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Sinners (2025) – The best vampire movie ever? · CinemaHounds - A Lorehounds Podcast

• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are legends of people with a gift of making music so true.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It can conjure spirits from the pale and the future.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: This gift can bring fame and fortune.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it also can pierce the veil between life and death.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Listen here, just like no house party.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the lower house, where we are all sinners, I'm Alicia.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Anthony, I would describe myself as vampire curious.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm Jean, and we're here to talk about the new Ryan Kugler.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: Instant classic vampire epic black music moments cinematic extravaganza.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: That!
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to say almost makes me forget that we still don't have a new blame movie yet.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to start with a spoiler-free hot take section where we talk a little bit about vampire movies in general and our feeling about this without getting into the plot points, but just to set it up, the official tagline is trying to leave their trouble lives behind twin brothers returned to their Mississippi hometown to start again.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: only to discover that an even greater evil is weighted to welcome them back.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I called it a violent sexy, hote cinema, bluesical set in 1932 in the Mississippi Delta.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, Jar, I feel like for obvious reasons we need to hear from you first on this one, what did you think about sinners?
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Spoiler-free.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: this was awesome, this was great cinema, this was a great film, great story, great acting, great music, great score, all the super-larit is that you can possibly give to someone, I give to Kubler because this was absolutely wonderful and shout out to Michael B. Jordan
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because there were times that I had to, you know, like, catch myself and like, oh, this is like the same person.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's actually the same guy, you know, so this was so well done.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have nothing bad to say about this film at all.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Anthony, you actually, you saw it most recently, I think, and you reached out, you're like, yeah, this is a film I want to talk about.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, I think, here's my hot take.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think, like, I teach religious studies.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: I do not specialize in American religion, but I could see hundreds of religious studies professors put together entire class around this.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you could, you could do an entire semester on the various, you know, interactions between culture, you know, the window into American society, the window into musicology, and how all those touch American religious understanding.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love this movie.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I've only seen it once.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm definitely going to see it again.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know if I'm qualified to teach a class like this, but I would
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I go back to school for this, I would.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: I sign up, I'll sign up, yeah.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Give me this, yeah, this is, hmm, what about Yulisha?
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm actually going to go back and see it on Friday with a friend who hasn't seen it yet and this is I'm so excited.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's one of those ones where I'm going to be like watching the film, but also watching her for her responses, you don't know.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I went in knowing, I mean, I saw it's like maybe even close to opening night.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I went in knowing that Ryan Coogler, like I'm familiar with this stuff, I'll be safe from Black Panther, from Fruitvale Station.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have not seen Creed yet, but I know that I see it.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know people love it.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I know that he is such a film nerd.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I don't know if you guys saw this, he did this.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's basically a commercial for CoDAC, but it's so such a brilliant marketing move that everyone's talking about it, where he goes through and talks about the different types of film and the differences in recording with each and the aspect ratios and everything.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, so I went in with a high level of expectation and
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It blew it out of the water, you know?
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I was like, I think I'm gonna like this film, but it's definitely for me so far, it's the film of the year, and I have a hard time seeing anything supplanting it, even though it can also really like Thunderbolts.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was just looking it up for this, what the runtime was, and it's 138 minutes, and I was surprised looking it up for the notes.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh wow, really, that is a longer movie, but I did not feel that at all.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't think I looked at my watch or anything when I went, um, I love, I love Ryan Coogler's friendship and collaboration with the primary composer, Ludwig Gorenson, who's a Swedish guy, and they did black Panther, right?
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I think like all of their movies, they might in college and so they've been doing the interview rounds and talking about their meeting in college and it's adorable.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also, I love that Lou Regorens, and he's like, I'm a Swedish guy.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's like, OK, I've my violinist wife Serena.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's obviously inputting on that side of things, you know, where the fiddle music came into it.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But he was like, we need someone who really knows the blues.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they brought in Lawrence Boo Mitchell, who's a blues producer
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: royal studios.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just think, yeah, the talent.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think this is a thing about Ryan Cougar.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is it E knows how to recognize and harness talent and bring it together synergistically.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see that with the music.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see that with the cinematography, the cinematographers, autumn, derald, archipel.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think so far, all of these people can and should be nominated for Oscars at the end of the year.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: the production design, so that's Hanna Beachler and she just put the most
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: the most intricate details into everything and just thinking about things you never would have thought of.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like one thing she pointed out in an interview was there's a church at the beginning of the film.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It starts inside a church and she pointed out that if you look at the ceiling beams it's like they're crossing their arms like that Wakanda forever gesture as you know a take towards Chadwick Boseman.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's just, I just, yeah, I think that this is a game-changing film.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: For me, maybe the most, I mean, every year, I feel like there's been one game-changing film, like last year, Dune Part II, what they did with it cinetically.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Year before that, everything everywhere all at once.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is that film for me that I'm going to be still gushing about it years from now.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it really has that feel of like it has potential to not only be a box half a success, but also a cult classic, and it's almost like those two things have to live in separate worlds, but every now and again, you know, you get a start wars, you know, this.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, this definitely could be one of those movies.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think I'm going to ask this question.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think we might all have the same answer.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is this one to watch the theater or is it okay to wait for it to come just streaming?
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, don't wait.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Don't, don't wait.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't get me wrong.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wherever you watch the movie, you're going to enjoy the movie, because it's just that damn good.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: But don't wait to experience it.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just have to, I'm gonna try to see it in the IMAX when it re-releases.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hopefully next week, or the week after, but you have to, yeah, there's no reason to wait.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's no reason to wait until it comes to streaming to go watch it.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Go and watch this movie.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a, we're not spoiling anything yet, but there is a scene midway into the movie where at the one hour mark David, he is a thing about that.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: something happens and I did, you know, chills up and down my spine and I'm thinking this is why I come to the movie.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: This moment right here, because I've never experienced this moment before and I'm glad that I had this experience, the visual, the audio, you know, the
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was important to have at one point almost a tactile experience because the rhythm of the moment I could feel it.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, I love movies that remind you why seeing a movie in a theater is important.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so, okay, we'll give a quick nod, we're not going to dwell in this too much about the early reporting on the film had, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, a slightly racist bent where they were talking about.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't look at any reviews or anything about this because I didn't want to be spoiled, I didn't know.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, so will the what's behind it is the people are so afraid of the deal that Ryan Kougler got because he got he basically there was a bit more for this film because people recognize that this was gold and he said okay well this for me this is like my magnum opus so I'm going to ask for some extra things I really want it to be what's in my head so he said he wants asked for yes for first on a gross so that means that he gets his money.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: before costs are taken out, he asked for a final cut privilege, which I think needs to be handed out more often, but unfortunately it's not, I'm really glad he got it here, and he asked for the rights to revert after 25 years.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and this is not the first time such a deal is been made.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Quentin Tarantino, everyone's been saying made a similar deal with once a button time in Hollywood And the WB, they accepted this deal because they really wanted the film and And then people like the reporting around it at first was was
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, it had a really great first weekend, but it was always bad, but it will it make it will it make it well guess what it only dropped 6% in week 2 which is unheard of basically this is a very rare thing to only drop 6%
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: big rated art films that have done quite well commercially.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's doing better now than Oppenheimer did, even though it lost its IMAX theaters more quickly.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: As Jean said, it does they are going to be, it's going to be back in IMAX theaters for a while.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I have to say, I'm going on Friday to see this and that will be the fourth weekend and it was still sold out.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_06]: Hmm, so it's doing quite well.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's the budget.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: The report of budget 90 million.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's already made more than 240 million worldwide as of May 6th.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So eat it haters so okay.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's all great news.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't hear any like any the racist tinge that
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, is that the beginning?
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm, I, I was breezed by that.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: That, that was the reporting at the beginning was all the, um, oh, this deals ruining Hollywood and it had strong first meet, uh, weekend, but, but, but now it's, they can't say those things anymore because it's doing so well.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: So they didn't say that about Tarantino.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, not once.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: never written, not an article, nothing was ever written about Quentin's deal, which, the whole thing is, it's laughable to me that you have someone in Google who I don't think is yet 40, right, with a history of excellent filmmaking, right, this is the person you want to make your film, right?
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: for them, for the articles to screen, that he got this deal, as if getting the things that you want are inherently bad is as an eye.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, if you have a good enough negotiating team,
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: If your vision is clear enough, if the studio believes in the clarity of this vision, and you are able to squeeze every time out of a studio that the business is notoriously cheap when it comes to filmmakers, and you're able to do this, it should be lauded.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: not present it as if this was going to kill the film industry.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I loved an interviews.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: People keep trying to get Ryan Couglard to say things like there's an entire genre of interview where people trying to get Ryan Couglard to say things and he's like, nope, you're not getting that sound clip for me.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they're not like,
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, why do you think that the reporting has been like that?
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, you know that's what you know what I think it is.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I'm not going to say it.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you're trying to make me say it, but you know, they made, what was it?
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: How much did they make first week?
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean it was more than it was I think it was it was over 60 million worldwide and that was because and then the reporting was also immediately like that was a failure yeah and then exactly and then and then and then they were also like oh it's not doing well in Europe was like well some countries in the Netherlands I would it opened and it was immediately
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think number one in the box office here.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Other countries, it opened later.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they're like, oh, it's not doing well in Europe.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Freaking, look and see what countries it's open in so far before you try to find everything to talk down this movie.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: But now there's nothing.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, the reviews are good.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Rotten Tomatoes has 97% from both critics and audience.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Metacritic has 84% from critics, 7.7 from audiences, and letterboxed has 4.2 out of 5.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'll say as a regular letterboxed user, that is unheard of.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the five-star line is far, you know, it's sticking up above all the rest.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: So just one more little bit about.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: about this before we move into the next conversation, I think that if you are listening to this and you're not sure whether you want to see it, for whatever, maybe you don't like vampire movies, maybe you don't like horror movies.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: As a horror movie, I don't think
• 16:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, this should turn off people who just aren't into vampire movies, um, there's no doubt it is a vampire movie.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: It'll do some serious tropes.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's, I mean, it is, you know, we're not talking about conclave here.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're talking about a vampire movie, right?
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it's almost like the vampire movie is the Trojan's horse.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there's a ton of other social commentary that's being snuck in.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so if you're interested in American music, if you're interested in great storytelling, this movie should not, it's not only for people who like vampire movies.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: And just to piggyback really quickly before we move on, this story is not just for black folk.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you enjoy good movies, it's a good movie.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: And the thing is, you know, the positing of this as if only black people will support this because this is a black film, which is the undercurrent of what a lot of the articles were, is just to me in 2025, even more infuriating than it was, and
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's something that gets old and it really angers me because we've been on podcast and I've explained my history with all things sci-fi and fantasy.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: If I don't see myself doesn't mean that the movie isn't for me.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right, we need to change this lens that we have in our country.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not talking to those of broad, just yet, at least.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: But here in the States, that if it doesn't feature white people, if it doesn't feature, if it's not done by a white director and doesn't feature white people, then it's a movie
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we need to stop and realize that when you call out the bullshit, it makes other films get made.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: It makes other media get made.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm not here to tell anyone to go watch the movie because it's a social thing.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's just a damn good news.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_06]: This is a damn good movie.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: But don't tell me that,
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: or don't insinuate that because it's a largely all black largely minority cast that white Americans can't go and flock to the theater to see this movie it's bullshit well I have to say I was my surprise
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, come on, we put an explicit rating on here so that we can tell us, say, what we really think.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But as someone who has a background in Potawatomi, Native American folklore and Celtic folk music, I was sitting there in the middle of the movie, looking at this, being like, oh, shit.
• 19:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean this film.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, as far as caveats that we would give to people, you know, we, we've mentioned a little bit of violence and stuff.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is, there is sex in this movie.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are definite sex scenes, but it's not explicit.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not, it's, um, sex at its, uh, consensual and approached on.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, I loving basis we should say, even if summer centers.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying that because the name, there's a few jump scares at the beginning.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a scene where a snake gets harmed.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I looked into it.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: They were very careful about this and I know all the details about how they handled the snake killing scene and no animals were harmed in this film for sure.
• 20:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: They took great lengths.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what would you, Anthony, are you familiar with the bookie, let's go?
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: I am not.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think I've been on the podcast where it was used before, but I've never heard it explain to me.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so basically it is how on a scale of 0 to 5 mostly you can go negative this one obviously doesn't go negative.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: How violent do you think this film is as a warning to people who avoid violence?
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it can also be sociological violence.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, yeah, I'll all listen to your ratings before I give a reason.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do you think, sure?
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, it's pretty high.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think not that it's not a five I don't think or a four.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if it's a five but I can see it being a four.
• 21:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go with a three I think because surprising like there's blood as you it's a vampire movie and there's some like I guess there's some wounds because you know the people are brought back and they're not healed.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's I think it's yeah I think it's a four solid.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if I quite, okay, let's make sure to get another vampire movies.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I would say like a tattoo.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, so if we're just making sure to get another vampire movies.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think it's very high, but if you're going to measure it against, like, stand by me, uh, it's pretty high, I'm not sure.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a reward for it.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's done by me.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It also does have psychological violence, which also counts.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, here's what I would say.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: If I'm watching Kill Bill, and I see someone beheaded, yeah, no, this is not like that.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not Kill Bill, yes, yeah, let me, let me, let me finish my thought here.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: If I'm watching Kill Bill, and I see someone beheaded, and the blood comes out like it's, uh,
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like it's a hose, like there's a hose of blood squirting around.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know that that's not real or if I'm watching evil that too and the blood looks more like cool aid.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's like an evil that to the blood looks like pink collade.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not as affected, right?
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: So there's a way, there's a, there's a language of communicating violence that kind of winks to the audience and says, you know, this isn't real, right?
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: And to me, that's less of a internal, sort of less of an internalized violence.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, but, you know, I guess if, uh, I guess I would,
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess I would just say in terms of a vampire movie, I was expecting to be more scared, more grossed out.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this movie isn't necessarily about that.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not necessarily about trying to scare me or gross me out.
• 23:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: It has a lot, you know, it's got bigger fish to fry.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: I guess that would say.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: Agreed.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: For me, the grossest moment involved spit.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'll take that for what it's worth.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, okay, but ended you pose this question, what are the best vampires slash vampire movies and how does this rank?
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I want to ask you to.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: I want to ask, I want to get your take on this.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is tough.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Go ahead, Alicia.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, you can just say your favorite vampire or vampire movie.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm happy to give you one.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for me, this is I put a list just for listeners.
• 24:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I put a list in the notes of like just vampire movies off the top of my head.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm kind of looking at this while I think and it's got it's got everything from obviously obviously the first thing I'm going to think of is Dracula and knows for all to all the various iterations there.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I just declared that the latest nose fraught to was my favorite version of that, but yeah, I like this better.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So okay, then that automatically by the transit of property means it ranks above all of those movies.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do I think it's better than the blade movies we have so far?
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, yeah, a lot of people are comparing it with from Dustill Dawn.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think this, yes, I see obviously the comparisons, but I think this blows that out of the water.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: Is there's a few conscious omages I think from Dustill Dawn at this point?
• 24:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: For me, the only thing that's comparable is actually the TV show version of interview with the vampire because that is just another one that really sets itself in the historicity of it.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that really delves into the social issues and the setting in which it finds itself and how that interacts with the characters.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So.
• 25:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: If there's anything I would ever rank above this in the vampire realm, I think it would be the TV show version of interview with the vampire.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everything else on this list, I'm looking at and I love let the right one in.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love a girl walks home alone at night, which is an Iranian feminist vampire movie.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: What we do in the shadows so funny, so different although this one has a lot of laughs.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let's get this out of the way.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I contemplated cosplay in black era.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's where I met with this.
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's where I'm coming from.
• 26:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just so the people understand.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was looking down for folks cosplay in this black era.
• 26:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I met with it.
• 26:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I will say, I will say,
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love Frightenight, um, the voice is the same genre, I feel like it.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it is, I'm not too much of a lost voice.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I really dig Frightenight, um, I like this film better.
• 26:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
• 26:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: I can't, I like this film better than the Blade Films.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: I like this film better than 30 days of night, which is one of my favorite ha- Oh, yeah.
• 26:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I have flip flicks of all time.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: I like it better than those for Ratu.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think maybe it's resencied bias.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, but right now, I think this would rank
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: above all of the others.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm looking at the list that you came up with and I'm realizing, I guess I just don't have a large affection for vampire movies.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was thinking like, I feel like I'll see anywhere we'll movie, like I love where we'll movies.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Me too, me too.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: I,
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I do really like that film, the Swedish film, let the right one in.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yep.
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Right movie.
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Love that movie, a big lost boy's fan.
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love the bit of the vampire movie that explores unnatural long life.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just fascinated by that.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: So if you can give me a movie that really kind of plays with the,
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: the problems related to immortal undead.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm interested in that part of the vampire movie.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm not a huge, aficionada, that's why I described myself a vampire curious.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: But this film, for me, transcends the genre.
• 28:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, I love this film.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not usually into the vampire film.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Question, what do you guys call this film, a musical?
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: yes.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But if you go into it, that's why I call it a bluesical.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you go into it, expecting like a musical, it's not going to be wicked or something.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not, it doesn't have the feel of Broadway.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it is a musical for sure.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're going to talk through those musical moments.
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, any of last spoiler free thoughts you want to throw out before we take a break and dive into the film.
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: let's do it.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just go see the movie.
• 29:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright, we'll take a quick break here when we come back.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be full spoilers.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you are warned.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: We heard tale of a party.
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright, Jean, do you want to do the set up with the plot for us?
• 29:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Preacher Sun Sammy wants to use his night off to help his cousins smoke and stack open a new joke joint where he, local blues legend Delta Slim, and others will play live blues and they will all indulge in a little according to Sammy's father, sinful fun with fancy blues and the women in their lives.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Only Sammy's music is so good, it opens, they rift in time and space, attracting an ancient Irish vampire named Remic.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: And his two new followers, he wants Sammy to join his oven so he can use his gifts, initiating a war with everyone in the Duke joint.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: most are killed and reborn as the undead, including stack, smoke and Sammy team up to take them all down, and then smoke's ends his own life in a gunfight with the local KKK that takes them all down as well, leaving Sammy as the only survivor.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Or, sorry, thanks.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I love, I love the, um, they had me from the opening of this film because they do that like folklore voiceover and as soon as it is a folklore voiceover, I'm like, oh, I'm buckled in.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they say, there are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: in ancient Ireland, they were called the Philly, in Chaktole land, they called them firekeepers, and in West Africa, they're called the Grille.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: This gift can bring healing to their communities, but it also attracts evil, set voice.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, Sean, you and I have talked a bit about Hudu, Hudu,
• 31:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: American slavery, right?
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm not descendant of African slaves in this part of the hemisphere, but I recognize all of those things, right?
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because Haitian by heritage.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: So
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: felt true, and it felt real, and it felt familiar.
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's the thing with this movie is that even though we may come from different places, there are things that are familiar to us
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: has brought all of these things together in a mismatch.
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I really felt connected to the characters, felt connected to the story, felt connected to the land, via my own experiences with the topics that they were talking about.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and by the way, I have to do a random shoutout to there is a connection between the grio side of this and the doctor who episode that's coming out this Saturday as this releases, which is it's a season, sorry, episode four of season two, it's called the story in the engine and all I can say about it now is it's set in Lagos and as a title suggests,
• 32:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's interesting the other two groups that they cite.
• 32:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the Philly of the Ireland and the firekeepers of the Choctaw.
• 33:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the Philly, that's kind of like a looking forward thing, you know, it's about divination, about foretelling.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the firekeepers, so,
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't necessarily know that much about the Chakto, although actually Jean and I did do a deep dive into their culture for the Echo Marvel series, so I'll link that episode in the show notes for anyone who wants to know more about the Chakto, but I am from another tribe called the Potawatomi and the Potawatomi name literally means keepers of the fire.
• 33:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in it's part of this Council of the Three Fires with the Ojibua and Odawa and Padwadmese are the little brother and every tribe within that triplicate has a duty and the Padwadmese duty is to preserve history.
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, it's interesting to think about this, you know, connecting, you know, tearing open holes through time and space.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then think about, well, so we have the looking forward on the Irish side with the feeling.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then with the firekeepers, we have the looking back.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just reminds me, when I go to the reservation, every time I go there, the museum on the reservation gets a bit bigger, where you can literally walk the timeline of
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, if you think about it, that is what's happening where it's storytelling to connect across time and space.
• 34:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love the premise that the mythological premise that will allow vampires to come into this particular story.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: It is that it's not every music that does this.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's certain musicians that have a certain unique ability to sort of almost tear the veil between past and future.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: And heal in the process.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And of course, because there is power in that,
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: in that kind of music, it of course is going to do a track, you know, evil in this case, it attracts, uh, Remek.
• 35:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so anyway, I love that it's a simple twist on the lore.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Otherwise, this movie is very faithful to sort of the the old vampire lore and tropes.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: And yes, it's a
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: the movie to connect what is fundamental about the black religious tradition in America.
• 35:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this, you know, this other kind of vampire mythology that's almost almost seems incillary.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: but in this little quick little move, this quick little twist, coogler is able to bring those together in a way that makes, oh, this is all gonna make sense.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Totally, it's gonna fit together really great.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he said one of his inspirations was the combination of cultures that contributes to Mississippi blues, which he says, of course, that's, you know, the black musical culture via Africa via the Caribbean, via the colon responses in the fields, things like that.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also the contributions, as he said, of,
• 36:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: the Asian American populations in this deep south particularly Chinese and the uneasy alliance that they had with the Black community and also through the poor Celtic folk, which is where my family comes from.
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, so I gotta say I am into genealogy and there's a point in ones
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: research into their own genealogy when you've got to look at the southern side of your family and be like, why is there a black side of the family over there?
• 36:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm relieved to say that we were just all four.
• 36:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they lived together.
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I found census that people were living together in the workhouses.
• 37:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, sharing grooves and obviously beds.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I like to think, well, I know for fact sharing music because yeah, I grew up in this folk culture where it was the same stage would be an Irish musician and then a blues musician and just sharing space like that, however, uneasily, especially in the past.
• 37:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, uh, do you guys, so I'm, I don't need a sequel and usually like I would say this stands on on its own, but I really want, if not Ryan Kugler, I want someone to do the chalk-tall prequel, they get us to that point where Remic is running through, and then I want someone after that to do the pre-prequel with Remic's origin story.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, I
• 37:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was kind of an important part of the movie because it establishes
• 37:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, when the chak chak come to the door and they realize, you let that guy through the threshold, like you let that guy in.
• 38:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm out.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: We know he's in there.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And if you care about your life, we're going to have to handle that guy quick, quick, quick.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And what that does that little scene that does, what it shows is this is a problem that's beyond your imagining in your white mythological construct.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: And you're going to have to ally with someone who you don't trust because of American racism in order to solve this problem.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: And of course, what that does is it establishes this is a problem.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: As old, there are people out there who are experts on this.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: It can be handled, but it won't be because these these white farm stethers.
• 38:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: are simply not going to allow the Choctaw to sort of help them with their problem.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it took me to get there because the first when they're running in, I'm like, oh, they're just trying to be good citizens helping the poor guy, even though, you know, I knew he's a vampire, but I was like, they didn't know he's a vampire.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then later on, you find out they're KKK.
• 39:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, no, they were just being racist.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, they were dressed.
• 39:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, of course, yeah.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But sorry, you're sure, whatever you can say.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: The best part of that entire scene to me was when the sun was going down.
• 39:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it was like, all right, we out.
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're a piece, we're a piece, we're a piece.
• 39:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: We tried, we tried, but you know what?
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: You ain't worth it.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: We risked, we ain't darn out here for you.
• 39:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, we came here to help.
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: We try to help, you don't want to help, some going down, we are out, and they will need out of there.
• 39:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I love that.
• 39:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love that they were not some sort of sacrifice to this altar of humanity, of this all get along and help each other.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: They tried, your belief system would not allow you to let them help, and they recognize that.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: And they said, fucking, we are.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it was fantastic.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it was such a short scene that allowed the movie to move on to the story, it really wants to tell.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: But in answer to your question, Alicia, I think that you could easily do a prequel that follows these people,
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: and how they encounter this, you know, this ramic for the first time, how they deal with it, what, how they're particular religious tradition allows them to combat it.
• 40:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think of that's necessarily coogler's story as hell.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: We should have to at least work with someone from the chocolate community to tell them.
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, he would.
• 40:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, clearly he's, you know, he has, it in his mind, what this story has to be.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: to leave that out of the story entirely would be a disservice.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think he did it perfectly.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think so.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: He brought in the chalk top perfectly.
• 41:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think maybe we would.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I just leave it open.
• 41:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like I'd love to see some kind of spin off with those folks.
• 41:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'd love to see a spin off with, you know, sort of stack in 1990's Chicago.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there are things that I would love to see.
• 41:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't, but I almost feel like, at this point, it's a canon, the canon's kind of perfection.
• 41:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you're always going to risk, you know, deleting it with, with sequels and crinkles.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't think I want to remix prequel.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't think I want to see remix story of vampirism, but I would be interested to see maybe his first encounter in this new world and this, you know, from the old world to the new, how he got here and how he encountered the chucked out, I think that would be a great story to tell, but necessarily not him.
• 42:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we do have an answer as to how we got here, which I'll get into in a little bit because there was an Easter egg.
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I, yeah, okay, so I do want his pre-prequel, like, but I want that to be after the Charlottesville Prequel.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, work backwards on this one.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But because we got the the barist suggestion of it, but this is an old ass vampire who's probably, he made it sound like he was alive when the Christians came to town.
• 42:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're talking like,
• 42:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: fifth century basically.
• 42:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm also just to see how did this, you know, how did this happen in this sort of resistance?
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what's interesting, something that was pointed out that I ended up doing a rabbit hole after seeing this post, a blue sky from specialist K. There's something called Choctaw Irish solidarity.
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: where basically after the Irish potato famine, which is, if anyone who doesn't know we're not going to go into the whole history, but it's something that did not have to happen and was very much British imperialism was the main contributing factor to that coming to play.
• 43:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Choctaw, they had just gone through their trail of tears where they ended up in Oklahoma and re-establishing themselves in Oklahoma and they find out about this potato famine
• 43:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: they are dealing with similar things to what we're dealing with.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they ended up gathering a whole bunch of money and made the single-largest contribution to the Irish potato famine came from the Choctaw tribe.
• 43:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Irish found out about that years later, they're like, oh wow, most of this actually came from the Choctaw, and then I looked into their history, and they're like, wow, we're a kind of experience.
• 43:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so they've had, there's been a special Choctaw Irish friendship ever since then for like a century.
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that would be really interesting to explore as well and how does that, you know, you have someone who's a friend but then there's a viper in their mix in their midst.
• 44:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: How does that play into anything?
• 44:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 44:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 44:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, John, what is your feeling in general?
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's start getting into the characters.
• 44:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are your feelings about Michael B. Jordan as an actor in general?
• 44:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, he's not he's not on my Yeah, I like him when I don't like him, but I think he was just really great in this movie He was absolutely phenomenal in this movie.
• 44:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, there were times like I said earlier that I You know had to say to myself always this one guy is one person to inhabiting both of these roles
• 44:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because I caught up in thinking of them as two separate people, right?
• 44:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Which is the film.
• 44:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: They are two separate people.
• 44:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: But to realize that he played those roles, so I don't want to say perfectly, but he just embodied both of those characters to make them distinct from each other in that way.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if I, like, I really enjoyed Cree, and I really enjoyed Fruval.
• 45:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: There are some hiccups in between, you know, after those movies, but he was just spectacular.
• 45:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: I really think he did one of the best portrayals of a character that I've seen and quite some time.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was a little, at the beginning, I was a little distracted just trying to pay attention to the VFX, like when they're both smoked against the car.
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like of them handing it back and forth.
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, they're doing that to establish that, but I had to turn off my movie making brain.
• 45:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so I turned it off immediately.
• 45:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, yeah, let me, let me not even think about that.
• 45:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm glad that you mentioned that because I, I feel like.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: that if you would have cast someone else to play, you know, brother, maybe a fraternal twin, instead of an identical twin, you bring in a sort of a different actor with a different range, that might have added to my experience.
• 46:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that the movie, it can be faltered for using Michael B. Jordan the way it did.
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: I do think that there would be less of my medical
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: if it was two different actors.
• 46:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I think there were, there were times like you said when I was a little bit distracted by it and it could have, I could have been like more invested in the storytelling if I wasn't like worrying about like, it was just a different level of sort of,
• 46:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: brain power that wasn't necessarily all invested in the movie, but I do like as as Jean said, how he he played it differently and also how Couglar made sure that you know you could tell them apart like so stack is always wearing red and he's the one who smiles, you never see smokes smiling, he's the one wearing blue and he's he's the killer of the two.
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: They actually brought in twin consultants to try to get it right.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, do you guys notice other differences between them?
• 47:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, when you, when you point out that stack smoke was more serious.
• 47:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: I felt like there was a heaviness to his character.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, it wasn't just seriousness.
• 47:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: There was, there was like, it almost felt like he was the one.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: who had the weight on his shoulders.
• 47:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, almost as if you have a older sibling and older siblings always looking how for you, that's what it felt like to me.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like he was the one who was supposed to be in charge.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was the one who was supposed to be,
• 48:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: ensuring that everyone was okay, ensuring that his brother was okay, right?
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what it felt like to me, apart from him being the obvious killer of the two, it just felt like he had the most burden placed on him for some reason.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for me, when I found out that it was smoke who ended up killing their father.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: to me that explained every different difference between them.
• 48:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like I was like, right.
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, this guy carries that weight, this guy knew what needed to be done.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's the one that decided to do it, but he's haunted by it.
• 48:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this has changed his demeanor.
• 48:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: It changes how, what kind of business man he is.
• 48:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's a little bit less.
• 48:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't
• 48:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because he's got that hanging over his head.
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have a question for you, Anthony, since you know more about the Bible than I do.
• 49:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Some people have been pointing out, so their real names are Elijah smoke more and Elias stack more.
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 49:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And people have been connecting that with the prophet Elias.
• 49:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I mean, those are kind of two different ways to say the name one, it would be like a more he-break iteration of the name one, a more Greek iteration of the name, but it's from the same route and it does suggest some kind of biblical relationship between these two famously, Elijah ends up sort of passing the mantle to Elijah
• 49:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: And there is sort of a fire theme that goes with that particular biblical imagery.
• 49:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: But the image that I was most affected by was the Canaanable imagery, which just throughout this movie.
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know if you want to deal with this now or later.
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: No, please, yeah, I agree with that.
• 50:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I went down a couple of rabbit trails too.
• 50:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: What, once I realized, oh, they're playing with the mark of cane issue.
• 50:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, so let's just start with the fact that smoke is his brother's keeper, literally.
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: He is his brother's keeper.
• 50:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: He takes care of him.
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's the person who looks after him and he protects him.
• 50:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: So he's clearly the brother's keeper.
• 50:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, in the biblical story, there is the question after one brother kills the other when cane kills Abel.
• 50:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: The divine voice comes in and says, hey, where's your brother?
• 50:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the answer is, am I my brother's keeper?
• 50:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now it's set in the form of a question, but the implication here is, I am not my brother's keeper, and of course that kind of brings out this, not only the first murder, but the first fractor side that happens, which creates this massive amount of discord in the world.
• 51:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: you know, which, you know, you could say sort of is that initial first murder and has reverberates out in sort of the sinful thing that covers the land.
• 51:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: But you've got two different trajectories in the came mythology.
• 51:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: So this is post Bible, right?
• 51:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: So let's fast forward into the third century or fourth century after Jesus, there's this Greek text called the apocalypse of Moses.
• 51:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can look it up online.
• 51:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: One of the very first lines in that Greek Jewish historical fiction
• 51:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: is Eve wakes up with a dream.
• 51:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: And she tells Adam what her dream was.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's, I had a dream that came our son was drinking the blood of his brother.
• 52:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he just kept on gulping him down.
• 52:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then he didn't even, and his brother said, leave some blood for me and he didn't leave any blood for.
• 52:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so that kind of creates this mythology,
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: of what we would consider sort of the first time Cain is linked to like vampire lore.
• 52:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: So you go a lot of different places with this, but there is sort of a vampiric legend that Cain is the first vampire, right?
• 52:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: as a fan of supernatural.
• 52:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's supernatural.
• 52:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 52:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Supernatural long life has to walk the earth, you know, and carries this curse with him, a blood drinking kind of the mortal.
• 52:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 52:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, the text in the third to fourth century doesn't, doesn't use the word vampire, but that's where we get the idea.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, counter to that is you've got this modern white supremacist
• 53:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: mythology of the mark of Kane being, what was the mark?
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, maybe as dark skin, and allows modern white supremacists to justify slavery and all kinds of racism because the curse is biblical.
• 53:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: the people with darker skin than us, they carry this curse, and it is a divine curse.
• 53:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so it gives us a particular mandate to propel white supremacy.
• 53:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Cuckler clearly knows both of these traditions.
• 53:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: And what he's doing is he draws these, both these sort of the cane lore of the vampire and a cane lore of white supremacy, and he puts them both together in conversation
• 53:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: in a way that, like, as a religious studies professor, I'm like, yes, that's it.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: That is deserving of a book or a class or something to kind of draw out these parallels.
• 54:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And Kugler, he doesn't, doesn't come out and sput, you know, he doesn't like hit the nail in the head or like he's not
• 54:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I also love there's there's so many different levels which you can evaluate the events in this movie like obviously you can take them You could go in and just enjoy it as a simple these are the things that happened on the screen while that was a great movie But you can also take this you know this level of the lore which they're clearly presenting for you and several different origins But also you can just look at it as an allegory for sociology for life, you know
• 54:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at the end of this movie, Smoke loses stack to a different way of life.
• 54:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, we're basically he chose the communism route to put it cheaply.
• 54:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, just there's I think like I could watch every time I watch this, I could look through different lens and experience the movie differently.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, to tie a bow on just one more little thing here, that scene where Smoke has the opportunity to kill stack.
• 55:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then it cuts away and you're not really sure what happens.
• 55:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: That is almost a retelling of the April and Kane story, right?
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: In this case, the familial bonds, in this case, you know, the two African-American brothers, they connect on a level that's deeper than the vampire family, the new vampire family.
• 55:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that you could absolutely view that as a metaphor for, you know, brothers of all kinds of all places, but in this particular story, it does happen to be African American brothers, and I think that that was just beautifully rendered.
• 55:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: right.
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: So smoking sack are kind of sold as the leads of this movie, but I would say actually the lead is Sami preacher boy more played by Miles Caiton.
• 56:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this was his debut role.
• 56:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you believe that?
• 56:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm believable.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I also who's played in the older version by Buddy Guy and I love how they did the claw marks in the cheek, so as soon as you saw the older version, you're like, oh, all right, same dude, all right, we're jumping for it.
• 56:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: What did you guys think about his relationship with his preacher dad, Jetta Daya played by cell Williams?
• 56:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, that that was that was something because
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Again, getting personal, like, for me, race Catholic, first generation, born in this country, right, from Haitian immigrant parents.
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: And my mom is Catholic, and my father is a born again, Christian, right?
• 57:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: So having those two dueling faves in my upbringing
• 57:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: my father's family in Sammy's dad, because my father was not that way.
• 57:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was not this
• 57:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: If you don't do this, you're going to hell, father, even though the faith that his children were being raised then was the antithesis of what he believed.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: I did recognize, and Sammy's dad, the preacher at the pulpit, screaming, that you are going to burn forever,
• 58:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: because of your earthly vices.
• 58:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's something that I'm so familiar with.
• 58:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: But it was so interesting, watching that on screen, play out, and then remembering, you know, talking with my own father, who's of the same faith tradition as Sammy's dad, and it being a completely different conversation.
• 58:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: of the story that we each bring to this mishmos of a country, of the United States of America.
• 58:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right?
• 58:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this is what to me again is so brilliant in this film because Sammy is really he's struggling, he's trying to figure out, you know, where do I belong, right?
• 58:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have my family, but I also have this other found kind of family that I find through music, that I find myself through music.
• 59:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I want to do the things that my family at home want me to do.
• 59:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: I want to feel the thing that they feel when they're in the pulpit, in the church.
• 59:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I only get that feeling when I'm on the stage.
• 59:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: fascinating to watch it play out and having all these thoughts run through my mind of my own background which is why this film is really astounding because not a lot of movies can you find yourself thinking about what you've experienced and it doesn't have to be negative just you know what you've experienced in life and wondering and saying to yourself wow how did he
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: How is that possible, you know, how are they getting these little, you know, thoughts and lines of thinking of ways of being that I've had and I don't know these people.
• 1:00:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:00:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: That speaks to the power of this film.
• 1:00:13
  [UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was an interesting through line with the Sami's guitar where he was given to him by his cousins.
• 1:00:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we have, I guess, stack lied to him at the beginning and said that it was from Charlie Patton, father of blues, and he's like proud of that, obviously.
• 1:00:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, hell yeah.
• 1:00:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then Smoke tells him at the end, like no, it was actually my dad who has been presented throughout the film as an evil man.
• 1:00:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do you think, Anthony, do you think that it's trying to tell us that there can be evil in the guitar or that it's just an object or how do you think that plays into the story?
• 1:00:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, of course, it's an object's not just an object in the movie, right?
• 1:00:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, in this case, this movie is sort of weaving together.
• 1:01:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's a really beautiful mythologies.
• 1:01:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: And one of the mythologies that it's weaving through
• 1:01:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Sammy is a Robert Johnson type.
• 1:01:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Robert Johnson, you know, famously sold his soul to the devil 1932 to the, you know, at the crossroads, right?
• 1:01:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, that's when this movie said it's at the early 30s in about the same area of the country.
• 1:01:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it all, with that story,
• 1:01:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: around blues guitar that it is the Devil's music.
• 1:01:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so from one particular view, you need to choose what the music that happens here in the church versus the music that happens in that Duke join, because what happens over there is the Devil's music.
• 1:02:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: So make your choice, right?
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then if you've got the reality of the situation
• 1:02:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: both mythologies have power, right?
• 1:02:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: There is absolutely power in, and of course, with this movie, this power is sort of supernatural, right?
• 1:02:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is the kind of power that is kind of tear the veil and allow the future in the past to come into the present and infuse the present with eternity in a way that is healing
• 1:02:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: And for Sammy, that's going to speak to him in a way that the church doesn't speak to him.
• 1:02:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:02:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: So for me, I just thought it was really great because it sort of puts Sammy forth as a person walking the line between these two worlds.
• 1:03:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I teach it a predominantly African American seminary
• 1:03:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: a lot of my students had fathers who were preachers and then there was an expectation on them to become a preacher and they're coming to me like late in their career like they've gone out, they've done other things, they've become lawyers with it, they've become social activists and then they come back and they're like, all right, now I'm in my 40s, I realize I want to become a preacher like my dad.
• 1:03:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: But they had to live that semi-lies first, right?
• 1:03:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, this is sort of a world that I'm sort of sort of an observer of and a close observer of because they're my students and yet it's not my own experience, so I need to be careful about that.
• 1:03:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: But I will say that there's times in this movie where Sammy becomes a limital creature.
• 1:03:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's at the threshold.
• 1:03:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: of light and dark, and he makes that choice to go toward the blues.
• 1:03:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: And when he does that, there's a couple of moments when this happens.
• 1:04:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: Remick, it has him in shallow water.
• 1:04:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: And he starts reciting the Lord's prayer.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
• 1:04:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then you realize all the vampires know that.
• 1:04:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's white man's religion.
• 1:04:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: That has no power here.
• 1:04:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then he is literally baptized by the vampire.
• 1:04:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: into that shallow water.
• 1:04:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: In other words, he's almost like that's his crossroads moment.
• 1:04:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then when he comes back to his father's house, he's got like the the remnant of the guitar.
• 1:04:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: He stands at the threshold of the church and his father has to invite him in.
• 1:04:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: At that moment, I thought,
• 1:04:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: is conscious about that.
• 1:04:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, this person is a gray enough character that you're not sure if is he of the vampires or is he of the children of God.
• 1:04:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that that's what the movie is trying to say.
• 1:05:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, no, he's a center and that's kind of all of us.
• 1:05:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:05:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: And eventually, because he makes that choice, you know, later in the movie, he gets another chance.
• 1:05:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Do you want to do you want to walk on the dark side because you've been living in this gray space your whole life and I think it's it's really interesting way to end the movie I love that particular character It's a very complex very interesting character with not a lot of lines in this movie
• 1:05:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I, what I find interesting, well, first of all, I just wanted to throw out since you brought up the crossroads moment.
• 1:05:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ryan Couglors had an interview.
• 1:05:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was, of course, literally thinking about that story, but he said in the versions when he dug into it, he said instead of the devil, what he saw was that he made a deal with Papa Legba, which is a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a little interesting.
• 1:05:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: So there's different versions of the story.
• 1:06:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:06:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 1:06:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's yeah, that's why yeah, who do was brought into this film as well.
• 1:06:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I find it really interesting that so we have smoke and stack and you have on the surface.
• 1:06:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like stack is the better dude.
• 1:06:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like on the surface because he's the one who smiles.
• 1:06:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's not the one who killed their dad, you know.
• 1:06:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But he's also you realize that smoke even though he's the killer of the two.
• 1:06:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's the one perhaps who's more driven by morality and fear and protectionism, you know, so when they are talking to Sammy about his future and his own crossroads of his future, does he go forward with the church or does he go forward with the blues?
• 1:06:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And stacks like, yeah, get out of here, you know, like, go live your life, be this big blues musician, and smokes like, no, go back, go back and be happy that you have a safe place, you know?
• 1:06:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's take a quick pause here and when we come back, we're going to dive into the rest of the characters and then talk about some key musical moments and other themes that pop out at us.
• 1:07:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're back.
• 1:07:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Listen here.
• 1:07:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so Jean, I know that you were happy to see Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim.
• 1:07:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: I just, if you can't see me, but I'm throwing up my hands.
• 1:07:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's Delroy.
• 1:07:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:07:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Delroy.
• 1:07:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: They had me at Delroy when the film was in there.
• 1:07:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: They were like, all right, Lindos in and I'm in.
• 1:07:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's it.
• 1:07:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't need to hear anything else.
• 1:07:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's it.
• 1:07:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's it.
• 1:07:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I, I just, you know, at least I feel about Delroy.
• 1:07:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 1:07:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I don't know.
• 1:07:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've never heard you talk about it.
• 1:07:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love him too.
• 1:07:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think he's one of the greatest character actors.
• 1:07:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
• 1:07:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
• 1:07:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love the man.
• 1:07:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love everything that he's been in.
• 1:07:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think he's one of the most under-appreciated actors working for his entire career.
• 1:08:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Not just lately.
• 1:08:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's been under-appreciated.
• 1:08:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he just sinks his teeth into this role.
• 1:08:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:08:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:08:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't know who don't.
• 1:08:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: So people who don't know that particular name, what movies did you have you most liked him?
• 1:08:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: And, um, Brooklyn.
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: All right.
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's the first one, of course, you, you, I mean, you just said it, I think that is one of the most
• 1:08:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: criminally slept on movies of the last 20 years.
• 1:08:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: The five bloods, the five bloods.
• 1:08:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: His, his portrayal, his, the entire cast is amazing.
• 1:08:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Um, this is, I think this was Chadwick's last role.
• 1:08:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Um, uh, may have been I, I don't want to say that for for certain, but, um, Or is it Mavera and he's back about a minute?
• 1:09:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: It might have been one of those two.
• 1:09:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: But the entire cast is great, but Delroy just, again, he just, there's something about him when he, when he's in character, it's just captivating to watch.
• 1:09:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's green person dominance.
• 1:09:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, his green presence is just, yeah, it's just something else.
• 1:09:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I really feel that, you know,
• 1:09:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: as a actor of color, as a black man, as a Jamaican immigrant, he brings something to the table that, again, it's familiar to me, right?
• 1:09:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because I've known Del Roy's literally, you know, I've known people whose uncle named is Del Roy, you know what I mean?
• 1:09:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: So this is somebody who I just really, really wish that.
• 1:09:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: more people would pay attention to when he's on screen and when he's cast in a role because he's an amazing actor.
• 1:10:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: And again, proof positive, if you haven't seen the five bloods, then that's a film that deserves the attention.
• 1:10:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Now back to Delta Slim.
• 1:10:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's just, I mean,
• 1:10:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: You, you wrote a, he got a gun to another, another club.
• 1:10:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: He, he got had to be talked out of taking his make a joke out of his regular gig and like, oh man, and then, you know, to see how he got talked out of it, you know, with the promise of, you know, being shit faced quite honestly, right?
• 1:10:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: knowing that he, the character, he's an amazing musician, which is why they want him in the first place.
• 1:10:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this whole, you know, going back to Sammy, right, and the church and blues and the church.
• 1:11:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: The church at that time, for me, you know,
• 1:11:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: and blues were both speaking to the hardships that black folk were facing in this country, right?
• 1:11:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Delta Slim is like Sami's dad, the preacher, from a different place.
• 1:11:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're both coming into this world that they inhabit this Jim Crow era, U.S., trying to deal with the facts that at any time,
• 1:11:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: And this is scary to think of, given our present state.
• 1:11:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: But at any time, someone could have stopped them and taken them from their families and disappeared them with no repercussion, right?
• 1:11:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: The blues and the church, both were trying to deal with that reality for black people in this country.
• 1:12:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Delta and the preacher coming at this, this problem, this, this life issue that they're all that, everyone in their community is experiencing, but choosing to approach it differently.
• 1:12:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: I can't say either, either one of them was wrong.
• 1:12:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: I can't say that Delta's way via the
• 1:12:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: definitely, and stack, they both were like, of the opposite persuasion, right?
• 1:12:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: They were like, one said, go to the church, the other one said, go to the blues, right?
• 1:12:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: So we have this competing almost narrative, but they're doing the same thing for black people, trying to give them hope, trying to give them, you know, some sort of, yeah, of healing,
• 1:13:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: protection against the realities that they faced, once you left the joke, the joke joint, or once you left the church doors.
• 1:13:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because while you were in the joke joint, while you were in church, you were safe.
• 1:13:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: you would thought to be in a safe place.
• 1:13:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let me ask, I got a question for both of you.
• 1:13:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I don't really know how I feel about this.
• 1:13:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: I see a definite parallel between the Irish temptation of the beer, right?
• 1:13:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, Delroy, Lindo's character.
• 1:13:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: What's his name in the movie?
• 1:13:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Forget his name.
• 1:13:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's Delta Slim.
• 1:13:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Delta Slim, Delta Slim is not attracted to the money.
• 1:13:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.
• 1:13:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's got a good gig, but as soon as he tastes that cold I have a spirit for the first time, he's like, oh, where do I show up, right?
• 1:14:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.
• 1:14:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't, that is not, it's not an accident.
• 1:14:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: that there's also an Irish vampire out there with Irish, you know, Celtic, traditional music that's tempting later in the film.
• 1:14:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so if it's not an accident, should we feel bad for this portrayal of the Irish as sort of representative of the white folk and white temptation in this way?
• 1:14:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, no, uh, because, well, okay, two things.
• 1:14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: First that I think, you know, I already touched upon before, where I think the reason that they were chosen is because this is a group that could find solidarity with the Black communities, just because they were also, um, because they were also discriminated against in the US and often poorer and so often they were sharing communities and living spaces and things like that.
• 1:15:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think, and I think it's like the same as we see with the chalk tool in the Irish, they had a special friendship, but then you have this in city as Viper that gets in there.
• 1:15:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then yeah, we'll talk about the vampire culture is complex and thinking back.
• 1:15:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, how does it?
• 1:15:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Good points, too.
• 1:15:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But okay.
• 1:15:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think in the other thing is that about the Irish beer specifically, they also had a Italian wine and there's these Easter eggs on Spotify.
• 1:15:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you go to the center's movie page on Spotify and you look under the about there's some images.
• 1:15:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have the story that we quoted that would mean missoccos said at the beginning and they have images of that and then if you keep scrolling,
• 1:15:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's three news articles.
• 1:15:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: One, we'll go back to the other two were about one is about smoking stack, robbing a bank in Chicago.
• 1:16:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is clearly why they had to flee.
• 1:16:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the other suggests that there were tensions in Chicago between the Irish and Italian communities, because again, the Italians were dealing with the same bullshit that the Irish were in that regard.
• 1:16:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they would
• 1:16:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, you pit these these communities that are treated as underdogs against each other.
• 1:16:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's literally what they did.
• 1:16:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: They stole the booze from both those communities and blamed each other and then skid-addled back to Mississippi.
• 1:16:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this is why they kept emphasizing we have Irish beer and Italian wine and yeah, we left them boring back there over it while we're down here drinking it and
• 1:16:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: The Irish and Italian in this country weren't considered white for a very long time.
• 1:16:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:16:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's true.
• 1:16:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: So they came into whiteness.
• 1:16:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: They didn't get off the boat being white.
• 1:16:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:16:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: This country forged that for them as a racial identity.
• 1:17:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I don't think having the vampire and the beer, the Irish is a...
• 1:17:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: you know, like a slap in the face to the Irish people who live in Mississippi or live in the US at the time.
• 1:17:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because they themselves were coming into the knowledge that there was this other that we could be better than.
• 1:17:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: that we could be treated better than that other.
• 1:17:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that other was black folk, right?
• 1:17:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: So in contrast to where they were and where they were heading, yeah, it's a very dynamic and very fluid situation that we find ourselves in in the post World War I, pre-World War II,
• 1:18:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: world, especially in the US.
• 1:18:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because things are changing.
• 1:18:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:18:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think there's something to the proximity of both cultures.
• 1:18:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like if you were living in the same, you know, in the same town, maybe in the same, you know, adjacent neighborhoods or something like that, maybe you do look over the fence and wonder like,
• 1:18:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: they have it better, maybe we just have it a little bit better, in other words, there's a temptation to Irish culture that both the beer and the vampire hive mind represent.
• 1:18:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder if there's something, I wonder if Kugler's playing with that, like is there a specific attraction to the Irish music, the Irish beer that sort of has some sort of cultural
• 1:18:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think it's just the historical stuff that we've been saying, I think that's honestly where he's pulling from, especially given those Easter eggs he gave us as well.
• 1:19:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: But another thing, so moving on to the women, so we have, we have Mary, I find one of the most interesting characters, the roles that she plays in this film, played by Haley Steinfeld.
• 1:19:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's, she's basically, she stacks X, but she's married now because basically it
• 1:19:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: technically one eighth black, which by the time made her legally black.
• 1:19:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So made her legally illegal to marry a white man.
• 1:19:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, they're just affected that we have the one eighth.
• 1:19:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:19:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:19:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, it's just the fact shows you like what what the reality is of of race in America.
• 1:19:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Uh-huh.
• 1:19:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:19:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: And what these folks were trying to get away from.
• 1:19:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: For however brief moment in time, what Delta's name was trying to get away from?
• 1:19:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: What preachers dad was trying to get away from?
• 1:19:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just by the very fact that we have, she was one eighth black.
• 1:20:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but she, but that was the community she grew up in.
• 1:20:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she's like, I don't want to not be black, which is, yeah, it's an, and but then the entire time people keep telling her, but who don't know her.
• 1:20:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you don't belong here and she's like, like, hell, I don't, you know, um, but then at the same time, she is the one who takes it upon herself to be the bridge to the vampires who obviously she doesn't know their vampires.
• 1:20:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but she's like, oh, go talk to those white folk and see what's up, you know.
• 1:20:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because she's not, she may be one eighth black, but she is white, passing, right?
• 1:20:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: She looks white and so it's just treated white.
• 1:20:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, she looks white.
• 1:20:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: She acts white.
• 1:20:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: She married white.
• 1:20:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: She is a white woman in this world.
• 1:20:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: And where she is
• 1:20:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: It could be looked down upon and for those who may know her family history, they'll be like, oh, you know, well, she's really, you know, one of them at heart because of her family history.
• 1:21:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: for people who don't know her, you know, is just uncoof.
• 1:21:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: How could you, you know, be slumming around with the black folk?
• 1:21:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: What was wrong with you?
• 1:21:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: So she doesn't put stack in danger.
• 1:21:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, which he recognizes.
• 1:21:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:21:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: I like that they're playing with that ambiguity.
• 1:21:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, she clearly doesn't feel fully at home in a white culture.
• 1:21:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:21:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, she clearly is not fully accepted in the black community.
• 1:21:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's a person on the margins of both worlds.
• 1:21:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's a liminal.
• 1:21:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:21:35
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that allows her to kind of play the role as the bridge between the vampires.
• 1:21:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, she knows what it's like to be.
• 1:21:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe like almost not let in the jukcho.
• 1:21:48
  [UNKNOWN]: Right.
• 1:21:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: So she has a little bit of compassion for these, you know, these corny people, you know, sitting on the log out there.
• 1:21:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I do think that there's something about her that you're supposed to be a little bit suspicious of.
• 1:22:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: right like who's going to let the vampires in right yeah she's probably the lead candidate for this right she's she's a little bit like John Snow is he's like he john's like I always go back to game with her a little bit like john snow not quite at home in any world and so it's going to be the bridge to the wildlands.
• 1:22:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be John Snow, right?
• 1:22:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's the creature of duality, right?
• 1:22:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: So in this case, in this movie, Mary is the creature of duality.
• 1:22:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I also think that, you know, in that scene particularly when she goes out to talk to Remic and the two others, she's the only one who could have done that.
• 1:22:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:22:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: The black folk couldn't have very well done that
• 1:22:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: negative repercussions.
• 1:22:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: She's like, let me go talk to them because she knows how whiteness has a form of protection.
• 1:23:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: When reality is,
• 1:23:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: That shouldn't get no protection at all.
• 1:23:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'll be like, yeah.
• 1:23:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be easier for her to code to it, right?
• 1:23:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:23:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:23:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't even think it's code switching, though.
• 1:23:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's my point.
• 1:23:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because in this world, she doesn't go back and forth between being black and being white.
• 1:23:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: in this way.
• 1:23:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Let me press, let me press you a little bit on that.
• 1:23:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: So early on, when you meet her at the train scene, everyone's kind of freaked out because stacks talking with this white woman, right?
• 1:23:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
• 1:23:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then once they hear the way she talks, I think Sammy comes at, I don't think she's white.
• 1:23:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I thought that was an interesting, that was a little interesting clue too.
• 1:23:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, maybe there's more to her than me, CI.
• 1:23:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: This definitely, more to her, definitely, I agree with that.
• 1:23:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I think overwhelmingly for me and my eyes when I watched those scenes play out, it wasn't from the viewpoint of a black woman switching.
• 1:24:10
  [SPEAKER_06]: Mm-hmm.
• 1:24:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: It was from the viewpoint of here's this white woman who has black friends.
• 1:24:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 1:24:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Interesting.
• 1:24:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which is two different things.
• 1:24:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Interesting note I just learned is that they used part of Haley Steinfield's own story there.
• 1:24:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So her mother's father really is half black.
• 1:24:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: and but she obviously grew up in a very different time and where she was treated as white her whole life but then still, you know, that side of family is telling her thing.
• 1:24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's interesting to hear her talk about this but the rest of the cast in interviews and how Ryan Kugler, I don't know how the casting of her worked but he was definitely like, no, let's drill down on this experience.
• 1:24:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:24:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: I thought she was great, um, I thought she, I mean, when she makes the shift.
• 1:25:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: That was one of the most sort of horror moments, horrific moments of the film, you know.
• 1:25:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I think what you mentioned that earlier, like the drool scene, maybe you're drooling, right?
• 1:25:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: The empty is like spit in my mouth.
• 1:25:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 1:25:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:25:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not my king.
• 1:25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not my king.
• 1:25:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: If yours, I'm sorry, go for it.
• 1:25:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, no, I think that's interesting to me because you could say, well, of course, we need one sort of representative like white woman in this show to make sure that we're being representative.
• 1:25:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: Nope, because she's the bridge to the vampires, right?
• 1:25:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: you have this little view that, okay, maybe the vampires have a point.
• 1:26:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, maybe there is some kind of virtue to the sort of the hive mind that brings a certain sense of community that you are never going to get in this world.
• 1:26:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, I'm going to put a pin in that thought for now because we're going to get into that when we talk about the music scenes because there is a scene where that really came to life for me.
• 1:26:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then at the end, the credit scene, too.
• 1:26:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm excited to talk about the music such a big part of this.
• 1:26:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, okay.
• 1:26:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright well let's let's talk quickly about the the other characters so we've Annie smokes a strange wife play by when we miss aqua we've already mentioned her we didn't mention they lost a child and so we have that lovely scene when they're reunited as a family at the end but that's really driving her um she's the one who's a root worker slash hudu practitioner um
• 1:26:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anthony, what did you think about the blend of religions here?
• 1:26:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have Christianity in the one hand, we have Hudu and the other, but in reality, people are taking a little from Colombe, a little from Colombe.
• 1:27:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's that is American religion, right?
• 1:27:04
  [UNKNOWN]: Yep.
• 1:27:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, in this particular, like, I don't know this particular part of the world and I'm not, I'm not studied in American religion as well as I could be, but this is exactly what you would expect in this time in place.
• 1:27:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: you went to vote on and sometimes you went to the faith healer and you know sometimes you did both you know when one wasn't working you would go to the other one and this is the fundamentally different experience than white Christians in America at the time and so I love that they bring that particular part into the film and I thought it was interesting that
• 1:27:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not actually going to be the preacher.
• 1:27:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: So this is going to make this different than from Ducks till dawn, right?
• 1:28:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's not going to be the cross that has power of the vampires.
• 1:28:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: In this particular case, the expert on how to defeat the vampires, because the Choctaw have sort of left the conversation, is going to be this particular root worker.
• 1:28:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: And she knows about the garlic, she knows about the mojo.
• 1:28:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's got it all, she knows the lore to these.
• 1:28:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: She even knows like, this is the worst.
• 1:28:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: The vampires are the worst kind.
• 1:28:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Can't just kill them all by killing the leader.
• 1:28:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Gotta kill them all individually.
• 1:28:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: So she's important for the story in that way, but she's also important for a cultural touchstone.
• 1:28:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would also say so it's called sinners and they're all sinners in a way like the Perlene is the complete the trio of love interest for this.
• 1:28:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's Sammy's lady for the night, but she's actually married played by Jane Lawson and and she sings a pale pale moon performance.
• 1:29:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's there as a singer, but she's there to have some fun too
• 1:29:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And out of all of the characters, like she's one, I'm like, oh, yeah, she's a sinner.
• 1:29:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's cheating on her husband, sure, by the definition of Christian sinners that that qualifies, I cannot think of a way in which Annie is a sinner.
• 1:29:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's the most compassionate one.
• 1:29:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's the one who insists.
• 1:29:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because at one point, people are trying to pay in the bar with these wooden coins that that's what they're paid with on the plantations and the idea is that it limits their ability to spend that money.
• 1:29:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, no, we got to take that, you know, even if we can't spend it elsewhere, we got to take that.
• 1:29:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are our people.
• 1:29:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's the one controversially in my mind, who chooses death over immortality when she is turned.
• 1:29:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she makes smoke, her husband,
• 1:29:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Would you, would you guys, if you returned, would you make the person who loved you, kill you?
• 1:30:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, boy, I don't think so.
• 1:30:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think I probably chose being a vamp for a minute before I decided what to do.
• 1:30:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like a lot of it.
• 1:30:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to say it.
• 1:30:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: All right, told you, I wanted to go as black-yler.
• 1:30:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is what it is.
• 1:30:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I would be like, no, stop.
• 1:30:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go dance with vampires.
• 1:30:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do a gig.
• 1:30:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: I do think that there's something about it.
• 1:30:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: This movie is sort of makes you want to question.
• 1:30:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: whether or not the vampires might have a point, right?
• 1:30:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:30:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now, if I, if it's like the Borg, because early on it feels a little bit like the Borg, where it's like, okay, now my memories are yours, and you get to control me, Mr. 5th Century Irish Black Vampire, that, that has no attraction to me.
• 1:31:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't wanna be a, I don't wanna be a stooge to Remic.
• 1:31:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, but once Ramik is gone, you can kind of see that, uh, you know, maybe there, maybe you can have some fun in Chicago and your Bill Cosby sweater.
• 1:31:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, and
• 1:31:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, there's, there's a little bit of attraction to, you know, or scandal noted.
• 1:31:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just noting on the fashion.
• 1:31:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not commenting on that.
• 1:31:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, it's the cool G Suite.
• 1:31:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, I don't know.
• 1:31:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: May fame is my biggest wall, listening.
• 1:31:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, I don't know.
• 1:31:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think.
• 1:31:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think this movie is meant to make you wonder whether the centers have made the better choice.
• 1:31:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that this movie is necessarily drawing a connection between like the good people in the movie are the the non centers and the bad people in the movie are the centers.
• 1:31:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think this movie is meant to make you believe that they're all centers and you have to live in that gray area and you have to choose how you're going to live in the gray area.
• 1:32:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's at the devil's gathering with everyone else, right?
• 1:32:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: All right.
• 1:32:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: And she's also not Christian in the way that creature's dad is Christian.
• 1:32:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: She's doing this whole other sort of religion, which I is very nature is sinful.
• 1:32:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, from from the rules of this one particular mythology.
• 1:32:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:32:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: She falls into this particular category.
• 1:32:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 1:32:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, we should say people probably wonder what's the difference between Voodoo and Hudu?
• 1:32:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think of it as sort of like, like Voodoo comes from Africa and that is a particular thing.
• 1:32:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Hudu is an American invention of sorts that as Anthony was saying, it kind of blends together this Voodoo with other American influences.
• 1:33:05
  [UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
• 1:33:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I think real quick on that point, just they are both born from the merging of African and European religious.
• 1:33:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
• 1:33:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, in, in,
• 1:33:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: the Caribbean and Haiti, which is what I'm most familiar with.
• 1:33:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's the iconography, the imagery, all of these things that you find in a church, in a Catholic church, particularly, you would find in a shrine, right?
• 1:33:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:33:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, who do, yes, it's an American version of that, but at their core, they're both in my
• 1:33:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: view maybe I'm wrong but it's emerging of African tradition and the religion that was forced upon African slaves.
• 1:34:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay okay so I think it's very interesting to these connections because I just found out today for the very first time that you know it's like okay when it traditionally when does Saint Patrick bring Christianity to Ireland and I just wanted to make
• 1:34:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh, St. Patrick is also the painter in St.
• 1:34:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, Jiria.
• 1:34:23
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:34:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: I know I am.
• 1:34:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, oh, I gotta learn more about this.
• 1:34:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: But it just kind of goes to show you, you know, these things don't just merge in America.
• 1:34:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: These things merge all over the place.
• 1:34:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 1:34:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 1:34:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, I was just wrapping up the characters.
• 1:34:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Got a shout out, Cornbread.
• 1:34:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't play by Omar Miller.
• 1:34:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have much to say about him, but he gave us insight into the sharecropper, society in which they're living, and he was great comic relief, and I love to see him on screen, although he as soon as he turned, he was like, he was their creature, but I guess same for Mary.
• 1:34:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, for everyone turned really.
• 1:35:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, and then the other, before we get into the vampires themselves, the other two that we have to talk about is Grace and Bo Chao play by Legion Lee, who I know from the movie Babylon, and Bo was played by Yao, and this is sort of showing about the role that Chinese immigrants, again, very much not white, very poorly treated, the way that the role they played in this Southern society, and what I noticed, I don't know if you guys noticed this too, but, um,
• 1:35:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they had, though, was working on the black side of the shop and grace was working on the white side of the shop.
• 1:35:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so they both engaged in different forms of code switching in terms of how they talk to their customers versus when they speak to each other in Chinese.
• 1:35:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they have the daughter, Lisa, Helena who was threatened.
• 1:35:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved when the remit came to the door, she's like the devil spoke Chinese.
• 1:36:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: But because her daughter's threatened, we never find out what happened to her daughter, because I guess she's in orphan now.
• 1:36:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Grace breaks and she invites them all in.
• 1:36:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you blame her?
• 1:36:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I was wondering about that, because my son, I watched it with my son, and after he's like, how did all the vampires get in those big double doors of the barn?
• 1:36:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, I missed that part.
• 1:36:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: She made the specific invitation.
• 1:36:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she lit up like a Molotov cocktail in a bottle and she's like she's like they're going after my baby And everyone's like don't go out there because her husband's already been turned into this boy and and she's like, no, fuck it Come on in let's have it out.
• 1:36:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, we're gonna take you all out.
• 1:36:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right.
• 1:36:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: I definitely missed that one.
• 1:36:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know why she had to invite them in though Yeah, oh at first
• 1:36:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was kind of like, ah, but then, I'm kind of like, no.
• 1:36:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not down with the, I blame her, I blame her for everything, I'm not down with it.
• 1:37:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, and the thing is she went directly to her husband to take him out, right?
• 1:37:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's true.
• 1:37:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: She focused her, like she could have done that, without inviting the entire crew inside.
• 1:37:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:37:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I do actually, I do blame her for inviting them in, simply because, yes, I get it.
• 1:37:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: The urge is to save your child consequences be them, right?
• 1:37:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what you want to do.
• 1:37:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's like an imperative, it's almost, you know, super, super natural, and it's, you know, origin.
• 1:37:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just feel it, but she could have gone about it in a different way, and I felt, yeah, she did say fuck the consequences, I don't care who else has to go, but I'm doing this to try to protect my daughter, and I blame her and her short-sightedness, I do.
• 1:38:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean strategically.
• 1:38:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: How about invited them in one at a time?
• 1:38:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: But, right, but less cinematic to do with that one.
• 1:38:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, less cinematic, definitely.
• 1:38:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
• 1:38:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, okay.
• 1:38:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that brings us to the bad guys.
• 1:38:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So first of all, we can all agree unequivocably hogwood, the local KKK leader who sold them what used to be a place where they would, like, I think torture slaves and things like that.
• 1:38:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, um, he's an unequivocal bad guy, fair.
• 1:38:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and that was really satisfying.
• 1:38:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know some people are like, oh, it didn't need that
• 1:38:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: for sure then we have a burden zone
• 1:38:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Peter and Lola, Peter, dry manus and Lola Kirk, who, first of all, props to all of the musical skills of everyone in this cast, but that goes without saying, but they become better people as vampires, I feel like, and that's one of the things that makes us complex.
• 1:39:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to kill people, but at least it's for more slightly altruistic reasons.
• 1:39:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can be happy together, not just saying I'm going to kill you because you're different.
• 1:39:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to kill you because
• 1:39:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And their leader, of course, is Remick, played by Jack McConnell who just, oh, just bravo.
• 1:39:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was another performance in a half.
• 1:39:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: He says, I want to see my people again, I'm trapped here, but your gifts can bring them to me.
• 1:39:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he wants to use Sammy for this.
• 1:39:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: and he says, centuries ago, the Lord's, he has people during the whole Lord's prayer, thinking like he said, it's not effective.
• 1:39:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: He said, long ago, the man who stole my father's land, forced these words upon us.
• 1:39:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hated those men, but the words still bring me comfort, which I find really interesting, taking something, a culture oppresses you and you still take something from there and be like, you know, I like that part.
• 1:40:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: It is what Black folk have done in this
• 1:40:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:40:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:40:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:40:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you said you were just double checking Anthony, but fifth century right for St. Patrick.
• 1:40:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's the traditional, you know, date, you know, these these dates historically, you get a little bit of murky when you go all the way that when you go that far back, everything's a little bit murky here, right?
• 1:40:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: But traditions
• 1:40:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Um, so it's interesting because, you know, the, the, the Irish, the Irish have always kind of been, um,
• 1:40:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: had a more complicated relationship to other European countries, and especially the British, right?
• 1:40:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Also very complicated relationship with Catholicism.
• 1:41:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so it's interesting to bring that culture in conversation with American culture in this film.
• 1:41:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: I still don't know what to think about it,
• 1:41:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think if, you know, clearly it's an, it would be a fast and 18 prequel, if you want to.
• 1:41:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is why we need, yeah, the prequel and the pre-prequel.
• 1:41:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, no, I think that's very interesting stuff.
• 1:41:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, and the Irish potato famine to set the timeline happened between 1845 and 1852 and that's when the Irish and Chuck Tau form this first initial solidarity.
• 1:41:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so the other Easter egg from that Spotify about thing is the third news article is in 1911, talking about a wreckage of a ship called the Celtic hair, which, and there's a sole survivor seeing lopping off.
• 1:42:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is clearly a reference from the Dracula novel and movies and the notes for our two last voyages of the Demeter is entirely about that boat trip from where a boat just ends up wrecking at the end with everyone on it dead.
• 1:42:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: As you have questions though, why are they all dead?
• 1:42:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why didn't he like he was too hungry, I guess, to let them join his covenant instead?
• 1:42:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, maybe they were English.
• 1:42:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, okay, this is interesting question about the movie.
• 1:42:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, you could say, like the board, the board just wants to assimilate as many cultures as possible, right?
• 1:42:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.
• 1:42:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if that's Remix motivation.
• 1:42:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: He definitely can convert the foe, but mostly he wants Sammy.
• 1:42:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:42:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:42:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: So maybe he's like, I'm going to convert you all so I can get to Sammy.
• 1:42:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
• 1:43:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: But if it was just Sammy, would he care about the rest of maybe the rest of these people are just food.
• 1:43:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:43:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know.
• 1:43:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:43:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
• 1:43:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this brings us, it's a natural transition into the key musical scenes, because why does he want Sammy?
• 1:43:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was a really interesting choice, a Ryan Coogler made to choose this completely unknown face.
• 1:43:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the first thing.
• 1:43:22
  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
• 1:43:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then they do that scene in the car in the beginning when he's with stack and they're like going out to arrange things and stuff.
• 1:43:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And first by love the cinematography of that scene in the car, it's just beautiful.
• 1:43:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: the long shots in the way, the framing and everything, but then he's like, all right, here, that could tell you've been carrying around play it.
• 1:43:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And even me in the theater, he plays Travelling.
• 1:43:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is our first key song moment.
• 1:43:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I said immediately out loud, woo!
• 1:43:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: As soon as he started playing, like, oh, damn, he's good, actually.
• 1:43:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
• 1:43:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But, and then we get, yeah, we meet, we already talked about the train station scene where we hear Delta Slim's patch and we get more of a sense of like, this guy's good, but Sam is transcendental, and that brings us to the movie, to the scene in the film that everyone talks about when he plays, I lied to you, you heard a clip from that at the beginning of this episode, and opens the rift, and we get
• 1:44:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: a mashup they literally show a transcending time in space and we get, um, we, we get from, from tribal Africans to Jimmy Hendrix types to hip hop to also since the, the, the chows are there to a Chinese heritage reflecting their culture just all dancing together in this
• 1:44:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, almost an instant, instantly important moment in film that there was just, I, I kind of alluded to this earlier, but
• 1:45:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: When that happened, it was just like, chills up my spine and I'm just thinking like, this is why we go to the movies.
• 1:45:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is so, I mean, there was just this moment when I thought this is different, this is this is an important moment in film history.
• 1:45:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I didn't know that, honestly, I don't get that feeling very often, but I just had a sense that this is going to be a really important film because of this particular thing.
• 1:45:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I wasn't like I didn't like the film up into that point, but I just went to this other level I didn't know existed.
• 1:45:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:45:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, in the notes when you go and you write Robert Johnson, pop it, you know, directly
• 1:45:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, because Papa Thekbar and Voodoo, he's the first Luah that you petition, right?
• 1:46:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because he is the keeper of the crossroad.
• 1:46:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: He is the person who facilitates communication between us and the spirit world.
• 1:46:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: And in that moment, you know, I didn't realize it.
• 1:46:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was in thinking of that, but I'm thinking back now and realizing in that moment that is exactly what Sammy is doing, right?
• 1:46:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's not just simply, you know, breaking time and space.
• 1:46:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: He is the tether that is allowing us to talk
• 1:46:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: to the spirits that have gone before us, that have come before us, and that are going to come after us.
• 1:46:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like he is that.
• 1:46:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: that figure, and I didn't think about that as I was watching the movie, but as we're talking in this conversation, it's becoming clearer to me that that is exactly what is going on here.
• 1:47:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I don't know if you know, who do practitioners view it in the same way, but in the
• 1:47:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: The religion, it's really something remarkable that they were able to do that.
• 1:47:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just good stuff, man.
• 1:47:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic and Perleens boots are really important as well.
• 1:47:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right?
• 1:47:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: She's the performer.
• 1:47:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 1:47:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's her sort of jumping and stomping that creates percussion that percussive elements which is crucial to make that scene work.
• 1:47:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: because because that you don't have a drummer.
• 1:47:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: The drummers are her boots.
• 1:48:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's important for coogler to be able to cut the scenes using that rhythm.
• 1:48:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's also important for that particular thump to connect it, to hip hop, to connect it to all these other traditions.
• 1:48:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: So in other words, Sammy's crucial, right?
• 1:48:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Sammy's music is crucial, but in order to make the scene work, you need Perlind's boots.
• 1:48:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Mm.
• 1:48:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, need those drums.
• 1:48:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:48:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: Those drums, you know, they give us, you know, meaning.
• 1:48:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: They tell us what's coming.
• 1:48:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: They tell us what to expect, communicating when words could very likely
• 1:48:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: can give you a swift end.
• 1:48:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Those drums carried messages back and forth from slaves to revolutionaries.
• 1:48:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's just, I mean, you think about the things that Googlers doing in this film and the more you think about it and the more you dig into it, the more amazing it becomes.
• 1:49:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:49:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you bring up the drums and that, you know, I'm going to make a vast general statement because Native American tribes have as little income in common linguistically and culturally as, you know, pan African nations.
• 1:49:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I would say, overall, you can say drums.
• 1:49:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, drums both musically driven by drums, absolutely.
• 1:49:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: And even in, and you look back on on European history on the battlefield, you have a drummer.
• 1:49:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: which giving signals, you know, those notes that he's hitting, they're relaying messages to soldiers, you know, to commanders to where people should go, it's not just simply to march in tune and get into a rhythm, you know, they were a method to it.
• 1:49:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know,
• 1:49:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just really yeah.
• 1:49:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, all right.
• 1:50:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the next two scenes we're going to talk about together.
• 1:50:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we have the scenes where the vamps want to get in and they sing Pick Poor Robin Clean, which I'd look up because it sounds so sinister, but it is it's it was an African-American gambling song or it's still his rather.
• 1:50:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this is one that they're like, see, we know your music, but we're doing it in a very like Celtic white way.
• 1:50:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have also the scene where we've already talked about a bit where Mary goes a chat up the white people and that one they're singing will you go last year go and this is the first moment where you're like oh wait this guy is in from North Carolina he's starting to sound awfully Irish.
• 1:50:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the interesting thing about both of these scenes to me is the
• 1:50:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had such conflicted feelings, like when they are coming to the door, I'm like, I don't want them to be excluded for being white, but at the same time, I do already know they are literally vampires, so don't let them in, but also like don't not let them in, and it's awakened such complex feelings in me.
• 1:51:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is one of the things that I, I mean, especially being a white woman here.
• 1:51:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is what I was thinking about the most afterward.
• 1:51:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: I said, don't let those white folk in, do not let them in under any circumstances.
• 1:51:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, unequivocally vampire night, Cindy asshole.
• 1:51:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:51:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let us have this.
• 1:51:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:51:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:51:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's a really important, there's a really important conversation.
• 1:51:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's, I think it's smoke, maybe makes this point.
• 1:51:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's like, look, you let them in.
• 1:51:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's okay for a little bit, but then if one of our guys looks at one of their girls, it's a little bit too long.
• 1:51:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: This whole thing ends.
• 1:51:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: This whole thing ends.
• 1:51:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: All it takes is one tiny infraction.
• 1:51:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this little cultural experiment is over.
• 1:52:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And so, I mean, the smoke is just a voice of wisdom in that moment.
• 1:52:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't know the vampires in that point.
• 1:52:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:52:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Right.
• 1:52:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: But there's the danger.
• 1:52:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's the recognized danger, right?
• 1:52:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:52:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then, on the other hand, so they are quite, they're being kind, even as they're killing people.
• 1:52:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you have this, the other biggest musical moment, I would say, of the whole thing is when they, you see outside and so all the bar patrons of it, they're like shut it down, send everyone out because, uh, because smoke's been attacked by his girlfriend.
• 1:52:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, or sorry, stacks been attacked by his girlfriend, and, you know, obviously we're dealing with a dead brother situation here.
• 1:52:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody go home, which immediately feeds them to all the vampires.
• 1:52:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So now, they're all the massive Coven around Remic.
• 1:52:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you look outside and it's...
• 1:52:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: all these different black people and the white people and and bow and everything and they're all dancing and Irish jigs to the rocky road to Dublin and he says I'm going to make you feel the sweet pain of death together.
• 1:53:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We will make beautiful music and I'm like, you know what?
• 1:53:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm I'm buying that sales pitch
• 1:53:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: It looks great, but it, you know, I think that there's, there's a sense in which Remica's a liar, right?
• 1:53:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's what we learned.
• 1:53:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, when we're little kids and church, the devil's a liar.
• 1:53:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, but did he lie about, did he lie about, did he even something?
• 1:53:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's, well, he lied about me here, I know, yeah.
• 1:53:39
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think he's lying to say that this is all just a big family out here.
• 1:53:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I think he's controlling the group.
• 1:53:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: you know, he says I've got his memories now and I think what's happening with Remic is that it's it looks like freedom but it's not Remic is controlling these people and I I almost view like all of the different voices I hear from the vampires I hear a little bit of Remic in their voices and I don't think it's until Remic's dead that you can actually be attracted to that
• 1:54:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Because Ramek is so powerful, he's not going to let you really have freedom in the undead community, I suppose.
• 1:54:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 1:54:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's living with his own centuries old hurts because under British colonization, it was dancing, was outlawed in Ireland.
• 1:54:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's an act of defiance too, doing this gig to train.
• 1:54:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Interesting.
• 1:54:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, and I do think that he was absolutely controlling them in that moment.
• 1:54:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think they all know how to dance a jig.
• 1:54:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: They share, well, the same way he knew how to speak Chinese, because he's got that memory.
• 1:54:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:54:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, it was all Remic.
• 1:54:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, his pitch, if we could talk about for a minute,
• 1:55:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: You gotta gotta gotta, and you know, you don't have to worry about that, you know, or the racist shit, and you know, I'm not like that, you know Dude is Diabolical Because at the end of the day The only reason That he didn't want to that he didn't kill them all
• 1:55:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: right?
• 1:55:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Was because he wanted Sammy.
• 1:55:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's right.
• 1:55:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: And why did he want Sammy so he can get my people over here?
• 1:55:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
• 1:55:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he could steal that.
• 1:55:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: They weren't his people.
• 1:55:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: They weren't his people.
• 1:55:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: They weren't his people.
• 1:55:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: He made that distinction very clear.
• 1:55:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: He wanted Sammy to bring my people over here.
• 1:55:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: He was like, oh, he burned.
• 1:55:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wearing his people.
• 1:55:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's not his fan.
• 1:55:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's like he's talking about.
• 1:55:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: He's like, listen, I got a record label.
• 1:55:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: If you just come over here,
• 1:56:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: And take this gold, you can bring your art into my record label, right?
• 1:56:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can't escape it.
• 1:56:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: You can't escape it.
• 1:56:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: You can't escape it.
• 1:56:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just make it a little more Irish, yeah.
• 1:56:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: And like you said, when they're sitting and pick poor Robin clean, you can't escape what rock and roll music did to black musicians in the 50s, right, would take their their songs by black musicians, put a white face on it.
• 1:56:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: change the circle you get Elvis right and you right or you you go to the 60s Elvis is about what world's because he could actually do it but they did a lot of half-assed half-assery yeah and then you have you go to the 60s when you know the majority of English rock bands went to churches you know Mick Jagger famously sat in and watch
• 1:56:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, Mick Jagger has said the fourth rightly said when I saw James Brown, I thought I've got to do everything he's doing.
• 1:57:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Everything he's done.
• 1:57:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:57:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right.
• 1:57:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you know, so there's a history of appropriation by Wifold in this country.
• 1:57:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: towards black culture, like music, like film, black art, like whatever literature, there's a history of that.
• 1:57:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: That is undeniably what Kubler is hitting is hinting at in these scenes, right?
• 1:57:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: There are a appropriation of black culture.
• 1:57:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: And there's nothing good that could come out of that for black folk.
• 1:57:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because if you go down with whammy,
• 1:57:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Where you headed?
• 1:57:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, this is definitely an aspect of selling your soul involved in it and I absolutely see the complexities in it, but I find it interesting that it isn't
• 1:58:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: that there are like glimmers of silver linings in that situation too, which, okay, so this brings us to that first credit scene, which for me, honestly, despite everything else we've talked about, the first credit scene kind of made the movie, like it just really tied it all together and added an extra layer of emotion for me, where, um, cracks me from wrong, but I think we, so we find
• 1:58:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I believe he's singing the same song, Travelling, that he was singing in the car to stack.
• 1:58:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm okay.
• 1:58:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 1:58:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then so stack and Mary show up in their vampires now and their 90s clothes and stacks as I guess I was the one person he just couldn't kill.
• 1:58:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: He made me a promise to stay away from you, let you live out your life.
• 1:58:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that stack did that says that he does have, and maybe he didn't under remake, but now he has some sort of autonomy where he can make a decision of who he kills or not.
• 1:58:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because he's just, yeah, they're absolutely, they had to kill remake in order for stack to be free.
• 1:59:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:59:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:59:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: The person was offering you freedom.
• 1:59:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: He's saying, this is the freedom I'm going to give you in order to be free.
• 1:59:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: My terms, yeah.
• 1:59:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: He had to die.
• 1:59:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:59:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:59:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the part that really made the movie for me is what Sammy says.
• 1:59:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he offers a turn to Sammy and Sammy's like, no, but then he says, you know something, maybe once a week, I wake up paralyzed, reliving that night, but before the sun went down, I think that was the best day of my life.
• 1:59:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Was it like that for you?
• 1:59:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: and Stax says no doubt about it.
• 1:59:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Last time I've seen my brother, last time I see in the sun, just for a few hours, I was free.
• 1:59:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's the due joy.
• 1:59:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Just for a few hours, you free.
• 1:59:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then this is my question for you guys.
• 1:59:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think Vampire Stack at Mary in the 90s?
• 1:59:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are they happy?
• 1:59:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: They're lonely, and I think this is the kind of an interesting part of the vampire mythology.
• 2:00:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, in a sense, you continue to live, and in a sense, your life is long, long, long dead.
• 2:00:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: And you have to live in that middle state, that middle world, where you might make some friends.
• 2:00:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna be here today and go on tomorrow.
• 2:00:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: You're not live everyone.
• 2:00:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: And how is that not a curse eventually?
• 2:00:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It could turn more people.
• 2:00:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't.
• 2:00:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's all going with the bad luck to me.
• 2:00:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but the vampire mythology is pretty consistent.
• 2:00:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's always a curse.
• 2:00:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: And to me, that's the most haunting part of the curse, right?
• 2:00:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, and I love the the very last credits scene at the end of the credits calls back to this whole thing where we see young Sammy again his father had asked him to play this little light of mine, which is an important spiritual obviously.
• 2:01:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a call back to the opening.
• 2:01:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So just he was never going to be that guy who took that deal.
• 2:01:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was still his father's son despite also being a customization.
• 2:01:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 2:01:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright, we've gone to our stocking about this film, but there's so much to say, do you guys have any final thoughts on the movie?
• 2:01:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm just, again, a spectacular film.
• 2:01:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: I urge those of you who haven't seen it to try to see it.
• 2:01:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Even if you don't see it in the theaters, you can, and you wait till it comes out on streaming.
• 2:01:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think it's worth it to watch the film no matter where you go, no matter how you do it.
• 2:01:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: I just think this is an American masterpiece and we should treat it as such because we rarely get to say those things about films, especially in the current environment that we're
• 2:02:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is a thoroughly American movie, and it's just great.
• 2:02:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's a enjoy this moment, this is still a singular achievement, you know, 20 years we may look back at, you know, seven, seven different, you know, apples, series, and pretty wells and sequels and you think, right, I wasn't as good as that moment, right, right, right, right, right, right, in this moment the
• 2:02:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, listeners and home if you enjoyed this discussion, then please share it with anyone else you think would enjoy these thoughts about the film and tell everyone you know to see it.
• 2:03:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can also leave a nice review wherever you're listening that's always a huge amount of help and we appreciate any feedback you might have you can send that to lorehounds at the lorehounds.com or you can jump into our discord server we do have a.
• 2:03:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: chat under movies, set up for to talk about this film in particular, and chats for basically everything else we're covering and beyond.
• 2:03:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you'll find the link tree in the show notes for all that.
• 2:03:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Coming soon, I guess, the next film one shot is going to be Thunderbolts, which I excited about.
• 2:03:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 2:03:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, we're also the reason why these, uh, movies are taking a little bit longer right now to get out is that, uh, we're doing weekly and or coverage where we have coverage for every episode of Andor despite the fact they're dropping three weeks.
• 2:03:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's been crazy.
• 2:03:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, John and David are doing the last of us weekly coverage as well.
• 2:03:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: John and I are covering Doctor Who and probably in May we're going to be covering murder bots.
• 2:04:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're kind of drifting that direction.
• 2:04:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I heard.
• 2:04:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's what I heard.
• 2:04:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of going that way.
• 2:04:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: John and I both started reading some stuff.
• 2:04:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, that's not enough content for you.
• 2:04:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have all the extras for supercast and patreon subscribers where you get ad free access to our podcast plus bonus content like all the extra episodes for and or for Anthony you were just involved in severance.
• 2:04:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, there's also season passes for specifically like severance and or wheel of time things like that.
• 2:04:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you get it all with the monthly subscription, including the extra extras, like 11Z is going to be a real pain.
• 2:04:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anthony, what's going on with properly Howard and electric booklet?
• 2:04:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: All right, yeah, we're middle season of Bucaloo.
• 2:04:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're going through Martin's novellas upon which the night of the tap Kingdom will be based.
• 2:04:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
• 2:05:00
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're just moving through the second novella.
• 2:05:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: The sworn sword at present.
• 2:05:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: So and we'll be jumping into the mystery night in a few weeks.
• 2:05:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: And then once we wrap that up, we'll go back to properly Howard with a season of Kevin Bacon.
• 2:05:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: So, um, we're looking forward to that.
• 2:05:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fuck loose, no, we'll say.
• 2:05:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, in the show notes, you can find links to the other affiliates on the network.
• 2:05:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have never mind the music, or music, meets psychology, radioactive ramlings.
• 2:05:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're just, they're doing fallout lower, they're doing g-bley movies, they're doing some other stuff.
• 2:05:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Rings and rituals will be back to dive deeper in a season two of Rings of Power.
• 2:05:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Will shift dust is where we're starting doing as soon as I can get and or out of out of my system and then the Star Wars can in Timeline podcast is the I'm trying to do the entirety of Star Wars in Timeline order some tricky stuff there listen to the intro episode to get that started to you understand the format but
• 2:06:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: currently working through the hyper public, and then I'm releasing extra episodes for the Canon Patawan subscribers.
• 2:06:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a different subscription my own thing.
• 2:06:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just released one about tales of the underworld, which was just they just released a season with stories about cadbane and more importantly, sorry, bias.
• 2:06:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: My favorite character in all of Star Wars,
• 2:06:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, we're going to shout out the final thank yous.
• 2:06:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've pulled out of the rhythmic folder.
• 2:06:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
• 2:06:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Martian Michael G. Michelle E. Brian P. S. C. Peter O'H.
• 2:07:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Adam S. Nancy M. Doov 71.
• 2:07:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Brian 863.
• 2:07:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Frederick H. Sarah L. Garrett C. Matthew M. Sarah M. Andrew B. Huang Yu.
• 2:07:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jedi Jedi Va. Nathan T. Alex V. Sub-Zero.
• 2:07:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Aaron K. Dally V. Mothership 61.
• 2:07:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: NARS.
• 2:07:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cathy W. Let's do Jeffrey B.
• 2:07:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least you kneel F. Ben B. Scott F. Steven N. Julia F. Callie S. El Mario Ford slash Tim and always last Adrienne.
• 2:07:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Any final words before we go, guys.
• 2:07:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: Still vampire curious.
• 2:07:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to talk to fight you today.
• 2:07:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's okay.
• 2:07:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Cool, Glur.
• 2:07:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: Keep doing what you're doing.
• 2:07:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, there we go.
• 2:07:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Lower Hound's podcast is produced in published by The Lower Hound's.
• 2:07:48
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• 2:07:54
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• 2:08:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.
• 2:08:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening.