A couple of weeks ago Sinners made history by becoming the first film to ever be nominated for 16 Academy Awards (a.k.a. the Oscars). Even if we discount a new category this year (Best Casting Ensemble), it would still have beaten out former record holders. This alone should give you a good idea what an achievement the movie is on a purely technical level alone. First of: it's an absolute joy to watch. In this ear of shoddily assembled blockbusters with awful CGI, that is not Marvel-ous at all, Sinners clearly stands out. Set Design, Production Design, Costume Design, Photography - everything here is absolutely top notch.
This movie also literally looks like no other. When I saw the first scene, I scrambled for the blue ray cover, frantically checking for information on the film's aspect ratio that wasn't there. I was sure that the movie was in scope, but the first scenes were not. In fact, director Ryan Coogler elected to film with the loud and unwieldy I-MAX cameras to allow a fluent change between different aspect ratios, sometimes within the same shot (where the black bars on the top and the bottom slowly disappear). Now, all of these technical achievements would be laudable, but for naught, if the movie wouldn't be any good. But it is, great even, if you keep an open mind. If you haven't seen Sinners yet, do so as quickly as possible, and then get back to this write-up. From here on, there be spoilers !
During it's first hour it's not entirely clear where Coogler's film wants to go, taking it's sweet time to set up its story of two twin brothers trying to create a juke joint from nothing in the 1930's Mississippi Delta. Then the movie pulls off the old From Dust Till Down-gambit going from one type of movie to a complete differently one in its second half, and like the former also somewhat surprisingly becoming a vampire movie. This abrupt swerve into genre fare turned out divisive, to say the least. I, as a horror film fan, loved it, but some viewers caught up in the descriptions of the hard life for black folks in the 1930's obviously expected something different. Still, you have to admire the huge and confident swings Coogler takes with this movie.
A movie about a juke joint better have some great music to really sell its premise, and boy, does Sinners deliver. It features both a fantastic score by Coogler's frequent musical collaborator Ludwig Göransson and an equally brilliant selection of songs on its soundtrack album. However, there is a lot of music to go through, perhaps too much. Both albums taken together run up to almost 150 minutes of music, which is just overkill in one sitting. Enter the One Buck Guy. As with my previous reworked soundtracks for Dick Tracy and Donnie Darko I combined songs and score cues from the film in chronological fashion, to give the Sinners a real sense of how the film develops musically. The word Edit in OBG is to be taken quite seriously: I edited the absolute hell out of this one, shortening almost every score track, throwing off songs which were not featured in the movie, stitching and medley-ing together, and so on and so forth. Now the 150 minutes behemoth is a much more listenable sub-70 minutes compilation.
The music of Sinners is not only great, it also tells its own story, which this added subsequently tries to retrace as well. As the first hour of the film establishes the twins' recruitment of personal for their juke joint, the first half of soundtrack & score is very heavy on blues licks, both from Göransson and special guests like Bobby Rush. Just before the film's big thematic set piece of all timelines and musical eras falling and folding together, set to Miles Caton's "I Lied To You", there is the first apparition of what I call the vampire theme - you know it when you hear it.
The appearance of the initial trio of vampires also changes the musical landscape, heavily influenced by lead vampire Remmick's background as an Irish immigrant, trading the predominant blues music for a folk/bluegrass mix of traditional tunes. Their version of the old Irish folk standard "Will Ye Go, Lassie Go ?" (better known as "Wild Mountain Thyme") is not only one of the finest version of this oft-covered tune, but has haunted me for days after seing the movie. A bit (o.k., a lot) earlier I mentioned Ryan Coogler's big swings, and I think none is bigger than the big musical set piece of dozens of vampires, including most of the turned black folks, singing and dancing to classic Irish folk tune "Rocky Road To Dublin", with head vampire Remmick performing Irish stepdancing like a deranged lord of the dance. This was clearly the point of no return for some movie watchers, but again, I absolutely loved the pure chutzpah of it.
You might guess from the unusually long write up that this Sinners project is really heartfelt for me. I think this alternate album edit is one of my best editing job and I am very proud of it. I hope you will enjoy this musical journey through the back country of Sinners as much as I've enjoyed making it.Take this write-up as my endorsement of Sinners for tomorrow's Academy Awards, although I don't think it will win the big one. The Academy might have changed quite a bit since the peak Oscar bait years, but 'audacious vampire musical with a mostly Black cast' doesn't necessarily scream Best Film winner, and One Battle After Another seems to have an insurmountable lead. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.
In
the meantime, enjoy this killer piece of music I
have vampired Frankensteined together. It truly has something for everyone: Whether you like Blues, Country, Gospel, Bluegrass, Soul, Folk, Heavy Rock, even Hip Hop...you'll find something to like, or love, here. Or just tick 'all of the above' and take in that big-ass bad ass musical gumbo that is Sinners - Movie Soundtrack & Score - The OBG Edit, as the gods and ol' OBG intended...
Sinners - OBG style
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/yuVc6W6KYVy
Woof, one of the longest write-ups on this site, and I still didn't get all my shit in. I haven't even mentioned the cameo of 90 year + old Buddy Guy, or the brillance of plucked-from-obscurity Miles Caton or Ryan Coogler's unique (and possibly trailblazing) deal with the studio or why I think the vampires sing those folk songs. So many things to say, so little time and space.
ReplyDeleteOh well.
Do tell, though: What was the last movie that blew you away, or at least impressed you somewhar?