Streaming: Ryan Coogler's Sinners hits Crave
Ryan Coogler's film Sinners made a quick trip from cinemas to streaming — it's new on Crave — and, well, it's a trip indeed.
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Coogler's creative journey started with his first feature Fruitvale Station (2013, Apple TV+) starred Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant, an ex-con attempting to rebuild his life. It's based on a true story, with Coogler striving to humanize Grant in the 24 hours before he died at the hands of the BART cop who would shoot Grant in the back. Coogler next played with the Rocky franchise with Creed (2015, Prime) before taking on one of the more masterful entries in the Marvel Universe, Black Panther (2018, Disney+).
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Sinners feel like Coogler's most ambitious film, a long way down the line from the social realism origins of Fruitvale Station. Jordan (Coogler's most frequent collaborator) does double duty here playing twin brothers, named Smoke and Stack, who have returned to their Mississippi birthplace after scoring big, dirty money in Chicago. They buy a disused sawmill with the ambition of transforming it into a juke joint, with the help of young would-be bluesman Sammie (Miles Caton) and select members of their community.
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It is apparent Coogler was granted carte blanche to make the movie he wanted, which explains why it has the bravado elements of a musical as well as a Southern Gothic drama. It touches on Black history, but also Black mythology, offering its own take on the story of bluesman Robert Johnson, who purportedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar.
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But it's a horror movie first. As such, it's a film that warrants the viewing of another film to put it in a greater context.
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That film is the 2019 documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, now playing on the genre specialty streaming service Shudder. In it, director Xavier Burgin makes the case that the horror genre best reflects the Black experience, although not always in a positive way.
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'We've always loved horror,' writer-educator Tananarive Due (an executive producer of the doc) observes at the beginning of the film. 'It's just that horror, unfortunately, hasn't always loved us.'
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The doc proceeds to demonstrate the sorrowful history of black characters in horror movies, often the first to die, and just as frequently sacrificing their lives so that the white hero may live. Scatman Crothers in The Shining is the film's example of the 'sacrificial negro' trope, double painful because the character in Stephen King's book escaped with his life. How interesting it is that Coogler pays a kind of homage to The Shining with a shot of a vampirically possessed character, as well as a scene which is essentially a replay of the blood testing scene in The Thing. ('My very first movie was The Thing,' actor Keith David proudly notes in the doc. 'And I lived all the way to the end.')
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Toronto Sun
32 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
A$AP Rocky rap battle on with Denzel Washington: 'This guy's a pro'
Published Aug 13, 2025 • 5 minute read A$AP Rocky, left, and Denzel Washington pose for a portrait to promote "Highest 2 Lowest" on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025, in New York. Photo by Drew Gurian/Invision / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK — A$AP Rocky had no idea Denzel Washington was going to throw Nas at him. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Midway through Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest , a New York riff on Akira Kurosawa's High to Low , wealthy music executive David King (Washington) has cornered aspiring rapper Yung Felon (Rocky) after he tried to kidnap King's son. They meet in a music studio. A rap battle ensues. While the scene was scripted, much of what Washington freestyled — mixing in lines from Nas, Tupac, DMX and others — startled his professional rapper co-star. 'I'm like: How does this man know who Moneybagg Yo is?' Rocky says, sitting alongside Washington. 'And I'm 70,' Washington says with a grin. Highest 2 Lowest , which A24 releases in theaters Friday, two weeks before it lands on Apple TV+, is a heist thriller that hits hardest when Washington and Rocky are going at it. Washington, o ne of the mightiest of living actors, is, of course, an imposing presence. Even though Rocky might usually have the upper hand in the studio, he's just beginning to prove himself as an actor. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Denzel is such a powerful force. Not a derogatory term, but he's a beast,' Lee said. 'Rocky is from Harlem, uptown. So I knew that he's not going to punk out. He's going to stand there, feet planted to the ground, as a heavyweight fight, blow to blow to blow. If you got somebody who don't got it, Denzel is going to slaughter them. SLAUGHTER.' But in Highest 2 Lowest , Rocky proves that he can go toe-to-toe with a titan like Washington. In the annals of movie face-offs between the veteran and the up-and-comer, the scene is a riveting showdown. Not that Rocky is claiming victory. 'I had to go with the flow with him,' Rocky says. 'You've got to realize this guy's a pro. He's a wordsmith for real. It's not a joke. So when he went, I caught his drift. But I lost a rap battle to this man. And I'm a professional f—— rapper.' Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. With that Washington roars and slams the table. 'But I'm using other people's material,' he adds. 'And I've been practicing.' 'It doesn't matter,' replies Rocky. 'I lost, man. It's unfortunate that that's my profession in real life.' Washington's rapping skills But as he showed in a recent interview, Washington's envy for his co-star's day job is more than for show. Washington's hip-hop affection runs deep. Asked how he approached the big scene with Rocky, Washington takes out his phone and begins playing Nas' 'N.Y. State of Mind' and raps along: 'I keep some E&J, sittin' bent up in the stairway.' 'All right, would you ever in a million years expect the Denzel Washington to be able to recite classic quotes and lines from hip-hop?' exclaims Rocky. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But Washington was just getting started. He grandly spat a verse of DMX ('Lucky that you breathing, but you dead from the waist down'), a few bars of Outkast ('Yes, we done come along way like them slim-ass cigarettes') and cackled joyfully at a line from Samara Cyn and Smino's 'Brand New Teeth': 'Spent my rent money on these brand-new teeth.' 'For me on the outside looking in, it was like this guy was Method acting,' Rocky says. 'He was just being himself. He should have been a rapper.' Washington shakes his head. 'No, I play one on TV.' Yet Washington has as much facility with Wizkid as he does Shakespeare or August Wilson. Pushed to explain his mentality going into the scene, Washington still demurs. 'I can't, man. I don't have one,' he says. 'I just flow. I can't tell you what I'm going to do, because I don't know. I never know how it's going to go. I don't plan. But I have been practicing for a long time, and nobody knew! I never had the platform.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In Highest 2 Lowest , Lee — in his fifth film with Washington — surveys a changing entertainment industry. Washington's once supreme music executive is losing his grip on what sells — and what sells matters less than how many followers someone has. The movie weaves in some of Lee's other obsessions — the New York Yankees; New York, itself — but it casts the moral questions of Kurosawa's classic against a media landscape where authenticity can be hard to find. Asked if he identified with his character's quandary, Washington pauses to consider the question. 'If I had an ego, I'd say no, because I'm still on top,' says Washington. 'And I'm getting better.' Rocky, though, sees some of himself in Yung Felon. It's a moniker Rocky, himself, suggested replace the scripted name, MC Microphone Checka. Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, shot Highest 2 Lowest in the run-up to his recent trial over a 2021 incident in which Rocky was accused of firing a gun at Terell Ephron, a former friend and collaborator known as A$AP Relli. Rocky was found not guilty in February on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The verdict gave Rocky a new lease on life just as his film career might be taking off. He also co-stars in the upcoming 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You,' a hit at Sundance. Meanwhile, he's preparing his long-awaited fourth album, Don't Be Dumb . RECOMMENDED VIDEO Who are 'the new rappers'? For Rocky, the music industry backdrop of Highest 2 Lowest rings true. Music sales, he notes, are way down. Artificial intelligence is taking over. 'They've got to figure out how to regulate it,' Rocky says. 'People in music are already doing it. Not to put nobody on the spot, there are people with No. 1 records and it's not even them. It's not even their voice on the track.' 'This is a smart kid here,' says Washington. But Washington is resistant. 'People trying to sound like me don't sound like me, to me,' he says, doubting artificial intelligence's potential. He peppers Rocky with questions. Rocky, 36, already sounds like an old-timer. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'The kids, they don't want to be rappers anymore,' Rocky says. 'They don't want to be ballers. They want to be streamers. It's basically another word for 'YouTuber.' They all want to be YouTubers, I promise you.' Washington: 'How will they make money doing that?' Rocky: 'They make all the money now.' Washington: 'From what? What do they do? Without the talent, without the thing to go see…' Rocky: 'What's the substance? That's what I'm saying is the big question. The performers are obsolete. Nobody's watching. Nobody cares. They'd rather watch an 18-year-old with millions of viewers open up a bag of chips and tell you how good it is. These guys are the new rappers.' But for now, at least in 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Rocky and Washington are still the performers. They're the rappers, even the two-time Oscar winner. Rocky, who grew up watching Washington in 'Malcolm X,' can hardly believe it. 'He gives you that confidence he walks around with,' Rocky says. 'A lot of times, people tell me that I embody this self-confidence — I see it all in him. Just him embracing me, them embracing me, it was so chill. I waited my whole life for this.' 'Me too!' bellows Washington, with a laugh. 'And that's the truth! I've been a closet rapper for 40 years. Finally I get the chance.' Toronto Maple Leafs Columnists World Celebrity Editorial Cartoons
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Movie Review: Spike Lee's ‘Highest 2 Lowest' finds its groove in New York's streets
Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest' takes some time to find its groove. But once it does, when the film leaves the high rises and puts its feet on the New York pavement, it really sings. A reimagining of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 crime thriller 'High and Low,' Lee brings the story to a modern-day New York where a music mogul, played by Denzel Washington, is faced with a moral dilemma: Save a kidnapped kid or his flagging empire. Both will cost nearly everything he has. We toss around the term 'auteur' pretty casually these days. It's become almost a shorthand for any filmmaker with an ounce of style. But 'Highest 2 Lowest' is a film that has Lee's DNA in every frame — a symphonic blend of his influences and passions: cinema, New York City, sports, Black stories, great needle drops and, of course, Washington. It's easy enough to just go along for the ride, trusting that it will end up somewhere worthwhile, even when the green screen is a little off, the score a little distracting or the dialogue a little unnatural. But it will require some audience patience nonetheless. In its first half, 'Highest 2 Lowest' plays a bit like a melodrama crossed with a sitcom, where the beats are stilted and the dialogue feels like dialogue. There's an awkward artificiality to the whole thing, which is likely more metaphor than accident, but it's also not the most engaging stretch. Washington's character David King is a music executive and founder of a record label whose biggest days are behind him. You wouldn't necessarily know it to look at his palatial apartment with its panoramic views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline, but the money isn't exactly coming in like it used to. The realities of the music business, social media and the attention economy have muddled the plot. The guy who once had the 'best ears in the business' can't seem to get a handle on what works anymore. He has the chance to cash out and sell the business, but against the wishes of everyone around him, decides he wants to take back ownership of the thing he created. When his beautiful wife Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera, either miscast or terribly underwritten) says she's going to pledge half a million dollars to an arts organization, he asks her to hold off. 'But we've always supported young Black artists,' she replies, though you suspect part of the worry is about keeping up appearances. Things come into focus quickly, however, when David learns that his son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) has been kidnapped. The ransom is $17.5 million. There is a twist, which perhaps shouldn't be spoiled, but it soon becomes less obvious to the Kings whether they should pay up. It's an interesting conundrum, and a potent one for these greedy times, but also difficult to empathize with on a certain level. This is a guy with a lot of assets to his name and the ability to get his hands on $17.5 million. For the audience, the choice will seem obvious. It's never quite clear what his life will look like if that money disappears, but the bottom doesn't seem like a possibility. But this is all just a lead up to the more exciting and compelling cat-and-mouse portion of the film, where the kidnapper, an aspiring, down-on-his-luck rapper named Yung Felon (played by a magnetic A$AP Rocky ) is finally introduced. His showdown with King is fun, tense and even includes a rap battle. A$AP Rocky more than holds his own with Washington. In a different timeline, in a world where King listened to as many new artists as he did when he was starting out, their stories might have been different. Yung Felon might have been discovered, instead of just being one of the aggrieved talents languishing in obscurity and plotting violent revenge. There is a lot going on in Alan Fox's script for 'Highest 2 Lowest,' which attempts to present a realistic picture of New York and all its contradictions, from the billionaire boardrooms to the Puerto Rican festivals in the Bronx to the lively Yankees fans on the subway. Jeffrey Wright, who also gets some great scenes with Washington, plays King's friend and driver, Paul. He too is looking for his son Kyle (real-life son Elijah Wright) but gets far less respect and attention from the cops. The inequalities and prejudices run deep, and at a certain point David and Paul set off on their own to solve the case, vigilantes in a Rolls-Royce. 'Highest 2 Lowest' may not reach the heights of some of Lee's best films, but it's the kind film that makes you hope Lee and Washington have more to make together. 'Highest 2 Lowest,' an A24 release in theaters Friday and streaming on Apple TV+ on Sept. 5, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for 'language throughout and brief drug use.' Running time: 133 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
Winnipeg Free Press
5 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky had a rap battle. One is claiming victory
NEW YORK (AP) — A$AP Rocky had no idea Denzel Washington was going to throw Nas at him. Midway through Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest,' a New York riff on Akira Kurosawa's 'High to Low,' wealthy music executive David King (Washington) has cornered aspiring rapper Yung Felon (Rocky) after he tried to kidnap King's son. They meet in a music studio. A rap battle ensues. While the scene was scripted, much of what Washington freestyled — mixing in lines from Nas, Tupac, DMX and others — startled his professional rapper co-star. 'I'm like: How does this man know who Moneybagg Yo is?' Rocky says, sitting alongside Washington. 'And I'm 70,' Washington says with a grin. 'Highest 2 Lowest,' which A24 releases in theaters Friday, two weeks before it lands on Apple TV+, is a heist thriller that hits hardest when Washington and Rocky are going at it. Washington, o ne of the mightiest of living actors, is, of course, an imposing presence. Even though Rocky might usually have the upper hand in the studio, he's just beginning to prove himself as an actor. 'Denzel is such a powerful force. Not a derogatory term, but he's a beast,' Lee said. 'Rocky is from Harlem, uptown. So I knew that he's not going to punk out. He's going to stand there, feet planted to the ground, as a heavyweight fight, blow to blow to blow. If you got somebody who don't got it, Denzel is going to slaughter them. SLAUGHTER.' But in 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Rocky proves that he can go toe-to-toe with a titan like Washington. In the annals of movie face-offs between the veteran and the up-and-comer, the scene is a riveting showdown. Not that Rocky is claiming victory. 'I had to go with the flow with him,' Rocky says. 'You've got to realize this guy's a pro. He's a wordsmith for real. It's not a joke. So when he went, I caught his drift. But I lost a rap battle to this man. And I'm a professional f—— rapper.' With that Washington roars and slams the table. 'But I'm using other people's material,' he adds. 'And I've been practicing.' 'It doesn't matter,' replies Rocky. 'I lost, man. It's unfortunate that that's my profession in real life.' Washington's rapping skills But as he showed in a recent interview, Washington's envy for his co-star's day job is more than for show. Washington's hip-hop affection runs deep. Asked how he approached the big scene with Rocky, Washington takes out his phone and begins playing Nas' 'N.Y. State of Mind' and raps along: 'I keep some E&J, sittin' bent up in the stairway.' 'All right, would you ever in a million years expect the Denzel Washington to be able to recite classic quotes and lines from hip-hop?' exclaims Rocky. But Washington was just getting started. He grandly spat a verse of DMX ('Lucky that you breathing, but you dead from the waist down'), a few bars of Outkast ('Yes, we done come along way like them slim-ass cigarettes') and cackled joyfully at a line from Samara Cyn and Smino's 'Brand New Teeth': 'Spent my rent money on these brand-new teeth.' 'For me on the outside looking in, it was like this guy was Method acting,' Rocky says. 'He was just being himself. He should have been a rapper.' Washington shakes his head. 'No, I play one on TV.' Yet Washington has as much facility with Wizkid as he does Shakespeare or August Wilson. Pushed to explain his mentality going into the scene, Washington still demurs. 'I can't, man. I don't have one,' he says. 'I just flow. I can't tell you what I'm going to do, because I don't know. I never know how it's going to go. I don't plan. But I have been practicing for a long time, and nobody knew! I never had the platform.' 'I'm still on top' In 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Lee — in his fifth film with Washington — surveys a changing entertainment industry. Washington's once supreme music executive is losing his grip on what sells — and what sells matters less than how many followers someone has. The movie weaves in some of Lee's other obsessions — the New York Yankees; New York, itself — but it casts the moral questions of Kurosawa's classic against a media landscape where authenticity can be hard to find. Asked if he identified with his character's quandary, Washington pauses to consider the question. 'If I had an ego, I'd say no, because I'm still on top,' says Washington. 'And I'm getting better.' Rocky, though, sees some of himself in Yung Felon. It's a moniker Rocky, himself, suggested replace the scripted name, MC Microphone Checka. Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, shot 'Highest 2 Lowest' in the run-up to his recent trial over a 2021 incident in which Rocky was accused of firing a gun at Terell Ephron, a former friend and collaborator known as A$AP Relli. Rocky was found not guilty in February on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. The verdict gave Rocky a new lease on life just as his film career might be taking off. He also co-stars in the upcoming 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You,' a hit at Sundance. Meanwhile, he's preparing his long-awaited fourth album, 'Don't Be Dumb.' Who are 'the new rappers'? For Rocky, the music industry backdrop of 'Highest 2 Lowest' rings true. Music sales, he notes, are way down. Artificial intelligence is taking over. 'They've got to figure out how to regulate it,' Rocky says. 'People in music are already doing it. Not to put nobody on the spot, there are people with No. 1 records and it's not even them. It's not even their voice on the track.' 'This is a smart kid here,' says Washington. But Washington is resistant. 'People trying to sound like me don't sound like me, to me,' he says, doubting artificial intelligence's potential. He peppers Rocky with questions. Rocky, 36, already sounds like an old-timer. 'The kids, they don't want to be rappers anymore,' Rocky says. 'They don't want to be ballers. They want to be streamers. It's basically another word for 'YouTuber.' They all want to be YouTubers, I promise you.' Washington: 'How will they make money doing that?' Rocky: 'They make all the money now.' Washington: 'From what? What do they do? Without the talent, without the thing to go see…' Rocky: 'What's the substance? That's what I'm saying is the big question. The performers are obsolete. Nobody's watching. Nobody cares. They'd rather watch an 18-year-old with millions of viewers open up a bag of chips and tell you how good it is. These guys are the new rappers.' But for now, at least in 'Highest 2 Lowest,' Rocky and Washington are still the performers. They're the rappers, even the two-time Oscar winner. Rocky, who grew up watching Washington in 'Malcolm X,' can hardly believe it. 'He gives you that confidence he walks around with,' Rocky says. 'A lot of times, people tell me that I embody this self-confidence — I see it all in him. Just him embracing me, them embracing me, it was so chill. I waited my whole life for this.' 'Me too!' bellows Washington, with a laugh. 'And that's the truth! I've been a closet rapper for 40 years. Finally I get the chance.'
