A vibrant 'Sinners' makes its mark

 

  I don't want to refer to director Ryan Coogler's Sinners as a genre-bending work, although the term might be applicable.  I prefer to think of Sinners -- a story set in the Mississippi Delta during the 1930s -- as a movie in which Coogler employs an expansive film vocabulary to create a boldly exciting foray into the Deep South.

  Described in the broadest terms, Sinners is a horror movie. Coogler, who also wrote the screenplay, introduces vampires and builds toward a violent finale that takes the movie to near frenzied levels. At the same time, Sinners marks another vibrant Cooger entry into a filmography that includes Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

   Shock. gore and vampires aside, Sinners is the kind of horror movie that doesn't come along often, one that's culturally expressive and populated by vividly drawn characters -- horror with plenty of heart and soul.

    Set during the repressive days of Jim Crowe, the drama centers on identical twins, both beautifully played by Michael B. Jordan. Known as Smoke and Stack, the twins return to their Mississippi Delta hometown in 1932. Having accumulated funds in Chicago, they plan to open a juke joint. Independence awaits -- or so they hope.

  A young guitarist named Sammie (Miles Caton) enters the story as an aspiring bluesman who has taken possession of a guitar that may be connected to evil spirits, an evocation of some of the folkloric stories surrounding guitarist Robert Johnson.

   A preacher's son, Sammie becomes an eager mentee of Smoke and Stack, his older and savvier cousins.

   An early bit of narration tells us that certain musicians are so extraordinary that their music can pierce the veil between life and death, an idea evidently drawn from African cultures with traces of Irish and Mississippi Choctaw lore added. 

   All of these many influences become part of the cultural gumbo that Coogler serves with a visual clarity that gives the movie a bracing sharpness.

   Early on, Sinners plays like a period piece about young Sammie's foray into the world of juke joints. Sammie's choices evolve against a homegrown backdrop of religion and sin. Sammie's preacher father tells him that if he's foolish enough to dance with the devil, the devil may one day follow him home.

    Although thematically expansive, the movie takes place during the single day in which the brothers hurry to open their club.

   Smoke contracts with the owner of the town's grocery (Yao) and his wife Grace (Ji Jun Li) to provide food for the juke joint. Stack convinces a harmonica-playing alcoholic (a magnetic Delroy Lindo) to provide entertainment. 

    Each of the brothers also connects with a love interest from the past. Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) is a light-skinned woman who's perceived by some as white. Stack left her  because he thought outsiders would ruin Mary's life for taking up with a Black man.

   Smoke renews his relationship with Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a woman with whom he shares a tragic past and who knows her way around Afro-influenced spiritual practices. Jordan and Mosaku create memorable chemistry as the second helping of their relationship develops.

    Not to be sidelined, Sammie crushes on Pearline (Jayme Lawson), a woman who refuses to be confined by an unfulfilling marriage.

    At times, Sinners takes the shape of a musical with production numbers staged in the abandoned mill in which the brothers open their juke joint. These episodes operate on a surreal cultural continuum, mixing characters from different time periods, adding an anachronistic deejay, as well as African dancers and local revelers. All become part of a raucous explosion of energy.

   Jordan, who has appeared in all of Coogler's movies,  creates two characters who differ but share plenty of history. More adamant than Smoke, Stack is not one to be messed with. But both brothers have plenty of grit. Jordan makes them a dynamic duo, commanding the screen as men who've done their share of living.

    Oh yes, the vampires.

   A terrific Jack O'Connell portrays Remmick, the chief vampire who turns two farmers (Peter Dreimanis and Lola Kirke) into vampires, enlisting them in his efforts to convert (i.e., bite) every reveler at the juke joint. 

    Charming, insightful, and menacing in equal measure, Remmick offers his victims a deathless future that he portrays as utopian. Money never will give Smoke and Stack enough protection to realize their dreams of independence, he argues. 

    Perhaps to broaden the movie's palette, Remmick and his vampires sing a haunting Irish tune that contrasts with the music of the juke joint, yet seems entirely appropriate.

    The supporting performances bristle and come alive, and Coogler gives all the players stand-out moments during a day tinged with dread and desire.

    I'm sure all reviewers will advise audiences to remain through the end credits. Be sure to listen to them. Stay put and let the movie sit with you for a minute -- and allow Coogler to offer one last word.

      

     

    

Amy Winehouse's brief, wild life

   Amy Winehouse may not have lived long enough for her considerable talent to mature. She was 27 when she died from alcohol poisoning in 2011. Her early demise makes Winehouse a problematic subject for a biographical movie. 

   Fair to say, Winehouse's life had only one act -- albeit a wild one.

   In some respects, Winehouse revivified a rock n’ roll cliche — lacing her stardom with an unholy triumvirate: sex, drugs, and alcohol. Her inspirations derived from sources as diverse as rapper Lauryn Hill and singer Sarah Vaughan. She didn’t want to be pinned to anyone's genre bulletin board.

   Defined by uncompromising independence and a powerful voice, Winehouse blazed bright; she was nominated for eight Grammys and won six of them. 

   Back to Black tells Winehouse’s story, serving it in jagged chunks that seem appropriate for a singer/songwriter whose Rehab can be read as an anthem of spirited defiance. 

   “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, ‘No. No. No.’”

  The movie’s title — taken from Winehouse’s 2006 album of the same name — suggests dark currents. Winehouse’s journey toward oblivion centers on a startling and dynamic performance from Marisa Abela, who sings the movie’s musical numbers. No lip-synching here. 

   In this telling, Winehouse draws inspiration and affection from her grandmother, Nan Cynthia (Lesley Manville), a nightclub singer who functions as a mentor to Winehouse, a Jewish girl from North London who's often shown wearing a conspicuously displayed Star of David.

   Winehouse also receives support from her dad (Eddie Marsan), a dedicated father who tries to keep Winehouse on track, no easy job considering Winehouse went to great lengths to prove she was no Spice Girl pop star.  As is frequently the case with headstrong rebels, Winehouse clashed with those who wanted to shape her career.

  Much of the movie centers on Winehouse’s heated but disastrous relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell). Blake charts his own course through the world of drugs.

   Credit O’Connell with generating the bad-boy charm that Winehouse found irresistible. Put it this way: Their relationship wasn’t the stuff of rom-coms.

     I can’t say “no no no” to Back to Black, probably because I’m too much of a sucker for courageously immersive performances, and Abela certainly gives one. But director Sam Taylor-Johnson, working from an episodic screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh, creates a movie that often feels so scattershot and confrontational you may want to push it away.

     By the end, that's what I found myself doing.