5 stars out of 10. Woke Nonesense: As you would expect, but not too bad

With the predicted end of the world due to potentially 12 inches of snow, I was stuck inside watching movies. After the movie Sinners got nominated for 16 Oscars, I of course watched it first.

With that many nominations, the most any movie ever has received, I expected to be absolutely blown away by its awesomeness. You know, Gone With the Wind acting, grand sweep, crackling dialog, and flawless cinematography. I thought maybe I watch it a few more times, to pick up on fascinating hidden nuances.

Instead I was entertained but not overwhelmed. Versus what I had been led to believe I would see, I was disappointed. I tried not to let the letdown that resulted color my review too much.

Sinners is a not very scary vampire movie, set in the racist South, combined with a Black themed victimhood/revenge movie. Combination Django Unchained and From Dusk to Dawn (although sorry, PG rated. Where is Salma Hayek flashing cleavage when you need her?)

The movie follows two twin black gangsters returning to their rural southern hometown from Chicago. They decide to invest their ill gotten loot in a Juke joint, a bar for Blacks with music. It stars Michael B Jordan as both twins, Jack O’Connell as the head zombie, and Hailee Steinfeld as the femme fatale.

Smoke and Stack, the twins, both have unresolved romantic relationships, each women also still holding candles for them. Ms. Steinfeld plays the part of mixed race gal, (she apparently actually has some black ancestry) who is “passing as white.” . Although married to a white guy, she has a thing for Stack still, and shows up at the Juke joint. Smoke rekindles his romance with Ardrene Ward-Hammond and takes the lead in starting up the joint. She is pretty good in this limited role.

Anyways, while we are learning about all the sub plots (a promising blues musician, and Delroy Lindo as a drunk piano player) and establishing the vile racism of the white locals, a vampire (whence he came is left unexplained) appears at a local farm. Jack O’Connell plays the ill fated farmer. He and his wife of course are bitten and turned into vampires. Why were native american chasing the vampire? Did they conjure up the vampire by mistake? We don’t know.

Unexplained subplot points abound in this movie. I call this lazy film making. And they make me like a movie less.

For reasons unknown, rather than going down to town and snorkelling up some peckerwood blood, the two farmer/vampires bite up other folks, assemble a blood thirsty mob, and decide to attack the Juke joint. Poor Hailey winds up as a vampire, as do many others who were trapped in the joint. As we all now know, shooting a vampire does not kill them. So the erstwile juke revellers start sharpening up the stakes. Many vamps find eternal death this way before its all said and done.

So essentially just about everyone in the juke joint gets turned into princes/princesses of darkness. The acting is serviceable. The horror is nothing your kid does not see on Buffy the Vampire slayer reruns.

Won’t spoil how the few survivors of the transylvanian onslought survive, but our friend Smoke (Michael B) does.

Just when you thought rural southern peckerwoods might escape being the villains, a bunch of them show up to murder all the blacks at the Juke joint. Smoke smokes em. Its anyones guess who gets the bigger body count, the vamps or Smoke. Call it a bloody draw.

As I have said there is not one original theme or plot in this movie. You have seen it all many times before, if vampire/horror movies are your thing. Or Django Unchained, or from Dusk to Dawn. Or gangster movies. Or white peckerwood-villain movies. The fact that it has been given 16 Oscar nominations is pure pandering and silly. Just like the movie Get Out, its a classic average popcorn flick, getting unearned Oscar nominations. Yawn.

Bushwood recommendations for alternatives to this unoriginal pedestrian movie:

Dracula: Dead and Loving it. Leslie Nielson spoof. You need some vampire laughs

Blade. Pretty good.

If you dig Michael B, Creed. (He’s the black Rocky).

Or any of these. I deleted the ones I didn’t think were all that great, or hated.

• “”Moonlight”(2016)
• “Argo” (2012)
• “The King’s Speech” (2010)

2000s: Best picture winners

• “”Slumdog Millionaire” (2008)
• “”The Departed” (2006)
• “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003) (also watch the first 2)
• “Chicago” (2002)
• “Gladiator” (2000)

1990s: Best picture winners

• “American Beauty” (1999)
• “Shakespeare in Love” (1998)
• “Titanic” (1997)
• “The English Patient” (1996)
• “Braveheart” (1995)
• “Forrest Gump” (1994)
• “Schindler’s List” (1993)”
• The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)
• “Dances with Wolves” (1990)

1980s: Best picture winners

• “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989)
• “Rain Man” (1988)
• “Out of Africa” (1985)
• “Amadeus” (1984)
• “Terms of Endearment” (1983)
• “Gandhi” (1982)
• “Chariots of Fire” (1981)
• “Ordinary People” (1980)

1970s: Best picture winners

• “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979)
• “The Deer Hunter” (1978)
• “Rocky” (1976)
• “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975)
• “The Godfather Part II” (1974)
• “The Sting” (1973)
• “The Godfather” (1972)
• “The French Connection” (1971)
• “Patton” (1970)

1960s: Best picture winners

• “Oliver!” (1968)
• “In the Heat of the Night” (1967)
• “A Man for All Seasons” (1966)
• “The Sound of Music” (1965)
• “My Fair Lady” (1964)
• “Tom Jones” (1963)
• “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962)
• “West Side Story” (1961)
• “The Apartment” (1960)

1950s: Best picture winners

• “Ben-Hur” (1959)
• “Gigi” (1958)
• “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957)
• “On the Waterfront” (1954)
• “From Here to Eternity” (1953)
• “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952)

the older flicks are just too creaky for me.