The Nerdery Movie Night #259: Sinners and Red Hot Poppers Popcorn

A bloody good time on this, an Independence Day that hits different after the "big beautiful bill" was passed, neutering our democracy.

Red Hot Poppers Popcorn

Dave: This felt like the right movie for this July 4. Full of gothic horror, good music, and a deeply felt social and cultural message, Sinners was well worth a watch. I have to admit, I openly wept during the blues juke joint sequence, where the bluesman’s brilliance conjures ancestors and descendants: African drummers and masked dancers, b-boys and deejays. The brilliance of the African diaspora was front and center, gorgeous, and a little elegiac. Even for that sequence alone, this film is worth the two-plus hours. The Scotch-Irish ballads sung by the vampires were also gorgeous and heartfelt, and did a little to humanize those otherwise inhuman characters. This is so much more than a horror movie, even if it is gory and creepy, like a good horror film should be. Bonus points for the Buddy Guy cameo at the end! (️️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️).

Joe was aiming for a red, white, and blue popcorn, but it came out very, very blue. Seems appropriate for this Independence Day, when we’ve funded armies of thugs and tax cuts for billionaires over health care and access to food for the least fortunate. Watching Sinners, I wondered how much has changed - it seems like now the powerful and powerless are just different groups. At any rate, we ate all of this popcorn even after having dinner, so it was at least pretty good, despite the odd hue! (️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

Joe: I went into Sinners expecting a fast-paced, gory vampire flick. It's definitely the last two things, but fast-paced it ain't. In fact, a solid 30 or 40 minutes could have been trimmed. It takes its sweet time building all these backstories that don't really add much to the narrative. Once the bloodbath begins, though, it's a hell of a ride. Aside from one extremely tense sequence, it's not particularly scary, but it's a fun film that touches on really interesting observations about race and safety - that the vampires offer the latter in exchange for living in the Jim Crow south was particularly interesting. (⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

A couple things about this popcorn. For one thing, the recipe wanted me to make popcorn balls. After I read about how stupidly grueling the process would be, I bailed. Secondly, I couldn't find the red and blue candy stars to complete the "patriotic" look. So at the last minute, I thought it would be funny to dye the marshmallow mixture. Truthfully, this tastes like every other marshmallow-based popcorn we've made (including the "Ghostbusters slime" popcorn we made on our wedding night). It's sweet, but this time with the added bonus of red hot candies (which I also couldn't find, so I chopped up hot tamales) to make it "fiery". The end product was fine, not spectacular, but that didn't stop us from eating the entire bowl. (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Popcorn: Popcorn Board

Sinners on IMDb