I didn't really know what we were getting into with Sinners. We liked it a lot in the beginning. It started with identical twins Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan, returning home to 1932 Mississippi to start a juke joint. Good story of Black people getting by in the racist pre-WWII south, with wonderful music. Jordan does a great job, though the only way I could tell apart the two characters was by their hats. Kudos also to actor Delroy Lindo, actor-singers Miles Caton, Jayme Lawson, Hailee Steinfeld, Lola Kirke, and more.
About halfway through, it turns extremely gory and my enjoyment waned. Jack was eagerly waiting for bluesman Buddy Guy to appear, which he does after the two hour mark (the movie is 2:17 long) in a pivotal role. And Jack liked the whole thing better than I did.
After we watched it, Amy and Travis did, too. They like horror movies a lot but proclaimed this the worst movie they ever saw! Later she said it "didn't go off the rails enough."
Ryan Coogler directs from his original screenplay.
I'm currently streaming Ludwig Göransson's instrumental score on Apple Music, which is terrific, as is the playlist of songs. We also greatly appreciated the cinematography by Autumn Durald Arkapaw as well as the special effects throughout. Isn't it a miracle that one actor can play identical twins in the same scenes?
After we watched it, Amy and Travis did, too. They like horror movies a lot but proclaimed this the worst movie they ever saw! Later she said it "didn't go off the rails enough."
Jordan was last blogged for Just Mercy, Lindo for Da 5 Bloods, Steinfeld for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Kirke for the TV series Mozart in the Jungle, which I wrote about in two posts (one, two), Coogler and Arkapaw for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Göransson for Oppenheimer. This is Caton's screen debut and Lawson's first mention in these pages, though she was in The Woman King, among others in her brief resume.
Speaking of acclaim, Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are blessing it with averages of 97 and 96%, respectively. We rented it on June 8.
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After Amy repeatedly urged us to watch The Substance, we did. She loved it and said it's funny. We did have some laughs at the ridiculous exploitation of it all: Demi Moore plays an aging TV aerobics star who uses a drug to create a younger version of herself played by Margaret Qualley. Dennis Quaid is the over-the-top producer of the TV show.
With so many close-ups of tits and ass (sorry, did I offend you there?), I assumed the director and/or writer to be a man. I was wrong. The movie was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and Coralie Fargeat was nominated both for Directing and Original Screenplay.
The score by Raffertie is available to stream on Apple Music and is putting me in the mood to write about the parts I liked. Like Sinners, I was with it until one particularly violent scene in act three and it did, indeed, go off the rails after that. Just not my cup of tea (remember Get Out? That cup of tea was just fine).
Moore was last blogged for Another Happy Day, Qualley for Kinds of Kindness, and Quaid for Truth. Fargeat has directed one other feature and Raffertie has scored four.
Not quite as hooked as the Oscar voters, Rotten Tomatoes' critics are averaging 89% and its audiences 75. We rented it on July 8
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In the spring, after buying tickets to see the Broadway musical adaptation of Death Becomes Her, we rented the movie on May 10 and enjoyed it. It's a slapstick tale of a narcissistic actress and her envious writer friend, and their ingesting a drug to halt their aging. Uh-huh. This is another reason I was inspired to pack these three movies into one post.
Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn are the combatants, with Streep hamming it up to the max as the actress, and Bruce Willis as the man they both want.
Robert Zemeckis directs from a screenplay by Martin Donovan and David Koepp. Unlike The Substance, there's no blood--it's all very cartoonish, with heads turning backwards and holes in torsos (as shown in one poster). Alan Silvestri's soundtrack is available on Apple Music.
Streep was last blogged for Don't Look Up, Hawn for Snatched, Willis for Rock the Kasbah, Zemeckis and Silvestri for Welcome to Marwen, and Koepp for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Donovan wrote or co-wrote six other features and a bunch of TV episodes.
The musical stage show, which we saw in June, is good fun, with at least one stunt double getting her own curtain call after a priceless interpretive dance of falling down the stairs. The show won the Tony for Costume Design and was nominated for seven more.
Despite being somewhat of a cult favorite, the movie did not do well in theatres, dying at Rotten Tomatoes' critics' 58% average and only slightly breathing with audiences' 62.
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