, in terms of becoming a vampire is a form of assimilation, right? And they do come in wearing like the latest fashion. They have adapted at the Times. They are.

1:05:08David Sims:Or he's more the purist. He's kept the scars are still on his face and he's playing the whole music.

1:05:12Sam Sanders:And he has like carved out this path for himself that, you know, presumably like has sustained him doing this kind of music. But is not about kind of chasing whatever. Also like kind of like capitalist forces, right?

1:05:25David Sims:He has gone electric.

1:05:26Sam Sanders:He has gone electric. Yes, this is true. His recording quality gets better one time.

1:05:31Griffin Newman:A thing that everyone thinks people care about, but people don't care about. About going electric? Yes. Every time there's a film where like the big plot, like a plot point is like, he went electric. Okay, girl. Who cares about it though?

1:05:42Sam Sanders:The vampires. The vampires.

1:05:43Griffin Newman:I will say it's very interesting to think about what Ryan Coogler is saying in that final post-credits scene. Because in that bar scene, the coolest, sexiest, best dressed ones there are the vampires. The cool, hot black guy is a vampire. And being a vampire has allowed him to be cool. So I'm like, oh, is there, do I, do I need Angelica to write about that? What's going on there? Yeah. You know, what is that scene saying about what it means to be black, what it means to stay black and cool, what it means to survive as a black person for so long?

1:06:22David Sims:And presumably there's a financial element to that. You know, how did they make their money? They're clearly doing well or, you know, or they seem to be. He has the great ring. The name, the fingering, yeah. You know, and yeah, and there's so that kind of economic thing comes back up subtly.

1:06:36Griffin Newman:Well, and it's like Ryan Coogler does this really great thing of by the end of more than one of his movies, you like the villain. And you're like, oh, you're right.

1:06:44Sam Sanders:Yeah, I know. Like you watch Black Panther. Oh, Killmonger gets it. Those are my politics. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like there is an, I mean, aside from, I think like the CODA does serve to kind of mitigate this a bit, but do you feel like this film is ultimately kind of pessimistic, guided by a feeling of pessimism with regard to the ability to exist being Black in America?

1:07:09Griffin Newman:No. The best way to understand, at least for me, the North Star of what he's doing in this movie is the way in which every black person looks on that screen. They look humane. They look fully realized. Their skin is glowing. They're always well lit. Their costumes are impeccable, regardless of their class status in this movie. and it is a movie that appreciates blackness, whether it is in the form of a human or a vampire. And I think the overriding message of this movie or the one that I hope lingers is to say it's possible to make art that loves black people that can be loved by everybody. So for me, it's less of a, what do we think about vampires?

1:08:03Griffin Newman:What do we think about good and evil? It's like, what does it feel like to watch art in which black people are respected? How does it feel? And does it work? Is it a viable model for this industry that has been plagued by whiteness since its start? That is what this movie is really saying to me. And that is what I came away with it even more after watching it again. It's about, Ryan Coogler fucking loves black people. and he makes these movies that make you love black people too

1:08:36David Sims:so that yeah and that he does he did that with Black Panther you know and like yes do you remember when there were like

1:08:43Griffin Newman:white kids dressing up as fucking Black Panther

1:08:45David Sims:that's what it's about it shouldn't be I wish it wasn't but it's startling to see in some big expensive studio movie where you're like this is not the lens through which these are you know this is normally done yeah and that he's managed to do it not once but like several times yes still at the same level of you know, I mean, he didn't, they didn't spend as much on Sinners as they did Black Panther, but, like, it was still a lot of money he was spent and earned, and I just, you know, I hope for the future of the industry, and for his future, I just kind of wonder where he's gonna go next. Is he gonna keep operating, or will he want to go back down to Fruitvale Station level just to take a break?

1:09:21David Sims:You know, I don't know. Well, I mean, I think

1:09:23Sam Sanders:something, part of the reason I think that this movie has such a kind of, is engaged in such a fraught interrogation with the idea of commercial success is that he seems like someone who wants to work within a large scale. Like Nolan, kind of. Yeah, and I think that that is...

1:09:39Griffin Newman:In Nolan films, it could be argued, are about a certain kind of whiteness.

1:09:43Sam Sanders:Sure.

1:09:44Griffin Newman:That's a different conversation, though.

1:09:46Sam Sanders:I mean, I feel like mostly Nolan films are about being an absentee

1:09:49Griffin Newman:father.

1:09:51Sam Sanders:And not giving Florence Bugh enough screen time. Yeah, but yeah, I think he seems to want to be in that group of less than a handful of directors who can get what they want to get made, an original thing made. And I like that he likes making blockbusters. For me, it's the American film industry,

1:10:16Griffin Newman:even as it's seen fewer people go to movies, it's leaned more into honoring movies that most people will never watch. I don't get it. God bless Enora. I like that film. But I remember last Oscar season when The Brutalist and Enora were like in contention. It was hard for most of America to find somewhere to watch those films. And what Ryan Coogler has done is said you can make a film that is critically admired, works for all kinds of people, gets butts in seats, and centers something other than whiteness. Right? I just find it remarkable. And I like that he is not afraid to make blockbusters that work for all kinds of people.

1:11:03Griffin Newman:Back in November, he said his next movie would be Black Panther 3.

1:11:06David Sims:Oh, OK. I do kind of I mean, kind of on the Nolan comparison, like I do want to know.

1:11:11Griffin Newman:I know you have was it Tenet had John David Washington.

1:11:14David Sims:Sure. Yeah. Whether that was, you know, good to all parties, I don't know. But like that, you know, Christopher Nolan was like, all right, I'm going to do three Batmans. I'm going to do these really cool sci-fi movies, whatever. And I'm basically, I'm just warming you guys all up for my three-hour movie about a scientist. And I kind of do wonder if there is in the future a Ryan Coogler movie where, and look, if he wants to keep working with superheroes and vampires and whatever, like, great. Like, he's wonderful at it. But like, is there one where he doesn't, where it doesn't feel like he has to kind of give that one concession to like box office appeal?

1:11:50David Sims:Like, can he, I mean, I think he definitely can. I'd just be curious what it would be, you know? I don't know.

1:11:54Sam Sanders:I feel like Sinners.

1:11:55David Sims:Is there like a music movie where it's just purely that music?

1:11:59Sam Sanders:I will say, I don't feel like Sinners is him making a concession. No, it's not. I don't feel like he added the vampires.

1:12:04David Sims:He did all that he wanted to do in that movie. But I think the vampires helped get it funded. Oh, sure. No, I'm sure.

1:12:09Sam Sanders:But I feel like, I don't know. It is hard not to arrive at our parent podcast. But like the idea of getting the blank check, right? Like that, as much as that exists anymore, it almost doesn't, right? For Ryan it does. Yeah. Yeah, and like for Christopher Nolan maybe being like, you know what I'm going to do next? The Odyssey. You know what people love is like The Odyssey. And yeah, there are just a few people who can have that. But that is, yeah.

1:12:36Griffin Newman:Didn't he say somewhere, Ryan Coogler, that he wants to do a rom-com? Did I see that somewhere? Am I being crazy? Oh, yeah, we're getting an odd, yes. I would love that.

1:12:43David Sims:Which is thrilling. Yeah. Right?

1:12:44Griffin Newman:Who would be cast in a Ryan Coogler rom-com?

1:12:47Sam Sanders:I honestly like...

1:12:48David Sims:Michael B. Jordan and Haley Steinfeld.

1:12:50Griffin Newman:Ooh, yes, yes, yes. In the 90s. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, I know. It's Sinners 2, actually. Sinners 2 is a rom-com. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would love that, an immortal, you know?

1:13:00Sam Sanders:Like, when you're like, how do you sustain a relationship over centuries and centuries? You've got to break up and get back together.

1:13:06Griffin Newman:Over and over again.

1:13:07Sam Sanders:Yeah, I feel like that's it.

1:13:08David Sims:Sinners 2, break up, Rebecca. And Michael B. Jordan is, I mean, he's doing Thomas Crown Affair, which, yes, is a kind of heist thriller, but it's also a romance, and, like, that's pretty exciting.

1:13:17Sam Sanders:No, I want, like, the theoretical Nick Cave, or is it Nick Cave's Gladiator 2 script where he's just, like, fighting wars centuries i want that with like a rom-com you know where they're just like meat cuting uh through

1:13:29David Sims:oh in the 50s yeah yeah yeah i think that'd be good yeah and today we haven't talked about the twins uh the performance of oh yeah of the twins how'd you guys find that i think it's really well done you know i i am i talk about movies write about movies for a living i've done that for many years i've been watching movies since i was four years old we have wonderments of visual effects from Parent Trap, the original on, I'm like, how do they do the twin thing? There's two of them standing next to each other. It does come in. Now imagine it. Two Michael B. Jordan and the parent. Especially every time you're like, wait, he handed a cigarette

1:14:07Sam Sanders:to himself. How did it work?

1:14:09David Sims:And I think that like, it is, you know, it is one of those, one of the more, the older sort of film tricks that still works beautifully. And look, obviously that is performance dependent and I think he does just enough to like, to shape them differently, that they're legible as different characters. I don't know. I think it's well done.

1:14:29Sam Sanders:Yeah, well, especially because he clearly is meant to play them as these two distinct characters, but also people who can't exist, they're kind of like one force, right? They've cultivated a bit of this mythology around themselves. So when people in the town are like, this makes sense.

1:14:45David Sims:Well, their names are halves of one thing. Yeah, yeah.

1:14:49Sam Sanders:They are supposed to feel a bit like this combined for us as well. And I think, yeah, Michael B. Jordan does a very good job of navigating that. He does.

1:14:57Griffin Newman:And it surprised me because I think, God bless Michael B. Jordan, I've never thought of him as the most dynamic of actors. I think he gave the most alive performance he's done yet in this movie. And that's a testament to the writing and direction. but yeah I feel like the twin of it all the more that I look at it the more I appreciate what he was doing there was a clip one of his co-stars was talking about how he wore different size shoes when he was each of those two twins he wore tighter shoes for one of them and like looser bigger shoes for another and then one version of him had dimples and the other never did

1:15:39Sam Sanders:oh wow he held the space differently. Wow.

1:15:42Griffin Newman:That's cool. Yeah. Of course, this is one of his co-stars talking him up on their Oscar campaign run. So they said it, but it worked. We're talking about it here. For sure.

1:15:50David Sims:It seems like Kugloos just having fun. Yeah. Because there's, the movie doesn't necessarily call for that. No. Yeah. No. No, they could literally be cousins and it could be two actors and maybe have the same sort of, but no, I think it's an added sort of like, can I pull this off sort of daring to, I mean, having to shoot all of those scenes twice, you know, like fully like is you know and then however many takes it took you know

1:16:13Sam Sanders:I think also their different fates really kind of speaks to I think the the kind of conflicted natures of the allegory right where you have one who kind of goes out like like slaughtering the clan you know and then reuniting you know with his beloved and their lost child and like it's this like yeah like the gladiator goes out like the gladiator's out and then the other one yeah like goes on to he becomes a vampire and he lives this life And I feel like, yes, that kind of conflicted nature around the idea of vampirism and all of the many things it represents in the movie is channeled because he goes both ways.

1:16:49David Sims:I like to think that he's a vampire with a sort of Dexter code. He finds the bad guys and they drink that guy's blood and he's not murdering innocents. But maybe I'm being naive.

1:17:00Griffin Newman:Also, when are we going to, you know, there's all this conversation and debate around whether or not movie stars exist anymore. And at this point, I'm like, Michael B. Jordan is right there.

1:17:12Sam Sanders:Yeah, yeah.

1:17:12Griffin Newman:I think he's a really bankable movie star. And maybe he doesn't get that credit because he's been so tethered to Ryan Coogler.

1:17:19Sam Sanders:But I think also to your point about him as an actor, I feel like Coogler brings out the best in him like so much. Like he has not always sparked to life in that same way with other filmmakers. And I feel like when he is in a Coogler movie, you're like, oh, yeah, he's like electric. Yeah, yeah.

1:17:34David Sims:Maybe something about making this kind of prodded him enough that he's now kind of woken up to. And that'll be that. Yeah. I mean, so the sinners came out in the spring. So if Chalamet is the king of Christmas, is he king of Easter? Jesus Christ is the king of Easter. King of Memorial Day. King of Memorial Day. Well, I think Jesus Christ is the king of kings. Right. That's right. The bunny is the king of Easter. Yeah.

1:18:05David Sims:When you want your spring break to feel like and your kids' pool day to feel like and your hotel bed to feel like and room service to feel like

1:18:22Sam Sanders:because at Hilton, hospitality feels like Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton for this day.

1:18:36David Sims:Well, yeah, I mean, I would be really curious to hear or to see rather where Sinners goes in a couple weeks at the Oscars. Again, I think it'll do well. But another nominated movie, which only has one nomination, but a big one.

1:18:48Griffin Newman:Yes.

1:18:49David Sims:That, Sam, I think you're a fan of is Song Song Blue, which Kate Hudson is nominated for Best Actress, which I think is a good nomination. She's wonderful. Oh, yeah. So can you just kind of, you know, extol that movie for us?

1:18:59Griffin Newman:Well, one, I'm going to personally say that I willed Kate Hudson's Oscar not into existence. Well done. I have been mentioning this performance on my show forever. I had a newsletter a few weeks ago where the subject line was, my New Year's resolution is like for Kate Hudson to get an Oscar. I think this performance in this film made me, it stopped me in my tracks. By no means do I think that Song Song Blue is a perfect film. but I think in terms of Oscar-worthy performances, Oscar-worthy performances, Kate did that. My introduction to this movie was not knowing what the fuck it was. I saw billboards for it all around LA and so you see Hugh Jackman in that get up with the wig and you see Kate Hudson looking how she looks.

1:19:42Griffin Newman:That's a wig? And my first thought was like, oh, a lovely Christopher Guest style film. Maybe I'll check it out. Yeah. And then I watched the trailer and I'm like, they can't be for real. what do you mean? And then like you see a car accident in the trailer. I'm just like, this is a lifetime movie. It's not for me. Then my partner, who was a costume designer, he gets a bunch of screeners for all the stuff and he begins to watch it himself. He stops the film halfway and he says, Sam, I can't finish this movie until I watch it with you. Wow. You have to watch this movie. It's your kind of movie.

1:20:16Griffin Newman:Lo and behold, I watch it. You were lightning to his thunder. Oh my God. At every moment when you're supposed to laugh, I laugh when you're supposed to cry you cry when you're supposed to put your fist in the air and pump it in the air you do that a dear friend of my new loves movies he said Tongsong glue feels like a movie is supposed to feel right and this is one of the few movies that I then made my friends watch so I ended up like at a cabin in the woods for New Year's New Year's Eve night guess what we did there you go did you time it so that like it was

1:20:46Sam Sanders:like a romantic ending a few hours before

1:20:48Griffin Newman:but lo and behold I look over and at the beats they're supposed to laugh cry and punch the air? They do. Like, this movie hits its beats. That said, I think that, like, Kate Hudson, her performance is good anyway. She sings very well. She gets the accent perfect. She is very, there's no condescension in the way that she portrays middle-class working-classness. But I also love that her in this movie has made everyone rewrite their script of what they think Kate Hudson is. A lot of the headlines around her being so good in this film had an air of surprise. She can do that? She did this? And it's like, yeah.

1:21:29Griffin Newman:I got to interview her. We published the interview today. And I asked her. I was like, girl, you see these headlines. They're like, good for you. But also they're surprised. How do you feel? And she said this thing. I was just like, oh, you're so grounded. She said, I know what they're saying. I did all those rom-coms. I did all those rom-coms for so long. And they don't think that you can do that and do this. And she said, I'll never regret the rom-coms. Because for all the films she's done, she still hears today from women from like 13 to 70 who say that was helpful to me. I appreciate that.

1:21:59Griffin Newman:Thank you for that. So for me, I love her performance. I think that film hits the beats, even though it's not perfect. But I like the way that it fits into Kate Hudson's narrative arc as a performer and the way that it reminds us that like a good actor can be a good actor in all kinds of things. and in actuality some of those rom-coms were great. Sure. And she's,

1:22:24David Sims:I mean, I have probably mentioned this a billion times on the podcast. I have long held, have you ever seen Something Borrowed?

1:22:31Griffin Newman:Which one is that?

1:22:32David Sims:That's Jennifer Goodwin and this random guy from soap operas and Kate Hudson where she plays the bitchy friend and Jennifer Goodwin starts sleeping with Kate Hudson's fiance. Ooh. It's based on a book. The movie itself is not great.

1:22:45Griffin Newman:Yeah.

1:22:45David Sims:Kate Hudson is so fantastic in that. That's what I'm saying. I have been saying for years she should have gotten an Oscar nomination for supporting actors. And people are like, from that rom-com? And I'm like, yes, because she's incredible. The scene where she finds out what's happening between her friend and her boyfriend is she's incredible. So, yes, you're right.

1:23:02Griffin Newman:And how much of our condescension towards rom-coms is a condescension to things that women and girls like? Well, yeah.

1:23:11Sam Sanders:Yeah, I'm not a big rom-com. No, I am agnostic on rom-coms. Yeah. But, like, I do feel like she has always been good. Yeah. I mean, like, I think, like, what she does as Penny Lane in Almost Famous, like, in that breakup role, I think it's easy for people to dismiss it because she is playing a character who is, like, this muse to, you know, like, and so people see it in that context of, like, as if there's no agency there and there's no, you know, like, the movie is, like, built a character. But I think she's incredible in it. Yeah. you understand why everyone falls in love with her and also you understand that she is putting on this kind of performance.

1:23:50David Sims:I had never really seen a debut performance like that when I saw that movie. I was, what, 16, 17 years old and I was like, gee, who is this, like, magical creature? She's incredible in it.

1:24:00Sam Sanders:And also I was one of, I think, many, many young women who are like, I'm going to spend years trying to get a coat like the one she wears. I tried on many. My sister dashed herself on those rocks.

1:24:13Griffin Newman:They did not magically transform me to look like Kate Hudson in that movie.

1:24:18Sam Sanders:So, you know, you got to work with what you got. And I had to make peace with the fact that the coat was not for me.

1:24:24David Sims:Just a few years later, I tried to dress like Jim and 28 days later, and it did not transform me into Cillian Murphy.

1:24:30Griffin Newman:I will say, and I should be clear here, Songs on Glue is not the greatest movie of all time. It is earnest and heartwarming, and I like it. But for me, it's just like, this is about Kate.

1:24:42David Sims:This is about Kate. Yeah. And I like her presence in the Oscars this year because I can't exactly define what I mean, but I just kind of feel it. It's kind of an old-fashioned Oscar nomination. The performance is really good, but it's like I could see that performance in 1972, in 1986, in a good way. Whereas some of the other stuff that's nominated is a bit more modern. So it just kind of rounds out that five in a really nice way.

1:25:07Sam Sanders:People say also, like, our friend Esther Zuckerman, her fiancé Bob, who grew up in Wisconsin, said that this is one of the few performances he says he's ever seen to nail a Milwaukee accent.

1:25:17Griffin Newman:Well, you know why? Her nanny growing up.

1:25:20Sam Sanders:There you go.

1:25:22Griffin Newman:And the nanny was her assistant for a while when she was an adult. In the Oprah episode about Song Song Blue, of course, Oprah's like, and your nanny is here!

1:25:33David Sims:Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, Sam, thank you. I'm glad we got some Songs on Blue content on this podcast. Me too. Because we were close to not talking about it. We were blanking it unfairly. For that and all other things, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. And people should go listen to that interview with Kate. And all your Sinners interviews. Yeah.

1:25:51Griffin Newman:So we have in my feed a bunch of episodes. But for Oscar folks, I have a chat with Kate Hudson about Songs on Blue and life. And then I've interviewed both the costume designer, Ruth E. Carter from Sinners, and Raphael Sadiq, who wrote the song that begins to summon spirits in Sinners. So if you need more Sinners content, they're there. That's the Sam Sanders show.

1:26:12David Sims:You can find it pretty much anywhere, right? Anywhere. Too many places. Podcasts, YouTubes, there's chants. They were playing on the subway on my way here. Yeah, I know. So congrats on that.

1:26:21Griffin Newman:Some of you hear it on a public radio station in your neck of the woods, but I forget which one. So anywho, but yeah, check it out.

1:26:26David Sims:Well, thanks again, Sam.

1:26:27Griffin Newman:This was delightful. You know, y 'all are so good at what you do and you have this encyclopedic knowledge of film, I was like, let me not show my ass up here. No, you know what you're talking about. You know exactly what you're talking about.

1:26:38Sam Sanders:Yeah, no, it was so great to have you on. You brought such a great...

1:26:41David Sims:Yeah, good to be here. It's good to be here. And that was our ninth Best Picture nominee that we've talked about. What's the last one? One Battle After Another. Yeah, yeah. My own film. Bring in Leo. Oh, yeah. He's so easy to get. Yeah, yeah.

1:26:53Sam Sanders:Can you imagine him having to indulge in a long conversation? I feel like he hates doing press so much. Yeah.

1:27:00David Sims:That's why he's 24-year-old models from Chekhov's lap here. Exactly.

1:27:04Sam Sanders:He's like, we have nothing in common. We don't get to talk.

1:27:06David Sims:Yeah.

1:27:08Sam Sanders:Is he the one? I feel like there are a few. He's like famous for the headphones. The headphones during sex. Yeah.

1:27:12David Sims:That is the rumor. Leo? That's the rumor. That was the rumor. He has the date, get on the bed, get whatever.

1:27:17Sam Sanders:This is always like the joke, but I choose to believe it. Whale sounds.

1:27:21David Sims:Oh, I heard it.

1:27:22Sam Sanders:That's for Klein's podcast. Oh my God. I don't know. What is the best answer for what he's listening to during sex?

1:27:28David Sims:It's this little light of mind. This little light of mind. Yeah.

1:27:31Sam Sanders:Any possibility is a funny one.

1:27:33David Sims:Yeah, next week is one battle after another. We're also going to combine that with some predictions. And Daddy David Sims is going to be joining us for that, which is exciting.

1:27:42Sam Sanders:I'm really bad at predictions, too. That's kind of fun.

1:27:45David Sims:Because maybe you're so wrong, you're right. I go so wild. That's what's going to happen. So stay tuned for that.

1:27:55Griffin Newman:Critical Darlings is a Blank Check production in association with Vulture. Hosted by Alison Wilmore and Richard Lawson

1:28:01Sam Sanders:Produced by Benjamin Frisch Executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janowitz

1:28:07David Sims:Video production and distribution by Anne Victoria Clark Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer Jean