By Terry Manning
The toughest part of this job nowadays is keeping up with the pace of newsworthy events. Here are some thoughts I have been kicking around with not much success fleshing them out into independent pieces.
‘Sinners’ is fantastic
Add Ryan Coogler to the short list of filmmakers whose releases I insist on still seeing in a proper movie theater. His latest, “Sinners,” rewards all aspects of communal viewing.
The story of the Smokestack twins’ return to their Mississippi hometown to open a juke joint slowly transforms from a rich look at the importance of blues music to the Black experience into a horror story playing off racial dynamics of America in the 1930s — and today.
It is similar to Quentin Tarantino’s “From Dusk till Dawn” but broadens the relatively narrow scope of that 1996 film into a nuanced consideration of the lingering effects of racial oppression.
The Irish vampire Remmick, portrayed by actor Jack O’Connell, is too bored in his immortality to feign the hunger or sensuality we are accustomed to in cinematic vampire seductions. He appeals directly to the idea of escaping the shared victimhood forced upon him and the town’s poor Blacks by Christian bigots.
It would be an interesting invitation were it not for the whole having-your-soul-trapped-on-Earth thing.
Michael B. Jordan delivers a near seamless performance as the twins, Smoke and Stack. Delroy Lindo is as believable as ever as blues musician Delta Slim. Newcomer Miles Caton as the aspiring singer Sammie boasts a voice that sounds like it sprang fully formed straight from the red clay of the Mississippi delta.
The soundtrack. The cinematography. Actress Wunmi Mosaku, Lord have mercy. Anyone warning you against this movie by saying it is about devil worship is missing the point. A lot of points, actually. It’s a great film. Check it out.
Well-heeled refugees
It’s hard to describe how I felt watching cable TV coverage of the arrival of so-called refugees from South Africa.
Unlike the haunted faces in various shades of brown that come here from other parts of the world, this group of slightly curious flag wavers looked more like they had possibly come from a yachting mishap. For the president to try to justify the fast-track to U.S. citizenship they have been given by claiming they are victims of “genocide” is nothing short of shameless.
How are they being targeted for “genocide” when they help comprise the 7 percent of the country’s population that still controls 78 percent of all land there.
How do they qualify under Lady Liberty’s appeal to the world “wretched refuse” or “huddled masses yearning to be free” when they are from a group that owns 10 times the wealth of its African residents? (That’s approaching double the 6-to-1 ratio of white-to-Black wealth in this country, for comparison).
No, Trump is doing with them what he accused Democrats of doing in providing a pathway to citizenship for immigrants from Latin America: Building a base of voters he thinks will support him when the time comes.
That big stupid jet
What else would you expect from a politician crass enough to accept a “gift” of a $400 million jumbo jet from Qatar? It violates every notion of resisting even the appearance of impropriety for a person in a position of influence.
Several years ago, a lobbyist in Alabama introduced himself to me in my position as a newsroom editor by bringing along a Clemson trucker cap. I told him I couldn’t accept it, but he plopped it on a cabinet and left my office smiling, “I’ll just leave it here.”
It stayed there, untouched, until I left that job. And then I found out the cursed thing didn’t even fit. (Maybe he tried it on his pinhead first.)
I’m sure President Trump thinks a jumbo jet is a natural “fit” for his grand self-image, but even his supporters are grousing that it isn’t an appropriate or fit gift. The man already has more money than most of us could spend in a lifetime, but I guess greed, like rust, never sleeps.
Codger-in-Chief
I’m more than a little frustrated by the impassioned dialogue over how leaders of the national Democratic Party and White House staff allegedly hid former President Joe Biden’s diminishing physical and mental state before last year’s election.
I don’t disagree with the idea that it should be reviewed, but where is this scrutiny with the current occupant of the Oval Office? They might have tried to hide Biden, but we see and hear a faltering Trump every day. He’s as nutty as squirrel excrement, and none of these people are saying a doggone thing about it.
A doddering commander-in-chief bolstered by a competent, well-intentioned staff that was delivering for the American people is a drop in the ocean compared to the existential threat we face now. I wish the national media would focus on that and leave Biden alone.
Terry E. Manning worked for 20 years as a journalist. He can be reached at teemanning@gmail.com.
