Tag: li jun li

Sinners (2025) | REVIEW

Michael B. Jordan and Miles Caton in Ryan Coogler’s SINNERS — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Ryan Coogler — Screenplay by Ryan Coogler.

Ryan Googler should be a household name. He burst onto the scene with his incredible feature debut Fruitvale Station, revitalized the modern American sports drama (and an iconic franchise) with Creed, broke box office records with the iconic superhero film Black Panther, and took on the daunting task of making a sequel to his superhero epic, even though it would be without its leading man with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, following Chadwick Boseman’s tragic passing. Coogler has proven himself to be a commercially viable filmmaker with something on his mind and the skill with which to pull off his ideas breathtakingly. But now he’s finally made something unique and original, despite the genre tropes his film willingly embraces, following years upon years of working with true stories, established characters, or within the Marvel machine. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is an original vampire period film of which he insisted on having full creative control and future ownership, with a deal that resembles what Quentin Tarantino, among others, have done before him. That was a deal worth fighting for, because Sinners is the kind of instant classic original genre film that will blow people away.

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Babylon (2022) | REVIEW

Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in Damien Chazelle’s ‘Babylon’ from Paramount Pictures.

Directed by Damien Chazelle — Screenplay by Damien Chazelle.

Damien Chazelle has fast become one of my favorite filmmakers of his generation. His Whiplash is one of the most exciting, propulsive dramas of its decade. La La Land is a beautiful modern Hollywood musical that is now unfairly remembered for an Oscars gaffe. His First Man is a quietly moving and technically impressive character study. To make three films that are that sublime in a row is no easy feat. Last year, for his follow-up to that incredible run, Chazelle had reteamed with extraordinarily talented frequent collaborators of his like cinematographer Linus Sandgren, editor Tom Cross, and composer Justin Hurwitz to once again, like with La La Land, tell a story about the entertainment industry. Only this time it would be with a star-studded and expensive three-hour period piece epic. Did Chazelle recapture lightning in a bottle for the fourth time in a row? Well, let’s have a look.

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