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'It doesn't stick to the rules': The reason Sinners has become a true box-office sensation
BBC ^ | Apr 2025 | Nicholas Barber

Posted on 05/03/2025 2:25:27 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

After great reviews and buzz, Ryan Coogler's vampire film had an extraordinary second weekend at the box office. It's a victory for a wholly original big-budget film in a cinema landscape dominated by familiar franchises.

…Featuring Michael B Jordan as a pair of twins defending their juke joint from vampires, Sinners is a horror film – but it's also a blues musical, a gangster thriller and a deeply-researched period drama about Mississippi in the 1930s. It doesn't stick to the rules of one particular genre, and it isn't based on existing intellectual property (IP), so audiences don't come to it knowing how it's all going to play out.

… Reviewing a new Hollywood film often comes down to answering one question: "Is it slightly better or slightly worse than every other Marvel/ DC/ Star Wars/ Alien /Jurassic World/ King Kong film I've seen?" But Sinners is idiosyncratic enough to prompt other questions, which may explain its box office momentum, as word-of-mouth has spread.

… This unorthodox quality is a sign of the freedom that Coogler felt when he was making it. All of his previous films were adapted from other material – or from true events, in the case of his debut, Fruitvale Station – but he told The Atlantic that with Sinners, he didn't want to use IP as "something to hide behind". He wanted to make the most personal film he could – a "love letter" to a late uncle from Mississippi – and that meant a film which didn't follow conventions.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: boxoffice; coogler; movies; neverheardofthis; sinners; who
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1 posted on 05/03/2025 2:25:27 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Some guy on Special Report yesterday made Sinners his Winner in the ‘Winners & Losers’ category.

I guess if there are no tranny vampires, at least that’s something.


2 posted on 05/03/2025 2:32:14 PM PDT by citizen (A transgender male competing against women may be male, but he's no man.)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

I enjoy period pieces of that era, so in that respect, the first third or so of the movie was enjoyable. But then it just went off the rails, and I don’t mean with the vampire stuff. They turned the movie into some weird psychedelic pseudo-musical out of nowhere. After that, they halfway returned to the original purpose of the movie and pretended that they hadn’t just done all of that weird stuff.

With regards to the vampire stuff, they had a couple of semi-original ideas and a couple of genuinely creepy moments, but it seemed a little rushed - one of those movies where they can’t figure out how to end it so they just say, “Then the sun came out of nowhere and burned them all up. And everyone lived happily ever after.”

And the only white dudes in the movie are either vampires or KKK members.


3 posted on 05/03/2025 2:49:05 PM PDT by fr_freak (So foul a sky clears not without a storm.)
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To: fr_freak; citizen

It was very good artistry wise! But it had just enough of that Tarantino crassness (I know he’s beloved, but I never could get into his work) and nihilism to keep from being emotionally invested. Campiness overrode meaningfulness.


4 posted on 05/03/2025 3:04:59 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Yeah - it doesn’t stick to the new woke rules of Hollywood because black man director gets a pass and what should be a typical movie comes off tasting like a ritz cracker…


5 posted on 05/03/2025 3:19:20 PM PDT by Skywise
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To: fr_freak

“one of those movies where they can’t figure out how to end it so they just say, “Then the sun came out of nowhere and burned them all up. And everyone lived happily ever after.”z”

usually, it’s seawater, but apparently that doesn’t work on vampires ...


6 posted on 05/03/2025 4:08:10 PM PDT by catnipman ((A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil))
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

I watched the movie Rust.


7 posted on 05/03/2025 5:17:16 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: ansel12
I watched the movie Rust.

how was it?

8 posted on 05/03/2025 5:45:20 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Really, really bad, one of those movies with no beginning, no middle, and no real ending, you wonder how it got the go ahead when they read the lack of a script, and then it goes on, and on, and on, for 140 minutes with you wondering what in the heck is the movie about.

I don’t think many people will watch it till the end, it is an endurance test.


9 posted on 05/03/2025 6:10:20 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: ansel12

horrifying to know that a life was lost in the efforts to make it :(


10 posted on 05/03/2025 6:13:32 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Tonight I’m watching Searchers.


11 posted on 05/03/2025 6:25:10 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

So what about Snow White?


12 posted on 05/03/2025 6:27:17 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

“Sinners” continues to do remarkably well as far as getting people to the theater, but “Snow White” did not. Not sure it was an absolute flop...haven’t seen it. But apparently it’s not as woke as people are making it out to be, and has some redeeming qualities according to podcaster Lila Rose:

https://youtu.be/1Em1h2DXTXc?si=WpBQ7LO3QYH84CXI


13 posted on 05/03/2025 6:33:22 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Just finished Searchers, it was an interesting movie.

“Inspired by the John Ford film The Searchers, an Inuit woman and her daughter are kidnapped by three Inuit men, while her husband and son are away. The Inuit husband sets out on a journey to find his family and punish the perpetrators.”
Language: Inuktitut


14 posted on 05/03/2025 7:24:22 PM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

I just got home from seeing this film with my three adult sons. We all very much enjoyed it. It is a horror movie for sure but also much more.


15 posted on 05/03/2025 8:47:27 PM PDT by drjimmy
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To: drjimmy

Can you share what you all liked?


16 posted on 05/03/2025 8:54:35 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: ansel12

Have you seen any movies lately that you liked. That is, where you thought you got your money’s worth?


17 posted on 05/04/2025 6:49:33 AM PDT by ckilmer
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To: ckilmer

I watched ‘Rust’, it is really, really bad, and way over 2 hours of just nothing and wasted time, I doubt the movies I watch are of much help to you.

‘The girl with the needle’ is a serious movie but truly fine movie making, Oscar stuff, I watched ‘Searchers’ 2016 last night an Inuit version of the Ford/John Wayne movie and in their language and very interesting for their world of the past, the Korean movie ‘Castaway on the Moon’ was good .

‘Dead Mail’ was unique ‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’, ‘Rich Flu’, ‘Survive’ 2024 was strange but unique.

I watch movies for free so there is no money to waste, going to the theatre would have to be for something truly special such as ‘Passion of the Christ’ or ‘The Lives of Others’, or ‘Braveheart’, Heartbreak Ridge’.


18 posted on 05/04/2025 7:32:58 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Are the vampires in this movie evil white people? I might try to watch it if they are not.


19 posted on 05/04/2025 10:49:01 AM PDT by vpintheak (Screw the ChiComms! America first!)
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To: ansel12

Will look into “Searchers” thanks.


20 posted on 05/04/2025 12:18:32 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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