You know what there aren't a lot of? Horror musicals.
Anyway, I watched "Sinners" last night, and enjoyed it more than I expected. My husband and I are currently in a movie-a-night mode after a long stretch of zero movies. Here's a quick review.
Sinners is getting a lot of hype because it was nominated for a record-breaking16 oscars. Of course, with Hollywood quality deteriorating over time, an oscar nomination isn't really what it used to be. There's some oscar-inflation, basically. And there's often a huge disconnect between what critics and insiders like vs what the public likes, especially in this highly polarized environment.
Set in1930s Mississippi, Sinners is a stylized action story about the supernatural. It's one of those elevated type of stories, where there's 1) what's happening at the surface level for entertainment, and 2) what themes those actions are meant to represent. But it didn't get as heavy-handed as I expected. Well-executed themes can deepen the entertainment, whereas heavy-handed or misaligned themes can dampen entertainment, and for me the combo was neutral-to-positive.
The music and the directing/cinematography are truly incredible. Like, outlier masterpiece level, 10 out of 10. There's a huge blues component, and the visuals are just constantly surprisingly good.
My biggest complaint is the action in the third act. That's the only aspect that detracted from its entertainment value for me. Physical fights and gun battles don't work with a consistent set of rules or power scaling. As a result, the fights feel very unrealistic, and the outcomes feel determined by where the plot needs things to go, rather than maintaining the illusion of cause-and-effect (e.g. it distracted me enough to pull me out of the immersion, and I felt the writer's hand strongly at play). Overall fight choreography is like a 4/10 here.
Thus I consider it a flawed masterpiece. Really glad I watched it for its music and visuals and overall plot concept, but was sufficiently distracted by third act details and execution.
Anyway, I watched "Sinners" last night, and enjoyed it more than I expected. My husband and I are currently in a movie-a-night mode after a long stretch of zero movies. Here's a quick review.
Sinners is getting a lot of hype because it was nominated for a record-breaking16 oscars. Of course, with Hollywood quality deteriorating over time, an oscar nomination isn't really what it used to be. There's some oscar-inflation, basically. And there's often a huge disconnect between what critics and insiders like vs what the public likes, especially in this highly polarized environment.
Set in1930s Mississippi, Sinners is a stylized action story about the supernatural. It's one of those elevated type of stories, where there's 1) what's happening at the surface level for entertainment, and 2) what themes those actions are meant to represent. But it didn't get as heavy-handed as I expected. Well-executed themes can deepen the entertainment, whereas heavy-handed or misaligned themes can dampen entertainment, and for me the combo was neutral-to-positive.
The music and the directing/cinematography are truly incredible. Like, outlier masterpiece level, 10 out of 10. There's a huge blues component, and the visuals are just constantly surprisingly good.
My biggest complaint is the action in the third act. That's the only aspect that detracted from its entertainment value for me. Physical fights and gun battles don't work with a consistent set of rules or power scaling. As a result, the fights feel very unrealistic, and the outcomes feel determined by where the plot needs things to go, rather than maintaining the illusion of cause-and-effect (e.g. it distracted me enough to pull me out of the immersion, and I felt the writer's hand strongly at play). Overall fight choreography is like a 4/10 here.
Thus I consider it a flawed masterpiece. Really glad I watched it for its music and visuals and overall plot concept, but was sufficiently distracted by third act details and execution.
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