Posted on 04/21/2025 3:25:39 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
I’ve always said that Coogler has never made a bad movie – from “Fruitvale Station” to “Black Panther” to “Creed” – and his strengths are on display here…
“Sinners” follows two brothers (played both by Michael B. Jordan) trying to leave a troubled past behind by opening a juke joint for the Black community within their hometown, alongside their cousin Sammy (newcomer Miles Caton).
…Where this movie is actually most interesting is how it handles religion. Traditionally in vampire stories, Christian beliefs and symbols are powerful forces against vampires, and some vague vision of Christian cosmology is affirmed. But “Sinners” inverts that. In this film, Christianity is either powerless or oppressive, and pagan spirituality is powerful and affirmed.
It’s the pagan spiritualist Annie (played by Wunmi Mosaku) who’s the wisest and knows the most about vampires. It’s the folklore weaknesses of vampires like garlic, sunlight and silver which are able to harm them (with only a quick mention of holy water), while crosses are never mentioned or used. And when Sammy says the Lord’s prayer, the other vampires join in, with the leader saying that the prayer gives him comfort. Likewise, Sammy’s father condemns Sammy’s music and the lifestyle of sex (including adultery) and drunkenness of the musician lifestyle Sammy wants. But Sammy’s happy ending involves him choosing that lifestyle over his father’s church.
This follows the recent trend in Hollywood films to portray the battle between good and evil not as secularism against faith, but rather pagan spirituality versus organized religion (specifically Christianity), whether it’s films such as “The Exorcism,” “The Front Room,” “Presence” or “Death of a Unicorn.”
This makes sense because organized faith is increasingly seen as conservative-coded, the refugees from religious environments overwhelmingly still believe in God and value faith, just not organized religion like Christianity…
(Excerpt) Read more at religionunplugged.com ...
Another vampire movie? Those are so old and predictable.
If you stop believing in God, you don’t start believing in nothing; you start believing in anything, and it doesn’t really matter what that is.
The reason the road to hell is wide is that it has a thousand lanes, of which vampirism is only one. The reason the road to heaven is narrow is that it only has one lane, Jesus Christ, the Way.
Christianity being powerless and impotent against vampires has been common for decades, vampires grab crosses and impale priests, and they even do that in churches.
“Christianity is either powerless or oppressive, and pagan spirituality is powerful and affirmed.”
So it’s about Pope Francis?
I only watched that black Panther movie and it was okay , second half was kind of crummy though (like they ran out of money for decent cgi)
Can people voting to watch a movie, just watch a movie? If the intent is to pick it apart, how is there any hope to enjoy it?
Likewise, if some movie (and I haven’t seen it, nor will I likely watch it unless there is nothing else on a flight) actually “subverts” some belief, then perhaps the belief in the thing supposedly being subverted wasn’t all that strong to begin with.
Should be “going to watch”, not voting to watch.
That is basically the movie.
So.... you think that racism is the only evil in the world.
Good to know.
Racism? What are you even talking about?
Actually you shouldn't have because it was bad and really dumb.
But you see that was the message of the movie.
The only evil in the world is racism.
Which is why the "white people" (actually middle eastern but whatever) religion is ineffective against it.
Only by being pagan, the religion of equality and equity (actually no but whatever) can you beat the only real evil in the world, racism.
I told you it was a stupid movie.
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