‘Sinners’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Wesley Morris

Summary

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The Rewatchables Podcast – "Sinners" (2025)

With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Wesley Morris
Date: August 18, 2025

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Episode Overview

This special episode of The Rewatchables dives deep into Ryan Coogler’s 2025 instant classic, "Sinners." Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Wesley Morris gather for a rare discussion of a brand-new release, reflecting on its immediate impact, rich themes, cultural meaning, performances, and why it’s already achieved Rewatchables status.

Theme:
"Sinners" is a genre-bending, Southern horror-action-musical-tragedy centered on a Saturday night in the Jim Crow South, following twin brothers Smoke and Stack as they prepare for a juke joint party—only for the night to be invaded by literal and metaphorical vampires. The movie explores Black art, appropriation, survival, legacy, and joy amid tragedy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Immediate Rewatchability and Cultural Frenzy

• Instant Classic: The hosts break with tradition to discuss a current-year film, noting "Sinners" is only the fourth film in this category (after "Get Out," "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," and "Top Gun Maverick").
• Cultural Flashpoint: The movie sparked discourse not just for its plot, but also for its bold allegory on Black art, fame, and American history.
  • Bill: "It’s six movies in one movie! It’s a vampire flick, a one-location horror, a blues movie, a religious critique, and it all happens over one wild day." (19:07)
  • Van: "I have been and remain transfixed by what the movie was able to do." (11:58)
• Box Office: Discussion on the business around "Sinners," its $90M budget, making over $350M worldwide, and media fixation on recouping costs.

2. Historical and Social Context

• The Delta and Black Culture:
  • Van: "There is something about the American south that is supernatural… all the spirituality and culture that had to be developed in response to brutality, it exists there in a very distinct and special way." (10:04)
• Jim Crow South: The movie’s setting is deeply atmospheric but not exploitative; it "lets Black people in the movie be people," not just historical symbols.

3. The Vampires as Metaphor

• Appropriation and Obsession with Black Art:
  • Wesley: "These vampires are real, but also serve a metaphorical purpose. They’re not just outsiders seeking to steal Black culture—it’s also about white business and Black artists." (36:00)
• Notable Quote:
  • Wesley (27:29): “Sinners is a nightmare in which Black art is doomed to be coveted before it’s ever just simply enjoyed.”
• Invitation/Consent: The film uses classic vampire lore—having to be invited in—as a nuanced stand-in for consent in cultural exchange.

4. Performance and Craft Highlights

• Michael B. Jordan as Smoke and Stack:
  • Praised for nuance and physicality playing twins. "To play twins...it’s a whole other level of acting. I felt like the twins were slightly different in ways that, the more I watch, I recognize them." – Bill (52:25)
  • Marked as a career pivot or "prime start" for MBJ.
• Miles Caton (Preacher Boy):
  • First film role; a revelation as both actor and musician. Potential breakout star.
• Delroy Lindo (Delta Slim):
  • "Best performance in the movie to me." – Van (44:09)
  • His car scene analogy linking blues with lynching is called one of the film’s most powerful moments.

5. Spectacle and Music: A Cinematic Event

• Musical Sequences:
  • Notably, the "Sammy sings" scene is debated:
    • Bill: "Incredibly rewatchable to watch...just a mesmerizing five minutes." (100:18)
    • Wesley: "I just wanted the whole song uninterrupted… For me not to like it, something is going wrong." (101:04)
    • The sequence’s blend of surrealism, folklore, and cross-cultural musical history is seen as ambitious, polarizing.
• Direction & Score:
  • Ryan Coogler hailed as "this generation’s Spielberg" for his ability to balance relatable populist spectacle and artistically daring storytelling (177:24).
  • Ludwig Göransson’s score ("new wave John Williams") is lauded, especially for mixing blues with metal.

6. Sexuality and Joy Amid Tragedy

• “It’s a horny movie!” (19:49):
  • The film is frank about sex, desire, and love—presenting it not as risk but as part of survival and joy.
  • Memorable dialogue:
    • Haliee Steinfeld as Mary, to Stack (81:07):
      “I heard you loud and clear, but then you stuck your tongue in my coos and me so hard, I figured you changed your mind.”

7. Fame, Exploitation, and Survival

• The panel discusses the psychological cost of fame (MJ, athletes, musicians); the way Preacher Boy is "hunted" by the vampires becomes a meditation on how Black genius is sought, consumed, and often destroyed.
• Van: "I think these people go crazy because we drive them crazy. And we don’t mean to, but we do." (29:59)

8. Endings, Tragedy, and Legacy

• The hosts agree the film is a tragedy—almost no one “wins,” but the survival of Stack and Mary as immortal vampires offers a troubling coda: living forever means never seeing the sun again.
• Both the ending and covert post-credits sequence are called "all-time rewatchable scenes."
  • Wesley (47:23): "I just kept hearing Stevie Wonder’s ‘They Won’t Go When I Go.’"

9. Representation and Performance

• The film’s embrace of Black life and the authentic casting gets highlighted, especially the prominence of women (Annie, played by William Wosako), complex couples, and body types Hollywood rarely celebrates without caricature.

10. Rewatchable Scenes and Categories

• Most Rewatchable: The juke joint party, the musical showdown, Delta Slim’s car monologue, Mary’s arrival, the final coda in 1992.
• Most 2025 Thing: Twins technology, IMAX filmmaking, streaming on “Max,” and Coogler’s hardline business deal.
• What’s Aged Best: Authentic period detail, garlic-eating scene, character names (Smoke, Stack, Cornbread), and the look of the film.
• What’s Aged Worst: The opening week “is it profitable?” media coverage.
• Weakest Link: The unrealistic 8 vs. 50 vampire fight scene.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamp Highlights

• On cultural metaphor:
  "The vampires here… their interest is confused. Their own interest is confused. The metaphor isn’t quite fixed… It’s brilliant." – Wesley (04:37)

• On Black southern life:
  "What would it look like for Black people in the south to just be living a Tuesday?... Saturday night is the biggest night of the week for certain Black people." – Wesley (07:11)

• On Black art and fame:
  "Do your gifts actually attract evil?" – Bill (28:41)

• On the power of music:
  "When you hear those early recordings… it was no different than what Preacher Boy did. The Stones heard it, the Beatles heard it, everybody heard it." – Van (34:29)

• On Coogler’s process:
  "He does the real research for this. That’s not his process. Doing Sinners, he’ll get every single piece of the movie correct. That takes real time. It’s a labor of love.” – Bill (12:46)

• On representation:
  “Hollywood has turned its back on the brilliant beauty of a Black woman in… her natural form… That type of Black woman, we love them. And Annie, she grounds his character.” – Van (87:01)

• On MBJ’s performance:
  “It’s a movie star role. Every actor that’s going to be a movie star needs one just like that…where they show their entire range.” – Van (52:27)

• On Coogler’s status:
  “He’s Spielberg. He really knows how to be theatrical…to sell it and combine a great movie and make it feel like a popcorn movie.” – Craig (177:24)

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Section Timestamps (Selected)

• [04:37] – Wesley on metaphor and style
• [10:04] – Van on the Delta’s mystique
• [19:07] – Bill lists everything the movie does
• [27:29] – Bill reads Wesley’s line about Black art being coveted
• [36:00] – Wesley on white business vs. Black artists
• [52:25] – Bill on MBJ’s acting accomplishment
• [81:07] – Mary’s sexually explicit line to Stack
• [100:18] – Debate over the "Sammy sings" musical scene
• [177:24] – Craig compares Coogler to Spielberg

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Memorable Moments

• The Most Rewatchable Scene: The epilogue in 1992 with Stack (now a vampire) and Mary; "Each time I watch, it gets better… it brings the whole movie together." – Bill (49:11)
• Comic Relief: Ongoing jokes about director’s “cutting scenes,” garlic-eating on set, and who’d play the best vampire in a hypothetical recast (Tom Cruise, Denzel, Will Smith).
• Sequel Pitch: The hosts fantasize about a prequel involving the twins robbing Al Capone in Chicago (168:20).
• Unanswerable Questions: Do Stack and Mary listen to Irish music in 1992? What did they do for 60 years between the movie’s main event and coda?

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Final Takeaways

• Who Won the Movie?

  • Unanimous: Ryan Coogler – for vision, execution, and pulling off an original and uniquely Black American myth.
  • Runner-up: Michael B. Jordan, for his career-defining dual role.

• Awards Buzz:

  • Multiple Oscar nominations predicted (Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor/Actress, Original Screenplay, Score).
  • Score by Ludwig Göransson highlighted as an odds-on favorite.

• Enduring Impact:

  • "Sinners" is praised as both stunning entertainment and intellectual/cultural achievement.
  • The film balances tragedy, joy, folklore, and Black life in a way rarely—and perhaps never—seen on screen.

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For Fans: If you haven’t seen "Sinners," it’s recommended to watch in a theater for the full sensory and communal experience. The hosts assure this is a film that will grow in significance—and rewatches—for years to come.

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Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Bleacher Report. Football is back. And downloading the Bleacher Report app puts you in the middle of the action. Make Bleacher Report your go to this season for the fastest breaking news alerts covering NFL and college football. And don't miss a moment with highlights, scores and live reactions in the app. Get expert analysis on your favorite teams and the news that you want this season. Download the Bleacher Report app today. The rewatchables brought to you by the Ringer Podcast network where you can find Van Lathan. Yes. Higher learning.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

With our friend Rachel Lindsay. Midnight Boys.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Wesley Morris. Not on the Ringer Podcast network, although he does have a podcast that he refuses to promote.

[C]

I'm not refusing to promote it.

[A]

Cannonball with Wesley Morris.

[C]

At some point, this show that we make call Cannonball.

[A]

There you go.

[C]

There we go.

[A]

I'm Bill Simmons. We're going to do a rare thing. Talk about a 2025 movie on the Rewatchables. Sinners is next.

[C]

I've been all over this world.

[B]

I ain't ever seen no demons, no.

[C]

Ghosts.

[B]

No magic.

[C]

Till now.

[A]

Admit to it.

[B]

Admit to what? That you dead.

[A]

Sinners only in theaters.

[C]

Coming soon.

[A]

This episode of the Rewatchables is presented by Prime. You listen to this podcast for the Movie Talk. So let's set the scene. Our lead. Tall, dark, stranded at the airport. Hours of delays. He's scrolled, strolled and loitered by every overpriced snack stand. But just when all hope seems lost. Plot twist. He remembers. He has Prime. And with it, a whole library of free ebooks ready to read right from his device. Cue the tramp. And score. Roll credits. Free ebooks library. It's on Prime. So we've only done this. We've had the Rewearable since 2017. I think we've only done this for three other movies. Get out. Once upon a time in Hollywood, Top Gun Maverick, where a movie was so instantly rewatchable that we said fuck it, and we just decided to give the rewatchable streaming. There's some drawbacks to it. There's not enough information about the movie. With some distance, we don't know how the movie's gonna play out for the next five, six years. The casting, what ifs. As the years pass, they start making up shit about who almost got what part. Like right now, there's like nothing but this movie. I saw it with Van the day it came out.

[C]

Oh, really?

[A]

What did I predict to you? That it was good. I said it was going to make over $200 million.

[C]

You did?

[A]

I did.

[B]

Oh, he was all over it.

[A]

I was like, that movie's going to be a monster.

[B]

Like, when we left, I might as well just put a koofie on Bill's head. Like Bill. Like Bill did that thing. The way Bill looked, he went, it's tremendous. I. We're sitting outside the grove. He goes, I predict the movie makes over $250 million. And that was a big deal at that point because, remember, all of the talk was around the business movie.

[C]

I mean, all of the. What we can now call bs around the conversation around the movie.

[A]

A weird conversation, because everyone was fixated on this. Coogler Daily gets it back in 25 years. They spend so much money. This one title, and then the box office was good the first week. And then there was like four or five different news stories about, well, they still have a lot to recoup.

[C]

We don't know if they're going to recoup.

[A]

It's like, when did we ever talk about that with movies? It felt like people were lined up a little against this. What's interesting about it from a rewatchable standpoint is it's completely rewatchable. And my son. My son and I have watched it twice together since it's been our home video. He saw it twice in the theaters and then twice here. Once they get to the bar. Once we're starting the bar, like about 40 minutes in an hour. Yeah, well, they have. Yeah. Once they open the bar, yes, it's about an hour and a half. And it could really be its own movie. But I think as the years pass, that's going to be it. So I'll go to you second, because I already know how you feel about this movie. You never wrote about this movie as its own piece, but you put it in a Beyonce like, bigger picture piece. But what's your relationship to this movie, Wesley?

[C]

I find it fascinating. It is, it is. I love it when some work of culture or art that becomes then culture, it gives you a new way of seeing a thing that you have always understood to be the case. You know, get out gave us the Sunken Place. In addition to other ways of looking at the relationship between black people and particular kinds of white people. And here we have not a necessarily new metaphor for what kind of lazily gets called appropriation, cultural appropriation. But you have it so that the metaphor isn't quite fixed to mean that it's that the white interest in the black music is inherently bad. It's that the vampires here, which who are also kind of zombies, we can talk about this. Their. Their interest is. Their own interest is confused. Right. Because. Anyway, so I just. We can talk more about what I'm trying to say. But I just love that people responded to this movie in the way that they did both with, you know, intellectually, emotionally. Their sense of entertainment was satisfied and I enjoyed it. I feel like there's two things that I truly do that just truly do not work for me after three experiences with this film.

[A]

Save that. Let's go positive first and we'll circle back.

[C]

But I just. The first hour of this movie is. I didn't even need the vampires. The vampires to me are like dessert. Because the first hour of the movie is just a meal. It is. It is something that you rarely see in a movie about black life and black culture in the south in the past.

[A]

And yeah, there was stuff I didn't catch the first time we saw it. Like even. Like when they go to the stores and how they position the storefronts and the two sides and even how the stuff in one store is slightly different than the stuff in the other. There's all these nuances to it that you kind of pick up the more you watch this movie.

[C]

It's such a. That first hour, you can tell that there was real sort of intellectual labor that went into recreating this town and the relationships in it. This is the Jim Crow South. The Jim Crow Southness of it is atmospheric. It does not feel like it's dictating day to day life, of course, but, you know, it's a psychological condition at this point. We're in the 30s and I don't know, it's just. What would it look like for black people in the south to just be living a Tuesday? What would it be like for them to be living for Saturday? Right. The one day of the week where time stops and you can just dance your ass off and gamble what little money you have and drink. And then you go to church on Sunday and say, I'm sorry I did that. I'm a go to sleep and wake up to work on Monday. Like, Saturday night is the. Was the biggest night of the week for certain black people. And then you went to church on Sunday and some preacher made you feel bad about it. That's all in this movie. In the first hour when you.

[A]

You saw twice in the theater yet three times. So did the first hour or the second hour. What did you respond to more?

[B]

I think that I responded to different things in different viewings. When I saw it, when I rewatched it for the podcast, the first hour by far, just had me captivated. Just like, to what you guys are talking about, I think for a couple of reasons. One is something that Wesley hit on when he was talking about the film, which is that this movie does something that I think a lot of period pieces that have black people in them don't attempt to do, which is it treats the black people in the movie like people. And they have very different experiences. Like even Smoke and Stack, who are twins, they have two completely different experiences of even love. Smoke has this tragic, all encompassing, consuming identity, reaffirming love. Stack has a love that is almost divorced of its identity. It's searching for one. They have all the feeling, but everything else is kind of being dictated by the fact that they're not safe to be together.

[A]

For the audience, Stack becomes the vampire.

[B]

Smoke is the hero, and Stack actually becomes, in my opinion, the movie's greatest.

[A]

Victim because he turns into Radio Ibrahim. Wow.

[B]

Careful, careful.

[C]

I mean, it's interesting to think about him that way. Keep going, though. Keep going, keep going.

[B]

And then the second part of the movie is his relationship to the American South. I am from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

[A]

They filmed in Louisiana.

[B]

They filmed in Louisiana. This movie is set in Clarksdale, Mississippi. There is something about the American south that is supernatural, and there are a lot of reasons for it. Number one, a lot of this happens to be the fact that it's the blackest place in America and that there's something that comes along with that. One thing is that all the stories, all the spirituality, all the culture that had to be developed in response to the brutality of America, it exists there in a very distinct and special way, right? So all the cultural invention, the music, the dance, the spirituality that had to be invented out of survival, it sits right there on top of the South. And when you see something that depicts the American south, it makes you think about the carnage and brutality that it took to create the society that we live in. That's the economic driver, the engine. And the people inside of those movies are sort of. It's orphans. They're the orphans of American exceptionalism. And stories about them always make you go shit. Like, you always have to sit back and go, look at the cotton. You always have to sit back. He's paying for something with plantation. Look at the toll, look at the cost. And the movie is able to depict those things without any. The most casual languishing on them. How do you make sharecropping not A big deal. How do you make living on a plantation not a big deal? Well, when there are vampires attacking you, it seems like it's not as big of a deal, at least in that moment. And I have been and remain transfixed by what the movie was able to do. And he's from Oakland. I could get it. Look, man, the work, to your point, the work and the craft and the care that must have gone into Coogler's exploration of. Of particularly the Delta. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it, but I don't know how he crafted that. I've been there. My daddy's from Maryland, Louisiana. I know these people. This is who they are for real. And it was really, really, really an achievement to me.

[A]

You know, we did that video for ringer movies when we talked about. Basically the premise was, why doesn't Ryan Cougar make more movies? And you could say that about. Some directors work a lot. Some directors, like, take their time. And I. My. I was like. My only frustration with him is I.

[C]

Just wish he did a. Banged him.

[A]

Out a little more, like, once. Yeah, Just like, just do a buddy cop movie for six months. Like, just bang one out. And what Van just described is why he does why. And especially, like, doing the real research for this. That's not his process. Like, if he's going to do Sinners, he's going to get every single piece of the movie correct. And that takes, like, real time. It's like a labor of love for him.

[C]

I also think that. I don't know. He got it. It worked for him so fast, so early. You're doing great. You're doing great, Craig.

[D]

I am partying a lot lately.

[C]

I got to sl. Look at this man. The picture of party.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You don't know.

[D]

You don't know.

[C]

I don't know. I don't know. That's the whole point. Right. I just feel like it all. He got very. He was touted very quickly, like, out of the gate. Fruitvale Station makes him a person of interest to lots of people in the industry.

[A]

He's in his mid-20s, which is not after Fruitvale.

[C]

Yes. And the question is, like, what does he do after that? Like, this is a guy who could be writing original screenplays and making really good dramas for the rest of his career. And Coogler, Ryan Coogler is like, I actually have a thing that I've always been thinking about doing, and it's. It involves the Rocky franchise. And I think he. I had always been curious about what it would look like for this person to write another original screenplay that is coming from something, some. Some place in his imagination or his. Or his soul, his interests that isn't connected to, you know, some other entities.

[A]

This is his first movie with its own IP that came completely out of his head. Right, Because I always think Creed, but actually Creed is in the Rocky universe, right? Like he has a couple built in characters.

[B]

That's definitely true. For sure. I think that there is a common thread between Creed, Black Panther and this.

[C]

Oh, sure, 100,000%, yes.

[B]

I think this. What Coogler is really good at doing, in my opinion, is thread.

[A]

Michael B. Jordan.

[B]

Well, yeah, Michael B. Jordan. Him and Michael B. Jordan. That's his muse. But I think what he's really good at doing is the lore development. Like evolving lore, like Black Panther in and of itself. The movie ends up being an interrogation of black diasporic unity. And that's a hell of a swing for Disney, right? Like, that's a pick. That's a big idea. The movie starts off in with the history of the Wakandan civilization, and then we go right to Oakland. He takes the story and then he evolves it. And this in the same way. Just like the bedrock of Creed is the Rocky franchise, the bedrock of Black Panther is obviously the Marvel Cinematic Universe and decades upon decades of comic lore, this one is really all of the different aggressions and microaggressions and. And circumstances that exist in the American south in that part in the Delta specifically. Forget about the American. It's the Delta. It's the Delta. Cause even those, the Asian characters, the Chao family, they exist specifically in the Delta in Louisiana and South Louisiana, where I'm from. We didn't have. I'm like. When I first looked at the movie, that was even unfamiliar to me. I'm like, what I've never seen. But he took that and then he was able to build on that and put the vampires that, like, on top of it. And so he's. He has his way of taking things that are so familiar to us and then making them original. Creed should have been stupid, bro. Creed should have been stupid.

[A]

We talked about that. When Creed came out, we were like, how did this work? The odds were like 20 to 1.

[B]

Like, Creed should have been stupid, but it just wasn't stupid because.

[C]

Well, because he unders. Like, to your point, though, he kind of understands, like, he. It. This isn't a cynical investment, right? Is a heart investment. And clearly these worlds mean something to him. And the question is, like, the These movies operate, and I'm not saying they come from this place, but they definitely correspond with this urge that, that a lot of people who out like in this case black people go to a movie and you're kind of like, well, I really. What's it like at Apollo's house? Like, how come we don't spend enough time getting to know, you know, what Apollo's life is like when Rocky's not around, there's not enough of that. And so not to mention Duke, I.

[A]

Mean, what was going on with Duke? Did he have a condo, an apartment?

[C]

I mean, I just think there's a whole world that, that, I mean, so many times I'd go to a movie and just wonder what was going on with a bunch of other characters who clearly are interesting and interesting to the world of the movie we're actually watching. Right. Like Rocky Balboa is friends with this person. What's his life like when Rocky, like, separate from Rocky, who was he?

[A]

Like Basic Instinct? Roxy. What was she up to?

[C]

I mean, did she have a job? But I do wonder because Roxy was the rock.

[B]

Roxy I with Roxy, I mean, it doesn't every.

[C]

I I with Roxy.

[A]

Roxy didn't just win the DM waiters, she TR to make out with it when we did that part.

[B]

What a movie. But yeah, like it's such a great point. Like Apollo is, Apollo is the, a boxing legend in the film, the standard of boxing. And he really only shows up as Rocky's Jiminy Cricket, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then so there's so much fertile ground. We didn't even know how much fertile ground was.

[A]

Remember Rocky iv? He's in the pool watching. He's watching a TV of a Drago interview in the pool.

[B]

Gotta.

[A]

And he gets mad and it's like, what's going on with this guy? Yeah, what else?

[B]

Man is about America.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then he gets.

[A]

So this movie, it's a vampire movie. It's a one location horror action movie which is a 50 year franchise. It's a blues movie. It's a religious critique. It's an all in one day movie. Everything happens in 24 hours, basically. And it's a movie about a hundred plus years of black culture all in the same movie. Is there anything I missed? Six things. It's six different movies in one movie. Well, and it's a little bit horny in there.

[C]

You've got these other things, right. It's a father son movie. It's a brothers movie, it's a sex.

[A]

Movie, it's a twins movie. It's a horny movie.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, this movie gets its horns.

[A]

On a couple times.

[C]

Oh, yes.

[A]

I mean, it's a movie about cunnilingus.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, the Boy's Journey with Cunningus.

[A]

That was the original title. Yeah. They changed. It didn't pass well, boys, Journey to Cunnilingus.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

From Focus Features.

[C]

Sounds right.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Focus would do.

[A]

It tested terrible.

[C]

You got the right studio. Focus would have done it.

[A]

Yeah. I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Is there any anything else you'd put out of those?

[C]

I think those. That kind of covers it. I mean, there's. So also. It's a musical.

[B]

It's a musical. That's probably the biggest thing that it's a musical.

[A]

So that's from a rewatchable standpoint. There's a couple music scenes in this movie, I mean, including the famous one, but holy shit. Just like all time, all time music scenes.

[B]

So have you ever been watching a movie where the characters in the film are having so much fun, but they're not necessarily at a party that you would want to be at?

[C]

Yeah, this is. This is.

[B]

Yes, this, like, so Coogler, when they're making this movie, he's like, I want to make sure that people want to be at the juke joint, that you want to party with them. I want to make sure the people look good. They're glistening, the sweat is good. And look something else. We in an era right now where people, they do this LA thing. When I first came out to la, I noticed how the clubs in LA are, right? The clubs in LA are like, this is how it goes. You go to the club, you in there and it's a dude, he's sitting on the couch. You're doing like this. He's just saying hi to people. It's like there's one dude in the club in LA that all he does is say hi to people all night. That's all he does. He just, what's up?

[C]

I always want to know who that guy is. I always want to know who. I always want to know who.

[B]

He's like, what's up?

[C]

The most intriguing person in the world. All he does is that guy. Yep.

[B]

So man was so every once in a while he does this thing that I hate. If you are a celebrity, stop doing this. Stop seeing people and doing a little prayer hands. And they go, thank you so much. And then it's a girl doing this in Louisiana.

[A]

The prayer hands are tough.

[B]

I hate the prayer hands. Stop. If I say the next time somebody.

[A]

What does that mean. I was praying for you to come here and you've arrived. Prayer hands.

[B]

It's like, hey, man, I really with that record you put out, but thank you so much. Ain't nobody asking for the prayer hands. Just be like, yeah, man, we work real hard on it.

[A]

Break out like, so did Superman get hottest? We did the band flare hair.

[C]

I mean, I. I like that this drives you crazy.

[B]

I hate it.

[C]

You hate it.

[B]

Okay, I look at. I have two different types of celebrities. I got prayer hand celebrities and regular celebrities. I remember one time I went to. I'm just going to drop a name. I went to a YG listening party. I told YG I like the record. YG was like, yeah, you fucking with it. That's cool. I was like, he didn't prayer hands me. That's a real motherfucker right there. Way to go, yg. He didn't give me the prayer hands. That just made me a huge YG fan. But I'll say this, in the south, at least when I was. I don't know how things are there. I haven't been at home and partying as much. Nah, man. We go into these parties and we go in looking great, all dressed up. We come out sweating.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

We are dancing. We are.

[C]

I'm wearing two shirts.

[A]

That's a Wesley Morris staple.

[B]

We are celebrating.

[A]

He's the sweatiest club guy who ever lived.

[C]

I bring two shirts. No, he's.

[A]

He loses like five pounds of sweat at some of these places. I've seen it.

[B]

So when you're inside a club, Duke, you really have to have a sense of. The vampires ruined the greatest day of preacher boy's life. The vampires ruined a fantastic party.

[C]

But conversely, man, the party is so good that even these racist ass vampires want to come in. Like, which is really the politics of the movie, right? I mean, is it time to get into that? Because I just feel like the, the. The sort of political intellectual achievement here. One of the achievements is. Is that. Which is that you fat. He found a metaphor that also doesn't entirely feel metaphorical because in the world of the movie, these vampires are real. They kill people, convert people, and grow a little army. But they also serve. They serve a metaphorical purpose, right? Which is that the, the moment they. Okay, so for an hour, you are watching Smoke and Stack, basically gather the resources human.

[A]

It's a put the band back together movie, right? Yeah.

[C]

And to get the Saturday night hopping and you watch them do everything to. To make the club the club. And the minute after Sammy does his number and you get the. The sort of metaphysical, supernatural.

[A]

It ends with the number. The roof's on fire, it finishes and it cuts right to the three vampires.

[C]

You mean I can. I can get. Kill all the birds in one. I can get 250 years of music in. In one bite.

[A]

I paused it. I paused that moment for Ben because Ben, Ben's 17 now and he's in that I'm smarter than everybody else stage. Like, don't tell me what I know more than you. Like, he thinks he's. He thinks he's a. Right now.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So I paused that and I was like, true or false? Is this what the movie's about right here? And he was like, what? And then I explained it to him and it was one of my moments where I kind of hit him with the newspaper.

[B]

Basically.

[A]

I'm like, I'm still smarter than you, motherfucker. He got it.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

But I was like, you didn't figure this out yet? See, you're not that. You're not smarter than me. 17 year old shit is Jimmy Iovine. Yeah.

[C]

I mean, no, I mean take throw a rock, right? Because Jimmy Iovine is actually great because he claims to come in peace. He. He has an ally. He forges an allyship.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Like on his terms. I bite you, you fuck with me.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because you don't really seem to have a choice. There's just so many things happening once the metaphor goes to town.

[B]

One thing and all of that. And in some way it wasn't alienating the thing that I still get.

[C]

What do you mean by that?

[B]

What I mean is with this movie and get out. These movies are direct criticisms of whiteness. Right. They direct. I expected to come out of the theater with Bill going, ah, they should have had Wahlberg in it.

[C]

Not two. I can't do two Wahlbergs. You know what I mean?

[B]

But he fucked with it. The movie is. There's no way around it. The movie is a direct criticism of whiteness and only the people that were trying to be offended by it actually were right. Which tells you just. The powerful, the. The power of.

[A]

That says more about the person though.

[C]

Oh, 100%.

[B]

I agree.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Can I read you something? A great writer wrote about this movie? That Sinners is a nightmare in which black art is doomed to be coveted before it's ever just simply enjoyed.

[B]

Jesus. Who's that guy?

[A]

Wesley Morris.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

Oh, I really.

[A]

Wesley wrote that? Well, Jesus, two time Pulitzer Prize winner Wesley Morris. Just, just dropping some, some knowledge out there. But I Thought that was really good, though.

[B]

Real quick, what do you think is more impressive, a Pulitzer or Peabody?

[C]

I have no comment. They're both wonderful awards. May everybody win one.

[A]

I think I have the. I have a Peabody. Pulitzer's more important.

[C]

I don't. I don't know. They're both great. Why? Why, why? Choose, man.

[A]

Can I give you more sinners? Themes other than black art doomed to be coveted before it's ever simply enjoyed. The musically talented are called griots in this movie, and their gifts attract evil. We were talking yesterday at dinner about why people get so famous that they kind of lose their minds. Like, why don't we care about this more as a society? When we look at the people that have. That has a disease, the people that have really flown super close to the sun, a lot of times just lose it. And I was thinking, like, do your g. Do your gifts actually attract evil?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Or is that just, like a theme in this movie? Because I do wonder. You think of all the people who have flown too close to the sun and it went bad.

[C]

I want to see how you're.

[A]

Is this a coincidence or should we actually start wondering?

[C]

But this is. I mean, I think you. In the world of the movie, the evil that's attracted is not the evil level of. Well, let me think about all they care about.

[A]

Because in this, all the vampires care about is preacher boy. They don't care about anyone else.

[B]

I have a thought here.

[A]

They want him. That's it. They want to take him and bring him into their full.

[C]

Well, he's the only muse. Well, let me think about this. Because he's the only musician they would have been. They want everything. No, but he's the only physical manifestation of the thing that drew them to the club.

[B]

Well, he's the only one capable of doing what he did. Right.

[C]

He lured the ancestors. He lured the. The past and the future that song brought. You know, I lied to you, by the way. I mean, we. We should talk about what a banger that song is.

[A]

Have you seen the. The video of Miles Kane performing that with the. With the guy who did the score? What's his name?

[C]

Oh, Ludwig.

[B]

That guy's a genius, by the way.

[A]

The two of them just do it acoustic for some crowd as, like, a sinner's thing. And it's unbelievable.

[C]

I'm sure it is.

[A]

And we're gonna talk about. I have lots of milestones coming later, I think.

[B]

Two things. One about fame and one specifically about the fame and the black part of it. This coming from just My TMZ brain. I think these people go crazy because we drive them crazy. And I think we don't mean to, but we do.

[C]

Yes, we do.

[B]

You think we mean to?

[A]

That's what I said last night.

[B]

Yeah, I think we drive them crazy. I remember sitting in the office and something very sad happening to someone and me talking to a producer and going, man, I don't really think this is news. Like, why would this be news? And they just went, because the person's a celebrity right away. Because you have notoriety, it piques people's interest. And because it piques people's interest, they have all different types of attitudes and thoughts about what you should do and how your life affects theirs. And that is just not, to me, a natural.

[C]

Nothing about it is natural.

[B]

It's just not.

[C]

I mean, obviously some people can handle it, some people can't. I think that we don't talk about it. And I wonder. I w. We don't talk about it as a disease. You know, there are a couple professional shrink oriented people in my life, psychologists and psychiatrists who definitely think there's some that. That it should be considered a mental health situation. That people who are put in that zone to be prepared for. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[C]

I mean, if you look at the way influencers operate at this point, right? In the way that social media operates them in and out, it completely changes. It warps people's understanding of reality. Well, there's own personal.

[A]

There's three different types of. I mean, three people for this conversation, right? Musicians, actors, athletes. When you're an athlete, when you're like somebody like Tom Brady and like you win the. You come back against the Falcons and you win your super bowl, you become the goat and you come back from 28 to three and everybody's just like, wow, oh my God. Like this. I don't know how you're normal 10 years later after that. So there's that. Then you have the musicians where you're selling out arenas night after night and everybody's just losing their fucking mind. And that's just your life. And you're going from city to city and you just get this crazy three hours of adjuration. I don't know how you stay normal there. And then actors, even, there's not only they become famous, like the Leo type of famous, but I remember when I had MBJ on the second time in 2015 during Creed. Oh, no, the third time, it was after Black Panther and he was talking about how Black Panther fucked him up because he like inhabited the role and he had to become, like, a dark person in that movie. And he couldn't.

[C]

Dark like Killmonger.

[A]

Stop.

[C]

Oh, oh, you're trying to start some. Okay.

[A]

You can't give him any red meat.

[C]

Oh, my God. Okay.

[A]

But he was saying he couldn't. They finished filming the movie, and he couldn't get out of the place he was in in the movie. Like, he couldn't. He had to, like. He talked about he had to, like, go get therapy. And it became like a news story because he admitted, like, I needed therapy to get out of. Get out of that.

[C]

Wherever I was. Killmongers.

[A]

So when you're an actor, you have to, like, do that. I don't know. I think after, like, 20 years, you fucking go nuts.

[B]

What if what you do is not just the best part of somebody's day, but the best moment in somebody's life?

[A]

Right.

[B]

What if that play that you made, like, somebody from Atlanta talks shit to me, I go, 28, three, no matter how many.

[A]

Well, what would happen if you met Tracy Porter right now?

[B]

I'm gonna sit down and talk to him.

[A]

You'd fucking bear hug him. Start crying.

[B]

So the Saints won the Super Bowl. I did not think that that was possible. It was a ridiculous happening. So it's just a weird space to operate in. And then this movie talks about something else as well. Man, when you hear them early recordings, I remember listening to you talk about some of this stuff as part of the 1619 project. When you listen to those early recordings of Muddy Waters or the music that was coming out of that time, you think, what series of circumstances and events led to that man making that sound.

[C]

Yep. I always. That's the thing you always think about. Because they came, they were first.

[B]

Yeah. You just go, I have to sit down right here and get this out. And when that sound went everywhere, it was no different than what preacher boy did. The Stones heard it, the Beatles heard it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Everybody heard it everywhere. And they want. I'm not saying that they were vampires at all. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm. What I'm saying you can. You cannott say that. I'm not trying to say that.

[C]

No, no, no. Just keep going. Just keep going.

[B]

Yeah. So what I'm saying is when like, the music actually did in real life what it did in the movie, everybody went, jesus Christ, what is that? I want to get as close to it as I possibly can and let it push me forward, to connect in the same way. I want to make that sound or at least I want to understand it. And those early recordings are hard to come by now, but when you hear them, it feels like he is speaking in interdimensional language with the combination of the guitar and his voice and the emotion. And so, like that part of the movie where Remit goes, oh, that feeling happens. Like that. That's a real thing. You. What the fuck is that? I gotta have you. And then the movie orients itself around that.

[C]

But that's the point at which it. Like, it. The. The need to. I mean, there's so many things happening with Remic as both a person who understands the rules of vampirism, right? Like the need to be invited into the club, that whole. That whole aspect of the metaphor, right? In order for this to work, you guys, I need you to believe in me. In order for me to take this from you, for me to take it from you, you have to. You have to let me do it. I mean, that is how those Lomax recordings worked in a lot of ways. I mean, in the same way that you don't want to talk shit about Mick Jagger and Robert Plant, like, I don't really want to talk shit about. About. About those. Those recordings, those field recordings. But like, I think that there's an aspect of. In. In this movie understands that a lot of the history of the creation of black art has had to in some way. If it's going to proliferate through a system, through an economic system, it's gonna need a white person, because they control the system. And I think that there's some balance. I mean, this isn't even about. This is as much about it about artists, but it's really not about white artists and black artists. It's about white business and black artists. And remix offer is so ambiguous, right? Like, I mean, we understand at the very least that these are vampires who have a job to do in terms of biting the people, but they also stand for something. And it. Actually, I take that back because I just forgot the most important thing about Remick, which is he's part of a minstrel trio, right? Like, when they arrive at the club, they arrive as three people. One's got a banjo, one's got a fiddle, and the other one's got a guitar.

[A]

And by the way, they sound pretty good.

[B]

I liked it. I mean, remix music in this.

[A]

Yeah, I was kind of interested.

[C]

That's the joke, of course. When. When. Wait, what you. That's what you liked?

[A]

Bill Robin Queen.

[C]

But look at him go.

[A]

Look at him. Just got bit.

[C]

But you know Remember? And I had a conversation about this movie for. For Cannonball. Well, now it's Cannonball. And we talked a lot about Pickpole Robin Clean. As you know, it's an old song, right, that these two black women would go around and perform. It made them very successful. And, you know, in. In the limited range in which two black women could be successful at the turn of the century performing a kind of blues music, nationally speaking, but, I mean, they were very regionally known. And this song was no secret it was popular. And to think about what the song is doing in the world of the movie, we picked poor Robin Clean. Like that is simultaneously vampirism of. Of the. Of the most literal sense, but also the metaphorical vampirism, right? Like, we are. We are. We are eating at the bones of a thing. And that thing, in some case, could be black culture as we know it. And that's the song that they use to impress these black people were standing in the doorway being like, what y' all want? And of course, there is one person, because there's always somebody in the back who's just like, I wait, I. Now I can't remember if it's. If it's. If it's. If it's Stack or Mary. If it is it Mary, who says.

[B]

We got to go out.

[C]

No, no.

[B]

Don't know what you mean.

[C]

The person who's like, you know what? They sound pretty good.

[B]

That was Stack like, Stack like this.

[A]

Well, ironically, Stack gets. Gets bit, becomes vampire.

[C]

Right. But I mean, I think that. That appreciation. I mean, I think there's something true in that moment, right, which is, you know, so much of what is happening at that. At that. In that doorway is. Is really about the complexity of the relationship between black art and white music or white musicians, which is like, when you got it, you got it. We can't. You cannot be denied.

[A]

Well, there's a. There's a third theme that we're gonna get to right after we take this break. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Sure, we're called the Rewatchables. And, yeah, we usually rewatch movies obsessively, but every now and then, we trade screenplays for ebooks. Some moments just call for it, like when the credits roll and you're still in movie mode, but your watch list is empty. Or when everyone says the original story is better than the movie and you gotta see what the hype's about. Prime gives you access to a whole library of free ebooks, so you can swap the rewatch for a reread. Or try something new Free ebooks library. It's on prime. So the third theme of this movie that I had written down was something Stack says after he becomes a vampire, because we're talking about the vampires trying to seduce everybody in the juke. Stax telling his brother, no, it's better this way. You should come this way. And then he says, we was never going to be free.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Which is the third theme looming around this. Like, hey, maybe this is actually a better life for everybody here in the. In the 1930s.

[C]

Which is the most. This is the darkest.

[A]

It's about as dark as you get. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. When you look at what those two brothers had done to find their freedom, when you look at where they had gone. They had gone to fight enemies abroad. They had gone to be gangsters up north. They had gone everywhere trying to search for whatever it is that they did not grow up with. Whether it was safety from their father, whether it was respecting their community, whether it was love. Right. One man couldn't love a woman because she was too righteous. The other man couldn't love his woman because she was too white. So it. Whatever they were looking for and they were going out to find it, they came right back home and still had to deal with all the accrued interests of the horror that waited for them.

[A]

And by the way, they were going to die the next morning.

[B]

Yeah, the guy was going to.

[A]

Those guys were all coming back to.

[B]

Kill them and clean the floor. I mean, I got a nitpick there.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah, I, I think I, I might share your name.

[B]

Yeah, I got a nitpick there.

[C]

But. But nonetheless, writ large, The. The knit aside that I think I probably share, I can't wait to hear what it is. This. It's so crazy. This movie is as popular as it is because it is a full scale comprehensive tragedy. And no matter, like everybody is trapped in their circumstances, all the options suck.

[B]

The.

[C]

The cosmos of the, of this, of the Jim Crow Delta means that there was no way that. That any sort of white power structure was gonna allow this club to stand. Right. And I just. Even once you get to that post credit sequence, which is essentially buddy guy as, as old Sammy, like sitting with the fact that he made it. And you kind of can't believe I was like, wow, Sammy made it. But also the. What he made was the blues. He is now the descendant of. Because we haven't even talked about what Delroy Lindo represents in his strain of blues. I feel like he's an overlooked. That character is kind of Overlooked in the larger.

[A]

I've not going to be on this podc. We're not gonna be overlooking Delray Linda's performance.

[B]

It's the best performance in the movie to me.

[A]

Holy shit.

[B]

And that's not taking anything away from Mike. But I did.

[A]

You literally took something away from him.

[B]

No, because Mike has a lot more to do with this movie. It's his best performance before. I'll tell you something else. I wonder. So the movie is a tragedy. Everybody dies. Everybody gets fucked up. The child's daughter is an orphan. Like all of those people in there died. They have families out there. The movie is a profound tragedy. There's nothing but blood left. The only person that is. The only people that are left are Stack and Mary. And I have not been able to understand what we are supposed to take from that. Because, listen, like, Stack comes back and he is. Now, I don't want to get too deep into this, but I was thinking about this.

[C]

No, you got to get deep because they didn't get dressed like that by accident.

[B]

Stack comes back and now Stack is a vampire version of actual black experiences and expressions from the past. Now he got the big kuji sweater and the whole nine.

[C]

She's got door knockers.

[A]

I thought it was like, like literally Radio Raheem, like he has the stuff on his knuckles.

[B]

Well, I mean, that's just. Yeah, that's just. But what I'm saying is in that situation, he's there. And if I was to look at that in my most galaxy brain way, that character represents what we had to give up, which is literally the sun. Like, we had to give up the sun. We had to exist in the night. Now he's got. He's decorated, he's ornate. He is going to live. He has. He has survived as something lesser and more grotesque.

[C]

Not human.

[B]

Not human than what the people around him were. And that when I saw that. Because when at the end.

[A]

But he says it, though.

[B]

I'm happy Stack is alive.

[A]

He says it was the happiest day of his life. Yeah, but it was 60 years ago.

[B]

He's smiling when he says it's the last time my brother is the last time I saw him.

[A]

Last time I saw my brother.

[B]

And this is the last time I saw the son. And I'm like, fuck. But he's happy. And I'm happy he's alive. Even though he's lesser than human than what he was before there were compromises made.

[C]

I have been thinking about the only thing I really think about with this movie in terms of what it means and where it could go. I don't know how committed to intellectual property proliferation Ryan Coogler is. He is definitely a master at reinterpreting other people's ip. But I don't know if there's going to be like a Sinner's four if we're headed that direction. So I've got.

[A]

He says, no.

[C]

Plenty of time to think about what is going on in that sequence. And the third time I watched it, you know what I thought of the bridge from they Won't Go When I Go. The Stevie Wonder song. People sit in just for fun. They will never see the sun they won't even show their faces for them there is no room for the hopeless sinner who will take more than he will. Oh, my God, I'm going to start crying.

[A]

Oh, no. He got through Brokeback Mountain without crying. I was going to cry.

[B]

They got Wesley.

[C]

For they will never show their faces for them there is no. For there is no room for the hopeless sinner who will take more than he will give he will give he will give he ain't hardly gonna give Whoa. And it's Stevie, like, going from up here to down here, from the mountain to the valley, to acknowledge that there are these people who have been forsaken or have forsook. And every time I. The three times I've seen this sequence with. With Smoke and what's her face. The Haley Steinfeld character as. Sorry. And they're talking to this old man who we. Now we've experienced as a younger person. I'm hearing this. I'm hearing that song.

[B]

Who chooses death rather than be one of them.

[C]

He's tired of it. Yeah, I hear. I hear the. They won't go when I go. That's literally true. Because these people are never going to go, Right? They will live forever and they will never see the sun. S O n or S U N?

[B]

Right.

[A]

Right when we saw the movie. The movie ends with. With Michael B. Jordan, the second twin, dying, right? And he's going to where Annie is with the baby. And the credits came up and I started digging it up. And Van's like, hold on, hold on.

[B]

Don't go nowhere.

[A]

And I'm like, what do you mean? And then that whole other scene came in. Not only is it the best scene in the movie, I think it's one of my favorite scenes.

[C]

Me too.

[A]

I just couldn't believe how good it was. And each time I watch it, it gets better. And I just can't believe the choice of Starting the credits but then skipping ahead was so interesting that they did that and not do the Fast forward to 1992 or something to keep you in.

[C]

It's.

[A]

It's almost like an Easter egg, but it's so much better than an Easter egg.

[C]

And no, it's a coda. It's an epilogue.

[A]

I just, I can't believe they landed the plane on that. It probably shouldn't have worked, but not only did it work, it was. It's the, it puts. It brings the whole movie together in the best way. And also like to have Buddy Guy and just like, I just can't believe they pulled that off. They were saying, He's 88 years old. They had to film for like 14 hours. They're in like the, you know, it's fucking hot. And he just was there banging it out. And that's going to become a big part of his legacy, as weird as that sounds. Because I think this movie is going to endure in its own way, you know, and he's. That he's so crucial to that part.

[C]

Oh, yeah. Well, the idea that that person. I just kept wondering because, you know, the blues song, like I Lied to you is not in any way a 1930s anything, right. The Delray Lindo character is the ability, the embodiment of like the Delta blues. And, And Sammy is something else. Preacher Boy is. Is a completely like, I would say, 1980s oriented blues, right? Like a Robert Cray kind of blues musician. Like late Buddy Guy, he wants his.

[B]

Blues to take him everywhere else. Wants to stay right there at the same club for the next 20 years. Preacher Boy wants that guitar to take him everywhere. It's a little bit more accessible.

[C]

Right? And I, you know, but. But what do they say when they, when they find old Sammy in that club that night? Oh, man, this electric shit. Yeah, I don't know about that. Yeah, we like the old shit. Well, I bet y' all would. Stands to reason, right?

[A]

We got to keep moving. Michael B. Jordan, Fruit Fail, 2013 Creed, Black Panther Panther 2 Sinners. He needed this one.

[C]

Interesting.

[A]

That's our guy. He. He needed a great performance and a great movie, I think for the catalog, because I, I just think he's, you know, he's not 40 yet. I think the talent's there. He's been in our lives the entire century, dating back to the Wire and Hardball and Friday Night Lights. And I, I said this to Van when we did the video about it the last time. I didn't 100% know he had this one in him. I think there's stuff he's doing in this movie, and I feel like Wesley's going to zag on this. There's stuff he's doing in the movie that I didn't think he could do. First of all, to play twins, I just think is like a whole other level of hard acting. I don't like to be able to just do that on a set every day. I felt like the twins were slightly different in ways that the more I watch the movie, I can recognize them. And I just think there's a presence with him. He nails the dialect. There's a physicality to him. It's like all the stuff he's good at, and it's just, like, perfect for him. And I was just really happy for him because I like him.

[B]

Well, it's a movie star role.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so he needed it. Insofar every actor that's going to be a movie star needs one just like that. It's a movie star role. It's a movie where if that character doesn't work, if those characters don't work, you don't have a movie.

[A]

Right. It's different. And by the way, this is the movie we always wanted Will Smith to make. Right. During his entire prime.

[B]

Well, yeah.

[A]

Something that actually really said something.

[C]

It's a different thing, though, because Will Smith can do. He could charisma, differently. Charismatic.

[A]

I know, but I think Will Smith thought, like, Ali would be his version of this movie, and it just isn't.

[C]

No, but he is like so many other things that I find. I don't know.

[A]

I didn't mean to attack Will Smith, but you know what I mean.

[C]

I hear what you mean.

[B]

What I mean is this movie shows Mike gets to be a little sinister, he gets to be smooth, he gets to be vulnerable. What you're essentially talking about from my perspective is every movie star needs a film where they show their entire range of talents, like, everything that they could do.

[A]

It's kind of like Leo and Wolf of Wall street, to be honest. Like. Like, he. He didn't need it, but he kind of needed it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wolf of Wall Street.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Interesting. At that particular moment in time, you think he needed.

[A]

Yeah, because that. That and the revenue combined, I think, raised into just a different strategy.

[C]

Yeah, but I think.

[A]

And he was already doing great.

[C]

This is slightly different because at the point at which Leo DiCaprio makes Wolf of Wall street, he had done. He had. Or he'd done Django. Right. Like one of the weirdest performances, he. Nobody, anybody's ever asked him to give. I feel like he'd already. He's already done enough conventional movie star work.

[A]

I'm just talking about a moment, a specific moment in somebody's career when there's a shift and you can feel it. And they've elevated in some way to me.

[C]

Well, the additional tragedy here, the extra narrative tragedy of this movie. Movie is that the reason that we're talking about whether Michael B. Jordan needed this part or like needed this movie to work in some way is that there isn't a lot for him to be doing as a movie star right now anyway.

[A]

Well, right. Part of that was his fault, though. He does two more Creed movies. He. He tried. Like, it's funny because we talked about this when I did a pilot with them 10 years ago about. Let's map out the next 10 years. You got to do a legal movie. You gotta do buddy cop movie. You gotta do your action movie. So he did his revenge movie without remorse. Yeah, he did the legal movie, Just mercy. Did Fahrenheit 451. That was like his weird sort of science fictiony movie. So he's checking the boxes, but none of them. Yeah, none of them really hit like this. And this just goes.

[C]

But I don't think that's. I just think that the industry is. The industry was changing under his feet.

[A]

Right, right.

[C]

Like the movie. Those movies did not work because of him. I mean, just Mercy. I mean, I don't think the movie is great, but I mean, there's so many deep and moving things in that movie, like Rob Morgan and Jamie Foxx. I mean, you just need him. Michael B. Jordan, to me is like a Robert Redford. Right. He's not the greatest actor. He is extremely handsome and alluring. There's something about Michael B. Jordan that makes you want to know what else is going on in there. And every once in a while, some movie or some co star will bring that out of him. It has to be brought out because he's not going to give it to you. Somebody's got to lure it from him. Which is why it's so interesting that he keeps working with Orion Coogler, because that is the guy who can push Michael, who seems to be able to push Michael B. Jordan into these really interesting zones of both, both as an actor and consequently, not that he's. Not that he. I don't know if he knows he's a movie star, but he's got the thing that we want from a person that we would classify as a movie star.

[B]

So I was talking to somebody. I was talking to Kalika last night, and she was talking about F1. And she was just like, I don't know. I just like Brad Pitt. She's like, I just like watching Brad Pitt and stuff. Like, Brad Pitt just. She goes, damson is so beautiful, and he's such a good actor, but he's in a scene with Brad Pitt, and you're looking at Brad Pitt, and you're just going, like, you know, whatever. Don't make jokes about my girl. Like, looking at Brad Pitt.

[A]

Really seems like she was looking.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Seems fine with it.

[A]

I'm just looking out for you. I'm just looking out for you.

[B]

Okay. I just see what you're doing on that.

[A]

Watch out for Kalinka.

[B]

And she goes, brad Pitt just has. I don't know. I was like, do you know what he has? And she goes, what? I'm like, he has it. And there's really no way to really articulate it, but some people have it. Some actors have this thing to where you go, hey, I like this scene because this guy, this gal is in it. They have it.

[C]

It doesn't matter.

[A]

I think you and I, this is the one thing we've talked about probably the most since I've gotten to know you in the last 14 years. It's how do you determine whether somebody has it or not? And Hollywood is trying to push it all the time, but it's like, you either have it or you don't.

[C]

Yeah, you can't. You can't make me think.

[A]

It's like, with the NBA. Like, who's the face of the NBA?

[B]

You don't ask the question when that face makes it.

[A]

So, yeah, we'll know when the face arrives, when it happens.

[B]

So.

[A]

And it's not Joseph Alexander, unfortunately.

[B]

Okay. Okay. All right. Now, it's just not Mike. Mike.

[A]

We'll know when it arrives.

[C]

It's Anthony. Come on.

[A]

Why are we.

[C]

What are we doing here? There's one person is Anthony Alexander.

[A]

Hopefully, Anthony.

[B]

Hopefully. He definitely has it. Mike has it.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

But even when you have that, this is important. Even when you have that, you need a very flavorful, creative gumbo. And you need the director or the creative that knows how to utilize it. And there have been very few guys that have been able to get there without somebody going, hmm, I know which role this guy needs. Does Tom Cruise need to smile his way through a movie? Or is it, yo, homie, is that my briefcase? And so with Mike. But either one of them, right? Both of those scenes, like Maverick smiling bright in 1986 or whatever, you go, wow. But at the same time, the guy in Collateral, he's magnetic in the same way. Mike, this was the role for him to display the fact that he is a magnetic, unforgettable screen talent. And he brings it every single time he shows.

[A]

It's one of the first De Niro. And Scorsese is a good example of this. Right. I think De Niro happens anyway, but he catches Scorsese, the perfect point of his life.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And that elevates it.

[C]

I think, though, there's a couple things, right? I mean, we, what we talk about when we talk about both the. It and the, and the, and the star maintenance is at bats, right? Yeah. How many, how many times you get to go up to the plate and like, swing at some pitches? And increasingly now people's batting averages are based on way fewer at bats. And so when you get up to the plate now, it really matters a lot more how good your swing is. And I just don't think that Michael B. Jordan has had enough at bats. I mean, I've been saying. And I still kind of feel this way, like, like I don't have enough data. I still don't feel like. Well, no, I mean, I think that. But. But the question is, what happens next?

[A]

But he's still.

[C]

Right.

[A]

He's still 38, 39.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I think he's under 40 still. So this is going to be. This should be the peak of his career, starting right now.

[C]

I just got. We are talking about. We. I feel like we're talking about this as though it's like 1999 or even 2010. What? Like if, if the movie isn't going to win him an Academy Award or it's not going to make $450 million at the North American box office in two and a half months. That middle zone where the movie star is, the movie star is tested and the movie stardom is, is. Is given a workout that doesn't exist.

[A]

Well, do we, do we think he can win an Oscar for this?

[B]

No, I think he'll be nominated.

[A]

He'll definitely be nominated.

[C]

I think he could be nominated. I. But no, he. I don't.

[B]

But again, a nomination on.

[A]

I would bet anything.

[B]

And like, tell you something, you better get nominated if you guys think 1992 out here was bad.

[C]

I mean, I mean, that's the way that I've been thinking about this.

[A]

No, this movie is going to. This movie will win for score. And we haven't even seen five months of movies but it will win for score.

[C]

The news. The news here has a real chance there. What are we talking about? Like, there's, like, 20 movies left to come out before.

[B]

And a lot of great ones, too. And there have been some really good ones. But what I'm saying is that he'll probably get nominated. This is like that. But that. But that right there is just so insanely important for him and his career. We go back and we talk about Ali. Ali was not what Will would have thought that it would have been. From the standpoint of more on the quality of the movie. I like it.

[A]

We're doing on the rewatchables. At some point, we both like it.

[B]

Okay. Like, I like it. I get that people, for whatever reason, I like the movie.

[A]

I like too much.

[B]

But when. When you.

[C]

There's some great stuff in that.

[A]

Great, great.

[B]

When you saw Will Smith nominated for an Academy Award, it was like, oh, okay. I didn't know that was a thing. It was a thing. It was a big deal for his career that him and Michael Mann got together and made a movie that rose to the critical reception to where he could have been nominated for an Academy.

[A]

Well, he should have gotten nominated for Six Degrees of Separation.

[B]

He definitely should have got nominated for.

[A]

It, but he wasn't. You know who else has been nominated? Ryan Coogler.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

39 years old. There's a class of directors I wanted to throw this at. Wesley Coogler, Chazelle, Greta Gerwig, Chloe Zhao, Sean Baker, Robert Eggers, Ari Aster, maybe the Safdies. I know you feel about that.

[C]

That's no reason to, like, kick them out of the club.

[A]

Cord is gonna. Cord's only made one movie that. But I think he's Jordan Peeled in this group. Well, he's older. Jordan Peele's 46.

[C]

Oh, I see. Under 40.

[A]

These are all, like, okay, late 30s, 43. Yeah, these are late 30s, early 40s. And then you could. You could shoehorn Jordan in that, too, even though he's 46.

[C]

I say Trey Schultz is probably in this conversation.

[A]

But it's.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Bigger point is we have, like, a real class of creatives that I don't feel like, you know, we talk about all the 70s. You romanticize, like, these different eras of directors. Think it exists now.

[C]

But again, like, we're still like, well, there's two things happening. Right. Like, I mean, Coogler, even if you look at the crazy thing about this movie is look at what this man has done. Like, it. It. He is, from the standpoint of what this town cares about, like, these people so much.

[B]

No, he, the man. He also, he owns some Spielberg, though.

[C]

Right. Like, this is what I'm talking about. Right.

[A]

No, he said probably the best commercial director we've had in a while.

[B]

And just all of these hits in a row, just all of this money. He's, they, they're printing money off him.

[C]

He hasn't missed. He hasn't missed yet.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[C]

He hasn't missed yet. And I don't think that people think of him as a person who hasn't missed yet.

[A]

No, that.

[C]

I think that they should have been talking about this movie. It proves it.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[C]

I think that one thing that's really important here, and this is kind of both the point and beside the point, this movie came out in the spring, a dusty time, traditionally, anyway, for movie releases. It comes out in the spring as a big hit. It's got ideas. But it's not a movie that was being sold as being an ideas movie. It was sold as a vampire movie that you had to wait an hour to get the vampires and people stayed and then they kept going back.

[A]

I do think there was a buzz to it leading up to it. I think Coogler's vampire movie.

[C]

My point is not that they were selling us Michael B. Jordan in a tank top. So, like, I'm in line. Yeah, but, but, but the point, the point is, why are we pretending that what's happening isn't happening?

[B]

The movie is filled with gorgeous people. I mean, beautiful people. They're beautiful people in the movie.

[C]

You're giving us, you're giving us Miles and Michael. I hadn't, I didn't even know Miles could act.

[A]

I didn't, I don't think anyone knew Miles could act as a musician.

[C]

Like, I, I, he wasn't unknown to.

[A]

Me, but, oh, look at Wesley fucking dropping.

[C]

I don't, I'm not. Like, I know about Miles, don't know.

[A]

That he was on my Blues Reddit board.

[C]

But anyway, I feel like this movie was, was, was advertising something to me that was very appealing and not that hard to understand. Yeah, Michael B. Jordan, probably killing a bunch of vampires or zombies.

[A]

What's funny is the movie was so good, you forgot about the vampire part the first time. You're watching it for 40 plus minutes, and then when we finally have a vampire, it's like, oh, shit, I forgot.

[B]

We talked about this when we talked about the film before. A little bit. But there was one thing where I realized, obviously, because me and Sean were going crazy over this When Coogler was able to successfully give a 10 minute dissertation on how the film should be watched, why he shot it in 7D or IMAX or whatever, list off all the. And that bitch got to like 15 million views. I watched every second of a 10 minute video about a director telling me the best way to watch his movie.

[A]

That was Fantasy's version of a Diddy freak off. He was just like, he was covered in baby oil watching it, just going up, dressed it all white. Oh my God.

[B]

So I'm like, I'm like, oh, this shit different. And by the way, he is not in any way giving the audience a break. This is the thing that I like about what he does now. He's not giving you a break. He's making you come to these ideas, these heady ideas because they're too delicious for you to pass up on. He's saying, look, shoot it like this. This is 5 perf. This is 15, this is this, this is that. This is the different things. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And people went for it. That made people more excited to go see the movie in the more expensive format.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

In the format that was going to drive the box Officer Movie up.

[A]

It's incredibly filmed and directed. They film it for imax. The famous one shot scene with that, with Sammy's Song, they couldn't actually, with the imax, they couldn't actually just do the Scorsese nightclub one shot all the way through because the cameras. So they had to like somehow stitch it together and make it seem like a one shot. But it was all stuff designed for. This has to look as cool as fucking.

[C]

It still feels panoramic.

[A]

Anyway, it's amazing.

[C]

I just, I want to come back to what I was saying about the directors and what has changed. I feel like the industry is, we are now more reliant. This industry is now more reliant on people that it sort of took for granted for years and years to give it credibility. Which is basically our tour of filmmakers. Right? Like these people are now more important than they ever were to the, to some studio's bottom line.

[A]

So you want Joe Schumacher to start. Schumacher to start making movies again.

[C]

Well, listen, if, if, if he's gonna come back. But I mean, I do think for as much as, for as like bad as the Joel Schumacher movie was as a movie, he really understood something about American popular culture. Right? He understood what was an author he.

[A]

Spoke to 8 millimeter, 2.

[B]

8 millimeter.

[C]

I mean the Lost Boys, this is what I'm saying. Like, I mean I. We. We don't have a Joel Schumacher now. Yeah, we don't have anything like a Joel Schumacher. What a luxury to not like a Joel Schumacher movie. Now we're.

[A]

We're behind schedule, so I gotta move to preacher boy quick. Sammy Moore, who learns how to please woman. From Stack. He learns how to stand up for himself from Smoke. He learns how cruel the world could be from Delta Slim. And he learns that religion doesn't necessarily make you a good person. From Rimick. He takes all of these lessons, has a great blues career, opens a club called Perlenes. Has some scratches on his face, but other than that, goes through. And I guess we're supposed to believe he was one of the best blues musicians. Yeah, that's how they're setting it up, right? He's one of the guys, but he's played by Miles Caton, who I knew nothing about when I saw this movie. I had no idea. The backstory, it's his first movie ever. Coogler and his casting director get audition tapes from all over the world because he's like, this movie fails unless I find the right person. And they're just. Everyone's sending him stuff. And Miles sent him something. He was like 18. Coogler didn't know he was a child prodigy son of a gospel singer. Been performing his whole, you know, life, basically. But hadn't. Wasn't famous. And Cougar knew right away, this is it. 20 years from now, this might be more of a Miles Kate movie than we. We're discussing now. If he becomes like. I guess the question is, what's the ceiling for this dude? Because he's awesome in this movie.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know what happens with him.

[C]

It's this. I don't have to keep beating this drum. But, like, what are the move. Like. Like, give him the work. Let the screen.

[A]

But maybe he's just a musician, though.

[C]

Screenplay floodgate and let him.

[A]

But maybe this is the only time he acts in a movie I don't like. Something will happen to him. I just don't know what it's going to be.

[C]

I'll tell you this. Anytime Miles Keaton's coming to town, the ticket's been bought, you know, because if.

[A]

You watch him actually in concert, like, he's, you know, he tones it down for a preacher boy, but he's got. He's that charismatic performer.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They don't make them like this. They stopped making him like this 50 years ago. I don't know where he came from.

[B]

Stop making him like this.

[A]

Well, I'm saying, like, he's like, out of, like, out of like three other eras.

[B]

50 years ago.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Stop making a such a dick. So, okay, so there is. There is the Stinger. The. The mid credits. And then there's the Stinger. And the Stinger. He just picks up his guitar and just. And he starts singing. And I'm like, what the fuck is this?

[A]

I thought they were dubbing his voice. The first time I saw it, I was like this. How is this voice coming out of this kid?

[B]

Did you like the look on Stack's face when he had never heard Preacher.

[A]

Boy in the car?

[B]

In the car. That was the same way that I felt. And by the way, you can get somebody in there to sing them songs. Had he had a lot of acting before this?

[A]

Never.

[C]

No.

[B]

That is phenomenal.

[A]

Phenomenal performance. And I'm glad you mentioned that because that's my favorite moment, this whole movie. In that final scene when he's talking about. When he's talking about Preacher Boy's voice and they have the flashback of him hearing it in the car and now it cuts back and he's the vampire in 1992. And it's just. It's just really good. It's just Coogler's just good at stuff.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, but that moment, there are those two moments. They're two. Really. Well, we can talk about it when we.

[A]

Yeah, all right, we'll keep going. Ludwig Karanson, I think that's how you say it.

[C]

Goranson.

[A]

I don't know. I'm gonna mess it up. He's already won two Oscars. Yeah, he did Creed, Black Panther, Tenant, Oppenheimer, Sinners. He's doing the Odyssey. So when you're Ryan Coogler's guy and Chris Nolan's guy.

[B]

Yeah, you're the man.

[A]

It's a good place to be.

[B]

Hey, Ryan and Chris seem like they have a good relationship. You know, I first heard him, he was very instrumental on one of my favorite albums of 2010, which was.

[C]

Was it Childish Gambino?

[B]

Yeah, because the Internet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, Childish Gambino. When Donald was still finding himself as a musician and he drops this weird, brilliant, avant garde, really sort of masterpiece. And that's when I first heard of Low. I didn't even realize he was as into the movie stuff as he was until about three years ago.

[C]

I'd only know. Well, I mean, I guess I did.

[B]

Three or four years ago.

[A]

He's basically like new wave John Williams.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Between the Donald Glover, the Childish Gambino stuff And the. And the movie stuff. Yeah, because there's such different. I mean, these two worlds have. I mean, you know, to the ear, have nothing to do with each other. Right.

[A]

And he got a lot of direction from Coogler because Coogler had all these sounds in his head for the scenes. And one of them was. He kept thinking of Metallica. And he wanted like a certain. Certain couple moments in the movies to kind of kick in, almost like a Metallica song would. So they figured all of it out.

[C]

It's so interesting the way rock music ideas figure in to how we're supposed to understand tragedy and horror in this movie.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I. I think it's such a bold choice because it's so. Not explicitly. Those chords aren't black rock and roll chords. Those chords are. Those chords are metal cords. Right. I mean, you can do a tree that gets you from Black Sabbath to the Delta Blues, but. But those chords themselves, when you're just kind of banging them out like that, I mean, they're not banged out, but they're essentially familiar from another zone of American popular music. Right. Or, you know, just popular music in general. And they're used here in this world.

[A]

Of.

[C]

Exploitation, like forced collaboration. The way that different musical styles are functioning here is really kind of hard to sort of map out and process because they're just kind of presented. And I'm still not sure, for instance, what to make of the Iris jig that happens in the middle of the movie that turns into kind of like a grungy mosh pit situation where, like, really what we're looking at is a kind of Nirvana concert, honestly. And the way that the turned clubgoers who are now remic acolytes have essentially become moshers alongside this guy, while also like Biscuit. Well, I mean, actually, that's not wrong.

[B]

But I think, first of all, I love that scene. I think two things are happening. One, there, one, Rimick has his own culture. That's the first thing. He's not devoid of culture.

[C]

No, it's definitely culture role.

[B]

Yeah. Like he has his own culture. And number two, once they are in with him, they've completely lost any autonomy or objectivity. They are loving everything that he is doing. He is the best dancer they have ever seen. He is the best singer that they have ever seen. Like, they're the people who they were just before they got bit are completely gone. Like all the soul that they had, all just their culture, their outlook, everything is gone. They are just. The only way to be close to him is Complete, uncompromising worship and oneness. He will accept nothing else.

[C]

Well, you know what's really interesting? There's that moment where the last person I think we see get turned is the Omar Benson Miller character who was supposed to be watching the door and keeping everybody from. You know, he didn't know he was keeping vampires out, but if he hadn't gone to take that piss, this. This might not have happened. But when he gets turned, there's this. The only time we see this happen in the movie, he. He is prone on the ground, and he sits up and he goes, he just woke up. Oh, like, he just. Like he just got woke.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

And it is Peabody, Pulitzer.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Just Peabody P. Moment. Category.

[B]

Yeah, Wesley.

[A]

Pulitzer moment.

[B]

Peabody, Pulitzer moment.

[C]

Anyway, the point is like, that to me, is. Is obvious. It's deep, but also opening up this other line of argument about blackness, what people, what freedom looks like. Right. Because at this point, Bremic has made his pitch. Right. You gotta join us over here.

[A]

We are.

[C]

We're about love and peace and freedom. And, you know, to paraphrase our current president, when he was talking to try to get black people to come vote for blacks and Latinos to come vote for him, he's like, what do y' all got to lose?

[A]

You can't do worse that the Klan's.

[B]

About to come get you.

[C]

Like, yeah, come join us in. In living death. It's better over here than whatever's about to happen to y' all tomorrow. Because he would have known about this, too, because. Right. He turned. He turned a Klansman. One of the mentions show up at the club.

[B]

He tells him. He goes that. He goes like that is his uncle like this. This whole place is a. Is a tomb. Anyway, it's like, this is a big funeral, like you guys, that you don't have a future here. Your only future is with me. You're precisely right.

[A]

A couple actors, we have to mention. Quick. Hailee Steinfeld.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Josh Allen's wife.

[B]

Josh Allen's wife.

[C]

Oh, that's right.

[D]

He got married real quick after this movie. He married her real quick.

[A]

He liked it that fast.

[B]

He didn't want.

[C]

He didn't want to speed it up, change the date.

[B]

Like, she was immersed in a new audience there.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

With Michael B. One time and was like, we need to get married fast.

[B]

Yeah, I need to.

[A]

There's not a lot of people I can lose my future wife to. But there's one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Mpj. She's great. I've always liked her. Always had stock.

[B]

Ridiculously talented.

[A]

I Love that. Just 17. I thought she was really good in that movie, but she's just always been good.

[C]

And I love.

[A]

I love her vibe, everything. I love how she lays back in the last scene when they catch up with Sammy.

[C]

Oh, yeah. Because she doesn't have any.

[A]

She's just all presence and it actually works. But she. I think this movie is a huge.

[C]

Win for her, I gotta say. When she gets off the. You know, the. I mean, most rewatchable scene, when she gets off the train. Her first scene, she gets off the train, she comes over. Sammy sees her coming, and I guess. I guess Smoke sees or Stack sees that he did that. He's there that she's there. And the kid's like, yo, what do you. And she walks up and she's like, so you gonna. Me and then never call me. Like, you know, I have the line. What is it?

[A]

I heard you loud and clear, but then you stuck your tongue in my coos and me so hard. I figured you change your mind.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, and talk about the blues.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, coming in, she delivered.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

There is a way she. She, like. I'm sorry, put it this way. If you give that line to Kim Basinger, who I could have believed would take apart like this once upon a time, and we would just accept it.

[A]

She doesn't nail it.

[C]

She doesn't like.

[A]

Van go ahead.

[C]

This person lives.

[B]

Want to put her in White Girl hall of Fame?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No. Okay, so.

[C]

But complicated because she's a Negro.

[A]

She.

[B]

We. We found out some things about her.

[A]

So what happened?

[C]

Like that.

[B]

I'm just. Because I'm trying. I'm trying to break the news to Bill.

[C]

Oh, okay.

[B]

You know, you just lost. You lost one.

[A]

She's like, what do we find out?

[B]

She's. What? What is it? Her grandfather is black or half black or something like that.

[C]

Her father.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

Something like that. Yeah, something. So there's something there.

[A]

So what I'm saying is I'll cancel the ceremony.

[C]

Yeah, well, now you got to have a different ceremony.

[A]

She was great. Delroy Lindo. I almost did this as my hottest take. Is it possible the two greatest roles of his career have happened in his late 60s, early 70s?

[C]

Are you thinking about the Spike Lee movie? Yeah. Interesting.

[B]

About the Five Bloods?

[C]

Yeah, interesting.

[A]

Whether you like that movie or not, I do not. It's an awesome part.

[C]

He.

[A]

I was looking back at all of the parts he's played, trying to figure out what his best parts were. So.

[B]

Got West Indian Archie, which I love.

[A]

He's Got a lot of stuff over the years.

[C]

Clockers.

[B]

Clock Clockers. Great role from him. You remember Clockers, right?

[C]

Yeah, the dad.

[A]

That's why I didn't do it. As hot as Take. I couldn't. I couldn't carry it in.

[C]

Crooklyn.

[A]

But this one was. Was Delta Slim's. Pretty great.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Get Shorty. That's gonna be good. Delroy. Linda.

[C]

Ooh, sexy Delroy.

[B]

Yeah, like, that's really good. What's the. What's the point of being in LA if you're not in the movie business? Like, I love Get Shorty. Have y' all done Get Shorty yet? Rewatchables yet?

[A]

Haven't done that one yet.

[C]

So good. So good.

[A]

Could be an Elmore Leonard month.

[C]

Weirdly timeless, too, strangely. But the thing I love about this performance is that it is funny. Like, he seems to be completely unashamed of two of the grossest lines in the movie or like most ridiculous lines in the movie anyway. And. But he gives the. The most powerful. One of the more powerful moments in the movie is the speech after they pick him up. He's recruited basically to perform in the club because he's. He's Delta royalty.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Everybody knows who he is.

[A]

Neat about the Jew. Yeah.

[C]

And they're. They're. It's. It's. It's Sammy. What's his character's name again? Delta Slim and. And Smoke. Smoke Stack. They're in the car together and he gives a speech about essentially that aligns the blues with lynching, essentially. And there's a way in which he. He delivers that. He tells a story about somebody who got lynched, essentially. I'll cut it short, but there. The way that Del Oriel delivers kind of. It is its own blues. It stands in for the development of a history of an aspect of this music, but not the whole music. Because one. Another thing I love about this movie is that it is the. It is blues as a cultural experience as experienced by people who dance to. Danced to this music. Because this was dance music for us.

[A]

Right?

[C]

And it was a whole life of joy and, And. And excitement and. And just jubilation. It wasn't just my baby left me and I don't know what I'm going to do. This was. This was club music. And I think that the story that he tells in that car is a really crystal clear allegory or parable for how the music as an art flower, how wing of the music as an. As a. As a sort of cultural expression and the expression of a circumstance comes to Be. You almost don't really. If you never heard another song in this movie, you'd be okay. Because that story, as delivered by Delroy Lindo is so powerful. And I believe. I can't remember now. Does he play? I think he sings a little bit at the end of the speech.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

While he's banging on the. On the car door with his harmonica.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, it's. That is a great scene.

[A]

He's one of those guys, when he pops in the movie, you're just happy to see him.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

Say hey.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Jack o'. Connell. This is a really big movie for him. And I think he gets nominated too. I think it's going to be. The nominations are going to be interesting for this movie because we didn't even talk about Annie yet because she's also really good.

[B]

Oh, she is a force. William Wosako.

[A]

She's like. She is.

[B]

She is. Of all the characters in all the movies that legitimately reminded me of the women that I grew up around, this was the one. Like, you know, my mother and other people or my sister. Hoodoo practitioners. I don't know if you knew that.

[A]

We've discussed.

[B]

Right. They do root work.

[A]

I was waiting for Van to dive into Annie. Figured you'd add some Annie's in your life.

[B]

Yeah, I was waiting to dive into Annie, too. And so what I'm saying is. And there's something else about this, like, that is a beautiful, sexy woman. I mean, and Hollywood has turned their back on the brilliant beauty of a black woman in, I don't wanna say her natural form. Because black women are natural and beautiful in all different types of way. But that type of black women, we love them. And when a lot of people were like, you know, when I first saw her and Smoke in that scene together, I heard some people. Some people on the line have been like. Like, I thought that that was like Smoke's mom. I saw some people saying that.

[C]

Yeah, that's. You've been poisoned by the movies.

[B]

Not the uninitiated.

[C]

You've been brainwashed by Hollywood.

[B]

Like, right away you could see that a man like that in that situation had a woman like that. And really, she grounds his character. Look at small things.

[C]

She makes his performance more interesting. Absolutely. 100%.

[B]

Look at the small things in the movie. Like, you would think that the movie would be dripping with misogynoir if you're talking about male and female dynamics in the movie. Right. When Remick is at the. Oh, not Remick. When Kornbread is at the door and he is talking to Smoke. She goes, don't talk to him, talk to me. And Smoke doesn't interrupt her. Smoke doesn't get in the way. Whenever Annie speaks, Smoke knows. Speaking with love and wisdom, authority and.

[A]

Authority.

[B]

And he defers to that and he is accepting and appreciative of that. Just very authentic and beautiful. And you know, something else I'll say about the movie is the love story in the movie that everybody was talking about was. Or the, the coupling of the movie that everyone was talking about was the coupling between Stack and Mary, which has its own.

[C]

That's a, that's a whole other Hollywood history in the movie, American history.

[B]

But the, the, the relationship that even from a chemistry standpoint that grounded this movie to me was smoking Annie.

[C]

I mean, just thinking about, just think about. I would, I mean, I don't know, this is probably answerable if you just called these three people up on the phone. But I mean, Coogler knows the whole history of like large black women in Hollywood what a woman who is built like Annie would be doing in a movie. Because we have a hundred years of that archetype doing that work, often to the, often for the laughter of an audience. I mean, the limitations placed on black women to only do service work because they were dark skinned, because they were full figured, thick women had one job in the movies and it was to serve a white person in a uniform or to do that work in some other guys. But essentially you're doing service work. And here that club, she is running that club, she is trying to heal from a terrible thing that happened to her. The thing that I love about this performance is it's capacious enough to sort of convey the authority, but also the hurt, the vulnerability. She's the person who knows the entire. She knows what's gonna happen. And she's like, you know what? Don't turn me, kill me.

[A]

Right?

[C]

I'd, I'd rather. The character is like, I'd rather die. But there's something.

[A]

This was my son's biggest nitpick with the movie was he didn't understand how Annie knew everything right away. Like how she knew immediately, oh, these are vampires. And I was like, no, no, no, that's. There are people like this. She fucking knows shit. Like, you just have to go with it, Ben. So she's like, come on, he would, she would know that right away that this is. I was like, yeah, she actually would, man. But this is my annoying 17 year old.

[B]

Like just real quick, my dad, my dad, my dad Would argue with my mom to a point, and then he would just leave the house. And I'd be like, yo, where you at? He'd be like, son, what you don't understand is that your mama and your grandmama is some hoodooers. And I ain't about to stand here.

[C]

I don't want no hacks for the.

[B]

Next four hours and get hoodooed by these women over no cable tv. Like, what's going on? You people so on edge about it. He'd be like, did you walk outside and see cracked eggshells all over the front? He's like, that was for me. Your mama tried to hoodoo, man. He would be gone for like a day or two.

[A]

So.

[B]

But when you had a question about, you know, if you were scared or, like, if you did, you would go to them, you would go to these women, and they would give you spiritual and energetic.

[C]

And we see her, like, there's a kid who's like, when. When he gets to her for the first time, there's some kids whose parents whose mother basically sent the kid over to Annie's to like, yep, Yep, she's great.

[A]

$100 million budget for this movie made 366 million and counting. Second highest grossing original.

[C]

Is that North America or globally?

[B]

That's gotta be global.

[D]

That's global.

[A]

Second highest grossing original horror film domestically behind the Sixth Sense.

[C]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

Number two of all time. Okay.

[B]

Pretty good. Was the $0.06 rated R? It was, right? Yeah.

[C]

Was it? Yeah.

[B]

Had to be, I would think.

[A]

Yeah. Bruce Willis was alive in the end. Spoiler.

[B]

Oh, tough.

[C]

Wow, we're still doing that, huh?

[A]

Roger Ebert has been long gone. Do you want to hear Chat gbts?

[C]

Oh, no, no. Come on. We ain't about to replace Roger Ebert with Chat Roger Ebert.

[A]

You want to know what ChatGPT thinks Roger Ebert would have said or no?

[B]

Sure, I'm into it.

[C]

All right, let's try it.

[A]

If Roger Ebert had reviewed Sinners, his review would have likely been a bold, heartfelt appraisal, blending admiration for its audacity with a critical eye for its unruly ambition. Expect something like three and a half to three and three. Four stars in true river form. Sinners dazzles it overwhelms. It's a movie you must see for its sound and energy and invention. Go in ready for the ride. Well, I found a little Roger Eberdy, little shout out to Chat GBT and the AI that's going to take over all of us when we're all dead and the rewatch was still happening with AI avatars of our voices. I can't wait.

[C]

It's really.

[A]

I mean, let's take a break and we'll do the Categories this message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. There's one thing I'm going to make sure I pack for my summer vacation. It's my Apple Card. I can earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including fuel for my car and booking places to stay. Plus, I don't have to worry about fees, including foreign transaction fees, which is perfect when I'm planning to travel abroad. To get an Apple Card for your summer travels, apply on the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on creditworthiness rates as of July 1, 2025. Terms and [e-mail] this message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. If there's one thing I'm going to make sure I pack for my summer vacation, it's my Apple Card. I can earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including fuel for my car and booking places to stay. Plus, I don't have to worry about fees, including foreign transaction fees, which is perfect when I'm planning to travel abroad. To get an Apple Card for your summer travels, apply on the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on creditworthiness rates as of July 1, 2025. Terms and [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what's great about summer? With all the pool parties, picnic with your partner and game nights with the guys, you have an abundance of opportunities to get together with everyone. It's even better when there's delicious food to enjoy and the best way to get that tasty spread. Boar's Head they have what you need to elevate your summer entertaining Freshly sliced meat, cheese that makes the ultimate sandwich platter, right? Or you could create the perfect snack from their Premium Hummus and Diploma collection. It's a Premium Hummus and dips collection. They have this new Basil Pesto hummus that looks so good right at my daughter's wheelhouse this summer. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite at your local Boar's Head Deli. Boar's head. Committed to craft since 1905. Most rewatchable scene. Smoke goes downtown, shoots a thief, makes a deal. We talked about the two sides. All that is mesmerizing.

[C]

Yeah, I like that.

[A]

The train scene we already talked about. Preacher boy meets Perlene. Haley comes in, comes in hot. I like that whole. This doesn't happen in movies all the time when the hero, a girl from the past, and they pop in and just when you see the life sink from their body for a second, like, oh, boy, this is going to be good. All right, I'll put my seatbelt on for this. Something's happening now.

[B]

Something interesting about that scene. First of all, when they're introducing both of those guys is essentially what these two scenes are. They introduce Smoke with his gun, they introduce Stack with his mouth because that's each person's respective superpower. Smoke is your enforcer and your protector. Stack is your smooth talker. You think that Stack is afraid of Annie because she's white, but that's not really why he is afraid.

[C]

Not Annie. Oh, excuse me.

[B]

Mary, Mary, Mary. You think that Stack is afraid of Mary because she's white, but that's not really why he's afraid of her. He's afraid of her because he's in love with her and he doesn't want to have to confront the feelings that he has for her. And the fact that he abandoned her and used the fact that she was white.

[C]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

Like the fact that he ran out and used the fact that they couldn't have what they were supposed to have as the reason why he did it. And that becomes very, very, very apparent as the movie goes on and as she continuously pokes and prods him about the fact that you don't have to be scared. You don't have to be scared. You don't have to be scared. And it starts right there.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, interesting.

[A]

We didn't mention. It's a quick one and the research on it's more interesting. But when we first see the twins and they do the cigarette trick, that was apparently very complicated, which I'll. But it could be. It's a borderline mini scene for most rewatchable. But the. The science of having Stack light the smoke for. And then doing the lighter, but having one actor do that and make it seem like it was two was like the hardest thing they had to do the entire movie.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah, I'll go through that in a second. Second.

[C]

Split screen technology still has a. It's still hard to do it.

[A]

So it's it's the best it's ever been, but really hard. Vampire rope. A dope poor Bert. Ever had a chance. When.

[B]

When I was vampire. Rub it up. I don't know what you're talking about.

[A]

When Remic. When he. When? Yeah, when he.

[B]

Oh, when he had it coming.

[A]

I'm giving this a special. Okay. Award for the exact moment when the movie goes up a notch.

[B]

Oh, Remic drops out.

[C]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

When he takes up. Do vampires. Sammy sings. This is the best scene in the movie, other than the ending. For me. This is my second, my number two most rewatchable.

[B]

I want to know what Wesley thinks about that particular scene.

[A]

This whole scene, when they bring in just the way it's shot, the camera angles, everything. I just. I think it's just a mesmerizing five minutes.

[B]

Incredibly. I think this is a very polarizing.

[A]

I just think it's incredibly rewatchable to watch. But I also understand the cases against it, so go ahead.

[C]

I just wanted the whole song uninterrupted by the weight of the future in the past. I just didn't. I didn't. Like. This is. That sequence is so up my alley. That is my entire, like, intellectual project. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

One of the things I care most about as a critic and for me not to like it. Something is going wrong.

[A]

You didn't like it?

[C]

No, I didn't.

[A]

First of all, interesting, even with how.

[C]

Inventive it was to say it for the first. For the fourth time in this conversation. I love that song. Right? And I was falling in love with that song. And that, like, the performance of the song.

[B]

Song.

[C]

And just the way it's shot. And then all of a sudden, it's the strange. It's. It's always gonna be one of the strangest things. Even when I've seen this movie 10 times, which is when the twerking starts. Who's first? Is it the twerker?

[B]

No, no, it's the first one.

[A]

Guitar player.

[C]

It's the not. It's the not.

[A]

Record scratcher, guys.

[C]

Yeah, but he's playing the electric guitar and you're just like, wait, what is that? Andre 3. What is going on right now?

[A]

It's all the ghosts from the past and present. Wesley, why are you explaining?

[C]

Okay, keep explaining to me. I think that the thing that I just. It did not work as a sequence. To me, the. The argument is beautiful. I love the argument, you know?

[B]

You like what it's trying to say.

[C]

I love the thing that it's arguing for and asserting is definitely true. And powerful about this particular person and this particular piece of music. I am curious about why this song. Love it as I do, is the thing that does the unlocking. I. You almost convinced me why Earlier. But I don't know, it just didn't. It just. I'm one of the people who just found.

[A]

Typical Internet guy.

[B]

Peabody, Pulitzer.

[A]

Peabody. Pulitzer. Now on Reddit, an anonymous name killing Ryan Coogler. The.

[C]

The. The breadth of this history that it. That that is being conjured up in this scene is both generous but also kind of confusing. You know, Chinese folk singers. The. The. The amount of African artists that we are. That we are seeing there is. It's generous to a fault in some way. But I also. There's a part of me that's like, oh, Wesley, calm down. Just. This is a beautiful.

[A]

You like watching it, though?

[C]

It is arguing for folkloric timelessness.

[A]

But what about the visual of it, though? I like when the fucking roof comes off, like, okay. And then landing on the vampire, like, I just thought it was so much like.

[C]

Because what happens? What world are we in at this point?

[B]

But so, you know, so once the.

[C]

Once the club burns, like, I just.

[A]

Want to cook for four minutes.

[B]

So I have two thoughts. That's the first thought. And the second thought is that is supposed to be the scene where the movie becomes a supernatural fable. Kind of. It's earlier where Remick drops out of the sky, but the movie. The reason why that scene was so fantastical maybe is because that's the point that the movie becomes a supernatural fable. The vampires are woken up. And then the second thing I'll say is this.

[A]

No, that's a key point. You need it. Because it's the. We now move into the different part of the movie where now we're like, things are gonna get fucking crazy.

[C]

I think my literal brain, though. Go on.

[B]

I get a lot of people felt it this way, by the way. But I think from also a philosophical standpoint, the movie means something from the creative standpoint, which that scene just means I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want to do.

[C]

That's fair.

[B]

Everything in this movie is exactly the way I wanted it. If you thought the movie was too on the nose with some of the messages, I'm sorry if you thought the movie was too on the nose with this. I mean, he kills the Klan at the end. Actually, that scene to me seems a little bit more superfluous.

[C]

I love the Klan murder.

[B]

I like it a lot. I love watching it.

[A]

But why are you pointing at Bill.

[B]

But that scene seems like a scene that was just kind of like, okay, this happens almost for no reason, but also in this movie.

[C]

But there is a reason.

[B]

There is a reason. I get it. And it's a beautiful send off of smoke to.

[A]

There's a couple reasons, though.

[B]

There is a reason. But what I'm saying is. And by the way, that's one of my most rewatchable scenes.

[A]

I like that it's coming up later.

[B]

But what I'm saying is both scenes, all of this stuff is just. We're making this movie exactly the way we want to make it. And if it was any less authentic, it wouldn't have been what it was. But a lot of people are back and forth with this movie.

[C]

We were calling it, like a week after the movie. It was being called the scene.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I knew immediately when people were texting me, being like, okay, go. I was like, oh, I know what you're talking about. And it was. It was immediately the thing that all the black people in my life who were seeing the movie were just like, okay, what did it do it for you? And it really worked for some people. And it really.

[A]

It's funny because maybe because I'm a white person, I watched it more for the filmmaking part of it, and I just thought it was so cool how they did it. And I was more caught up in that. I was like, fucking Coogler. Jesus Christ.

[B]

Sean saw the movie before me. A little bit before me and Sean.

[C]

Fantasy.

[B]

Yeah. And Sean goes, there is one scene in the movie that as soon as you see it, I want to know what you thought.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I thought it was something grotesque or. I don't know, I thought maybe it was some kind of vampire abuse scene or something like that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was like. And. But when I was in the theater, I automatically knew that's what he was talking about.

[C]

But this is the thing.

[A]

It's also a great movie theater scene.

[C]

About this, about this movie, though, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like, this is a. This is, I'm going to say officially a vampire movie. But the. But the scene is this amazing tribute to. To the power of black music to lure the vampires, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like the. The movie, in the. In the movie's understanding of itself does not exist without this scene. So, I mean, I know what it's doing and why it's there. I think maybe I would have preferred a musical number. Right. Like, maybe you get all these different. You get these drummers and DJs and twerkers and. And folk singers to, like, Just devise a musical number for them instead of this. This more spectral, supernatural, metaphysical way of. I don't know, but. But again, like it is. I don't know if it's evenly divided, but there are as many people who. Who think that scene is perfect as it is as people like me who think there had to have been a better way to do it.

[A]

Can I have the final word?

[C]

Of course.

[A]

I support Ryan Coogler and I support true artists. I support artistic choices. Oh, my God. That is just.

[C]

Oh, boy.

[A]

Now, you know what I love about it?

[C]

Is he on the other side of.

[A]

The door right now. You know what I love about it? He knew it was going to be polarizing. That's fucking why he did it. And guess what? I still love that directors are doing that. He's like, you know what? I'm going to have this one scene. Some people are going to not like it. Some people are going to love it, and I'm just doing it.

[B]

Test it. Weird. Yeah, I'm sure.

[A]

He got notes.

[C]

I know I got a note. He got a note. Yeah, he got probably a lot of notes, but I would say I'm glad he didn't cut it. As a person who is often asked to remove things from things that I think are great and wish could stay so. You win some, you lose some. I think he probably. This was a kill. He probably died.

[A]

That's your fault because you don't work for the Ringer. Next rewatchable scene. You really.

[C]

Okay, Zeus, keep throwing the lightning bolts.

[A]

The vampires get Mary.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Outside is a great scene with a really good jump scare.

[C]

Yeah, I. I love that moment. I love a moment where the jump scare.

[A]

Little Exorcist 3.

[C]

But is it a jump scare or is it. It's even.

[A]

First time I watched it, I.

[B]

Maybe when he flies.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[D]

Everybody in the theater went, oh, yeah.

[C]

Yeah. It was so good.

[D]

Everybody just, like, made a. A groan.

[A]

Yeah. In the theater, it really worked.

[B]

It was just so. It was just like, oh, she's like. It's a scary thing.

[C]

But then there. But just let's think about, like, how well put together this movie is. You get that scene, like, Remic floats down from the sky behind her and it's a cloud.

[A]

Cut back to the club to the people dancing.

[C]

You've gotta wait.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

How is she gonna. Like, what guys is she gonna appear in when she comes back to the club? It's your.

[B]

The.

[C]

The levels of suspense or the suspenses that are happening simultaneously here are really, really effective. And again, I was happy with the first hour. I didn't need any of this. So I'm. I'm having an experience now that is.

[A]

Is.

[C]

Is more stressful than what I think I signed up to have Mary kill.

[A]

Stack is the next one.

[C]

I mean listen.

[A]

Van would have taken it. What if that kind of sex but then afterwards you get bitten and turn.

[B]

I'm going like.

[A]

I mean you're like that's get right here. That's why try not to do it a little lower so I can wear shirts over it.

[B]

Yeah. I'm going yeah. Smoke waste no time. Smoke wastes no time. That whole thing where they're. This is what I love about the. The From Dusk till Dawn Tales from the Crypt Demon Knight style where vampires are on the outside. We're stuck in the inside movie.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I love the moment where everyone realizes that it's vampires. The moment where Salma Hayek turns and from Dusk till Dawn to where everybody's like or like and went to where.

[A]

That's what Annie says here. She's like you hate now.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Says that to Cornbread after.

[B]

So say it again. How she say it?

[A]

You a haint now. I said that incorrectly.

[B]

So so. So but like that moment in that room. Smoke doesn't know what to do.

[A]

Like he. Yeah.

[B]

Mary just killed Stack and just like.

[A]

The whole thing is says the best thing about me was him.

[C]

Yeah. That is. That'll. I mean I kind of weld. I mean that got me that got.

[A]

That's. Well, you don't even think MBJ is getting nominated.

[C]

That's not my wish.

[A]

That's not whatever you already said for.

[C]

Him not to be said.

[A]

He was like honorable mention. This to me second tier.

[C]

I don't want that to not happen to him. I would love Michael B. Jordan to have an Oscar nomination.

[A]

Next one. Stack comes back from the dead. Annie knows what to do right away. Next one. Vampires make the case for taking Preacher Boy. And that's when. When Stack does a weird run around. Look for freedom. We ain't never going to be free. The big fight scene heading into the sunrise. I have some nitpicks on the fight.

[C]

That'Ll come up later. I like that sequence.

[A]

But Smoke gets Annie, not you. Stack has to kill Annie.

[B]

Well, Stack true love.

[A]

I'm sorry. Did I mess that up?

[B]

Smoke, we just did it a couple times. Stack gets Annie. Yeah.

[A]

Sammy escapes twins have a fight. We think we know who won, but actually we don't. And then the sun comes out. It's always great to see the sun in a vampire movie.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You know you're safe.

[A]

There it is.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Smoke dies after killing 12 KKK racists. This is Cougar, who seems like he's doing. He has that one shot of MBJ coming at the camera with the machine gun, like, doing the Rambo. And it was almost like Coogler was doing the Fuck you guys. You wanted your old school action movie. I'll give you this one scene, but I'm doing this, like, to fuck with everybody.

[B]

Tell you something, that scene also was a great mind flop for the trailer because it.

[A]

Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

[B]

Because, like, we hear that it's a vampire movie. And when the trailer first comes, there are no vampires, and then there's Michael B. Jordan shooting a machine gun in broad daylight. So you're like, wait a minute, what is it about?

[A]

It's a good zag. Yeah.

[B]

And you. And you really don't know because. And it's not until the movie that it actually makes sense.

[C]

You know, those ads. I mean, I have to say, this movie was delivered to the country very seductively. And to give it to us during basketball games and football games.

[B]

Fantastic.

[A]

Like, it was so much better than the Jason Tatum Superman Adam when he had blown out Achilles. That just tortured me for four days.

[C]

It's gonna be okay.

[A]

Last scene. The fake closing credits. Which wins the Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness or Best Needle drop as well.

[B]

Only two scenes out of that.

[A]

Okay, let's hear it.

[B]

One, remix. Dancing outside with everyone.

[C]

Yeah, good call. It's intriguing because you'll never get to the bottom of it. You'll never get to the bad.

[B]

I'll just. They was cutting up out there. And two, you know what scene I really like?

[C]

River dancing.

[B]

Exactly. I like the introduction of the Childs, where just from a filmmaking standpoint, which we might get to in Greyshot. Gordo, which that's gonna be the hardest to maybe give out ever to, where he comes in, he's talking about the Childs. They're getting everything together. And you're seeing Smoke negotiate. The camera follows their daughter out to the other side of the restaurant where she retrieves her mom. The mom comes back. Like, that entire part that just. It's a really amazing scene to me. Like when they're introduced, the whole nine.

[A]

What do you have for most rewatchable?

[C]

I think it's the end. I think it's.

[A]

That I have the end as well.

[C]

Yeah. Pearline's.

[B]

Overall, it's probably the ending of everything.

[A]

What do you have Craig.

[D]

I think it's right when Remic floats and you're like, oh. And things start to turn up in the juke joint. I'm not. I'm not turning the channel.

[A]

Okay. What's the most 2025 thing about this movie I'll throw in? I didn't have this originally, but Wesley Morris not liking the most important scene. I'm putting that in. The twins technology being really good. I'd put that in there.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

Coogler asking studios for first dollar gross, final cut, privilege and ownership 25 years after its release. Specifically 2025. But I am going with this movie premiered on Max, which then turned into HBO Max after it premiered. Was the most 2025 thing because we had to change the name of the Max app.

[C]

I like that. Yet again, I like that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The filmmaking technology, the fact that. That it took high tech filmmaking technology as far as what they were able to do with the IMAX stuff, how they shot it to make the movie look authentically 1930s. It took that much to make it look that authentic.

[A]

Okay. What stage? The best. I'll give you a couple. I always like this movies that start with a distinct scene and then we go backwards. We live a whole movie and then we circle back to the scene we saw in the beginning. Which some people try to pull off and fuck it up, but they don't it up.

[C]

I don't love that as a. I don't love it.

[A]

It's sometimes a lazy gimmick. Not in this.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Twins technology mentioned the survivors eating garlic cloves to make sure one of them might not be a vampire. Kind of pulled from the thing. I enjoyed that we mentioned the Chinese couple with the two separate stores that sell different things to different clientele. There's a whole Chris Rock thing in there that I didn't even notice until I did the research when the clan guy pulls up at the end and he said, club Juke grand opening, grand closing. Chris Rock bit. I like the line. I know plenty of musicians. I ain't never met a happy one. Good quote. Any movie character named Kornbread. I saw Cornbread Earl and Me in the theater with Keith Wilkes.

[C]

Cornbread Earl and me poster coming.

[A]

I love that movie.

[C]

I know you do.

[A]

You rob banks and trains but won't steal this for a night.

[C]

She's got.

[A]

How about that?

[B]

She just got some bears in the hell. And that. That was her as a van.

[A]

Is there a dirty girl hall of Fame. Alexis. Texas is all the rainfall.

[B]

Don't make me live in that I can see it. Don't make me live in that part of myself. But yeah. And that was you talking about things that the theater was like. Because I saw it, I went to a screening of it, and then I saw it with you talk about things in the theater. People was like, oh, yeah. Because everybody, you know, used to hear her talk like that.

[A]

That's when Josh Allen was like, I gotta get a ring tomorrow maybe.

[B]

I don't think we're going to that Travis Scott.

[C]

I'm sorry. Excuse me. They ran these lines. Don't think they didn't run. Josh is running lines with Haley Steinfeld.

[B]

You think Josh was dressed up like stacked.

[A]

I mean, just trying to get her jump out.

[C]

She. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Haley Steinfeld's like, I don't know.

[A]

This cooler guy seems kind of crazy.

[C]

He was definitely running lines with Haley Coogler.

[A]

Here's a What stage? The best. Coogler. They asked him if he wanted to do a sequel. He said, I wanted the movie to feel like a full meal. Your appetizer, starters, entrees and dessert. I wanted all of it in there. I wanted to be a holistic and finished thing. So his answer was no. He's definitely making a sequel.

[C]

No, he can't.

[A]

He'll do it in like 15 years.

[C]

I don't want it.

[A]

It'll happen. This is how the world works. And sadly, 2038.

[B]

I hope the sequel made. I hope it's him. Because if. If this was 1997, the sequel would be straight to DVD and it would be Sinners 2 the Sun. And it wouldn't star like Michael B. Jordan.

[C]

Oh, yeah. It wouldn't straight to deep.

[A]

Would Shannon worry be in this?

[B]

Yeah, Somebody like, they switch everything out. So like, if he does it, it. I just hope that sinners 2 is not made without Ryan Coogler.

[A]

I could give you a whole thing about how they filmed the cigarette scene, but I'm not gonna do it. You can go read that online. Big Hoona Burger. Well, what other. What stage? The best they have. Anything else?

[B]

I'm gonna go with the look of the film. I'm gonna give props to a Higher Learning guest. Autumn Derald Arkapau, who was the dp, shot the movie and she came on Higher Learning, taught us all about how she got to feel the looks of like it did, how she lit the film, everything about it. So it was fantastic.

[A]

Okay. Any other what stage of this for you? I think that the movie just came out.

[C]

You know, Michael B. Jordan's Michael B. Jordan is right. Like, I think that is. I think people came for him and like, stayed for Coogler.

[A]

They did a pie chart of who came out for an MBJ was like 47%. Coogler is 43% for biggest reason. Yeah, that was interesting, I think.

[C]

And I wonder what happens. I don't know how you exit poll to find out, like, who won the movie, but basically I think you. You would have been satisfied if this movie had just been. Michael B. Jordan kills all the vampires.

[A]

Big Kuna Burger. Our best use of food and drink. Probably eating the garlic.

[B]

No, no, it's Delta Slim in the beer man.

[A]

Oh, the Irish beer. I had that as my other choice.

[C]

Oh, interesting. For me, it was. It was just that sequence when they're preparing all the food.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[C]

Right. Like that great kitchen sequence, which I could have used an entire five minutes of. Oh, that catfish.

[A]

Nancy Myers did the kitchen.

[B]

Shut up. I almost. I'll leave it for a second too.

[C]

I'm gonna leave.

[B]

It's just funny. It's just when, When. Cause you know, Stack is talking to him and he's giving Stack shit. And Stack goes, okay, cool. And when he twists the top off the beer, the Delta Slim goes, oh, yeah, yeah. And he performs for the beat.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I like the garlic only because I know the actors probably actually had to eat it. And I always like when real life intersperses with actors. Garlic 100.

[C]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

That's some method acting. But you're eating garlic. You, you, you're gonna act naturally as you're eating garlic. Craig eats garlic all the time.

[D]

Yeah, I'm a vampire. Do you think it was real? I feel like that was like chocolate that they painted to look like garlic or something.

[C]

I don't know.

[D]

So hard to eat. And how many takes you got to do with that?

[A]

I mean, for everything Coug did in this movie, like, you gotta have everybody eat the real garlic.

[C]

I think there's so much other suffering these people are being asked to deal with.

[A]

Like, yeah, they got fake blood.

[C]

I think eating fake garlic.

[A]

That was in the research. There was a lot of complaining about how gross the fake blood was and having it stuck on your face and stuck on your chin.

[B]

Well, there's an alternative, so.

[A]

Great shot. Quarter award for most cinematic shot.

[B]

It's too tough. It really is ridiculously tough. I like Rimick falling out of the sky. I just thought that scene where Remic falls out of the earth just comes.

[C]

To, like, lands to the earth. Yeah.

[B]

So that's like magic hour. Which it has to be because the sun is going down. Because.

[C]

Oh. To get to turn the clans in the white people.

[B]

So Rimmick falling out of the sky the first.

[C]

I like that.

[B]

He's. He's the son. He's sun bruised.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The. We're gonna talk about. We haven't even talked about my homies, the Native American Vampire Catchers.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

They smartest people they got. One sec.

[D]

That's the sequel.

[B]

Yeah, that's the sequel. They got one category locked up. For sure. They do. But I just like that scene. The way it looked. Even when he's sitting there talking and it's dust behind him. It's like. Like time is running out. Like the whole thing. I just really enjoyed it. I'm talking.

[C]

Yeah. I love that sequence because it promises you a movie that you don't get. But also I'm very comfortable. I'm happy to not have had it because I underst. Their. Their whole point is like, listen, I'm trying to tell you something's going on. If you got something in your house, give it to us now because we're not coming back.

[B]

Like, right.

[C]

I mean, also, we're not coming back to this movie because we're here to tell you that this is up.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

We're not doing it.

[A]

The sunset's pretty cool how they filmed that in the end.

[B]

But they're probably. The movie is just a.

[A]

It's full of the great shot Gordos shots, man. I think one of the ones I. We mentioned earlier. But the flashback when they're talking in the end and it flashes back to them in the car and him hearing him play for the first time and how much joy he has in his face, I think is just really well done. Random new category or it's. You only use it sometimes. The Ed Norton Reverse Dunk Award for. Did this movie need a random sports scene? Could we have like a baseball catch or something? Yeah, I thought about the old mitts. The two twins, like, throwing the ball for each other.

[B]

Like Delta. Like Delta Slim is throwing the ball. He's like fastest man I ever seen with a fastball. Satchel Page. They wouldn't even let him play in the league. We just gotta be out here throwing the ball around with us. Just something like that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Like baseball. Like something.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Weave it in chest. Rockwell and Brock Landers Award for best character name Smoking Stacks. Pretty good.

[C]

Smoking Stacks.

[A]

Preacher Boy is. Is pretty.

[B]

Delta Slim. They got a bunch of names in movies.

[A]

Wesley, you have a flex category. I. I You can pass on it. I thought Van was flex. You don't need to.

[C]

I'm gonna pass on my flex category.

[A]

Butch's Girlfriend award for weak link of the film. I have one.

[B]

I'm thinking.

[C]

I'm thinking.

[A]

The fight scene, it's eight people against 50 vampires. And it makes. It seems like. Like it's on like an eight on eight. And there's like 50 vampires outside. And I don't understand how they just didn't all get bitten right away. So that's a pretty tough one.

[B]

I call this the Blade conundrum. I've talked about this before. If you go back and you watch some of the fight scenes from like the original Blade movie, which the fight scenes are great, but it's one. It's three people rushing Blade, but really it's one on ones because one person is fighting Blade and the other person is behind. Like.

[A]

And the warriors is like that. And they're in Central park and it's three against. And they come one at a time. Like the baseball bat.

[D]

It's like John Wick versus like 40.

[C]

People in a room rush them.

[B]

They all just like one person is fighting Blade. And the first time you don't notice it, but then the second time you notice it's like, yo, why the other person standing behind, like, twirling the stick? Like, hit Blade in the leg or do something like that?

[C]

This movie, there's a lot of that.

[B]

It's a lot of that. Cause like, the vampires retreat at all times. Like, stack one time goes to Mary. Come on, let's get out of here. I'm like, why? Why don't I just finish killing? Mary runs out of the juke joint when she could have stayed in there killing. They don't even know that she is a vampire yet. So there's a couple of times that you're in a movie.

[D]

I take that as they need to be near Remick. They have to. They're showing.

[A]

Oh, he's like their Delta star.

[B]

Yeah, maybe. Maybe.

[A]

The Mallory Rubin Award for. Did this movie need a better sex scene, Mallory?

[C]

Oh, you couldn't do. I don't know. Sorry, Mallory. The answer is no.

[B]

Nah, I don't think so. Well, you want. Did you want more nudity is the thing? Because there's no nudity. Although there's some sex scenes in here. No nudity.

[C]

I don't know.

[A]

MBJ in the. In the kitchen with Annie. I don't know. Could they have kept going on that one? Gone for the NC17.

[C]

I think the spit I think the spit.

[A]

The drool spit. We didn't talk about that. Yeah, the drool.

[C]

I think when she drools into.

[A]

That's when Josh Allen got engaged.

[C]

And that's actually the scene. Like, that is so much more than anybody is asking for.

[A]

What's age? The worst already, I guess, is. I guess we have to call that the category. We mentioned already. The coverage of the first two weeks post release about.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Is this movie gonna make enough money? So weird.

[C]

The early. The early.

[A]

How is that this movie? It should have been a celebration that somebody made a movie that was the new piece of IP out of nowhere. That was super creative. There was no other conversation to have.

[B]

A lot of times we overreact on Twitter, but that's not one of them. I'm like, all right, man. Like, what the. What. What? Like, what the fuck are you doing? Is sinners. It makes 50 million, but is it enough? What are you talking about?

[C]

Like, is it enough for who? For one thing, I mean, just like.

[A]

And who sits around? This is like the NBA ratings conversation. Same thing. It's like, who's sitting around, like, at dinner going, hey, sinners, do you see it only made 51 million? Do you think that's enough for Cougar? Like, nobody's in real. In the real life is talking about this.

[C]

It's week one. The budget was $90 million, which, I mean, which I have been told by some people who are doing some work with the studios that we're now in this new place where there's a class of movie that the studios want to try to make, which is called responsibly budgeted.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

And between 70 and 90, congratulations.

[C]

But it responsibly budgeted is like, under 15 or something like that. Or like, oh, I don't know what the. I don't know if that's an official number, but, like, everybody's got their responsibly budgeted ceiling. But 90, like, 75 to 90 is the other side of responsibly budgeted.

[B]

Right?

[C]

We're like, there's the whole 74 to $17 million, like, zone where, like, nobody can get a movie made for that much anymore. Like, that's money. Not worth spending. Well, then somehow I don't. I don't quite understand the finances on.

[A]

This, but the deal that Coogler made, which became a big topic in a lot of ways, this is future stuff. Warner Brothers was, like, falling apart. They needed the movie. Like, they were going to do whatever it took. It's like, if you have free agency one year and somebody signs some crazy. Like Deshaun Watson gets a no trade contract and 230 million guaranteed from the Browns. It's like they gave him that because they're the fucking Browns. He wasn't going to go there unless they gave him the contract. And people always miss that part.

[C]

Who's the desean Watson in this scenario?

[A]

No, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. All right guys, we're on the same team here. I'm saying Warner Brothers is the Browns. They're a mess.

[B]

They got to do what they have.

[A]

To do to get the movie they want. Nobody wants to play for Warner Brothers.

[B]

There's one difference between Warner Brothers and the Browns. Boy has Warner Brothers.

[C]

They figured it out.

[A]

Part of it was cuz they did this deal. It was a crazy deal that wasn't so crazy because they got this movie.

[B]

And they, they, they needed to lure that type of talent away from V.

[A]

He'll jump off my car anytime, any chance he gets.

[B]

Well, it's fun. It's just like. Because you. Because this is just funny.

[A]

They just hopped out of the car. Yet I agree with you. Cleveland Browns, Warner Brothers.

[C]

But to show on why I said also. But wait, can I wait.

[A]

He was a piece.

[C]

The, the question really is how the like. Oh little, oh ye of little faith. Right? Like the idea that this was some chance that Warner Brothers would.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Michael. With Michael B. Jordan in it. I just, you know, it's now to be fair to somebody, right? Like they probably, they saw the movie. They. There probably were some questions about whether it took too long for the vampires to show up. Do people want to really stick around and just watch black people be black people and regular black people in the, in the Jim Crow Delta? Like there are like things I can imagine a studio person having some concerns about given how out of practice everybody is telling stories about regular humans now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And Cougar was like, nah. But it's gonna work though. Cool.

[A]

He's like, I'm four for four for four. You do the calculations for that batting average because is it's a thousand. The overacting word. The Ruffalo hand or ribbon of partridge. I say this out of complete love, but it's probably Delroy Lindo who dials it up a couple times. But I loved all of it. I support it. I appreciate it. But if you're gonna say if anyone dialed it up in the movie, it's probably him.

[C]

Oh, him.

[A]

Oh, it's him.

[C]

He's. He's. But it's the time of his life.

[A]

He's. I want him to dial it up. He's supposed to dial it up. And then Delta Slim is supposed to be at 10.

[B]

Mrs. Child started getting on my nerves, too.

[C]

Oh, yeah, well, she makes a bad choice.

[B]

She just.

[C]

Her choice makes no emotional sense. It makes no practice.

[B]

We're gonna get to some nitpicks. And she was giving it at some point.

[A]

That's a good one.

[B]

She's gonna. My nerves.

[A]

Dan, you have a flex category.

[B]

My flex category in this situation is going to be the Den of Thieves Benihana Award for scene stealing location.

[A]

What do you got?

[B]

Clarksville and the American South.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

What a beautiful, textured, gorgeous, heavenly depiction of a place that I am so, so connected to. I told the story to you guys before of riding through Mississippi with Ryan Rossillo.

[C]

I didn't see that coming.

[B]

Yeah, we did something at. We did something at Ole Miss. We did. Ryan's.

[C]

Got it. Got it, got it, got it.

[B]

So we had to fly to Memphis, and then we had to drive to Oxford. And I've told this story before, but we're in Mississippi, and there are cotton fields. You see cotton fields there. It's still a cash crop. And you can tell in the car who's not used to seeing that. Cause they're not saying anything. And I'm like, yeah, guys, look at the cotton out there.

[A]

Just check it out.

[B]

Look at the cotton. How's that make you feel right away? Subject change. But there's also this brutal beauty to the South. Things are old. Things have existed for a long time. A general store is a beautiful thing to look at, particularly when you're down there in the South. So they really captured that in the movie.

[A]

The CR Thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest. Take a word if you have one. You don't necessarily have to. Van probably has one. Wesley's not a hot take artist.

[C]

Yeah, I don't really have a crazy, crazy hot take here.

[A]

I don't know.

[C]

I feel like, you know, I just think not liking the scene is about as.

[A]

Yeah, you already did yours.

[B]

So preacher boy is there. You know, he's older, and they say, hey, we want to make you a vampire. If I'm preacher boy, I go, I want to be a vampire. I'll take a shot at Mary, though. I'm on my way out of here. You know, I've held it down. You know, you were asked to leave me alive. And, like, you know, maybe me and Mary one time with a vampire. Is that.

[C]

Wait but hold on. We didn't even talk about a whole other sex scene that preacher boy has.

[B]

He has it with Perlin.

[A]

We have a spot for it.

[B]

Yeah, he has it with Perleen, but I'm saying Perleen's gone. He's named the club after her. He's an older guy.

[C]

I see.

[B]

You know, if you really with me like that.

[A]

So age 88.

[B]

Like, age 88. Like, can I just one time.

[A]

Can I reenact how you died with a sex scene?

[B]

Slash, one time, by the way. You can, by the way, since I'm about to be gone anyway. Look, stat, you can stay here. Kill everybody in the bar. Like, they go, I don't even know this guy I just hired.

[A]

They pick up her lane.

[B]

I just hired these guys. I don't really even know who they are. Take out everybody in the bar. Just one time with Mary, we out.

[A]

I like it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Here's my hottest take. Oh, being a vampire. Not that hard. I just feel like you just have to bite somebody on some part of their body, and it's a w. But this isn't like, you come in, it's like, oh, trying to bite him. Trying to bite him. It's like, just bite any. You can bite anything. You bite their calf, bite their hip. It's like if you have the giant fangs. If I try to jump on Van right now, he could fight me off, but I could still bite. Stretch. The vampire movies make it seem like, oh, and it's just. I just think you're gonna be able to eventually.

[C]

But I love a vampire movie where the vampires don't. Like, they're just like, I'll just go around your arms, sir. Yeah, I will. I will just. I'll just bite you anyway.

[A]

Because it doesn't. It could be anything. It could be the side of your leg. It could be your butt cheek. Like, they always make it seem like it's gotta be this area in a vampire movie.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I guess that's probably where most blood is.

[B]

But not to.

[A]

Yeah. If my goal is to turn you into a vampire, it doesn't matter where I bite you.

[B]

It just has to get in your bloodstream.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Just don't overcomplicate it. The new. Like, if we're doing, like, Sloan conference analytics for the best vampires, it's the Van. It's the undiscerning vampires. They're just the ones who are like, I don't care what part I bite.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't need to feed. I haven't my job is to create other vampires. Vampires. I need a nice group of vampires. Then we can go like. Then we'll feed.

[C]

Right. I'm with you.

[A]

This is a great point casting what ifs. Didn't really have any except for Halsey. Completed a script read for the Haley part. Didn't get it.

[C]

Interesting.

[A]

That's all I got.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

20 years from now, it'd be like every single actor from there would be like, Chalamet was almost in this as best that guy award. It's got to be cornbread.

[B]

Omar Benson, I didn't know what his.

[A]

Name was until I looked it up doing research for this movie.

[B]

But he's been around, he's been in stuff.

[A]

I just never knew what his name was.

[C]

Some of your favorite movies?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, no, he's. I just never knew he was a classic, that guy.

[C]

I mean, his film, his. His list of. Of his filmography is just like.

[A]

It's a lot like. Wait. Yeah. I was like, oh, right. Oh, right.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Now, did you. Have you heard the story about how he got in this movie really quickly?

[C]

No.

[B]

Ryan Coogler, he told it at the premiere. Ryan Coogler was name draft. Ryan Coogler was either a film student or just graduated SC when he went to a screening of the miracle at St. Anna.

[C]

The spike Lee movie.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[B]

That Martin Miller was in. He went there and he told him, like, one day I'm gonna work with you and put you in a movie. Like, I'm gonna be a filmmaker. We gonna work together one day. And years later, when Coogler was putting the movie together, he reached out to Omar Benson Miller and he put him in the movie. I love that Omar told the story at the thing. He was like, we actually got a chance to work for him. He's like this kid who came up to me, ended up doing everything that he said he was going to do in his career. And then we ended up working together all of these years later.

[A]

Craig and I have a different story. Craig just came out here to be an actor.

[D]

Yeah, that's right.

[A]

Did you kind of stumbled into.

[D]

Was a nationwide insurance Gruden Grinder. Monday Night Football, when he was doing that.

[A]

Gruden Grinder.

[D]

He had a Gruden Grinder segment.

[C]

Oh, wow. The Gruden Grinder.

[A]

Love the Gruden Grinders. Dion Waiter's award. It's either Delroy Lindo or Buddy Guy.

[B]

I gotta be honest with you. It to me is easily the Native American vampire hunters.

[A]

The Chalk Tows.

[B]

They are in it for one Scene. They try to warn everybody, like, legitimately. They come in, they cook, they look cool. They're very important. They tell this woman, look, it's a vampire in your house. And the guy said at the front, he's like, you know, I really want to help. Homeboy is like, hey, yeah, we got to go. The sun is going down.

[C]

They dead.

[B]

Let's get the fuck out of here.

[C]

You know the Choctaws. I like the Choctaws.

[A]

Is. Yeah, I like it. I like that recasting couch. Director city. I'm going to explore the studio space on this one. One more character. I'm just going to create a new character. Get our girl Villa Davis in this.

[B]

Aunt.

[A]

Maybe she's the aunt of Smoking Stack.

[C]

Oh, interesting. Okay.

[A]

She's got some special skill, like she knows how to make. We just get one extra scene with her. I just. I feel like we're one person short with the group.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

You want more star power?

[A]

I just want one more character. One more famous person. A little older, somewhere between the Delroy lindo age and MBJ's age, early 50s. Family member knows some history with the twins and doesn't like Mary.

[C]

But doesn't she stage a little bit of what Annie's doing?

[A]

No, not a huge part. Maybe it's an uncle. I was just trying to figure out one more person we can throw into this.

[B]

What if you put in somebody who is Delta Slim's estranged wife?

[C]

Yeah, because he's the one. But, you know, we already know he's probably got four X's as it is.

[B]

She's in there and there's like, I don't want to see this drunk him. And then, like, you know, see, there's.

[A]

If we're just five minutes short with somebody, I don't know who it is.

[B]

Has to be.

[A]

I was trying to think of a good actor.

[B]

I had to be. You need somebody with a little comedy. A little older little comedy.

[C]

Yeah. Oh, Jennifer Lewis. Jennifer.

[B]

Jennifer Lewis in there, Dennis.

[C]

But it's too much. She is the. She is the brontosaurus steak that tips over the Flintstones car. You don't want. You don't want just Jennifer Lewis.

[A]

Half ass Internet research. I'll go quick. Our guy Ludwig, he drew inspiration from blues music, but more importantly, performed the score on a 1932 Dobro Cyclops resonator guitar, which was the one. Sammy has the whole movie.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. Kluger said his two biggest influences for the film. Two of his biggest influences. Dust till dawn, the faculty with Roger Rodriguez. I get it starring Jon Stewart. A movie that I think he tried to buy all the copies of to destroy. But he is not because it's still on cable.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah. They cast a twin double named Percy Bell who had the same kind of body as mbj and they also hired twin consultants.

[C]

Oh, twin consultants.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Well also consultants Wise Rhiannon Giddens, the great Americana musician. And I guess, I mean we'll call her a scholar. Yeah, his you know, person Beyonce turned to to sort of figure out how to think through what Kobe Cowboy Carter was doing. Huge blues presence. Chris Stone Kingfish Ingram is in the band and at the end with Buddy Guy, he's one of the musicians you see in that slow motion transition shot. Yeah, the Irish culture consultant whose name has now escaped me. There's a lot of. Just let's make sure we.

[A]

This goes back to the. This is why it takes Coogler two plus years to make a movie. When Smoke and Stack return, they go to downtown Clarksdale, Mississippi. But it was shot in Donaldsonville, Louisiana.

[B]

Oh man.

[A]

Bands like that. I dated a girl from there.

[B]

We used to have our horses there Donaldsonville like we used to. Like we used to. Before we had the barn. We used to board horses there. Donaldsonville is cool. Girls in Donaldsonville. Donaldsonville High used to be fine as hell. I've been for real girls in Downsonville High team.

[A]

This surprises me at all.

[B]

Had a nice track girls. Downsville High was fine as hell.

[A]

They had to make it dirt roads and they had to bring in all this dirt to actually make the dirt road over the pavement. So Remick mentions how Christians took his father's land.

[C]

Oh yeah.

[A]

But he's Irish and that actually puts his life somewhere between the 5th and 7th centuries.

[B]

So he's old as shit.

[A]

Yeah, the film there's a lot of like Robert Johnson stuff that I was not really did not know a lot of about the guitar player blues guy who supposedly sold a soul to the devil and then died young. And Crossroads were.

[B]

Ralph Macchio.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh no. What are we. We were doing so well. Although. Shouts. Shouts to Joe Seneca. Shouts to Joe Seneca.

[A]

But Wesley, you like this. The working title of this film was Grilled Cheese. Because Coogler was used to making complicated dishes. He wanted this to be an enjoyable easy eating experience. So he named it Grilled Cheese. And all the in all the script.

[C]

Demo the finest grier he could find.

[A]

Too Apex Mountain hard to do when it's movie just happened. But Ryan Coogler, I find it hard to believe he's going to have more power than he has right now. And if he does in a couple years, God bless him. But this is about as much juice as you're going to have for a director, I think. But think about, like, who's not making his next movie. He could be like, I'm going to make a movie about Van's left kneecap. And they'd be like, here's 100 million.

[C]

Yeah, but think about. I just think like how they're where they were talking about this movie.

[A]

I know, but now that this happened.

[B]

90 site unseen for this. Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He could literally go to them right now and said, I need 250 million bucks.

[A]

I don't know. We'll tell you the idea. 250 this.

[B]

I'm like, it's not. It's not. We're not doing superhero shit. We're not doing this. I need $250 million and we're gonna go make a movie. And they were.

[A]

They would say it's a movie about the Donaldsonville high girls in 1992.

[B]

Right. The cheerleading squad wouldn't have been 92. I'm not, you know, 96,000 high.

[A]

Michael B. Jordan, Apex Mountain.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[C]

No, no, I think so.

[A]

I think for where his career is so far. Yes.

[C]

Yeah. All right, fine.

[A]

He's just. I think it is the face of a $500 million.

[C]

Where does he go? What does he do?

[A]

Does he have another level to it? Does he have his version of the Revenant?

[B]

I think where at the. So, okay, you'll get this. You know how.

[A]

Cause I'm white.

[B]

No, because you love NBA basketball. Okay, but that's probably because you're white. But like, I love watching them dunk, dad.

[C]

They jump so high. They jump so high, dad.

[B]

You should have seen the Chief, what he was able to do. So you know how a player has all of these. They have all NBA. They have all star seasons. But then like 26, 27 is the official beginning of their prime.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I think this is the official beginning of Michael B. Jordan's prime.

[A]

I said that earlier. I totally agree. I'm not saying these next five, six years will be. This is going to be it.

[B]

Now, I'm not saying he hadn't been all NBA. I'm not saying he hadn't been an all star. I'm saying this is the official beginning of his prime.

[A]

It's like a little Hakeem in the early 90s for the Rockets where it all starts coming together and he has that crazy stretch wins two titles.

[C]

I don't disagree. I'm just like. I feel this way about so many people. Timothee Chalamet is Pac man right now. Any script is on a table anywhere. Like, his people are gobbling up. And whatever gets excreted that is still intact is what gets picked up and done. Right. Like, I just feel like, show me the scripts. I keep.

[A]

But that, that changes all the time because, like, in the Goldman books, which are right over your right shoulder. But he always talks about, like, who has that alpha seat with the scripts.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

But it. It flips in a year.

[C]

It does change. But I feel like there are so few people now who are viable both in the minds of the public and in the sort of books of the industry that I definitely think this is the moment for people to be giving Michael B. Jordan or offering Michael B. Jordan really interesting things to do.

[A]

Well, he's also at the age now where he can play any adult role.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He'd be in a sports movie right now. He could be the cop who's been on the force for a while. He could be a detective, like, you name it. He. He's not too old to be anything yet.

[C]

Okay. I just. I. I'm not here to disagree.

[A]

How about vampire movies? Apex Mountain?

[B]

I can't be. No, I'd have to think about it.

[A]

So what is it?

[C]

What do you mean?

[A]

What's. What's the apex of vampire movies?

[C]

Oh, it's probably that period where Dracula. I mean.

[A]

Which Dracula?

[C]

Stoker's Dracula. I think it's that. That period where. Well, here's.

[A]

It's probably late 70s.

[C]

Here's what I'll say. I feel like this is a great moment in. In American life or like, maybe even considering where Europe is right now to really be thinking about what these vampires are offering in these movies. If you think about Robert Eggers. Nosferatu.

[A]

Yeah. And.

[C]

And the way that. That Eggers is arguing for a vampirism that is hard to resist because it is just too sexy to say no to. Right. The power of the vampire is too strong to not want to have sex with. And so you give yourself completely over to him. It's one of that. Nosferatu is one of the most convincing sort of political, psychological arguments for vampirism I've ever seen.

[A]

I think Wesley wants to bring vampirism back.

[C]

Well, it's here. We're watching it happen. And I think that I'd like to.

[A]

Be a conciliary to the vampires, Just go for any body Part.

[C]

Well, in this metaphor.

[A]

Stop going for the next.

[C]

You don't. You don't want it. You don't want to be anywhere near these people. Okay, but I will. But I also think that Coogler has also found a very appealing way, I think vampire. This is definitely Apex mountain moment for vampire culture. Metaphor.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

It's the Apex mountain, certainly for black vampires.

[A]

How about twin brother movies? You don't think so?

[C]

Have you seen Blackula?

[B]

I've seen black. I've seen.

[C]

I've seen Vampire in Brooklyn.

[B]

Vampire in Brooklyn. But I would say it was between.

[A]

This movie's bad.

[C]

Oh, Blade.

[A]

Okay, but this is not about.

[C]

But. Okay, fine. You're. This is fair. Not enough black vampires, though, right?

[A]

Eddie tried during his worst part of his career. My guy. Twin brother movies, maybe. Twin movies.

[B]

This.

[C]

This is the most successful grossing twin movie.

[B]

Almost certainly with twin leads. Yeah, for sure.

[A]

Yeah. Haley. Stan Stainfield. Steinfeld.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How can I say it? Hailee Steinfeld.

[C]

Yes, for sure.

[A]

For sure. So far. I think there might be another moment for pickled garlic juice. Yes. Cunnilingus advice.

[B]

Oh, Cunningus Adv.

[A]

Can't remember a better cunnilingus advice scene in the movie.

[C]

No, we're not doing better than this one.

[A]

Just look for that button.

[C]

Well, I'm sure I don't want to say never because I'm sure there's one I'm missing, but I can't think of one. But I can't think of it.

[A]

The blues. I'm gonna go. No haints.

[C]

But the blue. Well, let me think about this. The blues in movies, for sure. Right? Like the blues.

[A]

As they would say mo better blues.

[C]

But that's a jazz movie. This is like Bam.

[A]

Wouldn't say mo better blues.

[C]

Oh, I think this might be. Let's think about the blues.

[A]

Let's think about this.

[C]

This is definitely. At least in the movies. This is the. This is the. This is the blues. This is a great blues movie.

[A]

How about drooling? Best drool scene ever.

[B]

But there are several good drool scenes in here. This is a good drooling movie.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Movie characters named Cornbread. Probably. Yes. I don't think Cornbread, Earl and me has really had a long shelf life.

[C]

No.

[A]

All right. Cruiser Hanks.

[B]

So we talking about for Remic can.

[A]

Be for any role you want.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

But obviously can't be for certain roles. Cruise.

[B]

I was about to say it can't be for any role.

[D]

Cruz would kind of kill it as Remic Crew.

[C]

Yeah, would.

[B]

So he's played It Remy.

[C]

He's played remix.

[A]

That's why we know this is the better remix. Mid 90s cruise. This would have been like the best part of his career right now.

[B]

Now he did up to me as I did not like that at all. Because that's not what I'm talking about. No.

[C]

I'm talking about he would love another crack at that part. I. I'm.

[A]

She's basically. He would be basically Cocktail Cruise as a vampire.

[B]

As a vampire. He would kill.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

As Rim.

[A]

He'd get behind the bar and start flipping bottles.

[B]

The dance scene would be so bizarre and crazy.

[A]

He would learn how to do the Irish. Irish stand whatever dance.

[C]

He would do the Tropic Thunder Dance.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Kill us.

[C]

But I think though, this is raising a sort of alternate series of questions about what Tom Cruise life looks like after this year.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Like what are his choices? What's he doing? If Coogler is offering. Let's say this movie gets made a year from now instead of two years.

[A]

He's only the KKK guy. Yeah. He's the old guy that sells on the house.

[B]

Him and Mike would be smart to get in the movie together.

[C]

I mean this is what I'm saying.

[A]

Dan asked for this one. Denzel or will pick any.

[B]

Any age range in their primes.

[C]

This is not fair to Michael B. Jordan. Why are we doing this?

[A]

It's a movie podcast of hypotheticals. Play the game.

[C]

Oh, well that's no. It's a no brainer. You're just taking.

[B]

You're taking like so two Denzels as two Denzels or two wheels.

[A]

I think you're going early 90s Denzel or like 93, 94 range.

[C]

Yes. And I think Devil in a Blue Table.

[A]

I think he would have crushed it.

[C]

It Devil in a Blue Dress era. Denzel is a no brainer.

[B]

You don't think a little younger.

[A]

I. I would have gone early 90s.

[C]

Devil in a blue dress is 95.

[A]

Like I would have gone 92, 93 range.

[C]

Like Malcolm X era.

[A]

And like right after.

[C]

No better blues. Malcolm X Mal. Sure. Let's do it.

[B]

A smoking stack.

[A]

Scorsese or Spielberg?

[B]

I can see Spielberg has never done.

[A]

It's Scorsese.

[B]

Yeah. Spielberg's never done any kind of horror.

[A]

Besides we get some 1930s cocain Kane. Was Scorsese.

[B]

One of the.

[A]

One of the. One of the vampires. I. The fangs coming out. Wow.

[C]

That just gave real big Pacino. That was my favorite.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Never done cocaine. What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played?

[C]

Oh, he'd be a good Remic.

[B]

He would have been really good. He also could have been the clan guy, but maybe he's a little too young for that.

[C]

Not enough part there.

[B]

Not enough part there. But he could have been a great Remic, too.

[A]

Special category. I didn't even put this on the rundown. How would Van Lathan get out of this 1?

[B]

O out of which one?

[A]

Well, in this case, the situation is you're now a vampire, and you're trying to convince your brother not to drive a wooden stake through your heart. How do you get out of this one?

[B]

Okay, wait, so I'm the vampire?

[C]

This is a great parlor game.

[B]

I'm trying to ask my brother not to kill me.

[A]

And, like, here's my plan. Let's go. Right.

[B]

Okay, first of all, I say smoke, I go smoke. First of all, you already killed our father, right? You killed our father. You're gonna kill me, too? What are you person that kills your own family, Right?

[A]

How many family members can you kill?

[B]

How many people can you kill? Smoke, violent man. I saw you early shoot two black men in the street. Don't we have enough going on in this city? You know who shoots black men and kills black families? White people. You wanted them. Now you wanted them. Not Smoke. Smokes. Matter of fact, you need to come over here with me, bro. There's a new dance. It's taken over Clarksville. It's called the Jig. We ain't never done it before, but you jump high, you flip your legs up around. When you come down, your credit score done gone way up. Let me tell you something, bruh. You don't want to do this. You want to come on this side, bruh. Seriously, don't kill me.

[C]

All right, you live.

[A]

You live. You live picking it.

[C]

That's great.

[A]

Why did Smoke and Stack leave Chicago?

[B]

They robbed somebody.

[C]

They robbed Capone.

[B]

They either robbed Al Capone, they robbed someone.

[A]

All right, so they robbed them and they leave.

[D]

They stole the Irish beer and the Italian one.

[A]

Yeah, okay, okay. But now they're like, the Deep south is this burgeoning business opportunity. Yeah, I don't really understand their business plan. Well, it seemed like in chic, I'm better off just robbing people in Chicago. There's way more money there.

[C]

I think there's such a history of.

[A]

Black first, and they realize almost immediately nobody has enough money to make this functioning enterprise.

[C]

But then there's a community argument to be made for, like, keeping it open. Anyway, I don't know. It's a very moving kind of like naive, like desperation slash naivete. That's happening here. Right. Like a belief.

[A]

Sentimental. This is picking this, a belief in your people.

[C]

Sorry, Your. Your knit has been picked.

[B]

They say. Well, in the movie, they say that they decide to go with the devil that they knew, which is very interesting because there happens to be a devil, an actual devil that they have no idea about.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But. Yeah, so that's the deal with the reason why they came back.

[A]

So first time we see Remic, he's diving into that. Toward that person's house, right. And gets in and he's like, covered in whatever. The sun's out. So why didn't he just die? I thought they died the moment the sun was out.

[D]

Well, it's like sundown. He was, like, about to.

[B]

It's dusk.

[D]

Or it's dusk.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's okay.

[C]

It's not high sun.

[B]

The sun is not.

[A]

By the way, are there rules with how high the sun has to stay? This.

[B]

Yeah, his skin is boiling. This varies from vampire movie to vampire movie.

[A]

There are certain vampire movies, we've never established a code here, where the sun.

[B]

Comes out and the vampire immediately disintegrates. But there are certain vampire movies where the sun comes out. Like in Blade, it's like, oh, I.

[C]

Gotta get right outta here.

[A]

Please don't burn me.

[B]

So I guess this was more of a slow burn.

[A]

Slow burn.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

You know what this movie does that I struggled with. But Van, you know vampires, so you probably didn't think about it, but I don't know how much you do or you do, but, like, the whole. You have to let a vampire. You have to invite a vampire in.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

They don't really hold your hand through that. Like, they just expect you to know it.

[C]

But they. But it's such a plot point here.

[D]

Eventually, like, it gets banged into your brain.

[C]

I kind of love. I love. I had. I'm not familiar with.

[A]

With that.

[C]

Like I said, that was a rule.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But I kind of love how important it is in the world of the movie because it is also serving the metaphor, the sort of racial metaphor. Sure, right. And the movie really commits to the invitation question.

[D]

And watching it the second time, you pick up on how early on they start to ask if you can. If they can be invited in. Because originally you don't really think about that.

[C]

The second time I watched it, I was like, oh, the invitation is crucial.

[A]

So maybe we had consent back in the 1930s in a way we didn't realize. It's true.

[B]

I still, like, if you guys are Looking for all time vampire. Let me in scene. That's funny. The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer where David Arquette is outside Luke Perry's window and he's flying, he's floating. And Luke Perry has just woken up and he's going to open the window for his friend and he realizes that his friend is flying and he's like, let me in, let me in. He goes, no, like you're in the air. I'm not about to let you in the house.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's legitimately hysterical. It's a very fun. And otherwise I fucking about to diss the movie. I love that fucking movie.

[A]

I'm not about to quick nitpicks.

[B]

I love that movie. Fuck y'. All.

[A]

They built the juke joint in three hours. Just got that thing right up.

[C]

But they're not building it building it. Like they're just pretty complicated bar habitable.

[A]

I'm just asking.

[C]

Yeah, they had a lot of help.

[A]

A lot of stuff happened that day leading up to the night of the the juke.

[C]

I still love it. I don't care.

[A]

I'm just here to pick some nuts with the three vampires have really turned into an awesome banjo band in two minutes.

[C]

Another hilarious development though. I.

[B]

No, no rehearsal. But they have all of remix memories, right?

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then we talked about this earlier. How did Annie know so much about vampires? And how did the vampires not immediately win the 50 versus a fight? What did you have for nitpicks?

[B]

So, okay, number one, we all. Let's say we all in here right now. The vampires are outside. Craig is like, yo, man, Liz is out there. Craig, go find her, bro. Peace the fuck out. Like, go. Go find your wife.

[A]

Right?

[B]

I'm not about to be like, craig, you can't go. Craig, you gotta stay here, man. Craig, you feel like you gotta go find your girl. I feel you. We in this bitch. Good luck. Good luck, Craig. We in this bitch till sun up. Yeah, go find her. And that's what I would have told Ms. Child. Been like, hey, hey, you know what? You're right. That's unfortunate. I don't know what they're gonna do with the kids and stuff. Take your ass out there to Bo. Go find them.

[C]

They also didn't seem interested in anybody else other than the people in the club. Your daughter's probably fine.

[B]

They are in the moment I saw a vampire, my whole life would be changed in such a fundamental profound way. It would be so different. Like, yeah, you wanna go. You're right, man.

[C]

Ain't you A soldier.

[B]

Hey, he is. And he gonna stay in here and protect us. Get the fuck out. I would have kicked her out. I would've been.

[C]

Yeah, you can't kick her out. But I understand the urge to because she instantly becomes a very annoying person.

[A]

The Klan, uh.

[C]

Oh.

[B]

Why would you come to the Jew joint in the morning to kill everybody? Wouldn't it be a better idea?

[A]

Yeah. Why not come at 4:30 at night? Yeah, yeah.

[B]

When they're actually partying and they're drunk. Yeah, everybody's in there drunk. You gon come in the morning, first of all, you don't hear any music. Like you don't hear anything going on. The door isn't open. The Klan actually thought that the, the, the people were inside there. Well, he thought they all were sleeping.

[C]

Have you met the clan?

[B]

That's true.

[C]

These people are not winning any MacArthur. MacArthur Genius Awards.

[A]

They're not winning Peabody posters.

[C]

They don't even get 200 points for putting their name on the top of the sat.

[B]

It's true.

[C]

Like, I don't know. These are not. These.

[A]

They don't even have a dry oxygen with the hoods. I think it does hurt them, probably so.

[C]

We can't see in these goddamn things.

[B]

All y' all do is criticize, criticize, criticize. Now last thing, man. I'm for indigenous black unity, but boy, did our native brothers leave us out there to get our asses kicked by the vampires.

[C]

They said they were leaving and knocking them back.

[B]

I know, but.

[C]

Mad respect.

[B]

I know, but we are there and we are getting hell. These vampires and our native brothers, they left us out. They hung us out to dry, man.

[C]

Did they hang us out?

[B]

Kind of. First of all, if I was them. So they're hunting the vampires, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Why not go throughout the town and let people know. But who knows they're vampires afoot.

[C]

Where their other stops were we could have been. I mean, because this is. The sun is setting, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or send an email.

[B]

Something.

[A]

Well, there's an alternate version of this movie where the. Where the Choctaws show up at the end, like right as shit's going down. And all of a sudden they have like additional.

[C]

I've thought about that.

[A]

Additional bodies.

[C]

Like that wouldn't make me just that.

[A]

It would have been more conventional.

[B]

One last question.

[C]

Question.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do vampires have to ask to get inside of your car?

[C]

Great question.

[B]

Because if you have to invite a vampire in and everybody's like scattered outside, why just go jump in the cars, Jump in the. Like just, just like, just Jump.

[A]

It's a good rule of thumb for people listening when the vampires come to get us.

[C]

Here comes everybody.

[A]

Just get in. Get in a closed body of something.

[B]

Get in the close. Whatever. Now, Colin Farrell in Fight Night, he changed the game because he wouldn't be let inside of the thing. And he went and ripped up the gas lines of the kids and then did like this and put the match to the things like, I'm a burn the fucking house.

[A]

I love vampires, man.

[B]

I love vampires.

[A]

Colin Farrell, are you a vampire guy or werewolf guy?

[C]

Depends on my mood.

[B]

Can I.

[D]

Can I pick one? Knit?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And then I. Liz has a knit.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[D]

Okay. When Mrs. Chow makes the Molotov cocktail, lights it on fire, throws it at Renick, he slaps it away and it hits the barn door and lights the barn door on fire.

[C]

How?

[D]

Nothing happens from that. The place does not burn down. There is no fire. The whole place would have burned down. The whole barn door is on fire.

[C]

He hits it. Well, he can't burn the bar down. He can't burn the barn down twice. Right. Like, he's already given you the metaphorical barn burning.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Well, then I don't know why they included.

[A]

It's a red. It's a red herring burn.

[C]

It's the Russian fire for a scene.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And it ignites and then they never get back to it. You never see the fire again. It's like a continuity here.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Second one from Liz. She thought smoke and stack were too ripped. Didn't make sense.

[C]

Sense. They weren't ripped. They were just thick. I did notice that huge Michael B.

[D]

Jordan is extremely fit. Like Creed.

[C]

But you're bringing your old. You're bringing your memory of the old Michael B. Jordan body to this body. I think this is just a thick guy.

[D]

Oh, come on.

[C]

Like, I think, like, no, this is.

[A]

A 2025 with the machine gun.

[C]

He is, like, random.

[A]

You have like those, like, George Foreman, Ken Norton type bodies in the 1930s.

[B]

I think.

[C]

Think that I actually. I truly believe that that is the body he was trying to get to. And I don't know, he's not as. Also, we never see him with his shirt off. Right.

[B]

Like, we see the tank top. That's it.

[C]

Yeah. That's about as far pretty R. I feel like somebody was aware of, like, this concern. And he was probably asked to eat as many croissants as he possibly could to, like. So he didn't like to detone himself.

[D]

They would have to be working out a lot.

[C]

And they both look the same Yeah.

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

Maybe there was a gym in Chicago.

[B]

They were in the military.

[A]

Sequel.

[C]

And they were in the military 20 years ago. Yeah.

[A]

True sequel, prequel, prestige, TBR. Black cast are untouchable. Interesting.

[B]

It's actually a tougher category than you would think.

[A]

Can I test drive the prequel? Them in Chicago Stealing from Al Capone. Like, I'm in.

[B]

I will watch it.

[A]

It's not a vampire movie. It's just late 1920s action, Great Depression in Chicago movie.

[C]

I'm interested in that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That's like a little Godfather, too, to me.

[A]

Think about it.

[B]

With that.

[A]

Think about it. Ryan Coogler.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collins or Daniel Plainview? Long Legs or Wilford Brimley?

[C]

Ooh. Daniel Firm.

[A]

Did Sam need to be in this movie? Do you think he was upset he wasn't asked?

[B]

Bill, don't do it.

[A]

What? I'm. He's in the category.

[C]

I know.

[A]

I feel like Sam's like, I'm right here.

[C]

He's done.

[B]

Sam as Delta Slim.

[A]

I'm going with a new answer for this. That's not in the rundown.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

The Good Doctor. Oh, shit.

[B]

You love this show now.

[C]

Oh, interesting. You like this show?

[B]

I like it. I like it.

[A]

The Good Doctor is one of the people in the.

[C]

Oh, my God. Wow.

[A]

And they're trying to figure out what's going on. And they're like, the vampires are trying to kill us. We cannot let them in because they are vampires. If you open that door, they will cut. And it's just like. He's almost like Spock for the crew. And everybody's like, this guy's so annoying. Send him out. Throw him out. Let's get rid of him now.

[C]

The Good Doctor.

[A]

Yeah. Craig wasn't expecting that.

[C]

Sam Jackson made this movie. It's called Black Snake Moan.

[A]

I did not like that movie.

[C]

Many people didn't. It is not. It is.

[A]

That movie's a tough thing.

[B]

I try. I've tried a bunch of times, but I appreciate the.

[C]

There's a crazy blues movie for you.

[A]

Just one Oscar. Who gets it?

[C]

Oh, it's Ryan Coogler.

[B]

I just won Oscar. Is probably. I have. I have Mike. But probably the direction. It's probably. It's probably Coogler, man.

[C]

But it's Coogler for directing.

[A]

I think. It's Coogler for directing. I think. If you did this, what's the safest bet Oscar from this movie is the score is winning the score is gonna win. Like that's. I didn't know what the other scores are.

[C]

I would vote for original screenplay.

[B]

Oh okay.

[C]

I would vote for original screen.

[A]

How about that new category because it hasn't happened yet.

[B]

It.

[A]

What is the over under for Oscars for this movie? Knowing. Not even knowing what's coming out.

[C]

Winning or not being winning.

[A]

Well, let's go winning in nominations.

[B]

Okay so I'm gonna fanduel.

[A]

Fanduel set this at three and a half.

[B]

So picture is all pictures in play. Because that's a 10. That's a 10 nomination category.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or did they. Did they shrink?

[A]

Oh. Nominate for nominate. Yeah.

[C]

It's definitely a best picture picture.

[A]

100% picture.

[C]

You can't get to 10 movies right now.

[B]

Now. Right.

[A]

Picture Coogler score. MBJ.

[B]

Can I sell you. Can I sell you on Annie's character as a best supporting actress now?

[A]

Oh, I think 100%. Yeah.

[C]

I can see that.

[A]

To me it's like can she and Haley both get in only five me.

[C]

Is is much like much likely.

[A]

I think. I think she'd be the favorite in that one and then. But I wouldn't be mad if Delroy's getting nominated. Like lock that in.

[B]

He's honestly.

[C]

But we've been saying this. Can I just say we have been saying lock that in for Delray Lindo for 20.

[A]

Jack O' Connell 30 years.

[B]

Well I think.

[C]

And he's never been nominated.

[B]

I think Delroy is the most likely to win.

[C]

Whoa.

[A]

Listen. There's 20 total acting nomination spots in this movie. Might end up with five of them. Them.

[B]

I think Delroy is most likely to win.

[C]

Interesting. This is all fascinating.

[A]

I would. I would bet on Delroy right now if Fando had the odds.

[B]

Eddington and then the PTA movie.

[A]

Yeah. We haven't seen the PTA movie.

[B]

Are going to be like mammoths. But Because Eddington is phenomenal. But it.

[C]

But you. This is interesting. This is completely different conversation about Eddington.

[B]

I think Eddie's. You know like editing.

[C]

I mean I have mixed feelings about it but I feel like there are a lot of people who really don't like it. I don't know. I can't tell how. How many. How lagging.

[A]

It's an exceptionally polarized movie coming the.

[C]

End of the year.

[A]

Probably unanswerable questions. We did everything. I only the only one I have left is did Josh Allen enjoy this movie?

[C]

Oh, great question.

[A]

What an unbelievable press conference moment that would be before like the first week one. Hey, what do you think about the Pats defense, blah, blah, blah. And then, Josh, Bill Simmons here from ESPN.com.

[D]

What was your least favorite scene from Sinners?

[A]

How much did you hate sinners on a scale of 1 to 10?

[B]

That's funny. I have one unanswerable question.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do Stack and Mary in 1992 still listen to Irish music?

[C]

Oh, great question. Well, the great thing about that question about that question.

[B]

Remix Dead. Do they ever just put on? Because that was around the time that Lord of the Dance.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Was started.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Do they watch?

[A]

I think they moved on.

[C]

I mean, they're. They're dressed. I mean, think about how they're dressed. That the end of that movie is really kind of deep, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Because if we're thinking about this as a music movie and he has all these feelings about the blues, they are dressed like Keith Sweat and like some Mary J. Blige prototype. Some like. Like salt and pepper, basically.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And shout out to Keith.

[C]

They. They're clearly. I don't know. I mean, there's something about the vampires being aligned with hip hop at this point.

[B]

Funny. Yeah.

[C]

And they're going out into the night to do who knows what. Like, what if. If they're musically driven, what are they musically driven to do? Do.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And what are they musically already doing?

[B]

Right.

[C]

I don't know. There's a lot of, like. Because, I mean, they would have had to have figured out these clothes. They would have had to have survived the 70s and the 60s.

[A]

This should have been a good unanswerable question. What'd they do for 60 years? How many people did they bite?

[B]

They had. They've had to buy.

[A]

Did they have favorite restaurants?

[C]

I mean, here's a. Here's a. Here's a sequel. Or like a freak.

[A]

Smoke was a big Bulls fan in the late 80s, early 90s. Really got into MJ, started going to games, got season bit. The guy who had awesome season tickets.

[B]

Just took the tickets.

[C]

Like, I mean, I don't know. There's a whole world of. Of. There's like, what, five decades, six decades.

[A]

To just like a lot of going on quickly. Let's. Let's rip through because we're late on time.

[C]

I go to the airport.

[A]

What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? It's got to be the good it. The harmonica.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What about the broken guitar?

[B]

Would love that, too.

[A]

Coach Finstock wear Best life lesson. You keep dancing with the devil, one day he's going to follow you home.

[B]

I have a different one.

[A]

What do you got?

[B]

White women can come in to party, but not white men.

[C]

Amen. But listen, a black woman did come in.

[B]

Yeah, no, I'm saying you might. We might let. We. Not one of the 53% or white women. They know who they are, but the other. We might let them in the party. But white men. Y' all bring too much shit with y'.

[C]

All.

[A]

Best double feature choice. What do you got?

[C]

Oh, great question for me.

[B]

It was from Dust Till Dawn.

[A]

Easy.

[C]

I was going to pick a Tarantino. My impulse is to pick a Tarantino movie.

[A]

Interestingly, I had the thing.

[C]

Oh, it's a good one.

[A]

But I think the answer is Fruitvale.

[C]

Oh, say more.

[A]

First, go in the beginning, then follow the journey all the way. This fully, fully realized. Twelve plus years later, here are these guys again in a completely different amazing movie.

[C]

I like that idea. Yeah, I like that idea.

[A]

All right. Toughest one. Who won the movie? Maybe not that tough.

[C]

It's not tough. Ryan Coogler.

[B]

Ryan.

[C]

Ryan Coogler won.

[B]

I mean, Mike is right there. Really, really. It's Mike Aaron.

[C]

I mean, just think about the way we. We have been talking the afterlife of this movie. Movie, which really is still its actual life because it's. It's been. It's only.

[A]

Yeah, it's been real three or four months.

[C]

Like, these are Ryan Coogler's ideas. These are ideas that are older than Ryan Coogler that he is like, reframed in a way to make us think about them in a different way. And these are ideas that are exciting to think about as ideas. Right. Like, what does this movie mean? What is it saying? What is it doing?

[A]

Cougar's answer. There's a miles Kate in 20 years.

[B]

But.

[A]

But 20 years from now, we might be saying it was Miles Kate and if he becomes this massive A plus list star and this was the launch, you pad for him. You know who actually won that movie? I don't see that happening.

[C]

But we could.

[A]

Let's see. Craig, what are your thoughts?

[D]

Quick Saw in the IMAX at the Grove with a friend. Loved it. Incredible theatrical experience. I think Van comparing Coogler to Spielberg is. Is correct. And I've thought about that because Coogler really knows how to be theatrical. He knows how to sell it. Like, I think this movie is so good because you can kind of just watch it on the surface and have a great time and think it's a 10 out of 10. Or you could really get into it and all the layers of it and think it's a 10 out of 10 for a completely different reason. Yeah. And like him drawing this whole movie up knowing how to market it. The shot of Michael B. Jordan with the gun, like building the trailer correctly to get people into the theater. He has that Spielberg magic sauce to him where he knows how to combine a great movie and also make it feel like a popcorn movie. So it's great.

[C]

I just had a whole conversation about like all of Steven Spielberg's children in this conversation I had with my friend eric about the 100 greatest movies of the 21st century or whatever on Cannonball. See I can do it Bill. But we were talking about the ways in which Spielberg is I mean remains the most important father of an of like these tributaries of filmmakers like his coaching trick who are very different from Spielberg but like really understand Spielberg's sort of entertainment philosophy and hold if held on to some of his ideas while also just being themselves at the same time.

[D]

This movie is also just like so shockingly original. Like even I watched it with Liz and her my brother in law the other night. Liz hadn't seen it yet. 20 minutes in she was like this isn't based off anything, right? I was like no.

[A]

Sad that is. It's just so honestly and that's what we did our video about last month. It's just like original IP Man. It's still, it still wins even if.

[D]

You don't like the big musical scene or whatever. I just like that the movie feels like it. It's one person's hands on over it.

[B]

Somebody had an idea.

[A]

You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah, somebody had an idea.

[A]

Sinners an all timer. HBO Max is now the platform that it's on I guess but you can watch it. But I would recommend if you haven't seen the theater yet, go to the theater. Wesley Morris, a true pleasure. Van Lathan, great as always. Thanks to Craig and Chris as well. And one name Movie month will continue next week.

[C]

Support for this podcast and the following message comes from America's Navy. The Navy offers new graduates hands on training and experience in careers like computer.

[A]

Science, aviation and medicine.

[C]

Plus education and sign on bonuses. Parents help your grads start their career [e-mail] you say you'll never join the Navy.

[D]

That living on a submarine would be too hard. You'd never power a whole ship with nuclear energy, never bring a patient back.

[A]

To life.

[C]

Or play the national anthem.

[B]

For a sold out crowd.

[C]

Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is.

[D]

Start your [e-mail] America's Navy forged by the sea.