oracleofdiscord

[oracleofdiscord]

‘you put that cig out, you can hold her’

[oracleofdiscord]

SINNERS 2025, dir. Ryan Coogler

[oracleofdiscord]

i keep forgetting to make this post so maybe someone else has finally pointed it out but i haven't actually seen a lot of discussion about the snake in the back of the truck in sinners! the symbolism/foreshadowing in that sequence is so cool to me, at least that's how i interpreted it. everything in this film is so intentional and deliberate, i find it hard to believe it wasn't put there for a reason.

sammie is the one to accidentally uncover the snake (sammie is the one remmick comes for)

(not only that but he uncovers it in his eagerness to get the day started, involving himself in something he shouldn't, touching things he shouldn't - fast forward to his talk with smoke in the upper floor of the juke when smoke threatens to kill him if he plays another show/doesn't listen to him about the world because he'll get himself hurt if he pursues this blindly)

smoke is the one to kill it (he is the one who deals the final blow to remmick and mows down the klansmen at the end)

it's a snake; the serpent in the garden of eden; the devil ("you keep dancing with the devil, one day he's gonna follow you home." so, again, remmick and imo even the klansmen because let's be real they are the epitome of evil)

he stabs it with stack's knife (using the weapon of someone he loved and trusted; the way he killed remmick was by trusting annie's instructions on how to kill vampires, and the way he killed the klansmen was by using weapons he and stack shared and coveted after their experience together in war; he can't kill these things By Himself, he relies on those he loves, there is no him without them and without love)

he even stabs it on the left side of its head (the exact place that the silver in sammie's guitar lodges into remmick's head in the lake, weakening him enough to BE staked and killed by the sunrise)

i just think it's neat!

[oracleofdiscord]

one of my favorite things about sinners is how we see elijah using the gun to kill the grand dragon of the kkk while still maintaining a connection to heaven where he sees and hears annie and their baby girl. the rejection of the idea that killing someone like that white supremacist character would lock the doors of heaven for someone like smoke. no. he still belongs there. absolutely he does.

[oracleofdiscord]

I think one of my favourite scenes in Sinners is the one in the car, when Slim gets emotional about his life and turns his pain into a song. It is just a moment but it encapsulates the whole movie while also telling the audience the history of Blues, a music style that is called after a very direct feeling of, well, blues.

Everyone in the movie is riddled with sorrow and pain and weight. And they are all doing their best to keep going, they are all finding ways to distract it. Times are hard and life is hard and history is hard. Absolutely nobody is doing ok. It's the beginning of the Great Depression, in the plantations.

But there is song, and dance, and sex, and food, and drink. And it's a bit lighter, specially if you have someone to do it with. He starts singing alone and Sammie is asked to play along, you cannot let this man sing his sorrows alone. We won't speak about it more than what you will tell us, but we won't let you face it alone. It is a movie about quiet company, which is ironic given the amount of music there is.

Slim recalls his anecdote, erratically, and we (the audience) hear his memories of it, the music he played, the people yelling at him, the banging. But in the car, they are in silence until the moment he sings.

And I think this is a powerful message not only in the context of the movie, but in the current context we are living. To keep each other company in the pain, without judgement.

[oracleofdiscord]

Another reason I respect Sinners is how Pearline is treated.

She is a married woman that sleeps with Sammy, when she dances and sings she does it in a seductive/sexy way but she is never treated or viewed as a negative figure. She isn’t a whore, or a slut, and she isn’t viewed as a temptation to Sammy.

In fact, the only part of the movie where you are supposed to disagree or (maybe) dislike Pearline is when she doesn’t want to eat the garlic. The movie makes us grieve her when she is killed.

Any other horror movie would have given her a brutal death, it would have been “deserved”.

Instead, Sinners goes out of its way to show that she is a human being, and despite her sins we love her. Decades after she is killed, Sammy names his bar after her despite knowing her for one day. The movie honors her.

[oracleofdiscord]

Music in Film: Sinners (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

[oracleofdiscord]

my favorite scene in the sinners movie. it gave me chills, i love it sm

[oracleofdiscord]

Sinners x “You’re Dead” Edit

i was already a little tempted to make this because this song was used in What We Do In The Shadows, but then i realized how well the lyrics fit and knew i HAD to make an edit for it 🤭. this took me literally for-freaking-ever but i’m very happy with how it came out!!

(you can also watch this on youtube!)

[oracleofdiscord]

if sinners (2025) taught me anything, it's that it IS actually always about race.

you can be oppressed, and still promote and maintain the very same systems of oppression onto other marginalized people. being oppressed in one dimension doesn't allow you to be exempt from oppressing in other dimensions. the "villain" of the movie, remmick, being from the time period of the english colonization of ireland, all the while wanting to take a piece of sammie's own culture from him, use him for it. and this plot point coming after remmick witnesses the significance of sammie's playing within his culture, for his ancestors and how it would shape Black culture in the future.

even in today's society, ive noticed that people treat Black people like a commodity. our worth is only as much as other people decide it to be, and that's usually dependent on how much the oppressor can take from us. for example, the controversy of"internet slang" and how it is blatantly just AAVE with a bad disguise on

do you listen to Black musicians? do you watch Black movies? do you engage with Black creators? do you defend the racist tendencies you notice in your friends, in your family, or do you stay silent? do you listen when Black people tell you you've said or done something racist? do you actually care about not being racist, or do you just not want to look like you're racist?

i just think people have a very specific take on what racism is, and that if they're not committing KKK-levels of violence on people, then they're not racist. or if you've experienced oppression in one form, you cannot possibly be engaging with oppression in another form. but the ways in which we interact with other people and the world will always be through the lens of race, because that is simply what it means for oppression to be systemic, especially in the US and our current political climate

anyway 10/10 movie. highly recommend

[oracleofdiscord]

People will be writing essays and analyses on Sinners in its regards to music, African American studies, Native American studies, colonization, religion and spirituality, and the diaspora for DECADES to come. And it’s all deserved because that movie was fucking amazing at touching every single one of those points.

Ryan Coogler, you’ve done it again king 🫶🏾

[oracleofdiscord]

I love how community was always at the forefront of sinners

Smoke and that lil girl in the car, him trynna teach her in their small time together how to value your time and demand what you deserve

Even though Delta Slim and Sammie had that one lil spat in the beginning, Slim being so fierce in his protection of Sammie. Slim going out his way to teach Sammie the way, making sure he introduced himself. Setting him straight bout his music coming from somewhere good and not the devil like his father said. DYING for him

Bo always having the twins back and being reluctant to leave, the genuine glee he had at seeing Smoke. Grace thrown off by Stack not being with Smoke cause she knew em so well to know they should be together

Annie protecting not only Smoke but ALSO Stack when they weren’t together in her own ways.

Annie and Mary being Visible next to each other as much as possible. Mary literally screaming out in horror and snapping out of the hive mind at Annie’s death.

Stack being mad at Smoke bc it was supposed to be them against the world forever. Annie and Smoke, Mary and Stack, a family.

Annie saying “not you” when she realized it was Stack biting her because he ment so much to her, on the flip Stack spefically going after Annie so he could secure their immortal family.

That quite tense moment between Smoke and Mary after their lil argument bout Mary mother, the wordless conversation had as they both sat in silence.

The brothers putting their money where their mouth is and always giving the cash to patch up the ppl they fucked up.

“By us for us”

Cornbread face deeply sorry explaining why he couldn’t make it to Mary’s mother funeral cause he had to make quotas.

Everyone bucking up at the thought of Remmick taking Sammie, Smoke putting himself in front of everyone. And when he faltered at the sight of his literal other half in front of him turned, everyone being there to bring him back.

Even Remmick in his deeply twisted way just wanted back to his community, everyone else be damned (with him). His want to bring everyone together in his hell on earth. His yearning to find community in another person who was like him even if he no longer had those powers (I’m going off the bases that he was a his peoples version of a Griot, which I believe is a Fili)

[oracleofdiscord]

I loved that the writing for Sinners was always on Annie's side.

When she was helping out the kids whose mother wasn't well, helping them out basically free of charge. Smoke tried to get her to change her mind, but she stood her ground.

When she told the twins that they should offer a discount to the juke joint patrons because they had worked so hard, they deserve a break. She had a point!

Every part of the vampire mythology, she was right about.

And... Smoke respected Annie's choice at the end and fulfilled his promise. The writing made it crystal clear why that was what she wanted and who could blame her? The other option would have been hell to experience, especially after all she had been through! Smoke would've been so selfish if he didn't, and that would've been a terrible ending for both characters. (I mean, Smoke did still save Sammie, which was great, but he needed to respect Annie's wishes first for his arc to really stick the landing.)

Sinners was Team Annie. That was great to see.

[oracleofdiscord]

There is something to be said about how Sinners isn't saying to lock the door on black culture and never let anyone else in. A big part of the scene of Sammie singng at the juke joint is the fact that there are other cultures involved. The chinese characters are accepted gladly and their culture is also shown in the process of looking back and forward.

In my opinion Sinners does point to the issue that white supremacy and a lot of white people who don't think they are racist like to iron over the culture they take in. Seperate it from the context and the people who created the culture until the heart of it is basically gone.

Remmick is a racist, but he also would have likely had a chance to interact with the culture in a normal way and connect with his own if he had just accepted that he wasn't the center of Sammie's music. The need to rip away Sammie's memories, talent, and culture and assimilate it into the hoard for his own gain without caring about what that culture means for the people it came from is the issue with Remmick. It is also the issue with a lot of people who want to view and interact with black culture, but get icked out when they actually have to be faced with the centuries of struggle that led to that genre of music, or dance, or hairstyle being created.

[oracleofdiscord]

background actors in sinners, photographed by eli joshua adé, smpsp.

[oracleofdiscord]

So SINNERS was a movie huh? (I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for weeks)

[oracleofdiscord]

Guess who watched Sinners??? 10/10 vampire movie 👏🏾✨

Bonus: