Sinners (2025)

Twins Smoke & Stack come back to their hometown to open a juke joint which will cater to the black community. They buy an old farm building and are assured by the good ol' boy who sells it to them that they'll be left alone because the Ku Klux Klan doesn't exist anymore. They spend the day putting together a staff and fixing up the place and boy... when it opens, it's absolutely magnificent. The twins' cousin Sammie is a natural on the guitar and has a distinctive low pitch, perfect for singing the blues (and attracting vampires).

I was not looking forward to this movie, but it didn't take long to win me over. It was bursting with life and love of music. There is one scene in particular that wowed both of us: like a hallucinatory history of black music before our eyes, somehow not gimmicky, just wondrous. But it's the final scene, decades into the future, that elevates this a few notches by reminding us of the beauty and excitement that preceded the horror. What a perfect to way to wrap up a story or a life.

B+