4v291o

To the extent that I have a basic read on this film — on what it is trying to say — it is as follows:

People want to be free. They want to be able to live their lives as they see fit. They want to be able to build communities that sustain them. They want joy. They want love. They want peace.

Oppression makes this difficult, and a system as oppressive, violent and absurd as Jim Crow makes it nearly impossible.

Each major character in SINNERS is looking for freedom, one way or another. The Smoke-Stack twins are looking for the freedom to prosper. Mary is looking for the freedom to love. Sammie, for the freedom to play and perform and wield his gift for the world. And Remmick, for a freedom of the spirit — something lost in his many years as both a vampire and a colonized person, whose ancestors have been ripped from him.

If the film is explicit on any point, it's that these freedoms, to the extent that they are attainable, are fleeting, threatened by poverty, violence and exploitation. They can only be attained in the most precious of circumstances, built on equality and solidarity. When Sammie conjures the spirits of past and present — when the community is united as one nation under a groove — we get a glimpse of that freedom.

As for Remmick? Cut off from his ancestors, he hopes to seize his freedom through domination and exploitation. A colonized person acting as a colonizer. And here, the film is also explicit — the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. Remmick can turn as many people as he can find, but he'll never conjure the spirits. He'll never find the freedom he craves.

Now, because SINNERS isn't perfect — because some of the ideas in the script are a bit underbaked — there are many questions to ask. What is the meaning of the Native Americans? What are we supposed to take away from the fates of two characters in particular? Etc. etc.

Still, I think the film is strong enough and coherent enough to stand as an interesting meditation on freedom under tyranny.

Also, a bunch of vampires get staked in the heart.

(Saw this on 70MM at AMC Lincoln Square.)

Watched on Sunday December 22, 2024.

Pleasantly surprised to pop into the theaters for a Marvel movie and see an actual movie rather than two hours of elaborate setup for a TV show I'm not going to watch.

So horny it would kill a zoomer.

Watched on Wednesday April 23, 2025.

A weaker Clint effort but still very watchable, even as it gets incredibly propagandistic toward the end.

Watched on Wednesday April 16, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 8, 2025.

Regina King doesn't get enough props for how good she is in this.

Watched on Monday March 17, 2025.

So, I straight up think that this is Statham's best movie. It's a triumph of bleakness and brutality. It rocks.

You'd think that a political thriller set in post-war Italy directed by John Frankeheimer would be good, and you would be wrong. This is boring as hell.

A useful documentary on how Nazi atrocities were committed by ordinary, "decent" Germans.

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

An unquestionably worse film than its predecessor but somehow I like it more for being stupid as shit?

You will quickly notice that I was on a Statham kick earlier this year. I think this is actually pretty good, and one of his better efforts. James Franco plays a great Evil Hick.

A perfectly serviceable remake.

genuinely insane movie, imo.

Watched on Tuesday February 18, 2025.

[leans over to my wife while watching the movie, points at screen]

that's the conclave

Watched on Friday February 14, 2025.

Watched on Thursday February 13, 2025.

diddy is a monster but this series was honestly pretty exploitative in its own way.

Watched on Monday February 3, 2025.

Watched on Saturday February 1, 2025.

Watched on Thursday January 23, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday January 21, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 24, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday January 21, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 17, 2025.

On this watch it was just very funny to me that Project Mayhem is a recapitulation of everything the narrator hated about his life, and that its militant, hyper-masculine ethos was as much an escape from self-knowledge as his previous embrace of consumer society.

Anyway, no surprise to me that two generations of dipshits have gotten the wrong message from this film.

Watched on Thursday January 9, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday January 7, 2025.

Somehow I think this is an underrated Fincher as well as one that is deeply politically relevant in this moment.

Watched on Wednesday January 1, 2025.

“i need the algorithm!”

Watched on Tuesday December 24, 2024.

avoided this movie for almost 20 years because i knew it would make me weep uncontrollably and it gives me no pleasure to say i was right

Watched on Saturday January 4, 2025.

to the extent that this movie falls short as a portrait of one of the most destructive tendencies in american life, it’s because it isn’t unsparing enough in its portrait of white supremacism and its relationship to the american mainstream. the broad tolerance for casual racism and soft white supremacism — which continues, right up to the present — is on a continuum with the harder, more ideological and more violent forms. i think this movie, as good as it is, missed the opportunity to hit that point harder. 

also, the most chilling thing i’ve seen in a movie in years is the use of the turner diaries as a bedtime story for children.

solid morality play about personal responsibility, redemption and the demands of justice. and, of course, a guy gets railroaded by the system. oh clint, you never disappoint.

they should require jared leto to wear cornrows in every movie.

nothing more destructive than the combination of incompetence, corruption and venal self-interest.

anyway, it’s crazy that trump is president again, right?

Watched on Friday December 6, 2024.

i long for the days when hollywood was just pumping out this kind of solid, mid-budget thriller every other month.

stevie spiegs went real sicko mode with this one.

really feels like it should be a better movie than it is. plays with some interesting ideas though.

Watched on Tuesday December 3, 2024.

35mm print at the metrograph. have never been more stressed out than when watching those car chases.

and i’ve got such a long way to go, to make it to the border of mexico. so i’ll ride like the wind — ride like the wind.

The current master watch list for the Unclear and Present Danger podcast, which covers the military and political thrillers of the 1990s.

• No Way Out

  December 10, 2021

• The Package

  December 24, 2021

• The Hunt for Red October

  October 29, 2021

• The Fourth War

  January 7, 2022

• By Dawn's Early Light

  January 21, 2022

• Die Hard 2
• Hidden Agenda

  February 4, 2022

• The Russia House

  February 18, 2022

• Flight of the Intruder
• The Rocketeer

...plus 102 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies to watch for the Cold War-focused Unclear and Present Danger Patreon podcast.

• Night People
• Foreign Intrigue
• The Man Between
• Diplomatic Courier
• Stopover Tokyo
• My Son John
• I Was a Communist for the FBI
• The Scarlet Coat
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• WarGames

...plus 97 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All the movies that I own as a live object in the real world. Formats included.

• Alien: Covenant

  4K UHD

• Arrival

  4K UHD Steelbook

• Barry Lyndon

  Criterion blu ray

• Batman

  4K UHD

• Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero

  Blu ray

• Batman & Robin

  4K UHD

• Batman Begins

  4K UHD

• Batman Forever

  4K UHD

• Batman Returns

  4K UHD

• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

  Blu ray

...plus 73 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• The Raid
• Spring Breakers
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
• A Most Violent Year
• Kubo and the Two Strings
• First Reformed
• Eighth Grade
• Black Panther
• The Death of Stalin

Recent films I want to catch.

• Annihilation
• Blockers
• Double Lover
• Eighth Grade
• On the Seventh Day
• Have a Nice Day
• Isle of Dogs
• Leave No Trace
• Loveless
• Paddington 2

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.