Why "Sinners" will be studied in the future
AI Summary
Modern Classic: Sinners Review
Sinners is a modern-day classic. Directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan, this film left my wife and me in awe. We both agreed it was the best original movie we've seen in years, certainly the most memorable. As someone who tells stories across various mediums, I've developed an eye for how films are crafted. Sinners excels in so many areas.
The film defies easy classification. Is it a drama? A historical piece? On the surface, it's a historical drama about two brothers returning to Mississippi in the 1930s after making it big in Chicago. They've found success and wealth but also entangled themselves with dangerous connections. I won't spoil the plot because I want you to experience it yourself, but there's so much more to this story.
Supernatural elements weave through the narrative alongside romance, coming-of-age moments, and action scenes. Music plays a surprisingly significant role, almost making it feel like a musical without the Broadway flair. The integration of music into the storytelling is masterful—the best use of music outside of a musical that I've seen in a long time.
What truly stands out are the characters. Each one, even minor roles, is crafted with care and brought to life by talented actors. The writing is superb, avoiding the pitfalls that often trap genre-blending films. Given its setting in 1930s Mississippi, the film could have easily fallen into a repetitive narrative about racial trauma. Instead, it acknowledges these elements without dwelling on them excessively.
Sinners seamlessly incorporates diverse characters without feeling forced or preachy. Haley Steinfeld shines as a complex character connected to the brothers, and there's even a Chinese couple who play significant secondary roles. The film handles diversity naturally, avoiding the pitfalls of modern woke cinema that often feels contrived.
A poignant line from Steinfeld's character captures this essence perfectly: when asked about her identity, she simply replies, I'm a human being. It's a powerful moment that underscores the film's approach to diversity—authentic and unforced.
Watching Sinners was a refreshing experience. My wife and I rarely go to theaters due to high prices—$10 for a small bag of popcorn! But this film was worth every penny. It was heartening to see an original movie amidst a sea of sequels and reboots dominating Hollywood.
Sinners stands out as a completely original work with no ties to existing IPs or plans for cinematic universes. It's a tight, standalone story told with an indie spirit but executed flawlessly. Mark my words: in 5, 15, or 20 years, film students will study Sinners as part of classic movie canon.
If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and watch Sinners. It's already cemented itself as a modern-day classic in my mind—a truly remarkable film that deserves all its accolades.
Original Transcript
Sinners is a modern day classic. I'm just putting it out there right now. I saw the film directed by Ryan Coogler starring Michael B. Jordan last night and my wife and I agreed that this movie was probably the best original movie I've seen in years. Certainly the most memorable. Now that I'm telling my own stories in many different mediums including I've been studying and training this eye for how films are made, how good films, TV shows, how the visual medium that has been with me my entire life, the building blocks of it. Sinners does so many great things well. But it's a bit of an odd movie because it's not very easy to classify and lump it into a category. I mean is it drama? Is it historical? On the surface it's a historical drama about these two brothers that move back to home to Mississippi in 1930s Mississippi after having lived in Chicago making it big for some time. But then they've clearly made it big and made some money. But then they've made some ill-fit connections. I won't spoil the movie because I really really want if you're listening to this I really really want you to watch it and you'll see. But yeah, they come back home and that's basically the plot. But then there's other elements as well. There's supernatural elements. There's romance that's in there. You've got this kind of little coming of age story that's tucked in there. There's action. There's a good amount of action beats in there. There's music. There's a surprising music is a huge hugely important part of the movie. So it kind of comes off as a musical even though it's not like Broadway style or anything like that. But the way they do it is weave it into the storytelling. I feel like it's just the best use of music outside of a musical that I've seen in a long time. And as you can tell there's a lot of things to this movie. But what I loved was that the reason one of the reasons it was so strong was the characters. They never lost the I was gonna say the cliche they never lost the plot when it came to the characters. They just every character just had even minor characters had love poured into them. The actor, actress that portrayed them was very good. The writing, the script was amazing and everything just clicked and worked. I was telling my wife I feel like this movie avoided all of the dangers that it could have fallen into with every genre that it touched. I mean and when you have a kind of hybrid style movie like this it's easy to get mucked up in just certain things that each each genre you could get trapped in. If you go too historical because of course it takes place in Mississippi 1930s. So there's the Ku Klux Klan is a big part of that. And of course it's a Ryan Coogler black director. Of course Michael B. Jordan black actor. So this is something that I am very sensitive to as a black guy that if it's set in this kind of historical American setting here we go with another you know Jim Crow slave narrative. And I worry about that because I just and I've talked about this before how you know I appreciate these movies and I think it's important to learn the history and understand what happened but we need to tell new stories. Like everybody knows these stories about American black people around the world and we don't need another movie like painstakingly dragging us through the trauma of of random lynchings and and racism and all this stuff segregation all the all the horrible stuff. And it's not just me saying I don't want to see that or whatever it's just it's it's really just boring to me at this point. And of course I know I'm a little bit older so I know if you're younger maybe you haven't been exposed to as much of this but I've been exposed to it a lot and I'm kind of tired of sick of seeing it in movies. But I'm gonna say Sinners doesn't do that it doesn't dwell too much it's an important part of the plot and it's important part of the world world building of course. But it doesn't stay there and with every other part of the movie you know when it comes to the music it it brings it in kind of seamlessly you don't even really know what's happening and then before you can kind of really appreciate it let alone get tired of it it's gone it's on it's moved on to a new beat. So I imagine this is a danger when this movie was coming out because it's like what is this movie what is Sinners? And in in my view as a fellow storyteller it is it's it is is exactly the name is of the movies important and it's a story about about redemption it's a story about new beginnings and and faith and love is in there too. It's just really this this beautiful encapsulation of the human experience and I wasn't expecting that coming into this movie and we saw it late by the way like we saw it at the end this is the end of May 2025 when I'm recording this and I want to say movie came out in April at least came out early April or maybe even late March it's been a couple of months maybe a month going on two months and theater was still like fairly populated there was a good dozen or so of us in there watching the movie and it's been a long time I remember watching movies when I was younger and people talking about the movie having this type of first-time experience with it and people got vocal when they're watching this certain movies it was like that with Sinners last night even with a small crowd and so I was like this is pretty cool like I feel like that's the magic of a good movie like in the classic sense is that it really brings a lot of people together at the same time because there's there's just not as many instances with we're experiencing the same thing at the same time it's those have kind of gone away and so to have a movie like Sinners kind of bring that back it just felt great yeah and then as somebody who writes this these types of stories I write my stories are kind of like this too to where I'll bring in historical elements I bring in cultural elements from other languages other words characters tend to be that was another thing that it did well the cast was diverse but not annoyingly diverse like they they do what I do in my stories they it's the it's Mississippi in the 1930s and they've got a white woman that's connected to the to the brothers somehow and she's played by Haley Steinfeld and I thought she did an amazing job as kind of this this she's kind of a little seductress in in this movie and she did great with it they also have this Chinese couple who's there and they're you know they're prominent minor secondary characters but I feel like if this was a different style of movie a more like modern I'll use the W term since everybody knows at this point them a more woke type of movie then they they just would have done it in a more obnoxious way I think that's the thing that modern movies they do this thing where they they they have to shove it in your face like this cast is diverse and we've got a woman here we've got a man where there should be a woman we've got a black person where there should be a white person normally when people think about this and sinners didn't do that it just kind of there's there's actually a good line where one of the the main characters as Haley Steinfeld he's like what are you and she says I'm a human being and then you know they kind of have an awkward beat and then she clarifies she's like yeah I know what you mean and then she explains kind of her ethnic heritage but that was the extent of that and I thought that was a great line actually I think that's just to have a line like that says everything you need to say about the heart of diversity right not shoving it down people's throats and forcing this and race swapping certain characters and all this stuff like classic characters but these of course are original characters but I feel like it the bottom line is I feel like it did it in a very cool way a way that I would do it actually just people are human that's it and it doesn't make sense to have everybody be the same place even in a setting like this where it's you know 1930s Mississippi most people in that era an area of America were black but I'm sure there was other people non-black people too and their work of course it was white people there but I mean we have this kind of mixing I thought I thought it was really well done yeah I was just I was blown away and it was another thing that was refreshing about it was as we went to the theater because you know just like most people these days we don't go to the theater that often it's pretty expensive to go I mean a small bag of popcorn was 10 bucks y'all 10 that it's Wow I can get a box of 16 packs of popcorn for maybe $4 at the store it pop it myself and enjoy it yeah we've gotten to a wacky land prices for these movies but as I was walking down to our theater I was looking I was look at you know what are the upcoming movies and you know because I just don't keep up with movies in general and I want to say eight out of ten the movies were sequels or reboots or or you know all the the reese the rerun of older movies existing movies that have come out very few original movies and this is actually something that I commented on in my first novel but yeah we're in that's the way most Hollywood movies are so to see a movie like sinners that is completely original there's no IP there doesn't look like plans to build a cinematic universe or any bullshit like that it's just a standalone as far as I know a standalone movie and it was meant to be that way to really tell a tight story because I think that's the other thing that we suffer with sequel itis and cinematic universe itis is that when studios plan to build like an expansive list of because they see what Marvel did over the past decade and a half and everybody wants to replicate that but the problem is it it has them spread their stories out like they don't give all of their best stuff because they're they're setting things up and and they're doing what Marvel did which you know to be fair to Marvel they get a lot of hate but in the beginning every movie was actually pretty good Iron Man Thor most Captain America first Avenger most of the first movies in each franchise were actually good movies standalone movies and of course the quality dipped after a while but I think that's what happens when you plan for this kind of expensive catalog but it was great to see sinners come up and be like nope we're just gonna tell a really really solid single movie story and in do it in a very Archie kind of Indy ish way it feels very kind of Indy ish like Indy movie but man they pulled it off and I was just super happy that it's done so well and that it's it's such good quality mark my words in 5 15 20 years film students will be studying sinners in 2025 I feel like it will enter the classic movie canon and it's already there in my mind a modern-day classic as they say sinners you should definitely check it out if you haven't seen it
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