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

One contender at a time.

Please welcome to the stage, your hosts, Richard Lawson and Allison Wilmore.

Well, thank you, Marie, as ever, for that spirited introduction. We are joined as ever by Producer Ben, hello Ben. Hello. And we have a very special guest today from the Sam Sanders Show on case of by KCRW. With, for, I don't know, we have the eponymous Sam Sanders, hello.

It's something to be here. We're thrilled to have you. I'm a fan, honored to be in the number. Hey, catching you coming through town was so serendipitous. And I'll just have real work out.

Yeah. And putting, well, at least me to shame wardrobe wise. Definitely. I should have stepped up. I stepped in and I was like, oh, this was a suit that I wore yesterday at the conference.

And the one that I wore earlier today for another interview. I don't know, like, French people.

They're like, you only need like three outfits in your wardrobe, and just, I'm like, oh, yeah.

I believe it. I'll wear this for everything professional for the next three years. Exactly. And they'll be holes in it and I'll start over again. That sounds like a great plan.

For listeners, Sam is wearing a beautiful brown blazer and black turtleneck. Yeah. I forget we're not just in a silly video. So we are gathered here today to talk about sinners, but before we do that, I thought we would catch up with you, Sam, in terms of like how you're feeling about this crop, this

year's crop of movie, like Oscar nominated movies, movies in general, how have you found this season? Is it a good one for you? I have been overall kind of happy that there hasn't felt as if there's been a big Oscar scandal that sucked out all of the air from Oscar season.

Yeah.

“I remember being annoyed by week two of Amelia Perez Gate.”

Like we get it, yeah, that week can we talk about something else.

And I thought that the Marty Supreme Mini controversy might get bigger. It didn't. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. It feels like a lot of the time in this season has been spent talking about the actual

movies. And I appreciate that. Yeah. We kept waiting for there to be a more solid Oscar villain he does feel like that's almost a requirement.

Yeah. Especially if you're like this where we've had a really long Oscar season. Yeah. There's a lot of time for the tides to turn on again. But it's been yet nice to be like, there's not one movie where you're like, I like

this movie, but it is the villain's here and like everyone hates it. Yeah. And like I wanted to make Hamlet, my Oscar season villain, but in every interview, I am so impressed. Like, let us out.

Yeah. She has a wonderful humanist approach to her work that I love, even if I don't love that film. Yeah.

“That's why it is that I keep seeing on focuses like, uh, Instagram feed, like, kind”

of fun, Chloe Zhao like, I don't really want to let's go. Yeah. And I appreciate that there comes a point in like the the trudge of events where you're like, even this movie, which is about child death and grief, we have to do it like on one.

That's all good. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, with one battle after another, once that dropped on HBO Max, I feel like there was some pushback against that movie, but like you said, it was engaging with the text of the movie wasn't about something that an actor did

or whatever. So if people don't like every nominated movie, that's fine. But if they're watching it, they're discorcing about it. Oh, yeah. That's vastly preferable to like someone made a gap and now it's the whole story.

Exactly. Yeah. What are your sort of favorites of this kind of this crop is hard to say, because I think I respect the two front runners in very distinct ways. I love how one battle as a movie leaves me asking a lot more questions.

And sinners as a movie, leaves me asking none. It is so beautifully fulfilling as a film. And so I love them both in different ways for that reason.

“I think I am most just thinking if you're the Oscars strategically, what are the best”

wins for your survival and for the industry survival? We know that they're sweating. They're going to go to YouTube zone. They get it. The future is here.

They've got to get there in terms of picking a best picture winner. What best picture pick best sets up the academy and the film industry for just continued buts in theaters. I personally think that by the numbers, the choice that makes the most sense for the longevity of this industry is sinners.

But I know that this choice is not a business decision. It's an artistic decision. And so even though definitely there are powers that be behind the scenes who are like, can we make it more of a business decision? Right.

I feel like there is a consciousness about that, which is why they expanded to the ten best picture nominees after the, it was about the dark night not getting nominated for best picture right. And then that got inception in a couple years later, whatever. So there is that motivation and I agree with you that sinners like for a lot of reasons

I don't want to very read one of the anonymous Oscar ballots in here, which they should stop doing those. I love this. I might go keep sitting for them. So chaotic.

Every time you're like, people may be like, "No, no, they're all in touch." They're just like, "Yeah." Can you explain what those are for? It's like different, usually the trades, it's the trades will like get, you know, because

you're not supposed to go out and be like, "Here's what I'm voting for."

I have what I'm voting for. I have what I'm voting for. So they'll do it anonymously and they'll be like, "Here's how I'm going to vote." And here's my explanation for why.

“And sometimes it's like, "I thought this was an incredibly important moving film and sometimes”

the shrimp was cold." Yeah, exactly. Or like, I got to take a picture, you know, with that afternoon junior after this, and I really like that. So that would have been a bit of a for him.

It's really just like a wild collection of reasoning that you just realized how deeply personal and subjective and like, and of the moment, like you're catching someone. But yeah, I don't know. I love that. I mean, we're recording this now.

I think voting just started. So we are just at the start of this final week of voting. It is always a good reminder when you read those, even if they're so infuriating to be like, "Those are the people." These are people.

It is not like, it is not a collective, as we talk about them like they're this kind of collective mind-meld. You're like, "No, it's a bunch of people with weirdness." And also, it's like, they are a lot of them are just like, "Life long and Jelino industry folks."

And I know those people. They're a little weird. They're a little weird. They live in their own worlds. But they don't think like the rest of us.

And there's different kinds of weird depending on what part of town they live in. Yeah. Yeah. What branch of the Academy there is? Yeah.

But they're all weird too. And you have some love. I'm keeping it in what you make. But they're weird. And we're a little insulated from LA sort of Hollywood stuff here.

Do you interact with film people a lot? Many years ago, when I was a news producer still, I got to cover the Oscars. I want to say two or three times.

And I would always just think on the red carpet round.

Now most of my coverage, a lot of the nominees will come to me to be interviewed. So we actually, this season, got a bunch of folks from Centers. We got that custom designer, Ruth E. Carter, who's a legend. We got Raphael Cedique, who wrote the song that sets up the big musical montage in Centers. So I've been in conversational out with folks around the art of that film.

But in general, there was a phase of my career where I tried to go to the FYC events. Now I like avoid them. I avoid them. I want to watch the movie in a way that will allow me to watch it as a citizen and then talk about it with real people. So I would much rather see the nominees in a theater and then talk to a friend about them.

“When I go to these FYCs, I'm just like, what is up, what is down?”

Who's who's like zoom in me right now? Who's playing, fully? Yeah. And I'm like who's playing? And I find that sometimes those FYC kind of fancy screenings where they feed you

when there's drinks after whatever, sometimes it may be it does sway me toward that movie. But just as often, I like, ugh, this was disgusting. But off by where, if you see it more in a vacuum or your own context, you can see it more clearly, I guess. Yeah, I was at one, years ago, I forget what Amy Adams vehicle it was, but she had to be at there. I mean, take her picture, she's at one of them.

And I remember her just like, standing there at the afterwards, like the handshaking time. She just looks so sad. Not sad, bored. Yeah. And I went over and like sugar and just like, hi, and I just, I felt her emoting, I don't want

to have to be here. And I feel like all of them feel that way, especially as he sees him get longer and longer. Like who enjoys the Oscar campaign? Well, I think that's the thing is like, there becomes this point where what carries someone through is your stamina, the acting glad to glad hand with you.

Yeah. Months in. And the performance of gratitude. I remember when a lot of the actors who were in everything everywhere all that once were on the circuit, they almost by the end of it could cry on cue.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because they have all the stories. Yeah. And I'm so grateful.

“And like, and you have to be careful about that.”

I mean, it looked like it didn't harm the everything everywhere. They won everything. Yeah. But like, I remember maybe it's six out for me for whatever reason. But when Kate Winslet was going through her like awards year with she had two movies,

she had revolutionary road and the reader.

She kind of kept flipping between those two and ultimately one for the reader. That by the time she won the Oscar people were like, oh, are you surprised? Come on. Yeah. And it's a different thing.

You know, winning an Oscar versus winning a sag or whatever. But you have to kind of calibrate that surprise enthusiasm to kind of build the bill. Yeah. And I don't think she was doing that.

Yeah. Well, and I want to say, I'm going to discuss it on this show where one of the shows that I was in two and this award's industrial complex, they were like, oh, yeah, this season Chalamet has pulled like a really interesting slide of hand.

Because, you know, for the earlier part of his press door, he was performing online

control if not white kid with the black set hanging at the cool kids table. And then all of a sudden, he turned it around and was like, the great full young Ernest artist. Shout it to the co-twitch. Yeah.

But I noticed. Yeah. It's like, okay. It's like a concert. He's doing costume shape.

Yeah. I feel like multiple characters in one man show, and then you're still like portrayed. Yeah. And you're like that show. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

“And in so doing, I think, has not tired people out as much.”

I keep watching. Yeah. It's interesting. He also, like, he has maintained a bit of aloofness, which I think is very cany.

You know, even when he is doing these outrageous stunts, they're 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. Yeah.

It's a mystery around. Yeah. And I would hope in terms of, like, the long campaign trail that because sinners came out, you know, Brad, I mean, like almost a year ago, it was like nine months ago, that they had little downtime maybe, and then you could kind of reunite, you know, in the

fall and be like, oh, how was your sober, you know, well, right, went pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. 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 seasons, then you kind of get a reprieve and then have that new energy too. Yeah. But like, we used to assume that that was impossible, right, like, 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 fall over the plan, you build from there. The idea of being like, you came out in the spring, actually now has been not that. Yeah. It's not unusual.

I feel like we're seeing a new, I don't know, a new rhythms for how you can do that of work and we've kind of broken the old, old, like, plan of like, our words. And sinners is broken so many of the old plan. So many parts of the old plan, like it is a horror film, but as 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. Yeah. But watching it back, I said, this might just be an action movie with vampires. Which one?

Yeah. But is it horror? That's it. 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. Buck's office. Yeah. 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

bath to 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 award season is making Hollywood as an enterprise, ask some hard questions of itself.

Namely, are we the vampires? Sure. We're here. I'm here for it. Yeah.

“So remind everybody what happened when sinners came out?”

Yeah. So basically, at that time, there was this speculate that the two heads of Warner Bros, who were unworking under David's Aslov, were like rumored to about to be, wait, if sinners get his best picture, does Aslov get a win too? No.

I don't think he has a producer credit on that. Okay. So he's not going to be funny. They can put the trophy in there if they're led to lobby or what? 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 back. Panther guys, that could have made a bunch of money these days, no one's going to theaters.

And then one after the ones, after the other starting with, I guess, the Minecraft movie, Warner Bros. just started having hit after hit. But it was a little bit later that the press caught up to that. 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?

Well, and there were, there were headlines after that first amazing box office.

Yeah. And I think it was like $40,000,000. 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. I show the show, which I love, where Franklin 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. Yeah. Right. And I think that the reaction to that and the ways in which the trade had to change

their tune.

David, what, this episode? Don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend. Okay. This episode's brought to you by movie. Y'all, just kidding.

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Thank you for your attention to this matter. Thank you. Very kind. Marty's a brim may-ish make his money back, but as soon as that movie did okay over the holidays season.

Some of the trades called Timothy Schallamy, "The Cane of Christmas." Yeah. You remember what? Sure. Yeah.

Well, he did kill me in a close. So he attacked me. The cane of Christmas. So weird portion of his Wikipedia. He didn't even have to think about it.

Yeah. Cut you up, I'm sorry. Oh, I was going to say this. We should also touch on the unusual and like kind of like, not first of its kind, but like very, very rare deal that Ryan Cooper made, right?

For the film. He gets the right to it. Yeah. Like, it's negotiating for the rights, like when there was like a bidding war for the rights, right?

It was, you final cut, you want a final cut. And then yes, the ownership reverts to him in the past five years, which is like, just not something that you see a lot of filmmakers being able to do. Yeah. When I was talking about that, with friends of mine from Texas, where I'm from.

Yeah. And I was like, this is a new thing. Yeah.

My friends were like, we shouldn't have always be that way.

Right. Exactly. Shouldn't it always be that way? Yeah. Yeah.

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

“I mean, you have to become one of this, like a very small group of like very powerful”

filmmakers, apparently pull off what feels like a deal that should be available to filmmakers all over the place. You know what? Especially when you're like, this is your intellectual property, right? A new idea that you wrote with your wife.

Yeah. But come on. Yeah. And, you know, the fact that like, whoever was, you know, giving him that deal, but was like looking at his right.

So while you've only directed Black Panther, it's like, successful sequel, directed or produced three really box office hit boxing movies. Yeah. Like it's like, that should have been an easy, yeah. Yeah.

Like, totally. He doesn't. But I do think the 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?

Yeah. There was a bit of like, this is not how things work. Yeah. This is not how we do business. And it is very, whether you may end 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. Sure. It is. And I think a lot of folks at the end of this ostrac campaign season compared to at the

we talk about it. And you know what? Good for them. And something this.

Well, and there was also when it was when the kind of gaze on the movie was like,

okay, we admit it. It is a huge hit. Well, okay. Is it a words movie? Part of the reason some people doubted that it might be was that Warner Bros. has this

big Paul Thomas Anderson movie coming in a few months and that's 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. They don't seem to be fighting.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's going to compliment. It's a ride you tied lifts all boats. Yeah.

Yeah. And that behind them, the studio is in this crazy disarray in terms of their problem. They're guaranteed a best picture in this studio. Right. One of them will most might be their last ever.

Yeah. I know. As we're recording this, Paramount has just seemingly won and beat out Netflix in terms of acquiring this like kind of like battle to acquire Warner Bros. Yeah.

At least they have made what has been declared the better offer and Netflix has declined to counter. Thank you. The one that doesn't want to kill. Right.

And, you know, this whole thing has felt like a real Susan Rice is involved. It's a pretty zoom. It's a lot going on. I mean, you have like, yeah, like Trump, like putting us on on the scales and you also have Netflix being like, sure, we'll keep putting movies out in theaters like, like,

we put it on a paper, but like we'd definitely do a tour or the a tour in the next. Right. Watching this whole thing, you just feel like whatever happens here, it is going, the consolidation is going to be bad news for, yeah, well, and will this new company post merger

“be more or less likely to green light a film like centers?”

So as you said, Oscar voting has started. Do events like this affect voting or have they do we have any way of knowing that? My hunch would be if there isn't effect on centers 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 the producers are not. But like, you know, creative producers are anyway, but like, I think that there is 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 even more because it's the future of movies like it seems to be in jeopardy. Yeah, I also, I mean, it feels like Warner Brothers is going to walk away with best

picture. However, it goes, right? And I feel like-- For Minecraft. For Minecraft.

That's the first right in winter.

But like, I feel like there are, however, people, you know, in their make this connection in their head, they're both stories that feel like they're going against the grain of like this inevitable little push towards like, you know, even more and more corporatized, I key driven media, like to be like, oh, these are like two autorist films, there are movies that are made with like, these intensely personal visions that audiences have responded to.

“And yeah, that's what you think, probably, it's all, it's probably what's right, like this”

is what we're asking for. And instead, like, everything's crumbling in the background, like, just walking away from the explosion. That's right. But at least for now, we have this big glass hurrah of celebrating these movies.

Yeah. That's the structures that make them party. Yeah. That could produce a Griffin had a great line about it where he was like, it feels like they're planning both a birthday party and a funeral.

That's a lot. For the same night, you know, because it's like this could be the end of this thing, or the beginning of a new era of big, robust studio films with something to say, like, actually, that make money winning awards. I'm excited to see Barry Weiss as Wonder Woman.

What? Wait, is this, no, no, no, if, if Paramount were to buy Warner Bros. Yeah, yeah, they'll do it some synergy, and Nelly Bowles will play somebody in the home. Oh, God.

“But yeah, I think regardless of how generous performance in a couple of Sundays from now,”

like, it is one of the huge success stories of the year, I think it will perform well. I, we were saying. Wait, can't. I mean, it was only nominated. Yeah, that's it.

It's got a record breaking. Well, to ask Tels Kruskezi that, because he's walked in, Mr. Levin nominated you, I was very poor. I am on the record as saying, like, right before the nominations, I was feeling like this like entirely vibes-based, like, oh, I'm worried about sinners doing 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. Yeah. I would put money on the lake, a little bit, a little bit, Lorenzo, he's getting that Oscar.

I feel like he's also very handsome.

Yeah. Oh, I need to point. That is what is important. I feel like I can see a world also where best picture and best directors split. Yeah.

And, you know, Ryan Kugler has had to, of course, then answer this question so many times from, like, various, it's got a pretty face. I'm not sure. It's not entirely salt. Yeah.

Honestly, it depends. I just remember seeing when he won for something. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

I saw on the stage and I was like, oh, hello. He's got great hair. Yeah. But, rope. This is America.

Which I'm actually going to be no salt. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Multifaceted. But, yes, 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 Kugler probably will win screenplay. Yeah. And then it's a matter of, like, which one takes best picture. Yeah. It will walk away with awards.

Oh, sure. So you mentioned that this has been a long campaign. Yes. 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. But 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, since that's been their value. I don't have it on tip of my tongue, but it should be, this movie is kind of confusing. Yeah. Well, that's it.

It's actually a poster with just, like, a small font description of what happened. No. But, like, you know, imitation game year after they got the nominations, the campaign became, you know, honor the man, honor the film. So they start to try, um, Nora was, uh, dream bit, 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 centers really need studios.

“Well, centers that is, like, it's, it's, it don't be the vampire, right?”

Right. Like, it has a thumbs up. You know what to do. If 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. But I don't think that centers is in danger of that. No. Well, 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. I give it all out. And all of them are so incredibly poised. Yeah. 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 to movies campaign for Oscars can be a well-run

ship. Mm-hmm. Is that fair to say? I don't know. Yeah.

No, I think that there's a sleekness to it that it probably began with 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'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 in the whole story of that, like, because it just seemed like it had that journey.

Yeah. I mean, 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 Shampa?" "Where is she?"

But he's talking half the gold glow. Yeah. They're not doing the circuit, which fine. I don't believe in the circuit personally, but this is what we have to do.

“The big names in that film aren't doing as much, which fine, right?”

Yeah. I mean, I feel like, also, well, I'm sure they're like, "Would they just don't want to put Shampa in out there that much?" Yeah. I don't have Leo.

I mean, Leo, I don't think was ever a front runner, and really, I just don't think that. Yeah. I mean, we've been talking a lot about how at this point we feel like you have Timmy and then, like, you're more like really coming up behind, and, like, if there

isn't 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, he's good. He has his award. Yeah.

No one feels the need to give this guy an award because he needs this one. Exactly. You know, when you photos of him on yachts. Yeah. And Wagner Moore is doing a smart thing.

We're at these FYC parties. If you ask nicely, he'll softly whisper, they explain the plot of the big in your ear. How long did they take? Well, I was going to want it. Oh, no.

But yeah, I mean, I think that, like, if we want to get into the movie a little bit--

Well, it would be first also, like, touch it briefly on.

I feel like you brought up the idea of, like, how much of a horror movie is it? Oh, well, yeah. I think, like, it is an interesting question because, like, part of the, you know, the 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, uh, technical awards more. Yeah. Like, there's an idea that they're not as serious, or some how they're not, like, they

Yeah. So there have been, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven.

“I think films nominated that fought, like, horror films--”

Which one? So we have six of them. Yeah. X-axis? Jaws.

If you count Jaws, which would. Silence of the lambs, the six cents, like, swan, if you count that, which I think-- Oh. It's like a bull. Yeah.

Get out. And the distance. Yeah. One of those is one. You know?

Which by the way came out February of its year, so it was a-- Oh. On the best picture, Oscar, over a year after-- Yeah. Yeah.

The round story there. Yeah. But, like, not a genre that-- a genre that's had to really fight for-- Yeah. But also, because silence of the lambs has overlap, where it's also a police--

Sure. Sure. Sure. Which, like, the '70s, they were given a best picture to French connection and stuff like that.

Right. Right. There's no element of the supernatural in it. Yeah. Which is, like, the tac--

Unless you count the performance. No. The other world. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

“My biggest genre-- question of centers is actually, like, what genre is it?”

Yeah. I am not sure it's a bull-throated horror film. Yeah. I think it's more of an action movie. Y'all's colleague and one of my favorite critics, Angelica J. Bashin, and her review.

She said that the movie is always a little bit afraid to lean into the full horror of it all.

Yeah. There are moments that are gory and discussed in a way that, like, vampire body horror should be. But, like, the pure jump scare horror feeling that you think you get a lot in the horror movie. You don't get a lot of it in this one. No.

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? Mm-hmm.

I mean, is it in some parts when it's really being honest 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 long rice hit with it, and the more I rewatch it,

I'm like, "Ah, it's not a horror movie." 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 you, 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 overjustice quickly.

It's like half an hour, I think, or less. Yeah.

And I, at first, I was like, "Is that a failure?

Does maybe cooler for all of his talents not really have a keen command of horror?" But then rewatching it.

“I was like, "Oh, I don't think that's what he's intending it."”

Yeah. Well, and he's talked about the impetus from making the film. It was about his uncle who was a believes musician. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And so, to make it also function and be okay as a horror vehicle. As a vampire vehicle, as a period beast. It speaks more to his skill than to maybe his lack of focus. Yeah. I think that there's somewhere in here is a 90-minute movie that is leaner and has fewer moving parts.

And as movies, like, "Oh, you know, there's a lot of things you can do." And there's a lot of things you can do. And there's a lot of things you can do. And there's a lot of things you can do. And there's a lot of things you can do.

It 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. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I love how many ideas it's filled with. Yeah. And, like, the fact that it is, it pulls them different genres. Yeah.

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, like, you know, like, when the vampires do appear. He deliberately cuts away from, right? Yeah.

Like, every time when you have, you know, like, a character, like, is walking back. And then, uh, you see, Jack O'Connell's character, like, leap up into the air. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Like, he cuts away from a lot of the things that you would expect of, like, the scare. Yeah. I also just wanted more of Jack O'Connell's character.

Yeah. Yeah. A little more backstory. He's so good. He's very good.

He's so good. He's so good.

He's always been really good.

Yeah. Do you remember when there was that moment where you were, like, oh, he's going to be the next. He's the one. And then he kind of, like, went out. Well, he went thinking he was, like, okay, character, character root.

That's what I'm going to go. It was a new Hollywood. Yeah. Sadly. I like him being this kind of unsettling.

Yeah. Like, yeah. Like he uses his looks well for that. Yeah. 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's setting up before. Yeah. 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 we came before.

Yeah. You know? Well, and I feel like so much of Ryan Kugler'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 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.

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 blackbuster. 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, yeah. But he's really progressive films on ideas of race, also blackbusters. I mean, that's, I, I thought, Creed should have won best picture.

Like, I'm Creed, like, it's incredible.

And I think one of the best aspects of it, beyond just that it's such a good boxing movie. Like, kind of where you want to, like, cheer and cry. Yeah. You act like, 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.

Just, like, also with a lot of obvious action 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. You know, like, it really, like, overturns that and is, like, incredibly, it's so thoughtful in how it interrogates that a bit of material. I, I, I, I, I think, I, yeah. I make these race films that don't, but you go in that knowing that you're going to get a lesson and I like that.

Yeah. And like, you know, and it, it's, there's also a class politics to centers that, like, with the, I mean, the Jack O'Connell character being, like, look, we're all fucking under the thumb of, like, you know, the, you know, the, the hierarchy. And, and there's a sort of anti-capitalist thing. Yeah.

You know, he has this kind of currency, but should we should honor it, because he works really hard. Like, you know, 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, a socialist? Like, right? Yeah.

It is, I mean, you have these different points of view, right?

“Like, you have, like, smoke really being, like, the only thing that counts is power and power comes to me.”

It's truly being, like, this may not be an affair or an all-workable system, like, in the way, in the position I've been putting 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. Yes.

I've been around the world. I've seen everything else. And that is the only way. And I, like, the movie has a lot of ambivalence towards that, but it's also, he's not wrong. Like, you know, I mean, I think one of the things that is so interesting to me about this movie, but also that I feel still, like, like, I'm still working it out.

Are the ways in which the vampires offer this image, right, of, like, collectivism? Oh, yeah. They end up, like, the end up in this, like, multi-racial dance. Exactly. And they're like, could that be on that side?

And they're like, kind of love. Like, that is literally, like, fellowship, right? We're offering you fellowship. Yeah. But also, they're like, we're going to kill you.

We're going to come and kill you first.

And it almost feels like it feels vaguely similar to the stakes of pluralists. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're the bad guys.

But we've made you topia. Right. But it's all good. Right. Yeah.

“You have to lose yourself in order to sort of, you know, become this new thing.”

Or I guess Jack McConnell would say it's an ascension, but maybe we wouldn't see it that way. Yeah. 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. 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, the first was it about, is it climate?

Is it immigration? That film felt political in a very ambiguous way. Mm-hmm. Senators felt political in a incredibly direct and pointed way. He wanted to know what he's talking about.

Mm-hmm. And I didn't feel that kind of certainty with some of this stuff happening in one battle. I don't know. Yeah. Which, again, might be kind of the point.

It's sort of this pinching sort of abstraction. Yeah. It's 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.

What do we act while in this? Yeah, this is all over the place. Like, what are they trying to pinpoint? I think that Senators, it sort of obscures, it's metaphor in a good way. In part by not making the white supremacists who do figure into the movie,

significantly, they're not the vampires. They're not the vampires. They're like, the sort of very obvious metaphor would be to make them the vampire. Yeah. Yeah.

They're the record labels. Yeah. Yeah.

“But it's also like, I mean, I think there is like, right?”

That like obvious kind of like the, yes, like the record labels, the industry, the idea of kind of like corporate assimilation. And the, 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.

I was like, I feel like it's made, it's meant to be more much more slippery than that.

Yeah. Like for the point where I was almost, especially, and we can wait till after spoiler warning to talk about the coda. Um, like to the point where I was like, oh, I feel like even he feels a little like not quite settled on, on where he stands with the vampires because I, you know, like I, like he has cited,

“I think it's called the last rights of Jeff Murdell Bank, which is like a violent”

zone episode. That's like one of his major initiatives. 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 it, like, the town folk are like unsure about whether he should like he's like, yeah, like a vampire or somebody.

And dead come back and they are going to kind of like, they're all gathering around and deal

this evil. And he gives a speech about how, you know, they shouldn't be afraid of him. And he should be allowed to remarry, like Mary has like fiance. But there's also this sense that like he is different. Like it like he has seems to have supernatural powers.

So it's like slippery. It's not sure where to stand in 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. And I've been back that I was told. I'm out here to give you. Yeah. Yeah.

The thing you're like, have they lost themselves? Are they really soulless? And then for a second. The most likable, enjoyable. This really engaging character on the screen.

Let's say we sign filled. Yeah. Like, oh, give me. Right. It's like, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

“I mean, I think the Haley Steinfield, 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 point at statement in that too. I think that like, cooler looking at like a history of like black representation in studio films

that maybe when awards or don't or whatever. And like being really disexualized 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 and men wanted, 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, you know, that's impressive. 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 with 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 crap about one battle is you get Tiana Taylor given 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. At least I feel the director, they're fully formed and they keep showing up.

And I even think about the sex scenes in that movie. They seem to have a gender parity in the way that the bodies are moving together and who isn't controlled and out of control. 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 the room in which there are no black women.

But I'm saying, you don't for me in my conversations with folks. Yeah, I felt that. Yeah, 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 the 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. And I felt like 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. Yeah, like it's sensational. And yeah, there are moments when the sex is happening in sinners or I'm like, this feels kind. And I don't know. And I think a lot again, a lesser movie.

I apparently like to do this a set-up straw man movie. So don't exist. But I think that when we Musaku'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 or they have issues.

Yeah. I don't agree with him, he's hurt, they're all hurt, but they still have this intense like loving on that, you know, is shown that way.

I was going to say two things.

“I do appreciate a movie that is states what has always been obvious, which is like when we Musaku is like such a babe.”

You know, you're like, this is a movie that is finally like, yeah, like obviously she's not to be.

Yeah. But also that I was thinking like, actually this this crop of best picture nominees has like, it has a fair amount of sex. You know, for like, we keep thinking about Hollywood and hang that thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Like this here is actually like pretty good by that regard and like, K-pop demon hunters. Right. But I like, I like that. Yeah.

Like solid F-U. Right. Like centers is definitely the most overtly sex positive. Yeah. Yeah.

Not just the depictions of like, but also cultivating the idea of like it as something people do together. You know, like having a whole monologue on how to give oral sex to women and having that be like, like, this is the thing you do. Like you do it together. That's like great. Yeah.

That's it.

The first kind of language joke.

Okay, girl. Like the third or fourth. Rapid out. It starts to feel a little bit fed. That was the one.

Yeah.

“That was the one point where it was like, you didn't need to do all this, man.”

I was almost wonder if he was like, you know, the raptors and Jurassic Park, like testing the fences. How many he could get that away with, you know? One of the things I appreciate about Ryan Cookler, even at times where it doesn't work for me is that he is 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 a musical montage. It could have been corny. It could have been like so easily. And I feel like the fact that it rides that edge.

Yeah. 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, right 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. Yeah. And you're like, yes, it is like, yeah. Well, because there's this one moment in there, where I'm like, oh, you really got away with that.

Because like, in the montage, it's like, there, it's a dancer. And the gen is all these black performers. Mm-hmm. But then they bring in. I want to say a Chinese performer.

Yeah. Yeah. And you hear the gong and the symbols. And you're like, girl. Yeah.

Yeah. But okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Because it's so technically brilliant. Like, this is a thing about it. Whenever Ryan Cookeler movies are about to go into, like, after school specials like Territory, which he likes to be there. Whenever he's about to go there, and it's about to be cornered or about to be cheesy,

you just look at it and hear it. And it's so technically and beautifully well done. You'll allow it. Yeah. If that that sequence was not so like warmly lit and the camera's moving in such seductive,

interesting ways. Yeah. And like, because, you know, on paper, if I were to say, oh, Ryan Cookeler, you know, this great director made a movie that's set in the 1930s. But there is one scene where there's a break dancer in a bucket hat.

You'd be like, followed by that sounds horrible. Yeah. But somehow it's beautiful. Yeah. And I like, like, when the guy with the purple kind of jumpsuit with the guitar,

I kind of got teary. Right. 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. Yeah.

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.

Yeah. This thing is scored to a tee. Yeah. And it helps set you up for the ride to the big musical montage. The music is constantly getting 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. And it really nice way. Yeah. Yeah.

The sky thing. I mean, like, I noticed a lot of the second viewing. In particular, I mean, there's a shot when like Sammy gets in the back of the car with the twins. Like you see. 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. 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 Claire was trying to do so well. I'll be like, this is the past. And he is like, obviously went through a lot of pains to recreate the detail. But also, it is a bit mythic, right?

Yeah. Like it is this place that feels like rich and alive with magic. 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.

Slaver's bad. Jim Crow was 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 may be all women fuzzy.

He doesn't do that.

“I mean, the vampires make them suffer, but that's a different kind of thing.”

Yeah.

Yeah, suffer until, you know, near the end of the movie.

Yeah. 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 the 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. Because black movies, a lot of black movies are actually white movies. Right.

Right.

Like, a lot of black movies are actually about the pain of looking on them by white people.

Mm-hmm. This is not quite that. Yeah. You know?

“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 like practice his art and all that.”

But the father is depicted as, like, understanding he lets his son go. Yeah. He's like, okay, well, but, you know, come back for church, you know? Yeah. And then, you know, his cousin's asking, 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. But this movie also, like, directly links the vampires and the church. church, like that was so true. Yeah, true. Yeah, true. Very much like when you get that, like, you know, before it flashes back. And he goes to see his father in the church and it intercuts like the images of the vampires attacking like the major kind of like songs that pieces in this, you know, there are there are like a few and like there are the ones at the Duke and then there are 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. Yes. Well, and that is a conversation as someone who grew up the son of a pinacostal church

organized 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 Indians. And so to see Couglar's been so much time on that as an idea in the film and almost like helps it pass. This like racial beckled us 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 the vampires killing them were not killing them. Yeah, you tell me a little bit more about that tension between sacred and secular music. I mean, is is it indeed attention 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 see it? It is a central dichotomy of black American music. So I interviewed the guy wrote the song that leads to the thing that Montez Rappie Alcadique. He has written hits and produced hits for the likes of D'Angelo Beyonce, Selange and more for decades. He grew up playing in church.

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. Right. 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.”

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.

I don't know where I was going with this and I forgot the question yet. There is still kind of that opposition, like even even in today. Yeah, like even today, there are still, you know, I'm going to ask 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 Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary like they're big hit. They don't say Jesus, right. But I love they're like this Christian group. They're biggest hit. They're you to move. They don't say God or Jesus. And I remember in church.

Right. These are the stories that I was hearing in the 90s. Right. So it's still there. It's very interesting to watch how this conversation becomes different.

“And what I feel has been the last year or two in the rise of like Hill song culture, which is like a white Christian rock culture. It is a similar but different conversation that is another episode of some of the show.”

Yeah, we have talked a lot about emo unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, I love that we got in a switch foot reference in this finished discussion. Yep. Yep. That's our version of the bucket hat break to answer in. David. Right. Right. Right. Right. I am correct. That's your name. Mm-hmm. It's time to take a break from your school or work routine, but stay consistent. That's the tough balance. We should have school routine, take me back to school, baby. Well, you have a state field. You gotta get kids to school. That's true. That is a school route.

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Only whilst it was last, that's drinkag1.com/check. Should we move into spoiler territory? All right. Okay. So let's talk about, I don't like, where would we say when when the grace maybe screams come on in? That's like the spoiler is really slurred. I don't think this movie is spoilerable. I think that for many movies, but people do not agree with me.

“Very upset. 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, yeah, please be trolling it and I don't think they were. Also, this film has been out for a year. Yeah. It surely has. Right. Yeah. I know why I feel available down. But yes, yes. We are now in spoiler territory. All right. Yeah, I feel like, I don't know.

I do feel like the action part is the least compelling for me because yes, I'm also like, maybe because you know, I don't know what resolution would feel like it had been worthy of that incredible.

And the post credit scene undoes any resolution you thought you felt. Yeah. So how do we feel? I guess. How do you leave this movie thinking about the vampire experience? Let's say. I was thinking, oh, they're going to do a sequel. Sure. Well, that was my first book. And honestly, like early 90s with that fashion. I know. I would watch it.

I would watch it. Oh, I would watch it. Yes.

The hoops are incredible. I know.

It's such a good deal. It's like, it's such a good visual and a new jack swing sound.

I don't know if he's done it or not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wait. Have we written the sequel? Right. Call it.

We'll take a story credit. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like it is. It feels 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 like come up with lore. Yeah.

That. You know, we learn a bit about the idea that their souls are stuck in them. They can't kind of like go on. But also they share consciousness. Maybe.

Like, like, like, I hate they won't die if they're creator dies. They can, you have to kill. But they share his pain. Yeah. Remake. And then also like, Remake is able to speak a dialect of Chinese.

Like, after he, you know, like bites. Well, no, he says he's studying abroad. And you know, like, he's like, he's like, he's like, I did that to another. I thought English.

But he was only friends with other Americans. Yeah. And it's like, like, some of the, like, normal beat and normal the vampires.

So 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. And garlic. And 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. Where they slaves to the vampiric mission of just getting everyone you could or can or do they have choice?

Because in that final post credit scene, we find out that one of the vampires made a choice to not do a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And held that promise for decades. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

And then they all kind of, they sit and listen to him play.

You know, they might. And then they kind of have this fun goodbye. It's not like, oh, I want to suck your blood. 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 coat of because I think there's a lovely image.”

And it's also a funny image when they just walk in. Yeah. But I do feel like it leaves me feeling unsettled about that kind of like what is being like preferred in terms of this this metaphor. 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? Like, is that is that just run off from MCU experience or is that? Right. 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 ham net one. Right. No, that's a good question. I, I think that might be a ham net one.

It's alive. Ham net will return. It's the musical number. No, no, no. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I'm dead this whole time. Actually, 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 then, and so you're kind of like, okay, we're, we're the stories over.

“But something, I think it kind of, it almost feels like it's transporting you across six”

decades. And then plotting you back down in. Because the credits do run six decades long. Well, right. Yeah.

The movies these days. It's very last, like, end scene two of Miles Caden, like, playing this little line of mine, right? Yeah. So, like, there is an actual, and credit.

Yeah. There is, like, 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 Mark said as a coda.

So strongly to the point where it almost feels like the, 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. 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. Yeah. And as much as I enjoyed it by the end, I was like, thank you.

Yeah. 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. Yeah.

I think that's, that's right. Yeah. And I mean, my sort of question about the, 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 in told things happened.

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,

like, all those years ago and like,

“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. Yeah. And, but I also, I'm kind of like, right, but you did fucking kill all these people. Like, you did terrible things.

Yeah. And also your brother has this kind of, like, beautiful, kind of 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, I guess they're will.

Yeah. So yeah, I feel not that I need vampire lore to be extremely coherent, but I do feel like there are parts of like, I feel like the emotional terrain of the movie and the metaphorical terrain of the movie that I feel unclear on. Yes.

Well, and this is where I think it's like,

Ryan Kugler 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. Mm-hmm. Does this movie feel good?

Oh, that's true. And it does. And you don't want to turn into like, cinema sins and be like, well, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. That sweater was not made in fact. Yeah. Well, I can't even create it. Yeah. 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 Kaden 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 this question, is it the other way around, like, you know, 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 times. Yeah. Or he's more of the purist. Yeah.

Because the stars are falling in space and he's playing the old music. And he's like, let carved out this path for himself that, you know, presumably like, has sustained him doing this kind of music. But he's not about kind of he's seeing whatever, also like kind of like capitalist forces, right?

He has gone electric. He has gone electric. Yeah, this is true. His recording quality gets better all the time. Being that everyone thinks people care about, but people don't care about.

About going electric. Yes. Every time it's the film, we're like, the big, like, a pop one is like, he went electric. Okay, grow.

Care is better though. The vampires. I will say it's very interesting to think about what Ryan Kurgler is saying in that final post credit scene because in that bar scene, the coolest sexiest best dressed ones there are the vampires.

The cool hot black guy is a vampire. Yeah. And being a vampire has allowed him to be cool. So I'm like, oh, is there, do I need Angelica to write about that? Like, what's going on there?

Yeah. You know, it's like, what is, 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. 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, they're just seen to be, he has the same finger. Yeah. And yeah, and there's to that kind of economic thing comes back up subtly. Well, and it's like Ryan Kurgler does this really great thing. By the end of more than one of his movies.

You like the villain and you're like, oh, you're right. Yeah, I know. Like you watch my Panther. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The film for my politics. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you feel like there isn't, I mean, aside from, I think like the, the code It does serve to kind of mitigate this a bit.

But do you feel like this film is ultimately kind of a pessimistic guide

to by feeling a pessimism with regard to the ability to exist being black in America?

“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.

The costumes are impeccable regardless of their class status in this movie. And it, 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 Langers 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? 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?

And does it work?

“Is it a viable model for this industry that has been plagued by whiteness since it started?”

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, people are fucking west black people. And he makes these movies that make you love black people too. So that.

Yeah, and that he does, he did that with black Panther. You know, and like, yes, that's one of the, you know, there were like white kids dressing up. Yeah. Fucking black Panther. And it's bad for it.

It shouldn't be. I wish it wasn't. But it's startling to see in some big, like, expensive studio movie where you're like, This is not the lens through which these are normal. You know, this is formally done.

Yeah. And that he's being, this should do it not once. But like several times. Yeah. They'll at the same level of, you know, I mean, he didn't, they didn't spend as much

on centers as they did black Panther. But like it was still a lot of money. Yeah. It was spent and earned. Yeah.

And I just, you know, I hope for the future of the industry and, and for his future, I just kind of wonder where he's going to go next. Is he going to keep operating or will he want to go back down to Fruitvale station level just to take a break? You know, I don't know.

“Well, I mean, I think 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 is, he seems like someone who wants to work within, like a large scale. Yeah. Like Nolan kind of. Yeah.

And I think that that is. Nolan films, it could be our dude or about a certain kind of whiteness. Sure. I was a different conversation though. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like mostly Nolan. I see dead white. White. No. I've sent he'd father.

But that's not there. Give me more. He wouldn't have screen time. Yeah. But yeah.

I think like he seems to want to be in that group of like, you know, less than a handful of like directors who can get what they want to get made. Yes. And I like that he likes making blockbusters. Yeah.

For me, you know, it's the American film industry. Even as it's seen, you are people go to movies.

It's leaned more into honoring movies that most people will never watch.

I don't get it. God bless Anora. I like that film. But I remember last Oscar season when the brutalists in Anora were like, in contention. It was hard for most of America to find them where to watch those films.

Yeah. And what Ryan Kugler has done is that you can make a film that is critically admired. Works for all kinds of people gets folks gets butts and seats and centers something other than whiteness. Right.

It's I just find it remarkable. And I like that he is not afraid to make blockbusters that work for all kinds of people. Back in November he said his next movie would be Black Panther 3. Oh, okay. I do kind of on the Nolan comparison.

I do want to know. And I know you had was Tinit Head John David Washington. Sure. Yeah. Whether that was good to all parties.

I don't know. But like Christopher Nolan was like, all right. I'm going to do three Batman's. 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 Couglar 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 like can he.

“I mean, I think I think he'd up like definitely can.”

I just be curious what it would be. You know. I feel like they're like a music movie where it's just purely that music. But I would say I don't feel like sinners is him making a concession. No, like he like I don't feel like he added the vamp.

You did all that he wanted. Yeah. But I think the vampires helped get it funded. Oh sure. No, I sure.

But I feel like I don't know. It is hard to 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 doesn't like it almost doesn't, right?

Like maybe Brian does. Yeah. Yeah. And like for Christopher Nolan maybe being like, Yeah.

You know what I'm going to do next to the office. Yeah. You know what people love is like the artist. And yeah, there are just a few people who can have that. But it is.

Yeah. Didn't he say somewhere Ryan Cookwood that he wants to do a rom-com? Did I see that somewhere? I might be very soon. Yeah.

I mean I would. Which is thrilling. Yeah. Right. He would be passing a Ryan Cookwood rom-com.

I honestly like Michael B. Jordan and Haley Steinfield. Yeah. Yes. Yes. In the 90s.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I would love that.

In a mortal. Yeah. Like when you're like how do you sustain a relationship over centuries and centuries and centuries you got to break up and get back together and make sure. Over and over again.

Yeah. I feel like that is too break up. Well, and Michael Jordan is too. I mean, he's doing Thomas Crown affair, which he has is a kind of heist thriller.

Yeah. No.

I want like the the theoretical Nick Nick Kate.

Or is it Nick Kate gladiator to script where he was just like fighting wars throughout the centuries? I want that with like a bomb. You know, they're just like me queuding. Yeah.

Oh, in the 50s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We haven't talked about the twins performance of the twins. How'd you guys find that? I think it's really well done. Yeah.

I am. I talk about movies right 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 there. There's two of them standing there. There's two Michael B. Jordan.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially every time you're like wait, let's get to you. He handed a cigarette to himself. How did it?

“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. Yeah. And look, obviously, that just performance dependent. He does just enough to shape them differently. That they're, they're legible as different characters.

I don't know. I think it's well done. Yeah. Well, especially like because he clearly is meant to play them as like these two distinct characters. Yeah.

But also like people can't, can't exist. They're kind of like a one for us. Right? They've cultivated a bit of this mythology around the toes. Like when people in the town are like this.

Well, their names are two halves are have one. Exactly. They, 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 like this. He does.

And it surprised me because I think God bless Michael B. Jordan.

I've never thought of him as the most dynamic of actors.

Yeah. I think he gave the most alive performances 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, one of them, and like looser bigger shoes for another. And then one version of him had dimples and the other never did.

Oh, wow. He held that face. Wow. That's cool. Yeah.

Of course, this is one of his co-stars talking about on their Oscar campaign run. So they said it, but they worked. We're talking about it here. Yeah. That's true.

It seems like Google is just having fun. Yeah. Because the movie doesn't necessarily call for that. No. No.

No. No. No. No. They literally because then it could be two actors.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe have the same sort of thing. Yeah. But no.

“I think it's an added sort of like, can I pull this off sort of daring to do?”

I mean, having to shoot all of those scenes twice. Yeah. Like, fully. Yeah. And then however, when he takes it took.

Yeah. Also, they're different fates really kind of speaks to, I think, the kind of conflicted nature of the allegory. Right? Where you have one who kind of goes out like slaughtering the clan.

Yeah. 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 that. And then the other one. Yeah.

Like goes on to beat becomes a vampire. And he lives is like, 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, right? Yeah.

I like to think that he's a vampire with a sort of dexter code. That's the bad. Like that guy's a need. They drink to hit that guy's blood and there's not murdering innocence, but yeah, maybe I'm being naive.

Also, when are we going to, you know, there's all this conversation and debate around whether or not movie stars exist anymore. And then at this point, I'm like, like, we Jordan is right there. Yeah.

“I think he is a really bankable movie star.”

And maybe he doesn't get that credit because he's been so tethered to Ryan Kougler. But I think, but also to your point about him as an actor, I feel like Kougler brings out the best in him. Yeah. Like so much.

Yeah.

He has not always sparked a life in that same way with other filmmakers.

Yeah. And I feel like when he is in a cooler movie, you're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. He's like electric. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe something about making this kind of prodded him enough that he's now kind of walking up to, and that'll be that. Yeah. I mean, so that Seniors came out in the spring. So if Shalam is a king of Christmas, is he king of east?

Sure. Or Poe. He's a star. He's a star. He's a king of moral dancing.

He can't get memorial day. I think Jesus Christ is the king of king. Right. That's right. The bunny is the king of east.

Yeah. Yeah. David, just watch this. Watch this. Can you tell me what's going on?

But it's a foolish effort because nothing hits home.

Like home cooking. That's true. Oh, boy. It's really tough. Wait, Griffith, what are you doing?

I'm trying to hit home.

“But nothing hits us forward is home cooking.”

I just need a way to beat the winter blues. Not get delivery, something kind of unsatisfying. It's much easier. If I could choose for maybe 100 recipes every week, Christine's from around the world.

Let's see. I have 99 right here in my desk. But that's not 100. And we might have to outsource this job to someone else. How about our friends at Hello Fresh?

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I have cooked all by myself for the dinner parties that I throw nightly. And Hello Fresh is great for that, but also great just be one of three yourself.

“Ben, any recipes you've been jamming on hard recently?”

Oh, yeah. Actually, I was just checking out old school barbecue pork sloppy dough. Oh, that's a super high protein items. Slop it up. Yep.

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New subscribers only varies by plan. That is HelloFresh.com/check10fm to get 10fm to get 10fm to get 10fm. Yeah, I mean, I really care us to hear or to see rather where sinners goes in a couple of weeks at the Oscars. Again, I think it will do well. But another nominated movie, which only has one nomination.

But a big one. Yes. That Sam, I think you're a fan of Samsung Blue, which Kate Hudson is nominated for Best Actress, which I think is a good nomination. She's wonderful. Yeah.

“So can you just kind of, you know, extoll that before us?”

Well, one. I'm going to personally say that I will, Kate Hudson's Oscar knot into existence. Well, I've been mentioning her in Goldie. Thank you. Yeah.

I've 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 a knot. Like I think this performance in this film made me stop me in my tracks. By no means do I think that Samsung Blue is a perfect film.

But I think in terms of 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 look how she's looking out.

She looks a wig.

And my first thought was like, oh, a lovely Christopher guest style film.

Well, maybe I'll take 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 this 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. Well, you have to watch this movie. It's your kind of movie. Well, in behold, I watch it.

You were lightning to his thunder. [laughter] 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. At dear friend of mine who was movies, he said, "Tongues on 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 years.

New year's Eve night. Guess what we did. There you go. "Tongues on other times." Did you time it?

Like it was like my ticket. Thank you hours before. Yeah. But lo and behold, I look over and at the beats, they're supposed to laugh crying, punch the air.

They do. Yeah. Like this movie hits its beats. That said, I think that like, hate Hudson.

Her performance is good.

She gets the accent perfect. She is very, there's no condescension. And 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 that's in is. A lot of the headlines around her being so good in this film had an error of surprise.

She can do that. She did this. And it's like, yeah. I got to interview her. We probably said interview today.

And I asked her. I was like, girl, you see this headlines. They're like, good for you. But also their surprise. 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 film she's done, she still hears today from women from like 13 to 70 who say, that was helpful to me. I appreciate that. 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 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. Yeah, and she, I mean, I, I've probably mentioned this a billion times in podcast.

I have long held. Have you ever seen something borrowed? Which one is that? That's Jennifer Goodwin and this random guy from soap operas and Kate Hudson, where she plays the bit she friend and Jennifer Goodwin start sleeping with Kate Hudson's fiance.

Ooh. It's based on a book. The movie itself is not great. Yeah. Kate Hudson is so fantastic.

I have been saying for years, she should have gotten an Oscar nomination for supporting answers. And people are like, from that rom-com? Yeah, because she's incredible. The scene where she finds out what's happening between her friend and her boyfriend is

she's incredible. Yeah. So, yes, you're right. And how much of our condescension towards rom-coms is a condescension to things that women and girls like?

Well, yeah. Yeah, I'm not a big rom-com. No, I am, I am agnostic on rom-com. Yeah.

But like, I do feel like she has always been good.

Yeah.

“I mean, like, I think, like, what she does is Penny Lane in almost various, like, in that”

but her role, I think it's easy for people to dismiss it because she is playing a character who is like this muse, too. You know, like, and so people see it in that context. Yeah. Like, as if there's no agency there and there's no, you know, like, the man he is like,

like, she's doing right. Yeah. But I think she's incredible in it. Yeah. She, you understand why everyone falls in love with her.

And also you understand that she is putting on this kind of performance. I had never really seen a debut performance like that. Yeah. When I saw that movie, I was what, 16, 17 years old and I was like, who is this, like, if the, like, magical creep.

Yeah. She's incredible in it. And also, I was one of, I think, a, like, many, many young women who are, like, I'm going to spend years trying to get a coat, like, the one. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I tried on many.

My sister dashed herself on the drug.

Yeah. Not badly transformed me too. Yeah. Yeah. I can't do that movie.

“So, you know, you got to work with what you got.”

Yeah. And I had to make peace with that. The coat was not for me. Yeah. Just a few years later, I tried to dress like Jim in 28 days later.

And it did not transform me into killing my family. Yeah. Yeah. I will say, and I should be clear here. Songs on blue is not the greatest movie about that.

Yeah. And so, you know, it's Ernest and heartwarming, and I like it. But for me, it's just like, is about Kate. It's about Kate. Yeah.

And I like her presence in the Oscars this year because, like, I can't exactly define what I mean, but I just kind of feel it. It's kind of an old-fashioned Oscar nomination, you know, like, the performance is really good. But it's like, I could see that performance in 1972 in 1880s. You know, and like, in a good way. Like, where 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. Yeah. We'll say also, like, our friend Esther Zuckerman, her fiance Bob, who grew up in Wisconsin, said that this is one of the few performance he says he's ever seen to nail a Milwaukee accent. Well, you know why? Her nanny growing up.

She was in a very go. Yeah. And Manny was her assistant for a while when she was in the dog. Oh, yeah. In the Oprah episode about songs on blue.

Of course, Oprah's like, "And you're nanny is here!" Of course. Well, Sam, thank you. I'm glad we got some songs on blue content on this podcast.

We were close to not talking about it. Yeah. We were blanked 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. Yes. And all your singers interview? Yes. So we have, in my feed, a bunch of episodes.

Yeah. For Oscar folks. I have a chat with Kate Hatton about songs on blue and life. And then I've interviewed both the costume designer, Ruth E. Carter from Seniors.

So if you need more Seniors content, they're there.

Yeah. That's the St. Andrew Show.

“You can find it pretty much anywhere, right?”

Anywhere. Anywhere women like us and things are served. But yes, you do. Yeah. There's chances.

They were playing on the subway on my way here. Yeah. No. Yeah. Some of you hear it on a public radio station in your neck of the woods.

But I forget which one. Anywho. Yeah. Check it out. Well, thanks again, Sam.

I was, you know, you know, you're always so good at what you do.

And you have this insectic knowledge of film. I was like, let me not show my ass up here. No.

“You know, you know, we talked to each other.”

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. It was so great to have you on.

You brought like much of great here. Yeah. Yeah. And that was our ninth of best picture nominee that we've talked about. Yeah.

So that's the last one. One battle after another. Yeah. Yeah. I know film.

Yeah. Bring in Leo. Oh, yeah. He's so easy to get. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't imagine him having to like indulge in a long conversation. I feel like he hates doing press. Yeah.

Oh, much. Yeah.

“That's why he needs 24 year old models from Czechoslovak.”

Here we're after. Exactly. He's like, yeah. Nothing in common. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You see the one. He, I feel like there are few.

He's like famous for the headphones. The headphones. James, yeah. Yeah. That is the room.

Leo. Yeah. That's the room. That was the room. He had what did he do last the day get out of bed.

He could never. And then he's like the joke, but I choose to believe it. Well, sounds. Oh, I heard his. Oh, I heard his.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Any possibility is a funny one. 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.

Sure. I'm really glad it predictions too. So it's kind of fun. Because maybe you. But if I just go really wrong, you're right.

I go so well. That's what I'm happy. So stay tuned. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Critical darlings is a blank check production

and association with culture. Hosted by Allison Wilmore and Richard Lawson. Produced by Benjamin Frish. Executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janellitz. Video production and distribution by Anne Victoria Clark, Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer John.