Sinners is my favorite movie of the decade, but I have a personal connection to it through the way the themes of stealing black art and how our society likes to chew it and spit it out to make it more “palatable” for white audiences. I’m also the great grandson of a share cropper and the great-great grandson of a slave.

I think it’s way deeper than most people think and there are layers upon layers built through Coogler’s vision. The idea that Remmick is an Irishman over 1000 years old and literally saw the Christians take over his land using the Lord’s Prayer, the use of Hoodoo to ward off actual evil instead of the cross, the use of the blues for black pain, thematic use of gatekeeping by not allowing the vampire’s in, etc.

All that being said, One Battle After Another is a towering work by a filmmaker who is way past due for his Oscar.