April 27, 2025 • 46 mins
The Cinema Chronicles is back for the month of April! This month, Brandon Vick reviews A Minecraft Movie, Warfare, Drop, and Sinners.
- A Minecraft Movie: 8:00
- Warfare: 16:14
- Drop: 27:23
- Sinners: 31:59
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome back to another volume of these cinema chronicles on
Nashville Movie Dispatch. I am your host, Brandon Vick. I'm
a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and a
board member of the Music City Film Critics Association. It's
the end of the month. We're about to hit the
(00:40):
summer Blockbusters season with I think Thunderbolts is kind of
our first one that comes out. What is it next week?
I think so that one actually looks pretty good for
a Marvel movie. That one im fantastic four. I'm actually
sore of excited, not like super excited like I used
(01:02):
to be. But I think the last Marvel movie I
enjoyed was The Multiverse of Madness. I like that one
a lot. But yeah, April's flown by people have their
lawnmowers out. Really sucks rain rain a lot. They ain't
(01:23):
bullshitting about these April showers, but God, I can't wait
to smell those mayflowers and immediately sneeze my head off
for days and weeks. Also, four twenty was Easter, so
smoke them bunnies if you got them. We had a
(01:46):
I think we had like four straight days of Easter stuff.
My son had an Easter egg hunt on Thursday before
Good Friday. We did a thing with my parents. On
Good Friday, we did a thing with my wife's mom
side on Saturday, did another whole thing on Sunday with
(02:06):
my wife's dad side. So then we did our own thing,
which we got him an easter basket. We actually got
two woman's like a little cookie monster thing, and he
got books, and he got Frisbee Toys, blue Eye cup.
(02:28):
His favorite was this dinosaur umbrella that we got him.
He immediately wanted to just go around and use it
and hit people and hit things with it. But but
I like to do stuff different because if anybody knows,
in last month's episode, I talked about the experience of
(02:49):
with Saint Patrick's Day and how we handled the leper Chaun.
I'm not gonna spoil it here, just go back and
listen to last month's episode. But this time we had
the Easter baskets, of course, and then we kind of
had little light candy things made it look like it
(03:10):
was rabbit food. But what I did was I smeared
ketchup on our kitchen sink and had the head of
a stuffed animal that was a rabbit in the sink,
and I said, just like that, Leprechaun, no one makes
a gd mess in this house. So here's the thing,
(03:33):
my son, while distraught, I have actually saved us a
ton of money because now the Easter bunny can't come
back to the house anymore because he's decapitated in a
kitchen sink. But he had fun. He got tons of stuff.
I don't even remember all just different toys and cards
(03:55):
and cars and candy and clothes and you name it.
My wife and I did get some Sonic gift cards
for Easter. How you do him? It was a fifty dollars,
so I think we can get a corn dog in
a mountain dew because Sonic is super expensive. So besides that,
(04:20):
I just I want to share one story real quick.
And this really isn't a funny story, but I still
really can't believe what I saw. But here in Nashville,
I went to see a musical called Kimberly Akimbo. It
was great, really enjoyed it. But during intermission I was
behind this lady. She was probably I don't know, forties,
(04:42):
fifties maybe, and she was wearing tennis shoes. This is
important because I was about three steps behind her, and
we were up in the balcony and I watched this
woman trip over her own shoe and fall down at
least ten steps. And I'm sort of chuckling now, but
(05:04):
my heart was racing for her because it felt like
it was in slow motion and every step she hit
she made a noise and her body twisted. I mean,
I really couldn't believe it, and I don't think anybody
else even noticed. There was no one coming up the
steps like it. If someone told me it was just
(05:26):
her and I up there and no one else, I
would have believed it. But obviously there was nothing that
I could do because my wrist hurt and so uh.
But I did check on her afterwards. I even told
her that because I heard her say some about how
she thought her ankle was broke, and I'm like, you
should probably have someone like from this facility check you out.
(05:50):
And I did a wink wink, as in like you
might could see the shit out of them. I don't
know if they have cameras and they may watch her
trip over her own feet. I'm not sure, but I
thought it was worth it. So anyway, I got two
shows and Uh, but I couldn't believe it. I still
can't believe it. And it's really weird how something like
(06:11):
that you can just watch but it feels like it's
it's happening to you because you all of a sudden,
you you're out of breath and your heart was racing.
And all I did was standing there and watch this
woman fall literally the hills overhead, and I don't know,
I had this vision of her like going over like
(06:34):
the huge balcony and just falling into the orchestra like
I I I scared myself even before she was it
was done. But I have another story that's actually a
part of one of the movies that we're going to
review today. But I saw a lot of shit that week,
so uh, before I get into the movies. I got
four good ones, well actually maybe three good ones, and
(06:59):
then one that made a lot of money. But be
sure to check out The Accountant two is out. We
have a podcast on National Movie Dispatch that covers Ben Affleck.
We got a piece on warfare from our buddy Brett,
which just so happens to be one of the movies
(07:20):
I'll be talking about today. And Tom Hardy has a
new movie on Netflix called a Havoc. I wrote a
review about it that's also on Nashville Movie Dispatch and
when you Got Stony's Random movie journal is out there
as well, So anyway, check that stuff out Nashville moovidispatch
(07:40):
dot Subtec dot com. And when we come back, Jack
Black is back in a video game movie, and oh
man does he get wild as hell as Steve. So
(08:03):
the movie is Minecraft. You may have heard of it. It.
Let me preface this by saying that I am completely
aware that this movie is not for forty year olds
like me. On top of that, I've never even played
the game, not even once by accident, But I will
(08:24):
say this, I sure do hope the game is more
entertaining to play than the movie was to watch. As
far as the video game, Minecraft's success is undeniable. Three
hundred million copies have been sold worldwide, and there's been
nearly one hundred and seventy million monthly active players. It's
(08:50):
the best selling video game of all time, according to
Wikipedia says what is the original version of Minecraft? Develop
began for the original edition of Minecraft, then known as
Cave Game and now known as the Java Edition on
May tenth, eleventh or twelfth of two thousand and nine,
(09:11):
and ended on May thirteenth, when person released a test
video on YouTube of an early version of the game
Duve the Gay the ca Cave game tech Test. So
there's the origins of it as far as Minecraft the movie,
per Rotten Tomatoes, Welcome to the world of Minecraft, where
(09:33):
creativity doesn't just help you craft, it's essential to one's survival.
Four Misfits Garrett the garbage Man, Garrison played by Jason Momoa,
Henry played by Sebastian Eugene Hansen, Natalie played by Emma Myers,
and Don played by Daniel Brooks find themselves struggling with
ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious
(09:55):
portal into the Overworld, a bizarre cubic wonderland that thrives
on imagine a. To get back home, they'll have to
master this world and protect it from evil things like
piglins and zombies, while embarking on a magical quest with
an unexpected expert crafter, Steve that's Jack Black. Together, their
adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to
(10:17):
reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative,
the very skills they need to thrive back in the
real world. So this is a, to put it politely,
a family friendly, mindless mess directed by Jared Hesse that rhymed.
He directed Napoleon Dynamite and you may also heard maybe
(10:41):
the Natcho Libra the head Jack Black. There are moments
where there is some some of that Napoleon Dynamite humor,
specifically in the town where everyone lives in Chugless, Idaho.
Apparently it's the so called potato chip capital of the America,
(11:02):
but I think has could have snuck in way more.
It's very difficult to see this nothing more than just
a cash grab built lazily with cheap blocks. There is
a great message about the perseverance of imagination and creativity,
but it's in a movie that doesn't really have much
(11:23):
of either. Black and Momoa are browing out, which is
fun for a little while. At least they're on a
totally different wavelength than everybody else and are having a blast,
so good for them. They're all they're all in one,
they're all in on the silliness and just the absurdity
(11:43):
of it all, which you kind of have to be
for a movie. Like minecraft. Jack Black's basically himself shoved
into a blue sweater. His wild and crazy moves and
hand gestures are rocking out NonStop. Momoa is a little
a little bit of an ult warrior and macho man,
kind of stuck in the eighties from from head to toe.
(12:05):
Both guys in real life, Jack Black and Jason Momoa
are probably cool as hell, but even they wear you
down after a while. Uh. What I found really sort
of annoying is uh, Steve all of a sudden, he
kind of goes in and out calling Garrett Gargar. Uh.
It made me not really want to hang out with
(12:26):
him anymore. So So there's that. Then there's this. There
is this unnecessary storyline featuring Jennifer Coolidge, who plays the
vice principal at the school where the two main kids go,
and she has a night out with one of the
(12:48):
nitwit villagers that she accidentally hits with her car. That's
strange and honestly it's just plain stupid. I don't think
anybody is going to be shocked by this, but as
of I don't know. I think let's see this comes
out the end of the month, So basically I don't
know A week or so ago. This kind of tells
(13:12):
you what all you need to know. It is the
Rotten Tomatoes critics score compared to the audience score. The
critics score is forty eight percent rotten with about one
hundred and seventy reviews. The audience score is eighty seven
(13:33):
percent with over five thousand verified ratings. So quality is
irrelevant in this case. And the reality is this a
Minecraft movie will enthrall those who it's meant for, and listen,
there's no shame in that. But but I mean, let
(14:00):
me just tell you, did you does anybody remember the
opening weekend numbers for this thing? One hundred and fifty
seven million. It was. It was not only the biggest
domestic debut of the year so far, but the best
in history for a video game adaptation. So I think
it goes without saying it's practically guaranteed that kids in
(14:23):
general will enjoy, and fans of the game will surely
get a kick out of the Minecraft world and its
characters and all of those Easter eggs that I don't
have a damn clue about, and hey, just how excited
are these people? Well, the disruptions seem apparently there's a
(14:46):
lot of there was a lot of chaos in the
movie theaters where people were seeing Minecraft, and that they
were mostly occurring during the movies chicken jockey scene, which
I guess has has gone and it's where the characters
yell the phrase and a baby zombie appears on the
(15:06):
screen riding a chicken like a horse. Apparently there were
kids that would channel long while jumping on seats, screaming
and throwing popcorn. So teenage fans have been reportedly destroying theaters,
tossing popcorn buckets, spilling soda, jumping seats, vomiting, I don't
(15:28):
know how that happens, and starting physical fights reporting as
page six reports, apparently it's gotten so bad that law
enforcement has had to be called. So people are just
having a ball with Minecraft. But I really didn't vix
(15:49):
Flick's rating for a Minecraft moving two out of five
from me and coming up next, it is an all
out immersive hellish war and I'm gonna tell you about it.
(16:16):
The movie's called Warfare. But before we get into the movie,
this was at an IMAX screening. Now press were invited,
but then you could also you could actually buy a
ticket to see it as well, so it's kind of
a meshup of all different walks of life. But I
(16:37):
would say about two minutes before showtime, I have watched
this press guy kind of move around as other people
started to sit down, because you know, I guess he
just kind of wants to sit by himself and no
one around him, which I get. I totally get that
IMAX theory. We went to here. Locally, it's huge and
(16:59):
there was may be, like, I don't know, thirty people
in it, so there's plenty of room. However, I see
him move kind of back behind me, but kind of
over to the right, and he's up a couple rows.
And I don't know how it started, but I just
remember hearing you've got the whole theater, and these two
(17:22):
guys who I'm paid for theirs says I paid for
these seats, and I hear the press guy go, okay, cool,
I didn't, and I hear a little bit something else
has said, and then I hear the guy who's paid
for the seats one of his one of the one
of the buddies, basically tells this press guy, if you
(17:47):
got something else to say, tell me, because I will
kick your ass. And I am not sure what that
press guy said, but I'll tell you what I saw.
I saw a grown man pop out of that theater
seat and maybe zero point two seconds, walks all the
way down his aisle, turns walks straight up to that
(18:11):
press guy, and just like this woman at Teapek, my
heart is racing because I'm thinking I'm about to see
these dudes throw some meat hooks or at least one
of them to knock out that press guy. And the
press guy says, touch me and you'll go to jail,
which reminded me of is it Rocky six where they're
(18:32):
fighting in the street and Rocky beats that Tommy guy
and the guy that's basically supposed to be the Don
King character says touch me and I'll see you, and
then Rocky uppercuts them and says, sue me for what?
And that's what I was waiting for, is waiting for
that guy to uppercut him and say it ain't over, dude,
it ain't over by a long shot. While he's in
(18:53):
handcuffs leaving, but his friends trying to tell him to
come back down, and the guy like has his fist
like he's ready, he does not hit him. This actually
starts to get into like the beginning of the movie,
and then only then do other people in the theater
start to acknowledge what's happened, and they say, all right, guys,
(19:15):
cool at the movie starting. So basically they could have
done Fight Club, but when that movie started, it's time
to shut the hell up. So I really appreciated it.
But back to Warfare per Rotten Tomatoes, written directed by
Iraq war veteran Raymondoza and Alex Garland, who is who
(19:35):
last directed last years Civil War Warfare and Bed's audiences
with a platoon of American Navy seals on a surveillance
mission gone wrong and insurgent territory. It's a visceral, boots
on the ground story of modern warfare and brotherhood, told
like never before in real time and based on the
memory of people who lived it. So this is it
(20:03):
was written directed by Alex S. Garland and ray Mendoza,
like we said, and Mendoza actually was a military advisor
on Alex Garland's Civil War. But Warfare is a violent, visceral,
and immersive real time war film that's equally horrifying and
heart pounding. It's more than just a technical spectacle spectacle.
(20:24):
It's a devastatingly authentic and unflinching depiction of what soldiers endure.
The resounding sound design alone is nerve shattering. I cannot
recommend this article enough. It's on indie Wire and it's
how Warfare created the ultimate you are their experience of
(20:47):
combat through sound. It involves the Silvil war sound designer
Glenn Fremantle and the supervising sound editor Ben Barker. It's
a fascinating read about what they what all that went
into making this feel and sound as real as possible.
(21:07):
But that's on indie Wire if you want to go
check that out. Warfare is It's a tremendous team effort
by all to honor those who experienced it. The film
is full of a young, top tier cast that includes
Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Cosmo Jarvis, and Michael Gandalfeini.
(21:31):
In their portrayals of these real heroes fighting for their
survival inside a literally living hellscape, the cast is phenomenal.
Their courage, their fears, their uncertainty, all of it is
intensely seen and felt as they are mentally and physically
being decimated by the atrocities of war. Their personalities are
(21:52):
able to poke through, but it's these guys's bond that's
most essential. We believe they would not hesitate, not even
for us second, to put their lives on the line
for not just our country, but for each other. This
is via Indue Wire called the Warfare Cast drilled the
acting out of them with a three week boot camp,
(22:13):
ritual head shaving and more so this there's a piece
from Endie Wire. There's actually a post screening Q and
A and Kit Connor. He says he's quoted saying, I
know that we all wanted to create this brotherhood and
create this bond because that would make our jobs a
lot easier. So the first thing that we did on
our first night was shave each other's heads, which was
(22:35):
something that excited us all and it felt slightly ritualistic.
We suddenly felt like we were immediately vulnerable with each other,
and it just felt like we had each other's backs.
And yeah, we trained, we ate together, we would do
everything together. We practically lived in each other's pockets for
about two months. I think it really does come across
in the film. There's a real love between us all,
(22:57):
and it says that the emotions of the actors had
to be absolutely real. They're not heightened in a Hollywood fashion,
but organically emerging from such a meticulous recreation of what happened,
and utilizing military style bonding rituals for the cast. This
included putting the cast through a three week boot camp
to get a condensed version of special Forces training. They'd
(23:19):
have to rely on each other when they were uncertain
if they could even rely on themselves. When you see
each of them carrying sixty pound packs in the film,
they're really carrying sixty pound packs. The piece goes on
to say that, and this is Will Poulter's quoted, saying
that the bond that developed naturally through the training and
the emotional side of things was taken care of. There
(23:40):
was very little acting required because when I looked down
and saw Joe Quinn and I didn't have to imagine
that I cared for him in that moment. I'd spent
every waking minute with him for a couple of months prior.
It's something said that acting is reacting because of the
connection formed among the cast when they are seen when
they are then seeing each other with bloody makeup effects,
(24:01):
not to mention that sound effects of explosions and gunfire
were piped in on set via speaker system to add
to the actor's sensory overload. The reactions are genuine, spontaneous,
and urgently felt. So it's honestly unfathomable that these guys
that are younger than me have to make these life
(24:23):
or death decisions in an instant. And for one of
these guys, Elliott Miller, he suffered from a traumatic brain
injury that actually left him with absolutely no memory of
the incident that Warfare depicts. The film is especially for him,
but Mendoza hopes that it's freeing for the rest of
(24:43):
their group as well. This was a part of an
Indie Wire interview that Mendoza gave, and he said, I
think people in the beginning were worried that this would
be triggering for PTSD, but I think it'll be the opposite.
The honesty and the truth is actually more liberating for us.
So Warfare surely has an opinion regarding the Iraq War,
(25:06):
and the final scene being a haunting, revelatory one that
asks what is all of this truly? For? However, its
number one priority is giving us a real account of
what these guys had to deal with, no matter the
reason they were sent over there in the first place.
(25:27):
In Rolling Stones review, it's titled Warfare wants you to
experience what combat feels like firsthand, and it ends with this.
The only agenda and Warfare is to give you a
sense of not just what happened, but how everything felt
while it was happening. A tall order, to be sure,
but one that Garland and Doza, their cast and crew
pull off shockingly. Will yes, authenticity is key as well
(25:51):
as the sheer battering. The film puts you through the
sensory overload, the emphasis of shock overall, you will assuredly
leave the shook. But pay attention to that opening series
of title cards, which start out as a list of
Seene setting stats. This was the mission, here is the date.
These were the people involved. Then a disclaimer mentions that
(26:14):
this look back was compiled through various interviews with those
who survived that heroing attack. This film uses only their memories.
Reads the next card. It's their version of what happened,
their traumatic recollections, their emotional conflicts, their gratitude for each
other and for still drawing breath. The review by I
(26:34):
Think was, David Fear says, they are now the ones
controlling the narrative, and we are now the ones bearing witness,
and I must say witness we do. This ain't no
glamorized Hollywood version. This isn't in your face war experience
where the silences are just as terrifying as the screens
that follow the gunshots and explosions. It's a fucking nightmare
(26:57):
as it should be warfare. It gets a vix Flix
rating of four out of five. One of the best
films of the year so far. And coming up next,
we are going to switch gears and talk about a
first date with a woman that won't get off her
flipping phone. Drop is the name and per Rotten Tomatoes.
(27:30):
Emmy nominee Megan Fay. I hope I'm saying that right.
She starred in White Lotus and The Perfect Couple. She
plays Violet, a widowed mother on her first date and
years who arrives at an upscale restaurant where she's relieved
that her date, Henry Brendan Scullner, who was in It
Ends with Us, is more charming and handsome than she expected,
(27:52):
but their chemistry begins to curdle as Violet begins being
irritated and then terrorized by a series of anonymous drops
to her phone. She's instructed to tell nobody and follow instructions,
or the hooded figure she sees on our home security
cameras will kill Violet, young son and babysitting sister. Violet
must do exactly as directed, or everyone she loves will die.
(28:16):
Her unseen tormentor's final directive kill Henry. Which wasn't that
a Was that a movie that had what's his name?
From District nine in there? Whereas all first person it
was something Henry anyway, that has nothing to do with this.
So Drop is a fast paced and highly stylized, hitchcocky
(28:40):
and thriller from the director of Happy Death Day Movies.
It's pretty clever and how it's told capturing your attention
and keeping it while you are, you know, basically playing
the guessing game with the with the two leads Megan
and Brandon, and they actually portray people we care about,
and it's easy to believe they would match each other
(29:02):
on a dating app. They make one cute couple. I'm
going to read something from the geek Vibe Nations review
by my buddy Dom Fisher, who is a part of
the Music City Film Critics Association. He's also a Critics
Choice Member. In his review, an insidious adrenaline rush is
(29:23):
what he called Drop says, while mystery keeps this story
exciting and interesting, it's the performances that keep it afloat,
plague by past trauma and harboring a maraud of trust issues.
Megan Faye truly brings violet to life from the pitch
changes in her voice and unassuming panic glances to her
body language. She's perfectly balancing hope and hurt. Brandon Skleener scleaners,
(29:47):
Henry has to be the most patient person, or one
of the most sensitive and intuitive to stick around for
the date from Hell, for the date from him shrouded
in mystery. You wonder is he desperate or high something.
Either way, he's going to gain some fans. So the
performances are definitely deliver. They are the main attractions here.
(30:11):
But I will say as violent, Megan is gripping and
very convincing while staying in basically a constant state of
suspense that transfers through to us who are who are
on edge. Every time that down foam vibrates and it's
quite a bit. Drop is simplistic yet suspenseful, bolstered by
not only the twist and turns that are thrown our way,
(30:33):
but to a large extent, the fantastic approach that's taken
by Christopher Land and the director, along with his talented
cast and crew. Now, I will say almost alive, Drop
is abundantly absurd. There is one where Henry gets wine
spilled on him and he says, hey, I got to
go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. Let me
(30:54):
tell you something, Ain't no man ever done that. We
get food, wine, whatever, We might dab it with, maybe
a napkin or something, but we definitely ain't going to
the bathroom to see if to see if we can
get it cleaned and gonna put in the sink and
under the air dryer. Let me tell you, if if
(31:16):
we can't get it off with whatever is at the table,
we're probably just gonna sit and let it dry. I've
done that when I've pissed my pants, so I definitely
ain't doing it for wine. But anyways, who cares about absurdity?
Virtually from start to finish, Drop is a nerve wracking fun.
That's what it wants to be, and that's all that
(31:37):
it needs to be. Drop gets a Vixflix rating of
three and a half out of five stars. And coming
up next, we are gonna end with a Dance with
a Devil, Sinners. That's the movie. That's the Dance with
(32:09):
the Devil part per Rotten Tomatoes. Trying to leave their
troubled lives behind, twin brothers, both played by Michael B. Jordan,
return to their hometown to start again, only to discover
that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Sinners is bold and bloody, scary and sexy, electric and exhilarating,
(32:31):
audacious and ambitious. Ryan Kugler's historical vampire film sinks its
teeth into community, culture and liberation, gorgeously told through the
delta blues that stirs the soul. It's a slow burn
that excellently establishes our world and characters before the sun
goes down and the devil himself comes out to play.
(32:53):
This may be Coogler's first foray into the horror genre,
but this sure as hell ain't new to him. He's
practically grown up with it. Per Deadline. In an interview,
they ask what are your go to horror movies that
made you have to play, and that made you have
to play in that sandbox. Coogler says, I consider Spielberg's
work in the horror space to be a bit of
(33:14):
a north Star, And it's complicated with him because he
hasn't out and out made a horror movie before. But
I would classify Jaws as a creature feature horror film.
Jurassic Park as well. Jurassic Park is a stealth horror movie,
the whole thing of what if a dinosaurs were real?
But when you talk about those t Rex scenes, the
veloc of raptor intro, the raptors in the kitchen, that
(33:35):
is out and out horror cinema, and it's popular, it's visceral.
It gets the audience feeling like they're on a damn
roller coaster ride. And then he says, taking it back,
he said, I love John Carpenter. My dad's favorite movie
apparently is Rocky two, and Coogler says, we never talked
about his second favorite movie, which was Halloween, And if
(33:56):
I watched Rocky two five times, I watched Halloween three times.
One of his mom's favorite Carpenter films is the thing
they love Carpenter, but different films, and the only film
they ever agreed on to watch was The Fugitive. Otherwise
he's watching Steven Sagall films his dad, and his mom's
watching Martin Scorsese films. He says, my dad, every time
(34:17):
he's taking he's taking Halloween and maybe Assault on Pre
Sainct thirteen. For mom, it was the thing he talks about,
how he loves the isolation, the practical effects, the cosmic
horror of it. And so he says, you know, all
of a sudden, the threatened idea and says, hey, you
got to stop this thing or it's going to wreck
the planet. And then he also says, there's Robert Rodriguez
(34:39):
and from dust till Done So. For Coogler, I feel
like this is kind of in the same vein as
Jordan Peel as Cooler's uses. Coogler uses horror to speak
to bigger and more profound themes, particularly sending around Black America,
as this is set in nineteen thirty two Mississippi, where
Jim Crow and KKK are alive and well in the South.
(35:02):
And now with his first original blockbuster that's arguably an
epic cinematic experience. It also is Coogler's most personal. An
interview magazine where he actually sat down with Lebron James,
he tells him why Centers is his most personal movie yet,
he says, for me, the movie started with my relationship
(35:24):
with my uncle, who is from Mississippi. He was the
older male figure in my life and the only music
he would listen to is the Blues. We would listen
to it, everything from too short to tony, but he
would only listen to the Blues. I would sit there
with him and he would talk about Mississippi and how
he came up and now that influenced everything that he
(35:45):
was on now. When Cooler says, when he was working
in Creed in twenty fifteen, his uncle passed away, and
he said he had already made a film about the
Bay with Fruitville Station, which was his first collaboration with
Michael B. Jordan. I was making a movie about feeling.
I made a couple of movies about Wakanda, and now
I'm coming back home in a different way. I'm looking
(36:06):
at the American South, which is outside of the continent
of Africa where black people call home. And he says
that there is a with centers that there's an also
a cultural aspect to it that he thinks people might
vibe with. He says, the film is about generations that
came before us, being set in the nineteen thirties. What
I'd learned through the process of researching this was that culture,
(36:27):
those people from the Great Depression, they really dictated what
was cool at that time and what remains to be
cooled today. He said that there are so many stylistic
things and phrases and ways of looking at the world
that it permeates society to this day. It's our grandparents,
our uncles and all that when they thought was cool,
(36:50):
is what we think is cool. He says. All of
that is in Centers, so production, design, costumes, sound, cinematography,
they're all firing on all cylinders to immerse us in
a mesmerizing genre mashup. It's a bloodthirsty herring journal journey
(37:13):
of survival. As I said, Michael B. Jordan plays twins,
and this is his best yet. His confidence in charisma
is of course there, and it feels effortless, but he's
also able to reveal these different sides of these two
twins that are known as smoking stacks and there's kind
(37:33):
of the cool one. There's kind of the one that's
kind of more I think, kind of free willing. There's
one that's kind of more business oriented. But there's this
nice balance between the two and not only what they
resent as what they represents as individuals, but also as
who they are as men and who they are together
(37:54):
as brothers. But when, but as I said, when they
reveal these different sides of these twins, it's who they
were and who they've become since they had gone off
to World War One and then went into got into
Chicago and got involved in some mob shit. So the
(38:20):
locations may have changed, but they always faced the same persecution.
I'm paraphrasing here, but there is a line in the
movie that basically says, where one of the twins is
talking to their cousin, that Chicago is like Mississippi, but
with tall buildings rather than plantations. However, if these two
(38:41):
twins have learned one thing, it's money is power, and
the collaborations that have happened between Jordan and Coogler, they
keep raising the bar and centers is a pretty damn
high one. Hailey Steinfeld a sensational Elroy Lindo as a
drunk blues musician is terrific as always and actually adds
(39:04):
quite a bit of humor to the film. The captivating
I hope I'm saying this right one Me Masaku plays
smokes ex Annie. She seems to be really into the
talismans and remedies from the Hoodoo tradition, but that doesn't
mean that she can save everyone, though when the things
(39:24):
do come out, she's the first one to know what
they're dealing with. Jack O'Connell plays the main vampire named Remick.
We don't see him until honestly, about an hour or
so into Sinners Everybody. Brett actually forwarded me a piece
(39:46):
in The New Yorker. It's a review where it's titled
Sinners is a virtuistic fusion of historical realism and horror,
and it describes Remick as a musician, a white cultural
appropriator who schemes with soft word and sharp teeth to
get hold of the music played by Sammy, that's their cousin,
Slim and other black musicians in their circle. He wants
(40:09):
their songs and their stories, he says, but of course
he has nothing of the experience or the history they
gave rise to them, O'Connell was great. I love what
Coogler does with the overall vampire look, their presence, and
what they represent. More so, Remick being Irish, I think
is a fascinating way to kind of have these vampires
(40:31):
feel somewhat connected to smoke and stacks in the others,
because the Irish people know what oppression looks like and
feels like as well. I will say that when things
get gory and you kind of bring out the wooden steaks,
the silver bullocks, the garlic, while when all that comes
into play, that's when Sinners gets a little too conventional
(40:53):
for me. Oddly enough, it's that stuff that's actually not
as interesting as what the rest of the story has
to say. Now, it doesn't last long, but when the
other elements of this story are so top tier, it
is easy to notice. Yet this hardly threatens what makes
this such a so which makes this so singular and special,
(41:17):
Vampire movies will be held to an entirely different standard
after this. Oh, I won't mess this up. Ludwig Gornissan
has worked on most, if not all, of Kugler's films,
and this is their greatest achievement thus far. The music,
the blues is incredibly intoxicating and brings such a mystical
(41:41):
presence to sinners that same New Yorker review says, here's
what Centers isn't a story of a musician selling his
soul to the devil. It's clear from the outset that
Cougler's view of myth is sharply revisionist. The movie opens
with a voiceover monologue about musicians with seemingly supernatural talent,
(42:03):
known by various terms and various cultures, whose art can
bring healing to the community, but it also attracts evil.
In other words, evil isn't the music, but comes from
the outside, isn't in the music, but comes from the
outside and finds it. The movie's pivot to vampires is
a supernatural vision of the real life snares set for
(42:25):
great Black musicians. Coogler transforms the fa fashitin blues legend
into an allegory of historical horror. So all of that
brings us to Miles Canton Captain. He is the son
of a gospel singer and her name is timminy Feura
(42:48):
fe Goura. I should have practiced these and has been
performing since he was two years old. He is. He's
beyond impressive in his acting debut as Sammy. He's the
preacher's boy that has that supernatural talent that could very
well save your soul or perhaps be your damnation. I
(43:11):
just read, like I don't know, a couple days ago,
that he actually learned the blues guitar specifically for this part,
and he practiced for like over five hours a day
for like a couple of months. He is phenomenal. The
fact that this was his first acting job is it
(43:32):
blows my mind. But there is a musical montage where
Miles is singing, I lied to you, and I don't
want to spoil it for you. You probably have already
read some stuff about it because it's it's sensational, but
it's it's one of the coolest things I've ever I've
(43:56):
ever seen on screen. The this is via Indie Wire.
As Kugler explained when he was a guest on Indie
War's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, if audience was if audiences were
down for vampires to show up and take chunks out
of people's juggulars, there's no reason why he couldn't use
film language to weave different strands of black music history
(44:17):
together and create a sense of immore of immorality that
wasn't vampire related. That is in reference to not only
just the music itself that's in there, but also that
musical montage I was talking about. You have to see it.
It's it's it's super cool. Uh. Cinners is the best
(44:40):
film that I've seen so far this year. Coogler and co.
Have a lot to say, maybe too much at times,
but this is a master at work with a voice
that's creative and crucial for filmmaking. There are two post
credit scenes, but the first one initially coming off as
a sort of spoof. However, once it once it sort
of settles in and those last couple of lines are spoken,
(45:03):
it hits hard on what centers is about what it
means to truly find physical and spiritual freedom. Go see
it in theaters, make sure it's in IMAX. You won't
regret it. Sinners gets a vix Flix rating of four
and a half out of five, and that will do
it for another volume of these cinema chronicles. Right here
(45:25):
on Nashville Movie Dispatch again, I am your host and sobros.
Resident film critic Brandon Vick and member of the Southeastern
Film Creek Association and board member of Music City and
Film Crikic Association. You can find me on Twitter at
sir Brandon v Sir Brandon on Letterboxed, and don't forget
to check out all of our work at Nashvillemovie Dispatch
(45:49):
dot substack dot com and until next month, just go
see a damn movie. O
Welcome back to another volume of these cinema chronicles on
Nashville Movie Dispatch. I am your host, Brandon Vick. I'm
a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and a
board member of the Music City Film Critics Association. It's
the end of the month. We're about to hit the
(00:40):
summer Blockbusters season with I think Thunderbolts is kind of
our first one that comes out. What is it next week?
I think so that one actually looks pretty good for
a Marvel movie. That one im fantastic four. I'm actually
sore of excited, not like super excited like I used
(01:02):
to be. But I think the last Marvel movie I
enjoyed was The Multiverse of Madness. I like that one
a lot. But yeah, April's flown by people have their
lawnmowers out. Really sucks rain rain a lot. They ain't
(01:23):
bullshitting about these April showers, but God, I can't wait
to smell those mayflowers and immediately sneeze my head off
for days and weeks. Also, four twenty was Easter, so
smoke them bunnies if you got them. We had a
(01:46):
I think we had like four straight days of Easter stuff.
My son had an Easter egg hunt on Thursday before
Good Friday. We did a thing with my parents. On
Good Friday, we did a thing with my wife's mom
side on Saturday, did another whole thing on Sunday with
(02:06):
my wife's dad side. So then we did our own thing,
which we got him an easter basket. We actually got
two woman's like a little cookie monster thing, and he
got books, and he got Frisbee Toys, blue Eye cup.
(02:28):
His favorite was this dinosaur umbrella that we got him.
He immediately wanted to just go around and use it
and hit people and hit things with it. But but
I like to do stuff different because if anybody knows,
in last month's episode, I talked about the experience of
(02:49):
with Saint Patrick's Day and how we handled the leper Chaun.
I'm not gonna spoil it here, just go back and
listen to last month's episode. But this time we had
the Easter baskets, of course, and then we kind of
had little light candy things made it look like it
(03:10):
was rabbit food. But what I did was I smeared
ketchup on our kitchen sink and had the head of
a stuffed animal that was a rabbit in the sink,
and I said, just like that, Leprechaun, no one makes
a gd mess in this house. So here's the thing,
(03:33):
my son, while distraught, I have actually saved us a
ton of money because now the Easter bunny can't come
back to the house anymore because he's decapitated in a
kitchen sink. But he had fun. He got tons of stuff.
I don't even remember all just different toys and cards
(03:55):
and cars and candy and clothes and you name it.
My wife and I did get some Sonic gift cards
for Easter. How you do him? It was a fifty dollars,
so I think we can get a corn dog in
a mountain dew because Sonic is super expensive. So besides that,
(04:20):
I just I want to share one story real quick.
And this really isn't a funny story, but I still
really can't believe what I saw. But here in Nashville,
I went to see a musical called Kimberly Akimbo. It
was great, really enjoyed it. But during intermission I was
behind this lady. She was probably I don't know, forties,
(04:42):
fifties maybe, and she was wearing tennis shoes. This is
important because I was about three steps behind her, and
we were up in the balcony and I watched this
woman trip over her own shoe and fall down at
least ten steps. And I'm sort of chuckling now, but
(05:04):
my heart was racing for her because it felt like
it was in slow motion and every step she hit
she made a noise and her body twisted. I mean,
I really couldn't believe it, and I don't think anybody
else even noticed. There was no one coming up the
steps like it. If someone told me it was just
(05:26):
her and I up there and no one else, I
would have believed it. But obviously there was nothing that
I could do because my wrist hurt and so uh.
But I did check on her afterwards. I even told
her that because I heard her say some about how
she thought her ankle was broke, and I'm like, you
should probably have someone like from this facility check you out.
(05:50):
And I did a wink wink, as in like you
might could see the shit out of them. I don't
know if they have cameras and they may watch her
trip over her own feet. I'm not sure, but I
thought it was worth it. So anyway, I got two
shows and Uh, but I couldn't believe it. I still
can't believe it. And it's really weird how something like
(06:11):
that you can just watch but it feels like it's
it's happening to you because you all of a sudden,
you you're out of breath and your heart was racing.
And all I did was standing there and watch this
woman fall literally the hills overhead, and I don't know,
I had this vision of her like going over like
(06:34):
the huge balcony and just falling into the orchestra like
I I I scared myself even before she was it
was done. But I have another story that's actually a
part of one of the movies that we're going to
review today. But I saw a lot of shit that week,
so uh, before I get into the movies. I got
four good ones, well actually maybe three good ones, and
(06:59):
then one that made a lot of money. But be
sure to check out The Accountant two is out. We
have a podcast on National Movie Dispatch that covers Ben Affleck.
We got a piece on warfare from our buddy Brett,
which just so happens to be one of the movies
(07:20):
I'll be talking about today. And Tom Hardy has a
new movie on Netflix called a Havoc. I wrote a
review about it that's also on Nashville Movie Dispatch and
when you Got Stony's Random movie journal is out there
as well, So anyway, check that stuff out Nashville moovidispatch
(07:40):
dot Subtec dot com. And when we come back, Jack
Black is back in a video game movie, and oh
man does he get wild as hell as Steve. So
(08:03):
the movie is Minecraft. You may have heard of it. It.
Let me preface this by saying that I am completely
aware that this movie is not for forty year olds
like me. On top of that, I've never even played
the game, not even once by accident, But I will
(08:24):
say this, I sure do hope the game is more
entertaining to play than the movie was to watch. As
far as the video game, Minecraft's success is undeniable. Three
hundred million copies have been sold worldwide, and there's been
nearly one hundred and seventy million monthly active players. It's
(08:50):
the best selling video game of all time, according to
Wikipedia says what is the original version of Minecraft? Develop
began for the original edition of Minecraft, then known as
Cave Game and now known as the Java Edition on
May tenth, eleventh or twelfth of two thousand and nine,
(09:11):
and ended on May thirteenth, when person released a test
video on YouTube of an early version of the game
Duve the Gay the ca Cave game tech Test. So
there's the origins of it as far as Minecraft the movie,
per Rotten Tomatoes, Welcome to the world of Minecraft, where
(09:33):
creativity doesn't just help you craft, it's essential to one's survival.
Four Misfits Garrett the garbage Man, Garrison played by Jason Momoa,
Henry played by Sebastian Eugene Hansen, Natalie played by Emma Myers,
and Don played by Daniel Brooks find themselves struggling with
ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious
(09:55):
portal into the Overworld, a bizarre cubic wonderland that thrives
on imagine a. To get back home, they'll have to
master this world and protect it from evil things like
piglins and zombies, while embarking on a magical quest with
an unexpected expert crafter, Steve that's Jack Black. Together, their
adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to
(10:17):
reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative,
the very skills they need to thrive back in the
real world. So this is a, to put it politely,
a family friendly, mindless mess directed by Jared Hesse that rhymed.
He directed Napoleon Dynamite and you may also heard maybe
(10:41):
the Natcho Libra the head Jack Black. There are moments
where there is some some of that Napoleon Dynamite humor,
specifically in the town where everyone lives in Chugless, Idaho.
Apparently it's the so called potato chip capital of the America,
(11:02):
but I think has could have snuck in way more.
It's very difficult to see this nothing more than just
a cash grab built lazily with cheap blocks. There is
a great message about the perseverance of imagination and creativity,
but it's in a movie that doesn't really have much
(11:23):
of either. Black and Momoa are browing out, which is
fun for a little while. At least they're on a
totally different wavelength than everybody else and are having a blast,
so good for them. They're all they're all in one,
they're all in on the silliness and just the absurdity
(11:43):
of it all, which you kind of have to be
for a movie. Like minecraft. Jack Black's basically himself shoved
into a blue sweater. His wild and crazy moves and
hand gestures are rocking out NonStop. Momoa is a little
a little bit of an ult warrior and macho man,
kind of stuck in the eighties from from head to toe.
(12:05):
Both guys in real life, Jack Black and Jason Momoa
are probably cool as hell, but even they wear you
down after a while. Uh. What I found really sort
of annoying is uh, Steve all of a sudden, he
kind of goes in and out calling Garrett Gargar. Uh.
It made me not really want to hang out with
(12:26):
him anymore. So So there's that. Then there's this. There
is this unnecessary storyline featuring Jennifer Coolidge, who plays the
vice principal at the school where the two main kids go,
and she has a night out with one of the
(12:48):
nitwit villagers that she accidentally hits with her car. That's
strange and honestly it's just plain stupid. I don't think
anybody is going to be shocked by this, but as
of I don't know. I think let's see this comes
out the end of the month, So basically I don't
know A week or so ago. This kind of tells
(13:12):
you what all you need to know. It is the
Rotten Tomatoes critics score compared to the audience score. The
critics score is forty eight percent rotten with about one
hundred and seventy reviews. The audience score is eighty seven
(13:33):
percent with over five thousand verified ratings. So quality is
irrelevant in this case. And the reality is this a
Minecraft movie will enthrall those who it's meant for, and listen,
there's no shame in that. But but I mean, let
(14:00):
me just tell you, did you does anybody remember the
opening weekend numbers for this thing? One hundred and fifty
seven million. It was. It was not only the biggest
domestic debut of the year so far, but the best
in history for a video game adaptation. So I think
it goes without saying it's practically guaranteed that kids in
(14:23):
general will enjoy, and fans of the game will surely
get a kick out of the Minecraft world and its
characters and all of those Easter eggs that I don't
have a damn clue about, and hey, just how excited
are these people? Well, the disruptions seem apparently there's a
(14:46):
lot of there was a lot of chaos in the
movie theaters where people were seeing Minecraft, and that they
were mostly occurring during the movies chicken jockey scene, which
I guess has has gone and it's where the characters
yell the phrase and a baby zombie appears on the
(15:06):
screen riding a chicken like a horse. Apparently there were
kids that would channel long while jumping on seats, screaming
and throwing popcorn. So teenage fans have been reportedly destroying theaters,
tossing popcorn buckets, spilling soda, jumping seats, vomiting, I don't
(15:28):
know how that happens, and starting physical fights reporting as
page six reports, apparently it's gotten so bad that law
enforcement has had to be called. So people are just
having a ball with Minecraft. But I really didn't vix
(15:49):
Flick's rating for a Minecraft moving two out of five
from me and coming up next, it is an all
out immersive hellish war and I'm gonna tell you about it.
(16:16):
The movie's called Warfare. But before we get into the movie,
this was at an IMAX screening. Now press were invited,
but then you could also you could actually buy a
ticket to see it as well, so it's kind of
a meshup of all different walks of life. But I
(16:37):
would say about two minutes before showtime, I have watched
this press guy kind of move around as other people
started to sit down, because you know, I guess he
just kind of wants to sit by himself and no
one around him, which I get. I totally get that
IMAX theory. We went to here. Locally, it's huge and
(16:59):
there was may be, like, I don't know, thirty people
in it, so there's plenty of room. However, I see
him move kind of back behind me, but kind of
over to the right, and he's up a couple rows.
And I don't know how it started, but I just
remember hearing you've got the whole theater, and these two
(17:22):
guys who I'm paid for theirs says I paid for
these seats, and I hear the press guy go, okay, cool,
I didn't, and I hear a little bit something else
has said, and then I hear the guy who's paid
for the seats one of his one of the one
of the buddies, basically tells this press guy, if you
(17:47):
got something else to say, tell me, because I will
kick your ass. And I am not sure what that
press guy said, but I'll tell you what I saw.
I saw a grown man pop out of that theater
seat and maybe zero point two seconds, walks all the
way down his aisle, turns walks straight up to that
(18:11):
press guy, and just like this woman at Teapek, my
heart is racing because I'm thinking I'm about to see
these dudes throw some meat hooks or at least one
of them to knock out that press guy. And the
press guy says, touch me and you'll go to jail,
which reminded me of is it Rocky six where they're
(18:32):
fighting in the street and Rocky beats that Tommy guy
and the guy that's basically supposed to be the Don
King character says touch me and I'll see you, and
then Rocky uppercuts them and says, sue me for what?
And that's what I was waiting for, is waiting for
that guy to uppercut him and say it ain't over, dude,
it ain't over by a long shot. While he's in
(18:53):
handcuffs leaving, but his friends trying to tell him to
come back down, and the guy like has his fist
like he's ready, he does not hit him. This actually
starts to get into like the beginning of the movie,
and then only then do other people in the theater
start to acknowledge what's happened, and they say, all right, guys,
(19:15):
cool at the movie starting. So basically they could have
done Fight Club, but when that movie started, it's time
to shut the hell up. So I really appreciated it.
But back to Warfare per Rotten Tomatoes, written directed by
Iraq war veteran Raymondoza and Alex Garland, who is who
(19:35):
last directed last years Civil War Warfare and Bed's audiences
with a platoon of American Navy seals on a surveillance
mission gone wrong and insurgent territory. It's a visceral, boots
on the ground story of modern warfare and brotherhood, told
like never before in real time and based on the
memory of people who lived it. So this is it
(20:03):
was written directed by Alex S. Garland and ray Mendoza,
like we said, and Mendoza actually was a military advisor
on Alex Garland's Civil War. But Warfare is a violent, visceral,
and immersive real time war film that's equally horrifying and
heart pounding. It's more than just a technical spectacle spectacle.
(20:24):
It's a devastatingly authentic and unflinching depiction of what soldiers endure.
The resounding sound design alone is nerve shattering. I cannot
recommend this article enough. It's on indie Wire and it's
how Warfare created the ultimate you are their experience of
(20:47):
combat through sound. It involves the Silvil war sound designer
Glenn Fremantle and the supervising sound editor Ben Barker. It's
a fascinating read about what they what all that went
into making this feel and sound as real as possible.
(21:07):
But that's on indie Wire if you want to go
check that out. Warfare is It's a tremendous team effort
by all to honor those who experienced it. The film
is full of a young, top tier cast that includes
Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Cosmo Jarvis, and Michael Gandalfeini.
(21:31):
In their portrayals of these real heroes fighting for their
survival inside a literally living hellscape, the cast is phenomenal.
Their courage, their fears, their uncertainty, all of it is
intensely seen and felt as they are mentally and physically
being decimated by the atrocities of war. Their personalities are
(21:52):
able to poke through, but it's these guys's bond that's
most essential. We believe they would not hesitate, not even
for us second, to put their lives on the line
for not just our country, but for each other. This
is via Indue Wire called the Warfare Cast drilled the
acting out of them with a three week boot camp,
(22:13):
ritual head shaving and more so this there's a piece
from Endie Wire. There's actually a post screening Q and
A and Kit Connor. He says he's quoted saying, I
know that we all wanted to create this brotherhood and
create this bond because that would make our jobs a
lot easier. So the first thing that we did on
our first night was shave each other's heads, which was
(22:35):
something that excited us all and it felt slightly ritualistic.
We suddenly felt like we were immediately vulnerable with each other,
and it just felt like we had each other's backs.
And yeah, we trained, we ate together, we would do
everything together. We practically lived in each other's pockets for
about two months. I think it really does come across
in the film. There's a real love between us all,
(22:57):
and it says that the emotions of the actors had
to be absolutely real. They're not heightened in a Hollywood fashion,
but organically emerging from such a meticulous recreation of what happened,
and utilizing military style bonding rituals for the cast. This
included putting the cast through a three week boot camp
to get a condensed version of special Forces training. They'd
(23:19):
have to rely on each other when they were uncertain
if they could even rely on themselves. When you see
each of them carrying sixty pound packs in the film,
they're really carrying sixty pound packs. The piece goes on
to say that, and this is Will Poulter's quoted, saying
that the bond that developed naturally through the training and
the emotional side of things was taken care of. There
(23:40):
was very little acting required because when I looked down
and saw Joe Quinn and I didn't have to imagine
that I cared for him in that moment. I'd spent
every waking minute with him for a couple of months prior.
It's something said that acting is reacting because of the
connection formed among the cast when they are seen when
they are then seeing each other with bloody makeup effects,
(24:01):
not to mention that sound effects of explosions and gunfire
were piped in on set via speaker system to add
to the actor's sensory overload. The reactions are genuine, spontaneous,
and urgently felt. So it's honestly unfathomable that these guys
that are younger than me have to make these life
(24:23):
or death decisions in an instant. And for one of
these guys, Elliott Miller, he suffered from a traumatic brain
injury that actually left him with absolutely no memory of
the incident that Warfare depicts. The film is especially for him,
but Mendoza hopes that it's freeing for the rest of
(24:43):
their group as well. This was a part of an
Indie Wire interview that Mendoza gave, and he said, I
think people in the beginning were worried that this would
be triggering for PTSD, but I think it'll be the opposite.
The honesty and the truth is actually more liberating for us.
So Warfare surely has an opinion regarding the Iraq War,
(25:06):
and the final scene being a haunting, revelatory one that
asks what is all of this truly? For? However, its
number one priority is giving us a real account of
what these guys had to deal with, no matter the
reason they were sent over there in the first place.
(25:27):
In Rolling Stones review, it's titled Warfare wants you to
experience what combat feels like firsthand, and it ends with this.
The only agenda and Warfare is to give you a
sense of not just what happened, but how everything felt
while it was happening. A tall order, to be sure,
but one that Garland and Doza, their cast and crew
pull off shockingly. Will yes, authenticity is key as well
(25:51):
as the sheer battering. The film puts you through the
sensory overload, the emphasis of shock overall, you will assuredly
leave the shook. But pay attention to that opening series
of title cards, which start out as a list of
Seene setting stats. This was the mission, here is the date.
These were the people involved. Then a disclaimer mentions that
(26:14):
this look back was compiled through various interviews with those
who survived that heroing attack. This film uses only their memories.
Reads the next card. It's their version of what happened,
their traumatic recollections, their emotional conflicts, their gratitude for each
other and for still drawing breath. The review by I
(26:34):
Think was, David Fear says, they are now the ones
controlling the narrative, and we are now the ones bearing witness,
and I must say witness we do. This ain't no
glamorized Hollywood version. This isn't in your face war experience
where the silences are just as terrifying as the screens
that follow the gunshots and explosions. It's a fucking nightmare
(26:57):
as it should be warfare. It gets a vix Flix
rating of four out of five. One of the best
films of the year so far. And coming up next,
we are going to switch gears and talk about a
first date with a woman that won't get off her
flipping phone. Drop is the name and per Rotten Tomatoes.
(27:30):
Emmy nominee Megan Fay. I hope I'm saying that right.
She starred in White Lotus and The Perfect Couple. She
plays Violet, a widowed mother on her first date and
years who arrives at an upscale restaurant where she's relieved
that her date, Henry Brendan Scullner, who was in It
Ends with Us, is more charming and handsome than she expected,
(27:52):
but their chemistry begins to curdle as Violet begins being
irritated and then terrorized by a series of anonymous drops
to her phone. She's instructed to tell nobody and follow instructions,
or the hooded figure she sees on our home security
cameras will kill Violet, young son and babysitting sister. Violet
must do exactly as directed, or everyone she loves will die.
(28:16):
Her unseen tormentor's final directive kill Henry. Which wasn't that
a Was that a movie that had what's his name?
From District nine in there? Whereas all first person it
was something Henry anyway, that has nothing to do with this.
So Drop is a fast paced and highly stylized, hitchcocky
(28:40):
and thriller from the director of Happy Death Day Movies.
It's pretty clever and how it's told capturing your attention
and keeping it while you are, you know, basically playing
the guessing game with the with the two leads Megan
and Brandon, and they actually portray people we care about,
and it's easy to believe they would match each other
(29:02):
on a dating app. They make one cute couple. I'm
going to read something from the geek Vibe Nations review
by my buddy Dom Fisher, who is a part of
the Music City Film Critics Association. He's also a Critics
Choice Member. In his review, an insidious adrenaline rush is
(29:23):
what he called Drop says, while mystery keeps this story
exciting and interesting, it's the performances that keep it afloat,
plague by past trauma and harboring a maraud of trust issues.
Megan Faye truly brings violet to life from the pitch
changes in her voice and unassuming panic glances to her
body language. She's perfectly balancing hope and hurt. Brandon Skleener scleaners,
(29:47):
Henry has to be the most patient person, or one
of the most sensitive and intuitive to stick around for
the date from Hell, for the date from him shrouded
in mystery. You wonder is he desperate or high something.
Either way, he's going to gain some fans. So the
performances are definitely deliver. They are the main attractions here.
(30:11):
But I will say as violent, Megan is gripping and
very convincing while staying in basically a constant state of
suspense that transfers through to us who are who are
on edge. Every time that down foam vibrates and it's
quite a bit. Drop is simplistic yet suspenseful, bolstered by
not only the twist and turns that are thrown our way,
(30:33):
but to a large extent, the fantastic approach that's taken
by Christopher Land and the director, along with his talented
cast and crew. Now, I will say almost alive, Drop
is abundantly absurd. There is one where Henry gets wine
spilled on him and he says, hey, I got to
go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. Let me
(30:54):
tell you something, Ain't no man ever done that. We
get food, wine, whatever, We might dab it with, maybe
a napkin or something, but we definitely ain't going to
the bathroom to see if to see if we can
get it cleaned and gonna put in the sink and
under the air dryer. Let me tell you, if if
(31:16):
we can't get it off with whatever is at the table,
we're probably just gonna sit and let it dry. I've
done that when I've pissed my pants, so I definitely
ain't doing it for wine. But anyways, who cares about absurdity?
Virtually from start to finish, Drop is a nerve wracking fun.
That's what it wants to be, and that's all that
(31:37):
it needs to be. Drop gets a Vixflix rating of
three and a half out of five stars. And coming
up next, we are gonna end with a Dance with
a Devil, Sinners. That's the movie. That's the Dance with
(32:09):
the Devil part per Rotten Tomatoes. Trying to leave their
troubled lives behind, twin brothers, both played by Michael B. Jordan,
return to their hometown to start again, only to discover
that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Sinners is bold and bloody, scary and sexy, electric and exhilarating,
(32:31):
audacious and ambitious. Ryan Kugler's historical vampire film sinks its
teeth into community, culture and liberation, gorgeously told through the
delta blues that stirs the soul. It's a slow burn
that excellently establishes our world and characters before the sun
goes down and the devil himself comes out to play.
(32:53):
This may be Coogler's first foray into the horror genre,
but this sure as hell ain't new to him. He's
practically grown up with it. Per Deadline. In an interview,
they ask what are your go to horror movies that
made you have to play, and that made you have
to play in that sandbox. Coogler says, I consider Spielberg's
work in the horror space to be a bit of
(33:14):
a north Star, And it's complicated with him because he
hasn't out and out made a horror movie before. But
I would classify Jaws as a creature feature horror film.
Jurassic Park as well. Jurassic Park is a stealth horror movie,
the whole thing of what if a dinosaurs were real?
But when you talk about those t Rex scenes, the
veloc of raptor intro, the raptors in the kitchen, that
(33:35):
is out and out horror cinema, and it's popular, it's visceral.
It gets the audience feeling like they're on a damn
roller coaster ride. And then he says, taking it back,
he said, I love John Carpenter. My dad's favorite movie
apparently is Rocky two, and Coogler says, we never talked
about his second favorite movie, which was Halloween, And if
(33:56):
I watched Rocky two five times, I watched Halloween three times.
One of his mom's favorite Carpenter films is the thing
they love Carpenter, but different films, and the only film
they ever agreed on to watch was The Fugitive. Otherwise
he's watching Steven Sagall films his dad, and his mom's
watching Martin Scorsese films. He says, my dad, every time
(34:17):
he's taking he's taking Halloween and maybe Assault on Pre
Sainct thirteen. For mom, it was the thing he talks about,
how he loves the isolation, the practical effects, the cosmic
horror of it. And so he says, you know, all
of a sudden, the threatened idea and says, hey, you
got to stop this thing or it's going to wreck
the planet. And then he also says, there's Robert Rodriguez
(34:39):
and from dust till Done So. For Coogler, I feel
like this is kind of in the same vein as
Jordan Peel as Cooler's uses. Coogler uses horror to speak
to bigger and more profound themes, particularly sending around Black America,
as this is set in nineteen thirty two Mississippi, where
Jim Crow and KKK are alive and well in the South.
(35:02):
And now with his first original blockbuster that's arguably an
epic cinematic experience. It also is Coogler's most personal. An
interview magazine where he actually sat down with Lebron James,
he tells him why Centers is his most personal movie yet,
he says, for me, the movie started with my relationship
(35:24):
with my uncle, who is from Mississippi. He was the
older male figure in my life and the only music
he would listen to is the Blues. We would listen
to it, everything from too short to tony, but he
would only listen to the Blues. I would sit there
with him and he would talk about Mississippi and how
he came up and now that influenced everything that he
(35:45):
was on now. When Cooler says, when he was working
in Creed in twenty fifteen, his uncle passed away, and
he said he had already made a film about the
Bay with Fruitville Station, which was his first collaboration with
Michael B. Jordan. I was making a movie about feeling.
I made a couple of movies about Wakanda, and now
I'm coming back home in a different way. I'm looking
(36:06):
at the American South, which is outside of the continent
of Africa where black people call home. And he says
that there is a with centers that there's an also
a cultural aspect to it that he thinks people might
vibe with. He says, the film is about generations that
came before us, being set in the nineteen thirties. What
I'd learned through the process of researching this was that culture,
(36:27):
those people from the Great Depression, they really dictated what
was cool at that time and what remains to be
cooled today. He said that there are so many stylistic
things and phrases and ways of looking at the world
that it permeates society to this day. It's our grandparents,
our uncles and all that when they thought was cool,
(36:50):
is what we think is cool. He says. All of
that is in Centers, so production, design, costumes, sound, cinematography,
they're all firing on all cylinders to immerse us in
a mesmerizing genre mashup. It's a bloodthirsty herring journal journey
(37:13):
of survival. As I said, Michael B. Jordan plays twins,
and this is his best yet. His confidence in charisma
is of course there, and it feels effortless, but he's
also able to reveal these different sides of these two
twins that are known as smoking stacks and there's kind
(37:33):
of the cool one. There's kind of the one that's
kind of more I think, kind of free willing. There's
one that's kind of more business oriented. But there's this
nice balance between the two and not only what they
resent as what they represents as individuals, but also as
who they are as men and who they are together
(37:54):
as brothers. But when, but as I said, when they
reveal these different sides of these twins, it's who they
were and who they've become since they had gone off
to World War One and then went into got into
Chicago and got involved in some mob shit. So the
(38:20):
locations may have changed, but they always faced the same persecution.
I'm paraphrasing here, but there is a line in the
movie that basically says, where one of the twins is
talking to their cousin, that Chicago is like Mississippi, but
with tall buildings rather than plantations. However, if these two
(38:41):
twins have learned one thing, it's money is power, and
the collaborations that have happened between Jordan and Coogler, they
keep raising the bar and centers is a pretty damn
high one. Hailey Steinfeld a sensational Elroy Lindo as a
drunk blues musician is terrific as always and actually adds
(39:04):
quite a bit of humor to the film. The captivating
I hope I'm saying this right one Me Masaku plays
smokes ex Annie. She seems to be really into the
talismans and remedies from the Hoodoo tradition, but that doesn't
mean that she can save everyone, though when the things
(39:24):
do come out, she's the first one to know what
they're dealing with. Jack O'Connell plays the main vampire named Remick.
We don't see him until honestly, about an hour or
so into Sinners Everybody. Brett actually forwarded me a piece
(39:46):
in The New Yorker. It's a review where it's titled
Sinners is a virtuistic fusion of historical realism and horror,
and it describes Remick as a musician, a white cultural
appropriator who schemes with soft word and sharp teeth to
get hold of the music played by Sammy, that's their cousin,
Slim and other black musicians in their circle. He wants
(40:09):
their songs and their stories, he says, but of course
he has nothing of the experience or the history they
gave rise to them, O'Connell was great. I love what
Coogler does with the overall vampire look, their presence, and
what they represent. More so, Remick being Irish, I think
is a fascinating way to kind of have these vampires
(40:31):
feel somewhat connected to smoke and stacks in the others,
because the Irish people know what oppression looks like and
feels like as well. I will say that when things
get gory and you kind of bring out the wooden steaks,
the silver bullocks, the garlic, while when all that comes
into play, that's when Sinners gets a little too conventional
(40:53):
for me. Oddly enough, it's that stuff that's actually not
as interesting as what the rest of the story has
to say. Now, it doesn't last long, but when the
other elements of this story are so top tier, it
is easy to notice. Yet this hardly threatens what makes
this such a so which makes this so singular and special,
(41:17):
Vampire movies will be held to an entirely different standard
after this. Oh, I won't mess this up. Ludwig Gornissan
has worked on most, if not all, of Kugler's films,
and this is their greatest achievement thus far. The music,
the blues is incredibly intoxicating and brings such a mystical
(41:41):
presence to sinners that same New Yorker review says, here's
what Centers isn't a story of a musician selling his
soul to the devil. It's clear from the outset that
Cougler's view of myth is sharply revisionist. The movie opens
with a voiceover monologue about musicians with seemingly supernatural talent,
(42:03):
known by various terms and various cultures, whose art can
bring healing to the community, but it also attracts evil.
In other words, evil isn't the music, but comes from
the outside, isn't in the music, but comes from the
outside and finds it. The movie's pivot to vampires is
a supernatural vision of the real life snares set for
(42:25):
great Black musicians. Coogler transforms the fa fashitin blues legend
into an allegory of historical horror. So all of that
brings us to Miles Canton Captain. He is the son
of a gospel singer and her name is timminy Feura
(42:48):
fe Goura. I should have practiced these and has been
performing since he was two years old. He is. He's
beyond impressive in his acting debut as Sammy. He's the
preacher's boy that has that supernatural talent that could very
well save your soul or perhaps be your damnation. I
(43:11):
just read, like I don't know, a couple days ago,
that he actually learned the blues guitar specifically for this part,
and he practiced for like over five hours a day
for like a couple of months. He is phenomenal. The
fact that this was his first acting job is it
(43:32):
blows my mind. But there is a musical montage where
Miles is singing, I lied to you, and I don't
want to spoil it for you. You probably have already
read some stuff about it because it's it's sensational, but
it's it's one of the coolest things I've ever I've
(43:56):
ever seen on screen. The this is via Indie Wire.
As Kugler explained when he was a guest on Indie
War's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, if audience was if audiences were
down for vampires to show up and take chunks out
of people's juggulars, there's no reason why he couldn't use
film language to weave different strands of black music history
(44:17):
together and create a sense of immore of immorality that
wasn't vampire related. That is in reference to not only
just the music itself that's in there, but also that
musical montage I was talking about. You have to see it.
It's it's it's super cool. Uh. Cinners is the best
(44:40):
film that I've seen so far this year. Coogler and co.
Have a lot to say, maybe too much at times,
but this is a master at work with a voice
that's creative and crucial for filmmaking. There are two post
credit scenes, but the first one initially coming off as
a sort of spoof. However, once it once it sort
of settles in and those last couple of lines are spoken,
(45:03):
it hits hard on what centers is about what it
means to truly find physical and spiritual freedom. Go see
it in theaters, make sure it's in IMAX. You won't
regret it. Sinners gets a vix Flix rating of four
and a half out of five, and that will do
it for another volume of these cinema chronicles. Right here
(45:25):
on Nashville Movie Dispatch again, I am your host and sobros.
Resident film critic Brandon Vick and member of the Southeastern
Film Creek Association and board member of Music City and
Film Crikic Association. You can find me on Twitter at
sir Brandon v Sir Brandon on Letterboxed, and don't forget
to check out all of our work at Nashvillemovie Dispatch
(45:49):
dot substack dot com and until next month, just go
see a damn movie. O
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