By all measures, SINNERS was a smash.  It grossed about a quarter of a billion dollars and boasts a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Numbers aside, it was the most fun I’ve had at the movies in some time. It left me staggering out of the theater, slack-jawed and grinning, like a kid climbing off the Tilt-a-Whirl after three too many snow cones.  And so, with the sugar-high subsided, I’ve returned to break down this Blockbuster through the lens of the Hero’s Two Journeys–   To s

Last week, my mentor Michael Hauge shared a piece on whether or not a visible goal can change over the course of a story . In short, the answer is yes , but he clarified that goals don’t so much “change” as they evolve. As the hero blazes ahead, the plot unfolds and they respond accordingly.  But there are edge cases, too, where the hero’s goal changes, or remains murky, because they themselves are unreliable, delusional, erratic and unsure.  Take Travis Bickle (Robert De Nir