Have You Seen 'Sinners' Yet?!?

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AIR GUITAR #6 🤘🏻

“Hey, omg, have you seen Sinners yet? It’s the best cinematic experience of the past decade!” OK, I finally did. It was sold out for a while, but now it’s not, so I saw it. I am not going to deconstruct this film’s allegorical significance — too reactionary, too political, too Los Angeles Review of Books. Also, getting too deep dilutes aestheticism in favor of moral implications like woke vs. un-woke, which can be a fun spectator sport, like booing America Ferrara’s monologue from Barbie, but let’s not: there’s an audience for every kind of film and level of wokeness or un-wokeness, i.e., woke is not always broke, and conservative is not always fascist (and some fascist shit rocks, e.g., Dirty Harry, 1971).

In other words, give me a blaxploitation vampire film. Give me Tarantino sucking on some tall chick’s foot. Give me a “chick flick” that’s a lesbian romcom; give me Sofia Coppola’s birthday cake propaganda for Tumblr girls. Give me black power-coded CIA films like Black Panther (2018). Give me gay heist films about gay bodybuilders who do gay shit (Kristen Stewart shooting up hot dykes with steroids). Give me a Western that’s white and firmly “God and Country”-coded (I don’t care). Give me something as long as it’s not too woke or too un-woke in a reactionary, Ben Shapiroian way (e.g., casting a right-wing YouTuber who looks like Ben Shapiro as SNOW WHITE).

Anyhow, if the allegorical significance of this film matters to you, I’d say begin with Margo Jefferson’s fantastic essay: “Ripping Off Black Music” (from Harper’s, 1973), and Jack Hamilton’s Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination, and then read the reviews for this film (do this after you watch it).

OK, Sinners is a genre film (if you don’t know what that is, I dunno, Google it). Sinners is a genre film that’s been artistically elevated allegorically-undergirded, and transubstantiated by a soulful blues-rock score that cooks and glistens over sweaty bodies, sultry vampires who drool while they seduce (Hailee Steinfeld as the genrefied Lilith), corn liquor, Robert Johnson’s Faustian bargain, a cold-as-fuck ‘32 Dobro guitar as the film’s medieval axe, vampire lore that gets historicized, and deep Mississippi Delta shit that I am not qualified to talk about. My genres are heavy metal, gangster rap, and the Sex Pistols.

Sinners is directed by Ryan Coogler, the same filmmaker who directed two Marvel films and Creed — the latter being one of the great sports films of the past decade (this is both a great accomplishment and literally nothing). Sinners is his most ambitious film, visually and sonically. The film’s score is the work of Ludwig Göransson, who mixes heavy metal with the blues and electric guitar flourishes (like Eric Clapton’s jazz-soaked score on the first Lethal Weapon), which is mesmerizing. This movie looks and sounds fantastic.

Again, I am not here to unpack allegory or do some Marxist “close reading” of what this film is saying about racism, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, and the Irish not being white or soulful-enough, but here’s what I want to say, because it matters, to me: Sinners is a violent and lusty genre film — a DVD classic, in spirt (and soul) — that gives one of my favorite actors (Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim, a seasoned-and-salty blues pianist) a chance to cook and do what he does best: give me that Satchel Paige heater (for those of you who know, you know) that melts off the screen so I can gorge on it like a sundae. Lindo sizzles off the screen. I zoomed in on his face and did not care about any allegory or parable; what mattered to me was that a blues-driven vampire film was being treated like the next Godfather, which is worth applauding vociferously, no matter how many white people virtue signal by doing the whole “OMG, HAVE YOU SEEN SINNERS YET?!?” I have. But I am not an ally (I’m a critic). Allow me to critique one of film’s flaws — purely subjective, btw — but it bothered me: IF VAMPIRES DIE UNDER SUNLIGHT, AND OUR MAIN CHARACTERS ARE INSIDE — THE VAMPIRES OUTSIDE, UNABLE TO ENTER (ACCORDING TO VAMPIRE LORE), AND THE FILM CLIMAXES JUST MINUTES BEFORE DAWN, WHY NOT JUST WAIT INSIDE UNTIL THE SUN COMES OUT AND KILLS THE VAMPS?!?!? The why is answered by the film’s two Chinese characters: Bo Chow and Grace Chow (very good actors). I will not spoil this film or their complicated (and messy) character arcs, but in one scene, in the climax, which was rewritten to make it less cringeworthy at the request of one of the actors, Li Jun Li, is still one of the most frantic and glaring flaws of the film. It just doesn’t work for me on multiple levels, but watch it; tell me if you disagree. I’m told the allegory of the film also answers the why, but I don’t want to “close read” a climax. I want the goods. Moving on.

In what feels like the film’s second climax, the ’32 Dobro (the blues guitar with the steel resonator) is turned into a medieval axe by Sammie “Preacher Boy” (Miles Caton), and I have to say: THIS MADE ME HOWL! It electrified the screen. Speaking of guitars: this film is set in 1932, and the Dobro guitar featured in the film came out in 1932; except in the film, the Dobro is older and has a mythology that dates back years. This also does not work for me, especially as a bit of a guitar snob. It’s an inaccuracy that could have been avoided in a film that centers on a guitar. “But who cares, it’s a genre film.” I know, but it’s a genre film about a guitar, and I love guitars. I also fully comprehend how this is a “me” problem. Got it.

Moving on for one last time: Michael B. Jordan, OK, this man is a movie star (Tom Cruise said it and I did too, just now). And then there’s Buddy Guy…BUDDY GUY…Ryan Coogler gave Buddy Guy (the blues legend) the film’s most poignant spotlight. That’s beautiful. It is American history colliding with the mythology of the blues that’s then super-heroized by Coogler in several endings that feel like they’re saying deeper shit than just “vampires, sex, guns, and the blues,” like the film’s wildly ambitious time travel extravaganza medley, which was, for me, Coogler going beyond genre and doing something bigger — his Super Bowl halftime show. I didn’t need him to do that. I wanted a vampire film about the blues. I got one. It was wet and sticky — drenched in blood and booze — until it got a bit bloated and Hollywood, a bit too profound. Then again, aren’t we constantly begging for someone to resurrect Hollywood from the dead? Anyhow, I will not be booing this film. I’m glad it’s making us talk about vampires, sex, and the blues. It rocks. It’s American as fuck.

Also, if you haven’t already, please watch True Blood, a classic HBO show about vampires, sex, and racial tensions in the south. Also, American as fuck.