Source: Michael B. Jordan in ‘Sinners’ / Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Being twice as good and working twice as hard is the baseline, not a guarantee.
The Grammys reminded Beyoncé of that lesson, and the last Presidential election echoed that truth through Kamala Harris. Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler seem to get it, but do the rest of us understand the assignment?
In a few weeks, we’ll find out.
“Ryan Coogler has officially rewritten Oscar history,” read a report from Variety on Sinners being nominated for a record-breaking 16 Academy Award nominations. A movie made to tell the story of Black Americans in the Mississippi Delta in 1932 has become the new barometer of Hollywood success.
Hopefully, the nominations alone won’t serve as the “award.”
Outside of Coogler winning Best Original Screenplay at the Critics’ Choice Awards and the film taking home the prize for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement at the Golden Globes, neither the writer/director nor the cast has brought home the hardware at any of the major award shows this season. That looks to change as Coogler was nominated for best director and best screenplay — making him only the third Black person (Spike Lee and Jordan Peele) to ever be nominated in the same year for producing, directing, and screenwriting. Jordan received his first nomination for best actor, while Wunmi Mosaku and Delroy Lindo were nominated for supporting roles, and legendary costume designer Ruth E. Carter became the most-nominated Black woman in Oscar history.
“I was very impressed by everything that my collaborators were doing every day, so I’m so happy that everybody got recognized by their peers,” said Coogler. “Obviously, I’m biased. I think these folks I work with are some of the best in the world. I feel really fortunate. Because it doesn’t always go that way.”
The genre-defying film combines romance and drama, at times feels like a musical, and serves as a Black history class, all under the guise of a horror movie centered on vampires in the Jim Crow South. Coogler’s screenplay touches on sensitive subject matters and explores conversations we so often only discuss in private.
“Listen, the word of mouth on this movie was incredible,” said Jordan. “The conversations that were had about the movie, it’s layered in a way that you want to go back and you want to make sure you saw what you saw. Did you get everything? There’s a replay value. It feels like a movie that you want to watch whenever it’s on.”
Jordan’s portrayal of twin brothers functions as an acting masterclass. You don’t feel like you’re watching him play two characters; Smoke and Stack function as two distinct individuals who happen to look alike. Furthermore, there’s the “music scene,” in which Coogler somehow tells the history of Black people across the diaspora in just five minutes of screen time.
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