Apparently “Sinners,” released around late spring, was one of the big summer movies, only prestigious, y’know. So I decided not to read anything about it, and try to have one of those rare experiences, wherein we can take in a work of art without knowing anything, or much, about it.
I knew it starred Michael B. Jordan, and there were vampires. That’s it.
So I averted my eyes from the headlines that speculated it might be an Oscar contender, although that made me want to watch it more. An Oscar-worthy vampire movie? Count me in. It finally came to HBO a couple weeks ago; Friday was the night to watch.
And, sadly, I was disappointed. It wasn’t that great. Points for locating the vampire plot in a new location (a ’30s juke joint in rural Mississippi). Points for some great music within. But the rest? Meh.
Jordan plays two characters, it turns out: Identical twins. There’s no story reason for making them twins, they could just as easily have been non-twin brothers with a second actor, but oh well. There’s a couple-three references to cunnilingus that suggests the brothers were masters of the art, but again, it didn’t really pertain to the story. I had high hopes the vampire clan, who started out all white, might thematically suggest what white people did to black music of the Mississippi Delta, but he didn’t really explore it. There’s a tacked-on KKK mini-plot that seemed to exist so the audience could get the thrill of watching a while klavern mowed down with a machine gun.
I’m not much for horror, but vampires are at least interesting monsters. These vampires…were not.
In a summer of brutal weather, starvation in Gaza and a full-on assault on American democracy, this doesn’t count as a tragedy. Just a disappointment. But it’s always good to see cunnilingus get a free public service announcement, I guess.
And the brutal weather continued. It’s about 90 as I write this, and will stay that way for two more days.
Also: A man randomly attacked 11 people with a knife in a Traverse City Walmart, which then exposed idiots who cannot use a map and understand that the northern Michigan resort city is not Dearborn, and a suspect by the name of Bradford James Gille is unlikely to be Muslim. In fact, he sounds like one of the many, many mentally ill souls in this country, having self-published a book about his revelation that he is, in fact, Jesus Christ. He hails from Afton, a dot on the map and still a bit of a drive to TC, about 90 miles to be exact.
Good thing the president just signed an E.O. requiring homeless people to be involuntarily committed to the scores of nearly empty mental hospitals that exist throughout this great land, just waiting to be filled. Mr. Gille will be right at home there.