Benjamin Frisch (1:11)

Exactly.

Sam Sanders (1:11)

And there'll be holes in it and I'll start over again.

Benjamin Frisch (1:13)

That sounds like a great plan for listeners.

Allison Wilmore (1:15)

Sam is wearing a beautiful brown blazer and a black turtleneck.

Richard Lawson (1:20)

Very classy. Yeah, I forget we're not just solely video. So we are gathered here today to talk about sinners. But before we do that, I thought we would catch up with you, Sam, in terms of like how you're feel about this crop, this year's crop of movie, like Oscar nominated movies. Movies in general. How have you found this season? Is it a good one for you?

Sam Sanders (1:38)

I have been overall kind of happy that there hasn't felt as if there's been a big Oscar scandal that sucked out all of the air from Oscar season.

Benjamin Frisch (1:50)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (1:51)

I remember being annoyed by week two of Emilia Perez gate. Like we get it.

Richard Lawson (1:58)

Yeah, yeah.

Sam Sanders (1:59)

That tweets. Can we talk about something else? And I thought that the Marty supreme mini controversy might get bigger. It didn't. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. It feels like a lot of the time in this season has been spent talking about the actual movies and I appreciate that. Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (2:17)

We kept waiting for there to be a more solid Oscar villain because it does feel like that's almost a requirement every year, especially a year like this where we've had a really long Oscar season. There's a lot of time for the tides to again. But it's been, yeah, nice to be like there is not one movie where you're like, I like this movie, but it is the villain this year.

Sam Sanders (2:35)

Totally.

Benjamin Frisch (2:36)

And like, everyone hates it.

Sam Sanders (2:36)

Yeah. And like, I wanted to make Hamnet my Oscar season villain, but in every interview, I am so impressed by Chloe Zhao.

Benjamin Frisch (2:44)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (2:44)

She has a wonderful humanist approach to her work that I love, even if I don't love that film.

Benjamin Frisch (2:51)

Yeah. One thing I have enjoyed is that I keep seeing on focuses like Instagram feed, like, kind of fun Chloe Zhao fans onto Rihanna.

Richard Lawson (3:01)

Let's go.

Sam Sanders (3:01)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (3:02)

I appreciate that. There comes a point in the trudge of events where you're like, even this movie, which is about child death and grief, we have to do a fun one trance out.

Sam Sanders (3:11)

It's all good.

Richard Lawson (3:12)

Yeah. And I feel like with one battle after another, once that dropped on hbo Max, I feel like there was some pushback against that movie. But like you said, it was engaging with the text of the movie. It wasn't about something that an actor did or whatever. So if people don't like every nominated movie, that's fine, but if they're watching it, they're discoursing about it. That's vastly preferable to like, someone made a gaffe and now it's the whole story.

Sam Sanders (3:36)

Exactly.

Richard Lawson (3:36)

Yeah. Yeah. What are your sort of favorites of this kind of this crop?

Sam Sanders (3:40)

It's hard to say because I think I respect the two frontrunners in very distinct ways. I love how one battle as a movie leaves me asking a lot more questions and sinners as a movie leaves me asking none. It is so beautifully fulfilling as a film. And so I. I love them both in different ways. For that reason, I think I am most just thinking, if you're the Oscars, strategically, what are the best wins for your survival and for the industry's survival. We know that they're sweating. They're gonna go to YouTube soon. They get it. The future is here. They aren't there yet. They gotta get there. In terms of picking a best picture winner, what Best picture pick Best sets up the academy and the film industry for just continued butts and seats at theaters. I personally think that by the numbers, the choice that makes the most sense for the longevity of this industry is Sinners. But I know that this choice is not a business decision. It's an artistic decision.

Richard Lawson (4:41)

And so even though definitely there are powers that be behind the scenes who are like, can we make it more of a business decision? Like, you know, I feel like there is a consciousness about that, which is why, you know, they expanded to the 10 Best Picture nominees after the. It was about the dark Knight not getting nominated for Best Picture. Right. And then that got Inception in a couple years later or whatever. So there is that motivation. And I agree with you that sinners, like, for a lot of reasons, would be that pick. But ultimately, I think individual voters are not thinking that way.

Benjamin Frisch (5:08)

I know whenever I read one of the anonymous Oscar ballots and you're like, which.

Sam Sanders (5:12)

They should stop doing those.

Benjamin Frisch (5:13)

No, but I love those.

Sam Sanders (5:13)

Why people keep sitting for them.

Benjamin Frisch (5:14)

It's all so chaotic every time.

Sam Sanders (5:16)

You're like, people know. I know.

Benjamin Frisch (5:18)

They're Oftentimes you're just like, I hate this person. So.

Sam Sanders (5:21)

Yes.

Benjamin Frisch (5:21)

But I.

Allison Wilmore (5:21)

Can you explain what those are? For sure.

Benjamin Frisch (5:23)

So, like, different. Usually the trades. It's. The trades will, like, get. You know, because you're not supposed to go out and be like, here's what I'm voting for. I'm the producer, blah, blah, blah. So, like, they'll do it anonymously, and they'll be like, here's how I'm going to vote, and here's my explanation for why. And sometimes it's like, I thought this was an incredibly important moving film, and sometimes.

Sam Sanders (5:42)

Or the shrimp was cold.

Benjamin Frisch (5:43)

Yeah, exactly. Or like, I got to take a picture, you know, with Robert Downey Jr. After this, and I really like that. So I'm gonna vote for him. You know, like, it's really just like a wild collection of reasoning that you just realize how deeply personal and subjective and, like, and of the moment, like, you're catching someone. But, yeah, I don't know. I love that. I mean, we're recording this now. I think voting just started yesterday, our final voting. So we are just at the start of this final week of voting. It is always a good reminder when you read those, even if they're so infuriating, to be like, those are the people. These are the people. It is not a collective. As much as we talk about them, like, they're this kind of collective mind meld. You're like, no, it's a collection. Bunch of people with weird taste there. Well, and also, it's like, they are.

Sam Sanders (6:27)

A lot of them are just, like, lifelong Angeleno industry folks. And I know those people. They're a little weird. Yeah, they're a little weird. They live in their own world and they don't think like the rest of us.

Benjamin Frisch (6:38)

Right.

Richard Lawson (6:38)

And there's different kinds of weird depending on, like, what part of town they live in, you know, what. What branch of the academy they're in. Yeah. But they're all weird.

Sam Sanders (6:46)

And bless them, love them. Keep making what you Make. But they're weird.

Allison Wilmore (6:49)

Sam. We're a little insulated from LA sort of Hollywood stuff here. Do you interact with film people a lot?

Sam Sanders (6:57)

Many years ago, when I was a news producer, still, I got to cover the Oscars, I want to say, two or three times, and I would always just, like, sneak on the red carpet and look around. Now, most of my coverage, a lot of the nominees will come to me to be interviewed. So we actually this season got a bunch of folks from Sinners. We got that costume designer, Ruth E. Carter, who's a legend. We got Raphael Siddiq, who wrote the song that sets up the big musical montage, and Sinners. So I've been in conversation a lot with folks around the art of that film. But in general, there was a phase of my career where I tried to go to the FYC events. Now I, like, avoid them. I avoid them because I want to watch the movie in a way that will allow me to watch it as a citizen and then talk about it with real people. So I would much rather see the nominees in a theater and then talk to a friend. Friend about them. When I go to these FYCs, I'm just like, what is up? What is down? Who's. Who's. Who's, like, zooming me right now. Who's playing me fully?

Benjamin Frisch (7:58)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (7:59)

I don't even vote, and I'm like, who's playing me?

Richard Lawson (8:00)

And I find that sometimes those fyc, you know, sort of fancy screenings where they, like, feed you and there's drinks afterward, whatever, sometimes it. Maybe it does sway me toward that movie. But just as often I'm like, ugh. Like, I'm put off by it.

Benjamin Frisch (8:14)

Whereas.

Richard Lawson (8:15)

So if you see it more in a vacuum or your own context, you can see it. Yeah.

Sam Sanders (8:18)

More purely, I guess I was at 1 years ago. I forget what Amy Adams vehicle it was, but she had to be at the.

Richard Lawson (8:26)

I mean, take your picture, right? She had a lot.

Sam Sanders (8:28)

She's one of them. And I remember her just, like, standing there at the. Afterwards, like, the handshaking time. She just looked so sad. Not sad. Bored.

Benjamin Frisch (8:36)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (8:36)

And I went over and, like, shook her head, and she was like, hi. And I was just. I felt her emoting. I don't want to have to be here. And I feel like all of them feel that way, especially as these seasons get longer and longer. Like, who enjoys the Oscar campaign?

Benjamin Frisch (8:49)

Well, I think that's the thing is, like, there becomes this point where what carries someone through is your stamina to just be acting. Glad to Glad hand with people months

Sam Sanders (8:59)

in and the performance of gratitude. I remember when a lot of the actors who were in everything everywhere all at once were on the circuit. They almost, by the end of it, could cry on cue. Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (9:12)

Oh, yeah. Because they have all the stories about the people, and so.

Richard Lawson (9:18)

And you have to be careful about that. I mean, look, it didn't harm everything everywhere. They won everything.

Sam Sanders (9:21)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (9:22)

But, like, I remember, maybe it sticks out for me, for whatever reason, but when Kate Winslet was going through her, like, awards year with. She had two movies. She had Revolutionary Road and the Reader, she kind of kept flipping between those two and ultimately won for the Reader that by the time she won the Oscar, people were like, oh, are you surprised? Come on. Like, like. And it's a different thing, you know, winning an Oscar versus winning a SAG or whatever, but you have to kind of calibrate that surprise and enthusiasm to kind of build the build. Yeah. And I don't think she was doing that.

Sam Sanders (9:50)

Yeah, well.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (9:50)

And.

Sam Sanders (9:51)

And I want to say, y' all might have discussed it on this show or one of the shows that I listened to in this awards industrial complex. They were like, oh, yeah. This season, Chalamet has pulled, like, a really interesting sleight of hand.

Benjamin Frisch (10:04)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (10:04)

Because, you know, for the earlier part of his press tour, he was performing online troll, if not white kid with the black scent hanging at the cool kids table. And then all of a sudden, he turned it around and was like, the grateful young earnest artist. Shout out to the code switch.

Benjamin Frisch (10:22)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (10:23)

But I noticed.

Richard Lawson (10:24)

I was like, okay, it's like a concert. He's doing costume changes.

Benjamin Frisch (10:27)

Yeah, right, right. Or just, you know, when you're doing multiple characters in One man show, and

Richard Lawson (10:31)

then you're suddenly like that.

Benjamin Frisch (10:34)

Yep, exactly.

Richard Lawson (10:35)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (10:35)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (10:36)

And in so doing, I think, has not tired people out as much. You know, I keep.

Sam Sanders (10:40)

I keep watching.

Benjamin Frisch (10:40)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (10:41)

It's interesting.

Benjamin Frisch (10:41)

He also, like, he has maintained a bit of aloofness, which I think is very canny. You know, even when he is doing these outrageous stunts, there's like, a bit of remove that I think he understands. Like, to be a movie star now, it is helpful to still retain whatever the very contemporary version of having a

Sam Sanders (10:58)

little bit of aloofness and some mystery around it.

Benjamin Frisch (11:00)

Yeah, yeah.

Sam Sanders (11:01)

A mystery.

Benjamin Frisch (11:01)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (11:02)

And I would hope in terms of, like, the long campaign trail, that because sinners came out, you know, I mean, like almost a year ago at this point, it was like nine months ago, that they had little downtime maybe, and then could kind of reunite, you know, in the fall and be like, oh, how was your summer? You know, well, went pretty well, I guess so. Yeah. I mean, I think that that may be a credit to like a couple movies, like everything everywhere that come out a bit earlier in the season. Then you kind of get a reprieve and then have that new energy too.

Benjamin Frisch (11:29)

But like, we used to assume that that was impossible. You can't do that. You have to do fall. You have to start at one of the. Ideally one of the fall festivals or just have a premiere then. And then you just follow the plan. You build from there. The idea of being like you came out in the spring, which actually now has been. Not that it's not unusual. It feels like we're seeing a new, I don't know, a new rhythms for how you can do that award campaign. We've kind of broken the old, like,

Sam Sanders (11:58)

plan of like awards and Sinners has broken so many of the old plan, so many parts of the old plan. Like, it is a horror film, but it's a serious best picture contender. That rarely happens. Although I think one could argue the extent to which Sinners is a horror film. We'll talk more about it later. But watching it back, I said this might just be an action movie with vampires, which, fine, but is it horror? That said, I feel like in spite of the length of the Sinner's awards season, all of the big moments in the awards season for that movie have come externally, not internally. I remember the first moment in which everyone said, we need to have an Oscar chat about this movie was in the backlash to the skeptical coverage of the film's first week box office take. And then now I've seen another renewed kind of conversation about the way this film, this type of film, a black film made by black people, how it moves in this world after the bafta, Tourette's incident. And so, so much of the ways in which the community is considering sinners. It's like these external things that are happening, which is. I kind of like it. Everything about Sinners in this award season is making Hollywood as an enterprise asks some hard questions of itself. Namely, are we the vampires? Sure, I'm here for it.

Benjamin Frisch (13:17)

Yeah.

Allison Wilmore (13:18)

Can we rewind a little bit to remind everybody what happened when Sinners came out?

Richard Lawson (13:24)

Yeah. So basically at that time there was this speculate that the two heads of Warner Brothers, you know, who were working under David Zaslav, were like rumored to about to be.

Sam Sanders (13:34)

Wait, if Sinners gets best Picture, does Zaslav get a win too?

Richard Lawson (13:38)

No, I don't think he has a producer credit on it, okay?

Benjamin Frisch (13:40)

So he's not gonna be a fucking idiot.

Richard Lawson (13:42)

Maybe they can put the trophy in their. The lobby or whatever. It doesn't go on his desk. But basically, like, he was unhappy. You know, they were spending too much on movies, whatever. And then people looked at the slate and they said, like, I don't know, this like vampire movie from the Black Panther guy, is that gonna make much money these days? No one's going to theaters. And then one after the one after the other, starting with, I guess the Minecraft movie. Warner Brothers just started having hit after hit, but it was a little bit later that the press caught up to that. So when the movie was coming out, there was all of this doubt about whether or not this movie would do well, you know, for all these various reasons. And when the movie was a massive hit, people were like, wait, why were you counting this out?

Sam Sanders (14:23)

Well, and there were headlines after that first amazing box office weekend. I think it was like 40 something million dollars it made and did well internationally too. Which folks say a black film can't do it.

Richard Lawson (14:33)

Right.

Sam Sanders (14:34)

A lot of the headlines ended in question marks. Is this really enough? Is this big enough? I think I was most offended by an episode of the Town, a show which I love, where Franklin Leonard of the blacklist had to basically school Matt Bellany and say, everything about the way you're talking about this movie reveals some problems on your end, not the movie's end. Right. And I think that the reaction to that and the ways in which the trades had to change their tune. I felt like that was when the Oscars race for sinners began in earnest.

Richard Lawson (15:19)

David, this episode, don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend. This episode's brought to you by Mubi.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (15:26)

Yawn. Just kidding.

Richard Lawson (15:28)

Comfortable? Sure. We love them.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (15:31)

They are a global film company, champions great cinema, iconic directors, emerging auteurs. Always something new to discover with Mubi. Each and every film hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema. Nothing more to say, I guess.

Sam Sanders (15:43)

Wrong.

Richard Lawson (15:46)

There's a new film coming to theaters. Yep.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (15:49)

Movie theaters February 13th. The first Nigerian film ever in official competition.

Sam Sanders (15:54)

Again, that's pretty wild.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (15:55)

This is a film by Akanola Davis called My Father's Shadow is BAFTA nominated poetic, tender portrait of a father son Bond framed within the political landscape of 1993. Lagos in Nigeria. It is about a father and two young sons as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, reckoning their relationship, navigating the city that's in the Middle of a democratic crisis. Written by real life brothers Akanola Davis Jr. And Wally Davis.

Benjamin Frisch (16:27)

Love it.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (16:27)

Brothers co wrote this groundbreaking feature debut. And you've got Sofie Derisu. Oh. From Slow Horses. I love him. I hope I'm saying his name right, but he's a really good actor and he's the star. It's worth seeing. It's in theaters. It's crazy to go to a theater.

Richard Lawson (16:44)

It's in theaters. We love that MUBI puts Mubies in theaters before ultimately ending up on their wonderful platform. Dang.

Sam Sanders (16:54)

Right?

Richard Lawson (16:54)

I'm just looking at some of the stuff they got right now. Die, my love. Of course.

Benjamin Frisch (16:58)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (16:58)

An important watch. A necessary watch for any blankie. La Graza La Grazia, the new Paolo Sorrentino movie which I missed in theaters. Good moment to catch up with it. The great shall we Dance?

Allison Wilmore (17:10)

Oh. The classic.

Richard Lawson (17:12)

The original.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (17:12)

Oh, my goodness. That's fun. Like a restoration.

Sam Sanders (17:15)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (17:15)

And look what they. They got a collection called Heartthrob. Nicolas Cage. It's young, Dreamy Cage.

Sam Sanders (17:22)

Wow. Still dreamy to me.

Richard Lawson (17:23)

Hey, you're very open hearted.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (17:26)

Anyway, to stream the best of cinema, you can try MUBI free for 30 days@mubee.com blankcheck that's M U B I.com blankcheck for a whole month of great cinema for free. And then go see my father's shadow in theaters, please. Thank you for listening.

Richard Lawson (17:39)

Thank you.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (17:40)

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Richard Lawson (17:41)

Thank you. Very kind.

Sam Sanders (17:49)

Marty supreme may ish make his money back. But as soon as that movie did. Okay. Over the holiday season, some of the trades called Timothee Chalamet. The King of Christmas.

Benjamin Frisch (17:58)

Yeah. You remember that?

Sam Sanders (17:59)

Sure.

Richard Lawson (18:00)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, he did kill Santa Claus, so he is technically the King of Christmas.

Benjamin Frisch (18:04)

That's a weird portion of his Wikipedia when he's gonna dive deep into that.

Sam Sanders (18:08)

I cut you off. I'm sorry.

Benjamin Frisch (18:09)

Oh, I was gonna say this. We should also touch on like the unusual and like, kind of like not first of its kind, but like very, very rare deal that Ryan Coogler made.

Sam Sanders (18:18)

Right.

Richard Lawson (18:18)

For this film.

Sam Sanders (18:19)

He gets the rights to it in

Benjamin Frisch (18:20)

25 years negotiating for the rights. Like when there was like a bidding war for the rights. Right. It was final cut. He won a final cut. And then, yes. The ownership reverts to him in 25 years. Which is like, just not something that you see a lot of filmmakers being able.

Sam Sanders (18:33)

But also.

Benjamin Frisch (18:34)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (18:35)

When I was talking about that.

Benjamin Frisch (18:36)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (18:37)

With friends of mine from Texas, where I'm from.

Benjamin Frisch (18:39)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (18:39)

And I was like, this is a new thing.

Benjamin Frisch (18:41)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (18:41)

My friends are like, well, shouldn't it always be that way?

Benjamin Frisch (18:44)

Right, Exactly.

Sam Sanders (18:44)

Shouldn't it always be that way?

Benjamin Frisch (18:46)

Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Sanders (18:46)

So, yeah, I mean, it's shout out to Ryan Coogler to getting the industry to a place that one would have assumed it could have been at decades earlier.

Benjamin Frisch (18:56)

Right. I mean, you have to become one of this, like a like, very small group of like, very powerful filmmakers to apparently pull off what feels like a deal that should be available to filmmakers all over the place. You know, this is your. Especially when you're like, this is your intellectual property. Right.

Sam Sanders (19:10)

A new idea he wrote with his wife. Like, come on.

Richard Lawson (19:14)

And you know the fact that like, whoever was giving him that deal was, like looking at his. Right. Like, so. Well, you've only directed Black Panther. It's a successful sequel. Directed or produced three really box office hit boxing movies.

Sam Sanders (19:28)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (19:28)

Like, it's like, that should have been an easy. Yes, totally. He doesn't. Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (19:33)

But I do think that part of that kind of like the trade that kind of like.

Sam Sanders (19:37)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (19:37)

Was like rooted a bit and being like, oh, and you want this deal?

Sam Sanders (19:40)

How dare you.

Benjamin Frisch (19:41)

You know?

Sam Sanders (19:41)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (19:41)

There was a bit of like, this is not how things work.

Sam Sanders (19:43)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (19:44)

This is not how we do business.

Sam Sanders (19:45)

And it is very. Whether you mean it or not, when you're making that kind of statement, this is not how it works. You have to understand that the way that those opinions are perceived is informed by the race of everybody involved. Sure, it is. You know, and I think a lot of folks at the end of this Oscars campaign season compared to at the start of it, they've had a Little Bias Training 101 dealing with this movie and how we talk about it. And you know what? Good for them. Learn some lessons. Learn something from this.

Richard Lawson (20:20)

Well, and there was also when the kind of gaze on the movie was like, okay, we admit it, it is a huge hit. Well, okay, is it an awards movie? Part of the reason some people doubted that it might be was that, well, Warner Brothers has this big Paul Thomas Anderson movie coming in a few months and that clearly.

Sam Sanders (20:36)

Biggest Sinners.

Richard Lawson (20:37)

Well, exactly. But I do think that, and I don't want to give credit where it's undue, but like, someone on that side of things did manage to successfully run both of those campaigns.

Sam Sanders (20:48)

And they don't seem to be fighting. No, like, everyone's compliment.

Richard Lawson (20:51)

It's. It's a rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing. And that behind them, the studio is in this crazy disarray in Terms of

Sam Sanders (20:58)

they're probably guaranteed a best picture in this studio. One of them will most and it

Richard Lawson (21:02)

might be their last ever. We don't.

Benjamin Frisch (21:04)

I know.

Richard Lawson (21:04)

That's the thing.

Sam Sanders (21:05)

We're.

Benjamin Frisch (21:05)

We're as we're recording this. Paramount has just seemingly won and beat out Netflix in terms of acquiring this like, kind of like battle to acquire Warner Brothers. At least they have made what has been declared the better offer and Netflix has declined to counter, AKA the one

Richard Lawson (21:22)

that Trump doesn't want to kill.

Benjamin Frisch (21:24)

Right. And you know, this whole thing has

Sam Sanders (21:26)

felt like a real Susan Rice is

Richard Lawson (21:29)

involved for some reason.

Sam Sanders (21:30)

There's a lot going on.

Benjamin Frisch (21:31)

I mean, you have like, yeah, like Trump, like putting his thumb on the scales and you also have Netflix being like, sure, we'll keep putting movies out in theaters. Like, we won't put it on paper, but we definitely.

Richard Lawson (21:43)

Did you say theater or theater is the next.

Benjamin Frisch (21:46)

So, like watching this whole thing, you just feel like whatever happens here, the consolidation is going to be bad news for.

Sam Sanders (21:54)

And will this new company post merger be more or less likely to greenlight a film like Sinners?

Allison Wilmore (22:01)

So as you said, Oscar voting has started. Do events like this affect voting or have they. Do we have any way of knowing that?

Richard Lawson (22:09)

My hunch would be if there is an effect on Sinners in specific, I think it would only be positive because I think, like you're saying it's a great economic story for the Academy, for the industry. People genuinely love that movie. It got the most nominations. Like, and I think if they think it's facing unfair headwinds because of corporate stuff happening. I mean, most of the academy and there are a lot of producers in it, but it's a lot of artists, you know, not the producers aren't artists, but like, you know, you know, they are creative producers are anyway. But like, I think that there's enough sort of narrative in there about, yes, the film itself and what the film itself is saying, but also what it's kind of the economy around that film is saying that people would want to champion it even, even more because it. Yeah. It's the future of movies. Like, it seems to be in jeopardy.

Sam Sanders (22:52)

Yeah, Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (22:53)

I also, I mean, it feels like Warner Brothers is going to walk away with Best Picture, however it goes. Right. And I feel like for Minecraft.

Richard Lawson (23:01)

For Minecraft, a write in as the

Benjamin Frisch (23:04)

first write in winner. But like, I feel like there are, however, people, you know, and they make this like, connection in their head. They're both stories that feel like they're going against the grain of like, this inevitable push towards like, you know, even more and more corporatized IP driven media. Like, to be like, oh, these are like, too autoric. They are movies that are made with like, these intensely personal visions that audiences have responded to. And. Yeah. That's what you think would solve all of Hollywood's problems. Right. Like, this is what we're asking for. And of course, instead, like, everything's crumbling in the background, like just walking away from the explosion. Right. But at least for now, we have this big last hurrah of celebrating these movies.

Richard Lawson (23:52)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (23:52)

As the structures that make them.

Richard Lawson (23:54)

Yeah. Our executive producer Griffin had a great line about it where he was like, it feels like they're planning both a birthday party and a funeral for the same night, you know, because it's like, this could be the end of this thing or the beginning of a new. Of a renewed era of big, robust studio films with something to say like, that make money.

Sam Sanders (24:10)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (24:11)

Winning awards.

Allison Wilmore (24:12)

I'm excited to see Barry Weiss as Wonder Woman.

Sam Sanders (24:15)

What?

Richard Lawson (24:16)

Wait, is this. No, no. If Paramount were to buy Warner Brothers. Yeah. They'll do some synergy and Nelly Bowles will play somebody and you know. Oh, God. But yeah, I think regardless of how Sinners performs in a couple Sundays from now, like, it is one of the huge success stories of the year, I think it will perform well.

Sam Sanders (24:38)

We were saying there's no way it can't nomination.

Benjamin Frisch (24:41)

Yeah, that's it. Let's get a record breaking.

Richard Lawson (24:42)

Well, tells Scorsese that because he's walked in with 11 nominations, I am on

Benjamin Frisch (24:47)

the record as saying, like. Like right before the nominations, I was feeling like this like, entirely vibes based, like, oh, I'm worried about Sinners. And then it went on to do. So my vibes radar is clearly off. But like, yes. You never know. Like, I feel like again, you're dealing with this mysterious.

Sam Sanders (25:02)

Although I would put money on Ludwig.

Richard Lawson (25:07)

Oh, Ludwig Goranson.

Sam Sanders (25:08)

He's getting that Oscar. How do you not give it to that man?

Richard Lawson (25:11)

I feel like he's also very handsome.

Benjamin Frisch (25:13)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (25:13)

Oh, I need.

Benjamin Frisch (25:14)

That is what is important. I feel like I can see a world also where best Picture and best Director split, you know. And you know, Ryan Coogler has had to, of course, then answer this question so many times from like, various.

Sam Sanders (25:31)

He's got a pretty face. I'm not sure.

Benjamin Frisch (25:33)

It's not entirely sold.

Sam Sanders (25:34)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (25:36)

Honestly, it depends. I just remember seeing what he won for the. For something.

Benjamin Frisch (25:40)

Yes.

Richard Lawson (25:40)

And I saw on the stage and I was like, oh, hello.

Sam Sanders (25:43)

He's got great hair. Yeah, yeah. He wrote this Is America, the Chacha Gambino song.

Richard Lawson (25:47)

Did he?

Sam Sanders (25:47)

Yeah, he did.

Richard Lawson (25:47)

Oh, multifaceted. But, yes, I think you're right, Allison. There could be a split. I think that Paul Thomas Anderson is, like, gonna win Best Director. I think that Coogler probably will win screenplay. And then it's a matter of, like, which one takes Best Picture. But it will walk away with awards for sure.

Sam Sanders (26:01)

Oh, yeah.

Allison Wilmore (26:02)

So you mentioned that this has been a long campaign. Yes, but I guess this is in two phases. Right before nominations are announced, you've got people kind of campaigning in a, like, please notice us sort of way. And then after the nominations come out, you sort of campaign formally. But are there specific rules or ways that you play that that are different?

Richard Lawson (26:24)

I mean, phase two, which they call post nominations, you know, in the campaigning biz that you'll see a lot of movies then sort of start to take on a different message. Like, the Secret Agent has kind of a new tagline in its campaigning. So does sense of value. I don't have it on the tip of my tongue, but it's something.

Sam Sanders (26:45)

This movie's kind of confusing.

Richard Lawson (26:47)

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Sanders (26:48)

Bless it.

Richard Lawson (26:49)

It's actually a poster with just, like, a small font description of what happened in the movie. No, but, like, you know, the Imitation Game Year after they got the nominations, the campaign became, you know, honor the man, honor the film. So they start to try to. Nora was Dream big. No, no, that's Marty's room. Nora was like, choose Love or something like that. They try to condense the messaging of the movie into something that's really sellable. I don't think Sinners really needs to.

Sam Sanders (27:13)

Well, Sinners is like, don't be the vampire.

Richard Lawson (27:15)

Right, Right. Like, it has its own thing.

Sam Sanders (27:17)

You know what to do.

Richard Lawson (27:18)

There's also, like. Like, don't scare the chickens. You know, like, they've all come together around your movie now. You only have a few more weeks. Don't get them to run away from you. You know, don't put a foot wrong. And I don't think that Sinners is in danger of that.

Sam Sanders (27:30)

No. Well, this is also what I've been noticing with everyone that's on the campaign trail for that movie one, they've got them all out. They're all out. And all of them are so incredibly poised. Yeah, yeah. They, like. They're not slipping. They're not tripping. They know how to do it. They look good. They sound good. Like, that whole operation feels like, to the extent a movie's campaign for Oscars can be a well run ship, is that fair to say? I don't know. They've got it together.

Richard Lawson (27:56)

Yeah. No, I think that there's a sleekness to it that it probably began with just a well run production on set that then kind of carries through and it's a nice mix of first time nominees and people who've been to the party many times before. And so it's just. Yeah, I'm impressed by what they've done and I don't know when my doubt about it being an Oscar movie went away, but it was pretty early on, I think in the whole story of that because it just seemed like it had that juice.

Sam Sanders (28:23)

Yeah. Well, it is interesting seeing sinners do it all with all of their top line folks and comparing that to one battle and I'm just like, where is Sean Penn?

Benjamin Frisch (28:35)

Where is smoking Catholic on clothes?

Sam Sanders (28:38)

But like they're not doing the circuit, which fine, I don't believe in the circuit personally but like this is what we have to do. They're the big names in that film aren't doing as much.

Allison Wilmore (28:46)

Which.

Sam Sanders (28:47)

Fine. Right.

Benjamin Frisch (28:47)

Yeah. I mean I feel like also. Well, I'm sure they're like, they just don't want to put Sean Penn out there that much. And then they're like, you have Leo. I mean Leo I don't think was ever a frontrunner in the in for really. I just don't think. Yeah, I mean like we've been talking a lot about how at this point we feel like you have Timmy and then Wagner Mora like really coming up behind and like if there is an upset, like he would be my guest. But Leo is also just like he's not someone who wants to put himself out there a lot.

Sam Sanders (29:13)

And also everyone is like, he's got it. He's good. He has his award.

Benjamin Frisch (29:16)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (29:17)

No one feels the need to give this guy an award because he needs this one.

Benjamin Frisch (29:21)

Exactly.

Richard Lawson (29:22)

Yeah. There are too many photos of him on yachts and fog. Moore is doing a smart thing where at these FYC parties if you ask nicely, he'll softly whisper the explain the plot of the movie in your ear.

Sam Sanders (29:31)

How long does it take?

Richard Lawson (29:33)

Well, as long as you want, but yeah, I mean I think that like if we want to get into the movie a little bit first also like touch briefly on.

Benjamin Frisch (29:43)

I feel like you brought up the idea of like how much of a horror movie is. I think like, like it is an interesting question because like part of the, you know, the one of the challenges that has been put forth towards sinners Is that genre movies? Well, like specific genres. Right. Like mostly like horror, sci fi, like they can get nominated, but we still tend to see them getting like technical awards. More like there's this idea that they're not as. As serious or somehow they're not like they don't quite fit within the rubric of an Oscar movie.

Sam Sanders (30:12)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (30:13)

So there have been 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, I think films nominated that fought like horror films. So we have the Exorcist, Jaws, if you count Jaws, which I would. Silence of the Lambs, the Six Sense, Black Swan, if you count that, which I think is get out and the substance. One of those is one.

Sam Sanders (30:36)

Do you know Silence of the Lambs?

Richard Lawson (30:37)

Which by the way came out February of its year. So it was. It won the best picture Oscar over a year after it came out.

Benjamin Frisch (30:43)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (30:44)

So rare story there. Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (30:46)

But like not a genre that. A genre that's had to really fight for that, the win.

Richard Lawson (30:51)

But also because Silence of the Lambs has overlap where it's also a police or FBI procedural, which like the 70s, they were given a best picture to French Connection and stuff like that.

Benjamin Frisch (30:59)

Right, right. There's no element of the supernatural in it, which is like the test, unless

Richard Lawson (31:03)

you count the performance. Performance.

Sam Sanders (31:05)

Otherworldly.

Benjamin Frisch (31:08)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (31:08)

Yeah. My biggest genre question of Sinners is actually like, what genre is it? Yeah, I am not sure it's a full throated horror film. I think it's more of an action movie. Yalls colleague and one of my favorite critics, Angelica Jade Bastian, in her review, she said that the movie is always a little bit afraid to lean into the full horror of it all. There are moments that are gory and disgusting in the way that like vampire body horror should be. But like the pure jump scare horror feeling that you think you get a lot in a horror movie, you don't get a lot of it in this one.

Benjamin Frisch (31:42)

No.

Sam Sanders (31:43)

And so for me it's like, is this a horror movie? Is this an action movie? Is this a race movie? Is this a musical? I mean, is it in some parts, when it's really being earnest about race and history, Is it a little bit After School Special? I like that. I love that School Special. But yeah, this movie, the longer I sit with it and the more I rewatch it, I'm like, it's not a horror movie, but that's okay.

Richard Lawson (32:06)

Yeah. I think that the question of is it a horror movie? Like, when I first saw it, I was like, well, he kind of really rushes. Like he takes 40 minutes before you Even really get to like, you see Jack o' Connell the first time.

Sam Sanders (32:18)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (32:18)

And then, you know, you have the music in the barn and all that and then the violent stuff happens incredibly quickly and then it's kind of over just as quickly.

Benjamin Frisch (32:26)

It's like half an hour, I think, or less.

Richard Lawson (32:28)

And at first I was like, is that a failure? Does maybe Coogler, for all of his talents, not really have a keen command of horror. But then rewatching it, I was like, oh, I don't think that's what he's intending it to be.

Sam Sanders (32:40)

And he's talked about the impetus for making the film. It was about his uncle who was a blues musician. I think this movie at its emotional core is a drama about the relationship between black music, the sacred and the secular. This is a music movie.

Richard Lawson (32:58)

Right.

Sam Sanders (32:58)

And so to make it also function and be okay as a horror vehicle, as a vampire vehicle, as a period piece, it speaks more to his skill than to maybe his lack of focus.

Richard Lawson (33:10)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (33:10)

I think that there, somewhere in Here is a 90 minute movie that is leaner and has fewer moving parts and is more one thing. But I'm okay with what this is.

Benjamin Frisch (33:20)

Yeah. Yeah. I love how many ideas it's filled with and like the fact that it is. It pulls from different genres. I would agree. I don't think it is really a horror movie. I don't think. He seems to have a lot of interest in that aspect of like, you know, like when the vampires do appear, he deliberately cuts away from. Right. Like every time when you have, you know, like a character like is walking back and then you see Jack o' Connell's character, like leap up into the air and then it cuts.

Sam Sanders (33:45)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (33:45)

With Kelly Steinfeld.

Sam Sanders (33:46)

Yeah, exactly.

Benjamin Frisch (33:47)

Like you, he cuts away from a lot of the things that you would expect of like the Scare.

Sam Sanders (33:51)

Yeah. I also just wanted more of Jack o' Connell's character.

Benjamin Frisch (33:53)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (33:54)

A little more backstory. He's so good.

Benjamin Frisch (33:56)

He is very good.

Sam Sanders (33:56)

He's so good.

Benjamin Frisch (33:57)

He's always been really good. You remember when there was that moment where you were like, oh, he's going to be the next big star.

Sam Sanders (34:01)

He's the one.

Benjamin Frisch (34:01)

And then he kind of like. It didn't quite work out well.

Richard Lawson (34:04)

He went the. He was like, okay, character actor route. That's what I'm gonna go.

Benjamin Frisch (34:07)

Good character.

Sam Sanders (34:08)

He's too pretty to be a character,

Richard Lawson (34:13)

sadly.

Benjamin Frisch (34:13)

I like him being this kind of unsettling.

Sam Sanders (34:15)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (34:15)

Like. Like I feel like he looks well for that, but. Yeah. I mean, I do feel like for me the part of the movie that kind of like drops me out of it a bit is when it gets into the action, I think, because it's so much less interesting to me than the kind of incredibly, like, rich dynamics that it's setting up before. It's a resolution. Like, I mean, it's not quite the resolution, but it is a kind of like a resolution that like, feels to me less interesting than everything that came before, you know?

Sam Sanders (34:45)

Well, and I feel like so much of Ryan Coogler's work, if I had to put like a North Star or a mission statement on, is trying to have anyone who views this movie to begin to respect and understand the ways in which you do not have an America or Western culture without black people. His movies are asking Americans to look at blackness and understand its importance to the lives that, that all of us live today. And those are the most interesting parts of Sinners. For me, the horror is secondary. The vampires are cute, but secondary. But like, when this movie is dealing with race, very few filmmakers can make a race movie that's also a blockbuster. And that is when Ryan's in his bag. I think same with the Black Panther films. Like, he made a race movie, two of them. Like these really progressive films on ideas of race. Also blockbusters.

Benjamin Frisch (35:43)

I mean, that's. I. I thought Creed should have won best Picture. Like, I love Creed. Like, I think it's incredible and I think one of the, the best aspects of it, beyond just that it's such a good boxing movie. Like the kind where you want to like, cheer and cry a few actions. Yeah, like, like in the kind of final fight are the ways in which it uses like the original, like, text of Rocky to then kind of subvert and critique Jet, like also with a lot of obvious affection as well, to like critique the kind of racial dynamics of that movie and the ways in which this character is held up basically as like the great white hope without him ever acknowledging it, you know, like, it really like overturns that and is like incredibly so thoughtful in how it interrogates that original material. I think.

Sam Sanders (36:26)

Yeah, he makes these race films that don't you go in not knowing that you're going to get a lesson. And I like that.

Richard Lawson (36:36)

And like, you know, and it's. There's also a class politics to sinners that like the Jack o' Connell character being like, look, we're all fucking under the thumb of like, you know, the, you know, the hierarchy and there's a sort of anti capitalist thing happening where it's like, you know, he has this kind of currency. We should honor it because he worked really hard. Like, you know, why do we have to subscribe to this one system that's been imposed upon us? You know? And to get that also in a big studio blockbuster is like, Wait, is this kind of, like. Like a socialist movement?

Sam Sanders (37:07)

Right?

Richard Lawson (37:07)

Like, yeah, but it also.

Benjamin Frisch (37:08)

It is. I mean, you have these different points of view, right? Like, you have, like, smoke really being like, the only thing that counts is power, and power comes through money. And it's fully being like, this may not be a fair or at all workable system, like, in the way. In the position I've been put in it and the way it works for me as a black man in 1932, but. But it is still the only route towards power I see. I've been around the world, I've seen everything else. And, like, that is the only way. And I, like, the movie has a lot of ambivalence towards that, but it's also. He's not wrong. Like, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think one of the things that is so interesting to me about this movie, but also that I feel still, like I'm still working it out, are the ways in which the vampires offer this image. Right. Of, like, collectivism. Oh, yeah, right. They end up, like.

Sam Sanders (37:57)

They end up in this, like, multiracial dance circle.

Benjamin Frisch (37:59)

Exactly. And they're like, should I be on that side? And they're like, kindness and love. Like, that's literally like fellowship, Right? We're offering you fellowship. But also they're like, we're gonna kill you. We're gonna come and kill you first.

Sam Sanders (38:08)

It almost feels like. It feels vaguely similar to the stakes of Pluribus.

Benjamin Frisch (38:14)

Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Lawson (38:14)

Fully.

Sam Sanders (38:15)

We're the bad guys, but we've made utopia. But it's all good. Yeah.

Richard Lawson (38:19)

You have to lose yourself in order to sort of, you know, become this new thing. Or I guess Jack o' Connell would say it's an ascension, but maybe we wouldn't see it that way. But, yeah, I mean, he is arguing that there is no perfect, seamless way into this other thing. You know, there's gonna be pain involved. Yeah, well.

Sam Sanders (38:37)

And, you know, just talking through these ideas present in the film, it felt so much easier to pinpoint exactly what those beats were and those points were. I remember leaving one battle after another and saying, did I forget what they were like, blowing this stuff up over? Do I remember what it was? Because, like, at the first, was it about. Is it climate? Is it immigration? That film felt Political in a very ambiguous way. Sinners felt political in an incredibly direct and pointed way. He wants you to know what he's talking about. And I didn't feel that kind of certainty with some of this stuff happening in One Battle. I don't know.

Benjamin Frisch (39:16)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (39:17)

Which again, might be kind of the point. It's sort of this pinch in sort of abstraction. It's not supposed to be. It's not supposed to represent one activist group. But, yeah, that was one of the big criticism of One Battle. When that movie started getting backlash was like, from an activist perspective.

Sam Sanders (39:31)

What are we activating?

Richard Lawson (39:32)

Yeah, this is all over the place. Like, what are they trying to pinpoint?

Allison Wilmore (39:35)

I think that Sinners. It sort of obscures its metaphor in a good way, in part by not making the white supremacists who do figure into the movie significantly. They aren't the vampires. They're not the vampires. Whereas, like, the sort of very obvious metaphor would be to make them the vampires.

Benjamin Frisch (39:52)

Yeah, yeah.

Richard Lawson (39:53)

They're the record labels.

Benjamin Frisch (39:55)

Yeah. But it also, like. I mean, I think there is, like. Right. That, like, obvious kind of like the. Yes. Like the. The record labels, the industry. The idea of kind of like corporate assimilation and, you know, the first time.

Richard Lawson (40:08)

And film studios, I would assume.

Benjamin Frisch (40:09)

Exactly.

Richard Lawson (40:10)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (40:11)

The first time I watched the movie, I was very much like, oh, this is. Yes. Like, kind of so much about corporate assimilation and also, like, corporate diversity. You know, like corporate diversity speak. But then rewatching it, I was like, I feel like it's made. It's meant to be more. Much more slippery than that. Like, to the point where I was almost especially. And we can wait till after spoiler warnings to talk about the coda. Like, to the point where I was like, oh, I feel like even he feels a little, like, not quite settled on where he stands with the vampires because, you know, like, I like. He has cited. I think it's called the Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank, which is like a Twilight Zone episode, as, like, one of his major influences. And it's this. It's like an episode that is about a guy. It's in the 1920s, a guy who dies and then comes back to life. And he doesn't seem to have a pulse, but he seems otherwise really normal. And the town folk are, like, unsure about whether they should. Like, he's like, yeah, like a vampire or someone. The undead come back and they're, like, going to kind of like they're all gathering around to deal with this evil, and he gets. Gives a speech about how they shouldn't be afraid of him and he should be allowed to remarry, like, marry his fiance. But there's also this sense that he is different. He seems to have supernatural powers. So it's slippery. You're not sure where to stand with this character. And I do feel like you are kept shifting constantly with regard to the vampires throughout the movie. In the beginning, they're really frightening. And then you're kind of like, okay, but what are they offering? Everyone who gets turned is like, this is great, aside from the fact that

Richard Lawson (41:43)

I was horribly, horribly murdered.

Benjamin Frisch (41:45)

But then you're like, have they lost themselves? Are they really soulless?

Sam Sanders (41:49)

And then for a second, the most likable, enjoyable, viscerally engaging character on the screen is Hailee Seinfeld. Yeah. Like, oh, give me. She, like, really spinoff for her.

Benjamin Frisch (42:01)

Yeah, I know.

Sam Sanders (42:01)

She's like, all of that.

Benjamin Frisch (42:02)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Richard Lawson (42:04)

I mean, I think the Hailee Steinfeld, if we want to segue into a different part of the film or is like. Or a big blockbuster studio movie, it's incredibly forward. Blunt sexuality, I think, is, like, really interesting and cool. And I was thinking that, like, that's a. There's a pointed statement in that, too. I think that, like, Coogler looking at, like, a history of, like, black representation in studio films that maybe win awards or don't or whatever, and, like, being really desexualized or there's a violent aspect to that or whatever. And he's like, no. People of all decades, all centuries spoke up front about this and enjoyed sex and wanted it. And women wanted it, men want it. You know, and I think that, like, that all of that is so. I mean, it's close to the center of the movie.

Sponsor/Ad Voice (42:50)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (42:51)

You know, that's impressive.

Sam Sanders (42:52)

Yeah. Watching it back, I kept saying to myself, oh, this is a guy who wrote this movie with a woman. Yeah. I felt like this movie, especially when compared to one battle after another, respected the women on screen and gave them more to do on the screen. You know, my biggest gripe about one battle is you get Teyana Taylor giving you these wonderful minutes at the top, then you do not see her again. Whereas every time I see a black woman enter the situation in centers, and even a not quite black woman like Hailee Steinfeld's character, they're fully formed and they keep showing up. And I even think about the sex scenes in that movie. They seem to have a gender parity in the way that the bodies are moving together and who is in control or not in control. And it felt like particularly in the way it treats and observes and allows black women on a screen to be fully embodied. It felt like it hit the mark on that more often than one battle did. I know that I'm having this conversation in a room in which there are no black women, but I'm saying, you know, for me, in my conversation with folks, yeah, I've felt that.

Benjamin Frisch (44:00)

Yeah. I mean, I feel like it does make me think of the Secret Agent in that way where it is very much about how this kind of there is, like, joy and sexuality, like, even within a situation that is, like, fundamentally oppressive.

Sam Sanders (44:16)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (44:16)

Like, it is, like, constantly. Like, that does not go away. That is always there. And, like, it should not be erased in, like, also depicting the seriousness of the situation.

Sam Sanders (44:26)

Well, and the sex in Sinners felt. It felt like it was delivered with a certain kindness. And I felt like not to keep comparing it to one battle, but there were some of the sex scenes in one battle that were just meant to be sensational and they worked.

Richard Lawson (44:42)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (44:43)

Like, it's sensational. And, yeah, there were moments when the sex is happening in Sinners where I'm like, oh, this feels kind.

Benjamin Frisch (44:53)

I don't know.

Richard Lawson (44:54)

And I think a lot. Again, a lesser movie I apparently like to do, this is set up strawman movies that don't exist. But I think that woman's character would be so much more, like, rigidly and faintly drawn and that she would kind of be like, no, you left. And he would have to work to get her back. And now by the end of the movie or whatever. And in this, it's like, there is this complicated understanding between them where they have issues. She's angry at him, he's hurt. They're both hurt, but they still have this intense, like, loving bond that, you know, is shown that way.

Benjamin Frisch (45:24)

Yeah. I was gonna say two things. I do appreciate a movie that is states what has always been obvious, which is, like, when Mimosaku is, like, such a babe, you know, and you're like, this is a movie that's finally, like, yeah, like, obviously, she's such a babe.

Sam Sanders (45:37)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (45:38)

But also that I was thinking, like, actually, this. This crop of best picture nominees has, like, it has a fair amount of sex, you know, for, like, even that we keep thinking about Hollywood.

Richard Lawson (45:48)

It doesn't hate being

Benjamin Frisch (45:51)

like, this here is actually, like, pretty good by that regard.

Richard Lawson (45:54)

And, like, K pop demon hunters.

Sam Sanders (45:56)

Right. But I mean, like, I call it F you.

Richard Lawson (46:01)

Right.

Benjamin Frisch (46:02)

Like, Sinners is definitely the most overtly sex positive.

Sam Sanders (46:06)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (46:06)

Just in, like, not just the depictions of sex, but also Cultivating the idea of like, it as something people do together. You know, like having a whole monologue on how to give oral sex to a woman and having that be like, this is the thing you do, and you do it together, and this is great.

Sam Sanders (46:24)

That said, the first cunnilingish joke. Okay, girl. The third or fourth, wrap it up.

Richard Lawson (46:31)

It starts to feel a little bit festive.

Sam Sanders (46:34)

That was the one point where I was like, you didn't need to do all this, man.

Richard Lawson (46:36)

I almost wonder if he was the raptors in Jurassic park, testing the fences to see how many he could get away with.

Benjamin Frisch (46:42)

I think that one of the things I appreciate about Ryan Coogler, even at times where it doesn't work for me, is that he is willing to go do a big swing. He's willing to put himself out there. He's willing to do something that might come across as corny. And I feel like, you know, like the big showcase scene in this where musical montage.

Richard Lawson (46:59)

It could have been corny and cheesy so easily.

Benjamin Frisch (47:01)

And I feel like the fact that it rides that edge, but is so earnest about what it wants to depict, which is like, everyone's like, ancestors in the room and, like, future, like, lineage in the room. And it's so like, this is. We, like. I mean, he has talked about this in interviews. Being like, I wanted to do this. It was not something I initially had in the script. I wanted to use the language of film to depict this thing. And you're like, yes, it is like, oh, yeah.

Sam Sanders (47:25)

Well, because there's one moment in there where I'm like, oh, you really got away with that. Because, like, in the montage, it's like, it's a dancer in the jazz and it's all these black performers, but then they bring in, I want to say,

Benjamin Frisch (47:36)

a Chinese performer in Chinese opera makeup. Yeah.

Sam Sanders (47:39)

And you hear the gong and the cymbals and you're like, girl.

Benjamin Frisch (47:43)

Yeah, yeah.

Sam Sanders (47:43)

But okay, yeah, if you're like, let them get away with it.

Benjamin Frisch (47:46)

Yeah, if.

Sam Sanders (47:47)

Because it's so technically brilliant. Like, this is the thing about it. Whenever Ryan Coogler movies are about to go into, like, After School Special, like, territory, which he. He likes to be there.

Richard Lawson (47:58)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (47:58)

Whenever he's about to go there and it's about to be corny or about to be cheesy, you just look at it and hear it. And it's so technically and beautifully well done, you'll allow it.

Richard Lawson (48:07)

If that mont. That. That sequence was not so, like, warmly lit and the camera's moving in such Seductive, interesting ways. And like.

Benjamin Frisch (48:15)

Like.

Richard Lawson (48:15)

Because, you know, on paper, if I were to say, oh, Ryan Coogler, this great director, made a movie that's set in the 1930s, but there is one scene where there's a breakdancer in a bucket hat. You'd be like. Followed by. You'd be like, that sounds horrible. Yeah. But somehow it's beautiful. And I like when the guy in the purple kind of jumpsuit with the guitar. I kind of got teary. Cause like you said, it's such a bold swing that connects. It actually works where 99 other times it wouldn't.

Sam Sanders (48:40)

Yeah. And watching it back the second time, notice two things. The sky is beautiful and vivid throughout. And two, you're never not hearing music. This thing is scourged to a T. And it helps set you up for the ride to the big musical montage. The music is constantly getting you ready for more music. I think had this not been handled by someone who's so good at, like, scoring film, it wouldn't have worked. But you're primed for that musical moment because you're actually always hearing music. Music in that film in a really nice way.

Benjamin Frisch (49:10)

Yeah, I. Yeah, the sky thing, I mean, like, I noticed a lot of the second viewing in particular. I mean, there. There's a shot when, like, Sammy gets in the back of the car with the twins. And, like, you see. And it's shot in this way that I felt like is meant to evoke not just an old photograph, but almost like a colorized photograph.

Richard Lawson (49:26)

You know what I mean?

Benjamin Frisch (49:27)

Like, you see the cotton fields in the back behind him, and it's focused on his face as they're driving. And I felt like that that spoke to what Coogler was trying to do so well of be like, this is the past. And he is, like, obviously went through a lot of pains to recreate the detail. But also it is a bit mythic. Right. Like, it is this place that feels like, rich and alive with magic.

Sam Sanders (49:47)

And that, I think, stands in stark contrast to what often happens in black period pieces in this set. In this time period, they're usually just suffering. Slavery's bad. Jim Crow is bad. They're getting beaten. They're getting killed. Everything about this movie respects and appreciates the magic of black life in the south in that time period, regardless of the oppression that was also there. This is a guy who loves black people, loves the south, and thinks that those two things were also lovable in that time period, you know, And I think that felt. That made me all warm and fuzzy, like, this is a guy who is not coming to us and saying what we usually get, which is if we have a period piece in this period of time with black people, it's like suffering first. He doesn't do that. I mean, the vampires make them suffer, but that's a different kind of thing.

Allison Wilmore (50:44)

But they don't suffer until near the end of the movie.

Richard Lawson (50:47)

Yeah. And you kind of almost wonder if that there's something that he's saying in that where he's like, you know, the more that kind of other culture kind of, like, imposes upon us, like, our narratives do kind of tend toward violence. Because that's been asked of us.

Sam Sanders (51:00)

Well, because black movies, a lot of black movies are actually white movies.

Richard Lawson (51:04)

Well, right, right.

Sam Sanders (51:05)

Like, a lot of black movies are actually about the pain inflicted on them by white people. This is not quite that. Yeah.

Richard Lawson (51:12)

You know, and I think a great example of that is, like, the minister father who, you know, again, in this lesser movie would be the sort of tyrant, and his son is fleeing to go, like, practice his art and all that. But the father is depicted as, like, understanding. He lets his son go. He's like, okay, well, but, you know, come back for church, you know, and then, you know, his cousins ask him, like, does he hit you? And he's like, no. I mean, you know, nothing more than the standard, you know, And I think that, like, again, that's a nuance there, that it's like, yes, there is a graciousness and a love that is passing in this community that. That you don't often see.

Benjamin Frisch (51:46)

But this movie also, like, directly links the vampires in the church. Like, that first open scene is very much like, when you get that, like, you know, before it flashes back. Like, he goes to see his father in the church, and it intercuts, like, the images of the vampires attacking, like, the major kind of, like, song set pieces in this. You know, there are, like, a few. And, like, there are the ones at the Duke, and then there's the ones of the vampire, and then there's, like, this little Light of mine at the church, you know, And I feel like it is not a movie that is sparing with the church. Like, it is very critical of the church.

Sam Sanders (52:22)

Yes.

Benjamin Frisch (52:22)

Well.

Sam Sanders (52:23)

And that is a conversation. As someone who grew up the son of a Pentecostal church organist and played in a church band my whole life, the conversation about the sacred and the secular and how black music plays into it, that is a conversation that black people are having amongst themselves that is really tempered by white voices. And white opinions. And so to see Coogler spend so much time on that as an idea in the film, it almost, like, helps it pass this, like, racial Bechdel test. Like, can we have black people talking about a thing with emotional stakes that isn't purely tied to suffering at the hands of white people? And you rarely get that in period pieces with black people. And he does it. And I think it's because of the musical aspect of it. And I find that, as I was saying earlier, much more interesting than, like, the vampires killing them or not killing them.

Richard Lawson (53:11)

Can you tell me a little bit more about that tension between sacred and secular music? I mean, is it indeed a tension, or is it just more of a question of, like, music history? But, like, what informed what? And what is that relationship like as you see it?

Sam Sanders (53:25)

It is a central dichotomy of black American music. So I interviewed the guy who wrote the song that leads to the big musical montage, Rafael Siddiq. He has written hits and produced hits for the likes of d', Angelo, Beyonce, Solange and more for decades. He grew up playing in church, and a lot of the way that he plays now and makes music now is informed by the church. But he, like me, when you were growing up in a black church playing black gospel music, you weren't technically allowed to even listen to the other stuff, Right? You shouldn't listen to it. You should not play it. I still. If I drive by a church and I'm playing secular music, I turn the volume down.

Richard Lawson (54:07)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Sam Sanders (54:08)

It's just like in us. But then when you think about every American musical art form that we enjoy in the Western world, it has a direct tie to black church music. Right. Like, country doesn't exist without the banjo. The banjo was brought to America from Africa, and the first people making music with the banjo were making songs about God. Right. Everything like rock and roll came from the blues. Blues came from people who were playing the same music in a church setting. So, like, for me, the story of American popular music is actually the story of black sacred music and how it has just infused everything else. I don't know where I was going with this, and I forgot the question.

Richard Lawson (54:55)

And yet there is still kind of that opposition, like, even today.

Sam Sanders (54:58)

Even today? Yeah, like, even today, there are still. You know, I remember when I was a kid, the big tension was, like, trying to create artists who could cross over. And so white Christian music did this first, but black gospel artists have done it as well. There'll be some Christian artists that, like, make a Song. Yeah.

Richard Lawson (55:18)

Mary, Mary.

Sam Sanders (55:18)

Like they're a big hit. They don't say Jesus.

Richard Lawson (55:20)

Right, Right.

Sam Sanders (55:21)

Switch Foot, who I love. They're like this Christian group. Their biggest hit, Dare youe to Move. They don't say God or Jesus. And I remember in church they would tell us how this was bad because these evil record labels would make these Christians sign away their right to say God.

Richard Lawson (55:36)

Right.

Sam Sanders (55:36)

These are the stories I was hearing in the 90s. Right. So it's still there. It's very interesting to watch how this conversation becomes different in what I feel has been the last year or two in the rise of like hillsong culture, which is like a white Christian rock culture. It is a similar but different conversation. That is another episode of some other show. Yeah.

Richard Lawson (55:54)

We have to talk a lot about Emo. Unfortunately for that conversation.

Sam Sanders (55:57)

Yeah. Also, I love that we got in a Switch Foot reference in this sinner's discussion.

Richard Lawson (56:02)

Yep, yep, yep. That's our version of the bucket hat breakdancer in Sinners.

Benjamin Frisch (56:15)

Should we move into spoiler territory? All right, okay. So let's talk about. I don't like. Where would we say when the grace maybe screams come on in. Like the. That's like the.

Richard Lawson (56:28)

Where the spoiler is really spoiler.

Sam Sanders (56:30)

I don't think this movie is spoilerable.

Benjamin Frisch (56:31)

I think that for many movies, but people do not agree with me. Very upset.

Richard Lawson (56:36)

I was once. I think I might have said this on the podcast before. I don't remember, but when Joel Cohen made that Macbeth movie, I reviewed it from the New York Film Festival. And I'm not making this up. Someone on Twitter said I spoiled Macbeth. I was like, please be trolling me. And I don't think this film has

Sam Sanders (56:53)

been out for a year.

Richard Lawson (56:54)

Yeah, it surely has, right? Yeah. And I know. Widely available down. But yes, yes, we are now in spoilers. All right.

Benjamin Frisch (57:02)

Yeah. I feel like. I don't know. I do feel like the action part is the least compelling for me because. Yes. I'm also just like. I. Maybe because I don't know what resolution would feel like it had been worthy of that incredible setup.

Sam Sanders (57:17)

And the post credits scene undoes any resolution you thought you felt.

Benjamin Frisch (57:21)

Yeah.

Allison Wilmore (57:21)

Okay.

Benjamin Frisch (57:22)

So how do we feel? I guess. How do you leave this movie thinking about the vampire experience?

Sam Sanders (57:28)

Let's say I was thinking, oh, they're gonna do a sequel.

Benjamin Frisch (57:31)

Sure.

Richard Lawson (57:31)

That was my first thought. And honestly, like early 90s with that fast forward.

Benjamin Frisch (57:35)

I know.

Sam Sanders (57:35)

Hey, the Gucci sweater I would watch.

Benjamin Frisch (57:37)

And then the hoops. Oh, the hoops are incredible. I know. It's Such a good visual.

Sam Sanders (57:41)

Sinners 2 90s boogaloo.

Benjamin Frisch (57:44)

It's such a. Such a good visual.

Sam Sanders (57:45)

And to have it like a new Jack Swing soundtrack.

Richard Lawson (57:48)

Incredible.

Sam Sanders (57:49)

Oh, Eddie Murphy, be a vampire.

Richard Lawson (57:51)

Yeah, he's done it. He's done it before in Brooklyn.

Sam Sanders (57:55)

Wait, have we written the sequel? Right?

Richard Lawson (57:58)

Call us.

Benjamin Frisch (57:59)

We'll take a story credit.

Sam Sanders (58:00)

That's right.

Richard Lawson (58:01)

Copyright.

Benjamin Frisch (58:02)

But I feel like it is. It is unclear throughout how much you lose your sense of self. The mythology, which we're never sure, like, how much is true. Because these are people who are figuring out how vampires work as they go. They know some. They have some ideas about it, but they have not gotten to watch as many vampire movies. It's 1932 as we have to come up with lore that we learn a bit about the idea that their souls are stuck in them, that they can't kind of go on.

Sam Sanders (58:34)

But also they share consciousness, maybe consciousness.

Richard Lawson (58:36)

Unlike a haint. They won't die if their creator dies. You have to share, but they share his pain.

Benjamin Frisch (58:43)

Remic. And then also, like, Remick is able to speak a dialect of Chinese. Like after. After he, you know, like, bites.

Richard Lawson (58:50)

Well, no, he says he studied abroad.

Benjamin Frisch (58:51)

And he's like. He's like, I did that semester I

Richard Lawson (58:54)

caught English, but he was only friends with other Americans.

Sam Sanders (58:58)

Well, and it's like, like some of the, like, normal beat. Not normal. They're vampires. Some of the beats that you always expect with this, like, they can't come in a door unless they're invited in. Like, that tracks I get.

Benjamin Frisch (59:09)

And the garlic.

Sam Sanders (59:10)

And garlic I get. Stake in the heart, I get. But there were other things where I'm like, what is a vampire rule that you've established here? Is there a rule or not? Like, I kept wondering how much free will the vampires had.

Benjamin Frisch (59:22)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (59:22)

Were they slaves to the vampiric mission of just getting everyone you could or can. Or do they have choice? Because in that final post credits scene, we find out that one of the vampires made a choice to not do a bad thing.

Benjamin Frisch (59:36)

Mm.

Sam Sanders (59:37)

You know.

Benjamin Frisch (59:37)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (59:37)

Yeah. And held that promise for decades. Yes.

Benjamin Frisch (59:40)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (59:40)

Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (59:42)

And then they all kind of. They sit and listen to him play, you know, play. And then they kind of have this fond goodbye.

Sam Sanders (59:48)

And he's not like, oh, I want to suck your blood.

Benjamin Frisch (59:50)

Right. And so it does kind of. It does suggest that there is, like, a lot more complication to this thing that is not meant to be an exact allegory anyway. Right. Like, it's meant to be a very. Kind of like malleable allegory. But it did. I feel like that I continue to wrestle with that coda because I think it is a lovely image and it's also a funny image when they first walk in. But I do feel like it leaves me feeling unsettled about kind of like what is being preferred in terms of this metaphor.

Sam Sanders (60:18)

It makes me question how much of these norms for the vampires were rules or not. You know, why do you think that

Allison Wilmore (60:24)

it's in the post credits area? Is that just run off from MCU experience or is that run off?

Richard Lawson (60:33)

I like that.

Allison Wilmore (60:34)

But it's a really interesting formal choice not to just stick it at the end of the movie.

Richard Lawson (60:40)

Well, every Oscar nominee was required to do it this year. So there's a Hamnet one. There's no. That's a good question. I think that might be.

Sam Sanders (60:47)

What would the Hamnet one be?

Richard Lawson (60:48)

He's alive. Hamnet will return.

Benjamin Frisch (60:53)

Actually, it's the musical number.

Sam Sanders (60:55)

It shows up in a Fuji sweater.

Benjamin Frisch (60:59)

I've been undead this whole time. Yeah.

Richard Lawson (61:00)

Chilling. Chilling. It's really sad, actually. The same max retro music is playing, but I don't know, my hunch about it is that he wants to give you a sense of time passing. And so you get the end credits and the music and then. And so you're kind of like, okay, we're, we're. The story's over. But something. I think it kind of.

Sam Sanders (61:20)

It.

Richard Lawson (61:20)

It almost feels like it's transporting you across six decades and then plopping you back down in.

Sam Sanders (61:24)

But because the credits do run six decades long.

Richard Lawson (61:27)

Well, right.

Benjamin Frisch (61:27)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (61:28)

These movies these days, very last.

Benjamin Frisch (61:30)

Like end scene two of Miles Caton, like playing this Little light of mine.

Sam Sanders (61:34)

Right.

Benjamin Frisch (61:34)

Like, so, like, there is an actual end credits. There is like the thing that plays through the credits and then the end credits. Yeah. I don't know. I do feel like it gives. I mean, it feels like that marks it as a coda so strongly to the point where it almost feels like the film. Right. The actual part of the main part of the film is over. And this is something that feels not like you could take or leave it, but it feels almost like it is deliberately being held forever.

Sam Sanders (61:59)

I will say, watching it in the theater and seeing it come up post credits, I think it made me be a little more locked in than I would have been had it just been at the end of the film. Because this film is over two hours. And as much as I enjoyed it, by the end, I was like, thank you. And something about staying for the credits and having it pop Back up. I got to reset and refocus. I think I took it in and ingested it more because of where it was. Personally.

Richard Lawson (62:27)

I think that's right. Yeah. And I mean, my sort of question about the sort of plotting of it is, like, I get this. I mean, I love the lines about, like, it was the best day of my life in total. Things happen. It's really. It's moving and, you know, and they both kind of share that. And so I get why the affection would be there in terms of, like, God, I haven't seen your face, and you still look like you did, like, all those years ago. And, like, I think that he's kind of glad that they're still alive, you know, because he did love them in one form or know them at least in one form. But I also. I'm kind of like, right, but you did fucking kill all these people. Like, you did terrible things. Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (63:09)

You know, also, your brother has this kind of, like, beautiful, but, like, kind of, like, kind of reconnection with his family in the afterlife, which presumably is not available to all of these people who have been turned into the undead against their will. So, yeah, I feel. Not that I need vampire lore to be extremely coherent, but I do feel like there are parts of, like. I feel like the emotional terrain of the movie and the metaphorical train of the movie that I feel unclear on because of the coda, mostly.

Sam Sanders (63:40)

Well, and this is where I think it's like. Like, Ryan Coogler is a visionary of a filmmaker, but he also understands what makes a box office smash and a hit movie. And he knows that, like, sometimes the least important thing is logic. Does this movie feel good?

Richard Lawson (63:58)

That's true. It does. You know, and you don't want to turn into, like, cinema sins and be like, well, actually, you know, that sweater was not manufactured until 1993, you know, but. But yeah, I also think that there could be something about, like, if the vampirism in the movie is presented as a different way to exist in America, either kind of underground or outside of the norm. And Miles Caton kind of doesn't. I mean, it's sort of chosen for him that he's gonna go a slightly more mainstream route. It's these two differing ways of being alive in America intersecting 60 years later.

Benjamin Frisch (64:32)

But is the question. Is it the other way around? Like.

Richard Lawson (64:35)

Or maybe it is.

Benjamin Frisch (64:36)

I mean, in terms of. Becoming a vampire is a form of assimilation. Right. And they do come in wearing, like, the latest fashion. They have adapted at the times they are.

Richard Lawson (64:45)

He's More the purist. He's kept. The scars are still on his face and he's playing the old music.

Benjamin Frisch (64:49)

He is like carved out this path for himself that, you know, presumably like has sustained him doing this kind of music, but is not about kind of chasing whatever also like, kind of like capitalist forces. Right?

Allison Wilmore (65:03)

He has gone electric.

Benjamin Frisch (65:04)

He has gone electric, right?

Richard Lawson (65:05)

Yes, this is true.

Benjamin Frisch (65:06)

His recording quality gets better with times

Sam Sanders (65:08)

that everyone thinks people care about, but people don't care about.

Richard Lawson (65:12)

About going electric.

Sam Sanders (65:13)

Yes. Every time there's a film where like the big plot, like a plot point is like, he went electric. Okay, girl.

Benjamin Frisch (65:18)

Who cares about it though? The vampires.

Sam Sanders (65:20)

The vampires. I will say it's very interesting to think about what Ryan Coogler is saying in that final post credits scene because in that bar scene, the coolest, sexiest, best dressed ones there are the vampires. The cool, hot black guy is a vampire and being a vampire has allowed him to be cool. So I'm like, oh, is there. Do I need Angelica to write about that? What's going on there? What is that scene saying about what it means to be black, what it means to stay black and cool, what it means to survive as a black person.

Richard Lawson (65:59)

And presumably there's a financial element to that. You know, how did they make their money? They're clearly doing well or, you know, or they seem to be. He has the ring finger.

Benjamin Frisch (66:08)

Ring, yeah.

Richard Lawson (66:08)

You know, and. Yeah, and there's so that kind of economic thing comes back up subtly well.

Sam Sanders (66:14)

And it's like Ryan Coogler does this really great thing of. By the end of more than one of his movies, you like the villain and you're like, oh, you're right.

Benjamin Frisch (66:21)

Yeah, I know. That's like.

Sam Sanders (66:23)

You watch Black Panther, you're like, oh, killmonger gets it.

Benjamin Frisch (66:25)

Ye.

Richard Lawson (66:26)

Those are my politics. Yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (66:30)

Do you feel like there isn't. I mean, aside from. I think like the. The coda does serve to kind of mitigate this a bit. But do you feel like this film is ultimately kind of pessimistic, guided by a feeling of pessimism with regard to the ability to exist being black in America?

Sam Sanders (66:46)

No. The best way to understand, at least for me, the north star of what he's doing in this movie is the way in which every black person looks on that screen. They look humane, they look fully realized, their skin is glowing, they're always well lit, the costumes are impeccable, regardless of their class status in this movie. And it is a movie that appreciates blackness, whether it is in the form of a Human or a vampire. And I think the overriding message of this movie, or the one that I hope lingers, is to say it's possible to make art that loves black people, that can be loved by everybody. So for me, it's less of a what do we think about vampires? Or what do we think about good and evil? It's like, what does it feel like to watch art in which black people are respected? How does it feel and does it work? Is it a viable model for this industry that has been plagued by whiteness since its start? That is what this movie is really saying to me, and that is what I came away with it even more after watching it again. It's about. Ryan Coogler fucking loves black people. And he makes these movies that make you love black people. People, too. So that.

Richard Lawson (68:14)

Yeah, and that he does. He did that with Black Panther, you know, and like.

Allison Wilmore (68:19)

Yes.

Sam Sanders (68:19)

That's when there were, like, white kids dressing up. Yeah. Black Panther.

Richard Lawson (68:22)

And it's. That's what it's about. It shouldn't be. I wish it wasn't. But it's startling to see in some big, expensive studio movie where you're like, this is not the lens through which these are norm. You know, this is normally done.

Sam Sanders (68:33)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (68:33)

And that he's managed to do it not once, but, like, several times still at the same level of, you know, I mean, he did. They didn't spend as much on sinners as they did Black Panther. But, like, it was still a lot of money was spent and earned. And I just, you know, I hope for the future of the industry and for his future. I just kind of wonder where he's gonna go next. Is he going to keep operating or will he want to go back down to Fruitvale Station level just to take a break? I don't know.

Benjamin Frisch (68:59)

Well, I mean, I think something. Part of the reason I think that this movie has such a kind of. Is engaged in such a fraught interrogation with the idea of commercial success is that he is. He seems like someone who wants to work within, like, a large scale. Right. Like.

Richard Lawson (69:13)

Like Nolan kind of.

Benjamin Frisch (69:14)

Yeah. And I think that that is Nolan

Sam Sanders (69:17)

Films, it could be argued, are about a certain kind of whiteness.

Richard Lawson (69:21)

Sure, sure.

Sam Sanders (69:21)

That's a different conversation, though.

Benjamin Frisch (69:23)

I mean, I feel like mostly Nolan, I see dead wife, whiteness, absentee father, but.

Sam Sanders (69:29)

And not giving Florence Pugh enough screen time.

Benjamin Frisch (69:30)

Yeah, but, yeah, I think he seems to want to be in that group of less than a handful of directors who can get what they want to get made. An original thing made

Sam Sanders (69:46)

And I like that he likes making blockbusters. For me, it's the American film industry. Even as it's seen fewer people go to movies, it's leaned more into honoring movies that most people will never watch. I don't get it. God bless Honora. I liked that film. But I remember last Oscar season when the Brutalists and Honora were like, in contention. It was hard for most of America to find somewhere to watch those films. And what Ryan Coogler has done is said you can make a film that is critically admired, works for all kinds of people, gets folks, gets butts in seats and centers something other than whiteness. Right. I just find it remarkable. And I like that he is not afraid to make blockbusters that work for all kinds of people.

Allison Wilmore (70:41)

Back in November, he said his next movie would be Black Panther 3.

Richard Lawson (70:44)

Ah, okay. I do kind of want, I mean, kind of on the Nolan comparison.

Sam Sanders (70:47)

Like, I do wonder also, Nolan, I know you have. Was it Tenet? Have you had John David Washington?

Richard Lawson (70:52)

Sure, yeah. Whether that was, you know, good, good to all parties, I don't know. But like that, you know, Christopher Nolan was like, all right, I'm going to do three Batmans. I'm going to do these really cool sci fi movies, whatever. And I'm basically, I'm just warming you guys all up for my 3 hour movie about a scientist. And I kind of do wonder if there is in the future a Ryan Coogler movie where. And look, if he wants to keep working with superheroes and vampires and whatever. Like, great. Like, he's wonderful at it, but like, is there one where he doesn't. Where it doesn't feel like he has to kind of give that one concession to like, box office appeal? Like, can he? I mean, I think, I think he definitely, definitely can. I'd just be curious what it would be.

Benjamin Frisch (71:31)

You know, I feel like, is there

Richard Lawson (71:33)

like a music movie where it's just purely that music?

Benjamin Frisch (71:36)

I will say I don't feel like sinners is him making a concession. I feel like he, like, I don't feel like he added the vampires.

Sam Sanders (71:42)

He did all that he wanted to

Richard Lawson (71:43)

do, but I think the vampires helped get it funded.

Benjamin Frisch (71:45)

Oh, sure. No, I'm sure. But I feel like, I don't know, it is hard to. Not to arrive at our, Our, our parent podcast. But like the idea of getting the blank check right, like that. As much as that exists anymore, it doesn't like, it almost doesn't. Right.

Sam Sanders (72:00)

Like, maybe for Ryan it does.

Benjamin Frisch (72:01)

Yeah. Yeah. And like for Christopher Nolan maybe being like you know what I'm gonna do next? The Odyssey. You know what people love is like the Odyssey. And yeah, there are just a few people who can have that, but that is.

Sam Sanders (72:13)

Yeah. Didn't he say somewhere, Ryan Coogler, that he wants to do a rom com? Did I see that somewhere? Am I being crazy?

Richard Lawson (72:18)

Oh, yeah, we're getting the nod. Yes. Which is thrilling.

Sam Sanders (72:21)

Yeah, right. Who would be cast in a Ryan Coogler rom com?

Richard Lawson (72:25)

I honestly like Michael B. Jordan. Haley Steinfeld.

Sam Sanders (72:28)

Ooh, yes, yes, yes. In the 90s.

Richard Lawson (72:30)

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Benjamin Frisch (72:31)

Yeah, I know.

Sam Sanders (72:32)

Sinners 2. Actually, Sinners 2 is a ROM com.

Richard Lawson (72:34)

Yeah, yeah, it's a. I mean, I would love that.

Benjamin Frisch (72:36)

An immortal. You know, like when you're like, how do you sustain a relationship over centuries and centuries? You got to break up and get back together over and over again. Yeah. I feel like that's.

Sam Sanders (72:46)

Then his two breakups and Michael B. Jordan is.

Richard Lawson (72:48)

I mean, he's doing Thomas Crown Affair, which, yes, is a kind of heist thriller, but it's also a romance. And like, that's pretty exciting.

Benjamin Frisch (72:54)

No, I want like the theoretical Nick. Or is it nick Cave Gladiator 2 script where he was just like, fighting wars throughout the centuries. I want that with like a rom com, you know, where they're just like, meet cuting through the.

Richard Lawson (73:07)

Oh, in the 50s and 60s. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be good. And today

Allison Wilmore (73:12)

we haven't talked about the twins. The performance of the twins. How'd you guys find that?

Richard Lawson (73:18)

I think it's really well done. You know, I am. I talk about movies, write about movies for a living. I've done that for many years. I've been watching movies since I was 4 years old. We have wonderments of visual effects from Parent Trap, the original on. I'm like, how do they do the twin thing? There's two of them standing next to each other.

Sam Sanders (73:37)

Imagine her two Michael B. Jordans in the Parent Trap.

Benjamin Frisch (73:40)

Especially every time you're like, wait, let's get together. He handed a cigarette to himself. How did it work?

Richard Lawson (73:46)

And I think that, like, it is one of those. One of the more. The older sort of film tricks that still works beautifully. And look, obviously that is performance dependent. And I think he does just enough to shape them differently that they're legible as different characters. And I don't know. I think it's well done.

Benjamin Frisch (74:06)

Yeah, well, especially because he clearly is meant to play them as. As, like these two distinct characters. But also like, people can't exist. They're kind of like one Force. Right. Like, they. They have cultivated a bit of this mythology around themselves. So, like, when people in the town are like this.

Richard Lawson (74:23)

Well, their names are two halves. Are halves.

Benjamin Frisch (74:25)

The one, they are supposed to feel a bit like this combined force as well. And I think, yeah, Michael B. Jordan does a very good job of navigating that.

Sam Sanders (74:34)

He does. And it surprised me because I think, God bless Michael B. Jordan. I've never thought of him as the most dynamic of actors. I think he gave the most alive performance he's done yet in this movie. And that's a testament to the writing and direction. But, yeah, I feel like the twin of it all. The more that I look at it, the more I appreciate what he was doing. There was a clip, one of his co stars was talking about how he wore different sized shoes when he was each of those two twins. He wore tighter shoes for one of them and like looser, bigger shoes for another. And then one version of him had dimples and the other never did.

Benjamin Frisch (75:17)

Oh, he held space differently.

Richard Lawson (75:19)

Wow, that's cool.

Sam Sanders (75:20)

Of course, this is one of his co stars talking him up on their Oscar campaign run. So they said it, but it worked. We're talking about it here.

Allison Wilmore (75:28)

It seems like Kuklu is just having fun.

Sam Sanders (75:30)

Yeah.

Allison Wilmore (75:30)

Because there's.

Sam Sanders (75:31)

Yeah.

Allison Wilmore (75:31)

The movie doesn't necessarily call for that.

Sam Sanders (75:33)

No, no, no.

Richard Lawson (75:35)

They could literally be cousins and it could be two actors and, you know, maybe have the same sort of. But no, I. I think it's an. It's an added sort of like, can I pull this off? Sort of daring do. I mean, having to shoot all of those scenes.

Sam Sanders (75:45)

Yes.

Richard Lawson (75:46)

Twice, you know, like, fully, like, is, you know, and then however many takes it took, you know.

Benjamin Frisch (75:51)

Yeah. Well, I think also their different fates really kind of speaks to, I think, the. The kind of conflicting natures of the allegory.

Richard Lawson (75:59)

Right.

Benjamin Frisch (75:59)

Where you have one who kind of goes out, like, slaughtering the clan, you know, and then reuniting, you know, with his beloved and their lost child. And like, it's this, like. Yeah, like, the gladiator goes out. Like, the gladiator goes out and then the other one. Yeah. Like, goes on to. He becomes a vampire and he lives his life. And I feel like, yes, that kind of conflicted nature around the idea of vampirism and all of the many things it represents in the movie is channeled to. Cause he goes both ways. Right.

Richard Lawson (76:26)

Yeah. I like to think that he's a vampire with a sort of Dexter code. Finds the bad, like, bad guys, and they hit that guy's Blood and he's not murdering innocents. But maybe I'm being naive also.

Sam Sanders (76:38)

When are we going to. You know, there's all this conversation and debate around whether or not movie stars exist anymore. And at this point, I'm like, michael B. Jordan is right there.

Benjamin Frisch (76:49)

Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Sanders (76:50)

I think he's a really bankable movie star. And maybe he doesn't get that credit because he's been so tethered to Ryan Coogler.

Benjamin Frisch (76:56)

But I think. But also to your point about him as an actor, I feel like Coogler brings out the best in him. Like, so much like he has not always sparked to life in that same way with other filmmakers. And I feel like when he is in a Coogler movie, you're like, oh, yeah, he's like, electric.

Richard Lawson (77:12)

Maybe something about making this kind of prodded him enough that he's now kind of woken up to and that'll be that. Yeah, I mean, so Sinners came out in the spring. So if Chalamet's the King of Christmas, is he King of Easter, Easter or Po. Jesus Christ is the King of Easter. King of Memorial Day. King of Memorial Day.

Allison Wilmore (77:29)

Well, I think Jesus Christ is the

Richard Lawson (77:31)

King of Kings, right? That's right. That's right.

Sam Sanders (77:33)

The bunny is King of Easter.

Richard Lawson (77:35)

Yeah.

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Sam Sanders (77:50)

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Richard Lawson (78:13)

Well, yeah, I mean, I. I will be really curious to hear or to see rather where. Where Sinners goes in a couple weeks at the Oscars. Again, I think it'll do well. But another nominated movie which only has one nomination, but a big one that Sam, I think you're a fan of is Songsung Blue, which Kate Hudson is nominated for Best Actress, which I think is a good nomination. She's wonderful in it. So can you just kind of extol that movie for us?

Sam Sanders (78:36)

Well, one, I'm going to personally say that I willed Kate Hudson's Oscar nod into existence.

Benjamin Frisch (78:42)

Well done.

Richard Lawson (78:42)

Well done.

Sam Sanders (78:43)

I have been mentioning Kurt and Goldie.

Richard Lawson (78:44)

Thank you.

Allison Wilmore (78:45)

Yes.

Sam Sanders (78:45)

I've been mentioning this performance on my show forever. I had a newsletter a few weeks ago where the subject line was, my New Year's resolution is like, for Kate Hudson to Get an Oscar. I think this performance in this film made me. It stopped me in my tracks. By no means do I think that song Sung Blue is a perfect film, but I think in terms of Oscar worthy performances. Oscar worthy performances. Kate did that. My introduction to this movie was not knowing what the fuck it was. I saw billboards for it all around la. And so you see Hugh Jackman in that get up with the wig and you see Kate Hudson look know out you looking how she looks, that's a wig. And my first thought was like, oh, a lovely Christopher Guest style film. Maybe I'll check it out. Yeah. And then I watched the trailer and I'm like, they can't be for real. What do you mean? And then like you see a car accident in the trailer. I'm just like, this ain't. This is a Lifetime movie. It's not for me. Then my partner who was a costume designer, he gets a bunch of screeners for all the stuff and he begins to watch it himself. He stops the film halfway and he says, sam, I can't finish this movie until I watch it with you.

Richard Lawson (79:50)

Wow.

Sam Sanders (79:50)

You have to watch this movie. It's your kind of movie. Lo and behold, I watch it.

Richard Lawson (79:54)

You were lightning to his thunder.

Sam Sanders (79:55)

Oh my God. At every moment when you're supposed to laugh, I laugh. When you're supposed to cry, you cry. When you're supposed to put your fist in the air and pump it in the air, you do that. A dear friend of mine who loves movies, he said songs on glue feels like a movie is supposed to. Supposed to feel right. And this is one of the few movies that I then made my friends watch. So I ended up like at a cabin in the woods for New Year's, New Year's Eve night. Guess what we did.

Richard Lawson (80:20)

There you go.

Sam Sanders (80:21)

Song, song.

Benjamin Frisch (80:21)

Did you time it so that like it was like ending a few hours before?

Sam Sanders (80:25)

But lo and behold, I look over and at the beats. They're supposed to laugh, cry and punch the air. They do. Like this movie hits its beats. That said, I think that like Kate Hudson and her performance is good anyway. She sings very well. She gets the accent perfect. She is very. There's no condescension in the way that she portrays middle class, working class ness. But I also love that her in this movie has made everyone rewrite their script of what they think Kate Hudson is. A lot of the headlines around her being so good in this film had an air of surprise. She can do that. She did this and it's like, yeah, I got to interview her. We published the interview today, and I asked her. I was like, girl, you see these headlines? They're like, good for you. But also they're surprised. How do you feel? And she said this thing. I was just like, oh, you're so grounded. She said, I know what they're saying. I did all those rom coms. I did all those rom coms for so long. And they don't think that you can do that and do this. And she said, I'll never regret the rom coms because for all the films she's done, she still hears today from women from, like, 13 to 17 who say, that was helpful to me. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. So, for me, I love her performance. I think that film hits the beats, even though it's not perfect. But I like the way that it fits into Kate Hudson's narrative arc as a performer and the way that it reminds us that, like, a good actor can be a good actor in all kinds of things. And in actuality, some of those rom coms are good. Great.

Richard Lawson (82:00)

Sure. And she's. I mean, I. I have probably mentioned this a billion times on podcast. I have long held. Have you ever seen Something Borrowed?

Sam Sanders (82:08)

Which one is that?

Richard Lawson (82:09)

That's Jennifer Goodwin and this random guy from Soap Operas and Kate Hudson, where she plays the bitchy friend, and Jennifer Goodwin starts sleeping with Kate Hudson's fiance.

Sam Sanders (82:18)

Ooh.

Richard Lawson (82:19)

It's based on a book. The movie itself is not great.

Sam Sanders (82:21)

Yeah.

Richard Lawson (82:22)

Kate Hudson is so fantastic on that. I have been saying for years she should have gotten an Oscar nomination for supporting actress. And people are like, from that rom com. And I'm like, yes, because she's incredible. The scene where she finds out what's happening between her friend and her boyfriend is. She's incredible in. Yes. So, yes, you're right.

Sam Sanders (82:39)

And how much of our condescension towards romcoms is a condescension to things that women and girls like?

Benjamin Frisch (82:46)

Well, yeah, yeah, I'm not a big Rom. No, I. I'm. I'm. I am agnostic on rom coms. But, like, I do feel like. Like she has always been good. I mean, like, I think, like, what she does as Penny Lane and almost famous, like, in that breakout role. I think it's easy for people to dismiss it because she is playing a character who is, like, this muse to, you know, like. And so people see it in that context of, like, as if there's no agency there and there's no, you know, like, the movie is, like, built around her. But I think she's incredible in it. She's like, you understand why everyone falls in love with her. And also you understand that she is putting on this kind of performance.

Richard Lawson (83:27)

I had never seen a debut performance like that. When I saw that movie, I was what, 16, 17 years old, and I was like, Ge, who is this like ethereal, magical creature?

Benjamin Frisch (83:36)

She's incredible in it. And also I was one of, I think, like many, many young women who are like, I'm going to spend years trying to get a coat like the one.

Sam Sanders (83:46)

Did you get one?

Benjamin Frisch (83:47)

I tried on many.

Richard Lawson (83:48)

My sister dashed herself on the rocks,

Benjamin Frisch (83:50)

magically transformed me to look like Kate Hudson in that movie. So, you know, you got to work with what you got. And I had to make peace with said the coat was not for me.

Richard Lawson (84:01)

Just a few years later, I tried to dress like Jim in 28 Days later and it did not transform me into Cillian Murphy.

Sam Sanders (84:07)

I will say, and I should be clear here, Song Seong Blue is not the greatest movie of all time. Yeah. It is earnest and heartwarming and I like it. But like, for me, it's just like, this is about Kate. This is about Kate.

Richard Lawson (84:20)

Yeah. And I like her presence in the Oscars this year because, like, I can't exactly define what I mean, but I just kind of feel it. It's kind of an old fashioned Oscar nomination, you know, like, the performance is good, but it's like I could see that performance in 1972, in 1986, you know, and like, in a good way. Like I. Where some of the other stuff that's nominated is a bit more modern. So it just kind of rounds out that five in a really nice way, we'll say.

Benjamin Frisch (84:44)

Also, like, our friend Esther Zuckerman, her fiance Bob, who grew up in Wisconsin, said that this is one of the few performances he's ever seen to nail a Milwaukee accident.

Sam Sanders (84:54)

Well, you know why? Her nanny growing up.

Richard Lawson (84:57)

There you go.

Sam Sanders (84:59)

And the nanny was her assistant for a while when she was an adult.

Benjamin Frisch (85:02)

Yeah.

Sam Sanders (85:03)

In the Oprah episode about Song Sung Blue, of course, Oprah's like, and your nanny is here.

Richard Lawson (85:10)

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, Sam, thank you. I'm glad we got some Song Sung Blue content on this podcast because we were, we were. We were close to not talking about it. We were blanking unfairly for that and all other things. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. And people should go listen to that interview with Kate.

Sam Sanders (85:26)

Yes.

Richard Lawson (85:27)

And all your sinners interviews.

Sam Sanders (85:28)

Yeah. So we have in my feed a bunch of episodes, but for Oscar Folks, I have a chat with Kate Hudson about songs on glue and life. And then I've interviewed both the costume designer Ruth E. Carter from Sinners and Raphael Siddiq, who wrote the song that begins to summon spirits in Sinners. So if you need more Sinners content, they're there.

Richard Lawson (85:47)

That's the Sam Sanders Show. You can find it pretty much anywhere, right?

Sam Sanders (85:50)

Anywhere.

Richard Lawson (85:50)

Anywhere where podcasts and things are served.

Sam Sanders (85:53)

Podcasts, YouTubes.

Richard Lawson (85:54)

There's chances they were playing it on the subway on my way here.

Sam Sanders (85:56)

Yeah, I know.

Richard Lawson (85:57)

So congrats on that.

Sam Sanders (85:58)

Some of you hear it on a public radio station in your neck of the woods, but I forget which one. So anywho. But yeah, check it out.

Richard Lawson (86:03)

Well, thanks again, Sam.

Sam Sanders (86:04)

This was delightful. I was, I was. You know it. Y' all are so good at what you do and you have this encyclopedic knowledge of film. I was like, let me not show my ass up here.

Benjamin Frisch (86:12)

And.

Richard Lawson (86:12)

No, you know exactly what you're talking about.

Benjamin Frisch (86:15)

Yeah. No, I. It was so great to have you on. You brought like such a great.

Sam Sanders (86:18)

Be here. Good to be.

Richard Lawson (86:19)

And that was our ninth of best picture nominee that we've talked about.

Sam Sanders (86:22)

What's the last one?

Richard Lawson (86:23)

One battle after another. It's our final film.

Sam Sanders (86:26)

Bring in Leah. Oh, yeah.

Richard Lawson (86:28)

He's. He's so easy to get.

Benjamin Frisch (86:31)

Can you imagine him having to like indulge in a long conversation? I feel like he hates doing press so much.

Richard Lawson (86:37)

That's why he dates 24 year old models from Czechoslovakia. Where after.

Benjamin Frisch (86:40)

Exactly. He's like, we have nothing in common.

Richard Lawson (86:42)

We don't need to talk. Yeah.

Benjamin Frisch (86:44)

Yeah. Is he the one? I feel like there are a few. He's like famous for the headphones.

Richard Lawson (86:48)

The headphones during sex? Yeah. That is the rumor, Leo. That's the rumor.

Benjamin Frisch (86:51)

That was a rumor.

Richard Lawson (86:52)

He has the date. Get. Get on the bed. Get.

Benjamin Frisch (86:54)

Whatever. This is always like the joke, but I. I choose to believe. Believe it. Whale sounds.

Richard Lawson (86:58)

Oh, I. I heard it. Oh, my God.

Benjamin Frisch (87:01)

I don't know what is the best answer for what he's listening to during sex.

Richard Lawson (87:05)

It's this little, little light of mine.

Benjamin Frisch (87:08)

Any possibility is a funny one.

Richard Lawson (87:10)

Yeah. Next week is one battle after another. We're also going to combine that with some predictions. And daddy David Sims is going to be joining us for that, which is exciting.

Benjamin Frisch (87:19)

I'm really bad at predictions too, so

Richard Lawson (87:21)

it's kind of fun because maybe you're just.

Benjamin Frisch (87:23)

What if I just go really wild?

Richard Lawson (87:24)

You're right.

Benjamin Frisch (87:25)

I go so wild.

Richard Lawson (87:26)

That's what can happen. So Stay tuned for that.

Benjamin Frisch (87:31)

Critical Darlings is a Blank Check production in association with Vulture, hosted by Allison Wilmore and Richard Lawson produced by Benjamin Frisch executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janowitz video production and distribution by

Sam Sanders (87:47)

Ann Victoria Clark, Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer Jean.