SLUGS

Conner O’Malley is back with another short film. I haven’t been able to wrap my head all the way around this one but between the references to classic cinema combined with what I’m convinced is some sort of troll-ish commentary on red pill/blue pill online masculinity – this is a piece of art made specifically for Marcus Pinn (I love movie references, I hate red pill/blue pill people and I think Conner O’Malley is one of the funniest people alive).

Terminator / Slugs

The Conversation / Slugs

The Terminator / Slugs

 

Taxi Driver / 

Slugs

Click here and here to read my thoughts on O’Malley’s films from last year, and check out his new film below

SINNERS *UPDATED*

I’ve come to the harsh realization that while Get Out is a movie I still enjoy – it has become more of a curse than anything else. I don’t know what it is but almost any prominent movie or television show to feature Black people dealing with issues concerning race and/or racism has to be analyzed through the lens of Get Out. It’s like a default setting. And the plots to a lot of these movies don’t do anything to shake this perception. Almost everything is some variation of “watch out for those white women” or “beware of the white boogeyman” or “watch out for those outsiders”. There are obviously a few exceptions but when you list everything off you’ll see that I’m right. Lovecraft Country, Them, Ma, Queen & Slim, Run Sweetheart Run, Opus, The Front Room, Tyrell, Master, Alice, Tales From The Hood Part 2, etc. They all have strands of Get Out’s DNA. Recently they put all nuance aside and made a psychological thriller called Karen about a racist white woman that terrorizes a Black couple. There are more cases but I think the 12 examples I just gave from the last five years alone proves my point. If not – perhaps you’re just a contrarian that wants to mindlessly disagree with everything. I’m well aware that movies like Dutchman, Murder In Harlem and Story Of A Three Day Pass existed decades prior. But filmmakers haven't taken from those movies like they've taken from Get Out.

I say all this because even though Sinners falls somewhere between Good/fine/entertaining (I personally found everything non-vampire related to be the most interesting), it still has the stench of "Get Out-sploitation". On one hand, it isn’t Ryan Coogler’s fault that everyone’s critique of this film is some insufferable super personalized think piece about race or the role of Black people in society or the so-called dangers of interracial relationships between Black men & White women (it's always only Black men and white women and never a critique on any other type of interracial relationship). It’s par for the course. Folks put a lot of weight on movies & television shows. For some reason a large sector of Black folks would rather seek validation about their Blackness from a movie or a TV show instead of real life. But at the same time – Coogler has to know that a movie with a predominately Black cast set in 1930’s Mississippi where a group of white vampires terrorize a Black establishment is going to bring on this type of dialogue. Outside of the basic premise which lies somewhere between Night Of The Living Dead and The Thing from Another World, Sinners has all the standard elements & themes I brought up earlier like; “beware of the white boogeyman” and “watch out for those white women”. 

Outside of the basic story about a group of characters trying to survive a vampire coup, Coogler made a genuine effort to touch on everything from the great migration to the history of Black Americans and their African roots. I don’t think everything was a success but I’m still glad I watched it on the big screen. Streaming Sinners at home won’t give you the same experience. I found some of the character’s decisions in the second half of the movie to be very stupid but I’ll give Ryan Coogler the benefit of the doubt on that. Perhaps he wanted to bring back that old school feeling of shouting at the screen when someone makes a stupid decision in a horror movie. I certainly found myself talking to the screen when someone does something dumb. This is clearly a movie that’s more than just a simple vampire movie so there is room for a deeper analysis. But reading through a lot of people’s tweets, tiktoks, letterboxd reviews and social media rants exposed that some folks needs to touch grass, go to therapy or do a combination of both. Good lord. You could argue that I'm giving too much attention to the opinions of people online. But if you think these aren't real life opinions then you're being naive....

*SPOILER* Mary & Stack proceed to stay together for 60+ years and counting but please tell me more about how they weren't together for a long time...

Notice the critique is just about Black men bringing white women into our spaces and nothing about Black women bringing white men into our spaces when the main villain in the film is in fact a white male vampire. God forbid...

 

And if you don’t want to go to therapy – watch more movies.

I’m happy that a filmmaker like Ryan Coogler remains successful but if there’s one thing that Sinners exposed it's that people need to watch more movies. You would have thought this was the first vampire movie ever. And if not Sinners, you would have thought that From Dusk Till Dawn was the first vampire movie to do what it did (…it wasn’t). For those that don't know, many people are saying that Sinners “stole” from From Dusk Till Dawn. 

@thestorytimeguy I love the movie Sinners but... its From Dusk Till Dawn #Sinners #fromdusktilldawn #vampires ♬ original sound - Matthew Torres

To that claim I will reemphasize that people need to watch more movies. From Dusk Till Dawn is a collage movie much like Pulp Fiction. It’s an homage to a handful of pre-existing genres. Last time I checked, the basic premise of Sinners is very similar to Ernest Dickerson’s Demon Knight (a movie released a year before From Dusk Till Dawn), which got it’s basic premise from George Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead (Dickerson worked under and learned from Romero before he became a director himself). Again – watch more movies before you decide to step out there and be loud & wrong.

Night Of The Living Dead / Sinners

Night Of The Living Dead /
Sinners

Coogler is still not above influence. Outside of Night Of The Living Dead by way of Demon Knight, Sinners also borrows from typical sources like The Shining

   

The Shining /
Sinners

During Coogler's recent visit to the criterion closet he also namedropped Michael Mann's Thief as a another source of inspiration. Without spoiling too much - the endings to both films are pretty similar...

Thief / Sinners

Whatever criticisms I may have about Sinners really doesn’t matter. It’s a major success. My words won't sway any box office numbers (to be clear – I think this movie should be seen by as many people as possible). I just thought it would be nice to present a slightly more sane perspective on the movie.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

I included this film in my recent piece over at Okayplayer.com about the modern Black Film Canon (click here to read), but I felt like going a bit more in depth over on my own personal blog. If you're exhausted with all the insufferable takes on Ryan Coogler's Sinners and are looking for an alternative perspective on Black American life - look now further than Personal Problems. But please approach with caution as this is a Black film that can't be dissected through the lens of Get Out (is it me, or does it feel like most popular modern Black films can't be analyzed unless it's through the lens of something Get Out-related?). Contrary to what the average film twitter or letterboxd "critic" will have you believe - there are plenty of Black films with stories that exist outside of the white boogeyman or "stay away from dem white women"...

In the era of the Black-led/“Black Is Beautiful” films like Beale Street, Moonlight, Dope, Nickle Boys, the discovery/re-discovery of works like Bill Gunn’s Personal Problems is a breath of fresh air. Not to take anything away from the films of Barry Jenkins & Ava Duvernay (their films do serve a purpose and have a somewhat authentic audience) but there is a little more substance to the work of Gunn. While a lot of today’s popular “Black films” don’t go beyond the surface of saying; “Black Skin & Black people are Beautiful” (which, as a proud Black person, is obviously something I subscribe to), a movie like Personal Problems delves in the complexities of “Blackness”, loyalty, infidelity, the power dynamic in the Black household and so much more (the same could be said about other older recently rediscovered Black films like To Sleep With Anger, Ganja & Hess, Ashes & Embers, etc). The more I watched Bill Gunn’s epic 2nd feature, the more I saw my parents, uncles, aunts and various 2nd cousins who used to drop on & off the grid from time to time. It’s almost like you could feel the cigarette smoke emanating off of the actors. I’m a child of the 80’s & 90’s so I remember when parents used to smoke cigarettes (...and weed) directly in to a child’s personal space. One Of my oldest memories of growing up during the 80’s in a Black household is that thick cigarette smoke, Alongside Hennessy bottles, soul music & loud laughter. Personal Problems is all of those things and more (I also relate to Personal Problems on a deeper level as my Mother & Father are from South Carolina & New York City, respectively, like our protagonist couple in the movie).

While there is a plot (the two act film centers around a Black family living in Harlem as they struggle with money, work, infidelity & death), Personal Problems is really about the banalities and authentic qualities that you cant find in most films about Lower-middle class Black America. For those of you that don’t know, Personal Problems was shot on what appears to be a camcorder which just adds to the authenticity. At times you almost feel like you're watching a mix between a documentary and a heavily improvised Shadows-era John Cassavetes film full of energy and wonderful mistakes.

Personal Problems is a transgressive work of cinematic art that intentionally alienates some of its audience. It’s almost three hours long and the fact that it was shot on a cheaper camera brings on a whole additional chain of issues (the audio is far from perfect and it should go without saying that the visuals are quite grainy). But, in my opinion, more Black films need to be transgressive & complex as opposed to catering to the opinionated (yet often uninformed) social media audiences that just want to be spoon-fed nice & happy things (especially when it comes to movies about Black folks). I mean how often does the issue of someone’s body Oder come up in a movie in a non-comical way? We get things like that in Personal Problems because Bull Gunn delves in to the nasty crevices that a lot of filmmakers avoid.

The theatrical release of Personal Problems couldn’t have come at a better time with the universal praise of Barry Jenkin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. These two films would make an interesting double feature. Again - not to take anything away from Jenkins and his success, but at times Beale Street felt a little “Safe”. The issues in Beale Street (which come from James Baldwin’s writing) are quite real and not to be taken lightly, but the stylized slow-motion sequences and non-stop close-up shots of (beautiful) Black faces started to take precedent of the actual meat of the story. I don’t necessarily need a film (or anything/anyone) to remind me that Black is beautiful. I know this. But perhaps some folks don’t know this and need to be reminded of this from time to time (we still live in a world where Black lives don’t always matter). And that’s fine. That’s the audience for Beale Street. I like to think I represent the audience Personal Problems. There is a place in this world for both movies to exist. I just think there needs to be more complex & “difficult” films to balance out all the “safer”, “less threatening” films that focus on Black life in America.

Honestly – I’m just glad we have a new (Black) director’s body of work to include in the unofficial Black film canon that’s been curated mostly by white cinephiles and Black cinephiles who don’t delve deeper than Daughters Of The Dust and/or Killer Of Sheep. No disrespect to Julie Dash (Daughters Of The Dust) or Charles Burnett (Killer Of Sheep) but there’s a whole world of modern Black cinema out there waiting to be re-discovered and placed on a pedestal.