Month: May 2019

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Memphis Movies in May Continues With The Firm

Gene Hackman and Tom Cruise in The Firm.

Usually, Memphis in May honors a country like Chile or Sweden, in the spirit of cultural exchange. But this year marks 200 years since the founding of Memphis, so Memphis in May has officially decided to honor Memphis. Every year, Indie Memphis brings films from the honored country to town, and this year, in concert with the Memphis and Shelby County Film and Television Commission, they’re presenting a retrospective of films shot in the Bluff City.

Last week, Craig Brewer’s hip-hop classic Hustle & Flow screened to a big crowd at the Paradiso. It was most of the world’s first look at how Memphis sees ourselves in the 21st century. This Wednesday, Indie Memphis brings The Firm to the Paradiso — the first look a mass audience got of the city since Elvis.

The story of the film begins with a legal thriller by John Grisham, a Memphis lawyer turned Mississippi legislator who pursued an unlikely dream of being a novelist. His first book, A Time To Kill, was a minor hit, but nothing compared to The Firm, a bestseller which earned him a huge movie deal. Directed by Sydney Pollack, the film adaptation starred Tom Cruise as Mitch McDeere, a Harvard Law graduate who gets a job offer from a prestigious law firm in Memphis. After convincing his wife Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) to move to the city they know nothing about, he is taken under the wing of Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman), a partner at the firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke. What happens next is like Training Day, only with lawyers instead of cops.

Producer Michael Hausman, who helped shepherd Amadeus and Silkwood in the 1980s, was instrumental in getting this film in Memphis in 1992, and would go on to bring The People vs. Larry Flynt production here a few years later. He would later go on to work with Ang Lee on Brokeback Mountain.

The Firm‘s plotting is solid, and if it feels a little cliched now, it’s mostly because the hugely successful film been copied by TV shows for years. But for Memphis audiences, it’s not a series of unfortunate haircuts and just the origin of the “Tom Cruise Running” trope that’s interesting about the film. It’s now a scrapbook of what the city looked like in the 1990s. For many, it was the first time anyone knew we had a monorail here. (You did know we had a monorail here, right?)

The Firm will screen on Wednesday, May 8th at 7 p.m. at the Malco Paradiso Theatre. You can get your tickets here at the Indie Memphis website.

Memphis Movies in May Continues With The Firm

Categories
News News Blog

Morgan Got Some Answers on Election Money But Not All

Budget season is now underway at Memphis City Hall.

Memphis City Council member Worth Morgan did not hold the city council’s portion of the budget during talks yesterday but said if “significant progress” is not made on a review of the funds spent for an council-led “education campaign” last year, he’ll revive the issue.

Five council members approved spending about $40,000 on a “public information campaign” on three referenda to “explain their potential benefits” of them and “counter some of the misinformation presented.” The campaign was to answer what council members described as a flood of phone calls to their office from the public about the referenda. (Get more details about the campaign in the linked stories below.)

Morgan

Three council members — Ford Canale, Kemp Conrad, and Worth Morgan — voted against the campaign. At the time, Morgan promised that ”every dollar spent by the chairman on this informational campaign will be tracked, accounted for, and made easily available to the public.”

He said last week, he’d be in favor of holding the council’s portion of the budget this year until he had more answers. He got some answers, he said, and did not hold a vote on the council’s budget during a budget committee meeting Monday. However, he said he’d bring the issue up again later if “significant progress” was not made to clarify his questions.

Here’s what Morgan said during that budget committee meeting Monday:

“There’d been some discussion dealing with me about this city council budget until we had a full accounting of how some of the money was spent last year, specifically the public referenda campaign.

“We didn’t quite have the answers yet. But there’s been some sincere movement forward on that issue. I’ve called Deidre Malone today. She was very responsive. But we weren’t able to connect. We traded voice mails; trying to shine some light.

“Now I have the financial disclosure statements from the city council referendum committee, from the Diversity Memphis (political action committee — PAC), as well as invoices from the Carter Malone Group and the city of Memphis.
[pullquote-1]”So, I have a lot more information than we did before. And I’m happy to share it. It’s just some of the information in the numbers that don’t match up on how things were spent. So, we’re still trying to track down exactly what of that $40,000…how it was spent.

“I think that’s something that we promised to the people when we did the campaign, at least I did. I think most people agreed to it in executive committee.
[pullquote-2]”There was some discussion about…if we didn’t have those answers by today, would we delay this vote? I’m not interested in making that motion or holding [the budget]. But I just wanted to put that out there.

“If anybody has questions about those invoices or those disclosures, I’m happy to share them. We’re going to continue to be tracking it down.

“If we don’t make significant progress again in the next two weeks or four weeks, I think it might be a better place to have this discussion in the audit committee.”

Categories
Art Exhibit M

Artist’s Talk by Ebet Roberts Friday

CREDIT: Ebet Roberts

Ebet Roberts

Ebet Roberts had lived in Europe a good part of her young existence, but came to Memphis when she was 10, not even imagining there was a punk-powered cultural shift that would change her life.

The young student in the 1960s was possessed of a love for art and culture steeped in the cultural diversity of her travels. She attended Hutchison (class of ’63), loved painting and drawing, and took art classes on Saturdays. It was natural for her to enter what was then the Memphis Academy of Arts where she graduated in painting.

The study of photography would not become an option until the next year when Murray Riss established the photography department in 1968. Roberts studied with Riss anyway, developing her skill and interest. She explored photo collage and manipulated photos and lithography and worked on combining processes. She was also thinking about going to New York.

“I’ve always been drawn to New York,” she says. “It offered not only art but a lot of cultural diversity, which I really seem to thrive on. That’s what pulled me there.”

So, she went, wanting to paint and photograph. She certainly didn’t have the expectation she’d set the world on fire with her work, but fate will have its way. She was asked by a musician friend to come take pictures of his band, which was opening for Mink DeVille at CBGB’s. Roberts happened to be eager to take photographs of Willy DeVille and his wife, Toots, both particularly memorable characters in a late-1970s New York music scene where characters were everywhere.

Willy told Roberts, “Come to Max’s [Max’s Kansas City club], bring your camera, take pictures, and then come back stage and take more.” Roberts agreed, got some photos, and in no time was getting attention. “This woman came over,” Roberts says, “and said ‘Hey, I work for Capital Records. We just signed Willy this week and these pictures are great. I have to see them.’ I literally stood there arguing saying, ‘I don’t do this for a living, this is just …'”

Her protestation went nowhere. Her photographs, on the other hand, took off.

Ebet Roberts

“They started hiring me for their licensing stuff and then hired me for their other artists,” Roberts says. “At the same time, the whole scene was happening, ’77 at Max’s and CBGB’s. I just wanted to document the whole thing. That’s how it escalated and then I started doing a lot of work with the Village Voice and a small music magazine called Trouser Press.”

And did she know that she was documenting a significant time in music and culture? “I had no idea, none whatsoever,” Roberts says. “It just felt like it had to be documented because it was such an amazing scene. But I really didn’t realize it was a game changer. I remember working with The Cure for, I think, for a week, when they made their first trip over. The shows were mostly deserted and I was just thinking the band was absolutely great but never in a million years imagining they were going to be huge.”

But in short order, Roberts was in the thick of it, recording the musical luminaries that everyone was talking about and listening to. Her photos were in Rolling Stone, MOJO, Spin, GQ, Playboy, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, People, USA Today, The Village Voice. Her work is in the permanent collection of The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, Seattle’s Experience Music Project, The Grammy Museum, and The Hard Rock Cafe.

Being around all that celebrity didn’t faze Roberts. “I was much more interested in the photography than anything,” she says. “I liked photographing musicians and artists because they’re interesting and I was comfortable around them.”

The biggest challenge was often that the more well-known the artist, the less time she had to be with them. “Taking photographs is a two-way process,” Roberts says. “I like getting to know somebody and let them know something about me so that they could trust me, that they could be open. But sometimes I’d just have five or ten minutes.”

But if that’s all the time she’s got for a shoot, she makes the most of it — just as she made the most of the unexpected opportunity that changed her life from that of a struggling artist waiting tables to a world-renowned photographer and chronicler of American culture.

Roberts will give an artist talk at Memphis College of Art during a Baccalaureate service on Friday, May 10th from 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. It’s open to the public, but seating is limited. “Antepenultimatum: The Spring BFA Reception” will be held following the lecture, with a slideshow of the artist’s work in Callicott Auditorium.

Ebet Roberts

Categories
Music Music Blog

Sunday Funday at Beale Street Music Fest 2019

CREDIT: Chris McCoy

Chris McCoy

Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real

Ideal weather and a stacked lineup brought ’em out in droves for the sunny finale of the 2019 Beale Street Music Festival.

I didn’t make it to Tom Lee Park in time to see Keith Sykes’ homegrown Memphis set, but by the time I was approaching the festival grounds, the crowd was bulging and the din was palpable. There are sellout crowds, and then there are sellout crowds. Already, this was as big a crowd as I had ever seen at music fest, and it was only going to get bigger.
My friend from Nashville who was going to be joining me for Sunday didn’t make it, so I was going into the maelstrom alone. Since I was on the clock, trying to cover as much of the festival as possible, I thought my solo mission would be an advantage. It would be a lot easier to position myself for some good pics and to see what was going on. Boy howdy, was I wrong.

At first, things worked out pretty well. I schlepped up to the side of the Bug Light stage for the last few songs from Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real. They’re a solid, folk-infused classic rock outfit, and the afternoon crowd was lapping it up. They’ve been Neil Young’s backup band for a while now—they stood in for Crazy Horse for Neil’s epic “Down By The River” set in 2016 — so when they closed with “Rockin’ In The Free World,” they knew how to make Young’s barn-burning call to countercultural arms land like a punch. How well that song has aged! “We got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand” is about mass shootings now. “That’s one more kid/That will never go to school/Never get to fall in love/Never get to be cool” could have been written about immigrant family separations.
Chris McCoy

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

Probably the most challenging act on the bill this year was Rodrigo Y Gabriela. The pair of former metalheads from Mexico City could be viewed as the world’s most successful buskers. They built a reputation touring Europe after relocating to Dublin, Ireland, as teenagers. Expanding the realm of flamenco guitar, the pair’s instrumentals are, as an old guitar player friend of mine used to say, technical as a nuclear plant. Garbriela Quintero, who provides the rhythm support for Rodrigo Sanchez’s melodies and improvisational flights, manages to simulate an entire band’s worth of sound with only her right hand and a nylon-stringed classical guitar. The highlight of their set was an expansive version of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes.” How did a Sunday afternoon festival crowd react to a flamenco arrangement of a 23-minute song originally written as a secret soundtrack to the “Jupiter and Beyond The Infinite” sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey?  They loved it! Did not see that coming.

Chris McCoy

Hamish Anderson at the Blues Tent

Over in the Blues Tent, Australian gunslinger Hamish Anderson was playing. Anderson was definitely of the White Stripes-influenced generation of guitarists, and given that seminal band’s debut to Memphis, it was a good fit for the festival.
Chris McCoy

That’s Paul Janeway of St. Paul and the Broken Bones hanging off the VIP tent. It would have looked a lot cooler if I had been closer.

As the press of humanity intensified, Alabama soul stirrers St. Paul and the Broken Bones took the festival to church. Singer Paul Janeway, dressed in a black feathered cape, tested the range limits of his wireless microphone by leaping into the crowd and attempting to high five as many people as he could. After moving through the VIP tent, he sang the final verses of his set hanging from a pole above the throngs. Reader, I could have gotten some spectacular photos of that moment had I not been on the opposite side of the stage.
Chris McCoy

The Claypool Lennon Delierium

One philly cheesesteak later, I was well positioned for The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Sean Lennon and the Primus bassist have been quietly concocting full-on psychedelic prog rock albums that sounds pretty compelling in person. They’re also kind of a snapshot of the music biz in the modern festival era: A supergroup spinning off the friendly space rock of the Flaming Lips and MGMT. To be fair, it worked great in the moment, and the level of musicianship was very high. It provided a great soundtrack to the spectacular sunset.
Chris McCoy

Sunset over Tom Lee Park

Gary Clark Jr.’s moment in front of the absolutely packed Bud Light stage reminded me of my first Beale Street Music Festival, where I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan fight off rain squalls with “Couldn’t Stand The Weather.” The band was rock solid, and Clark’s absolute command of his guitar was inspiring.

As Clark’s set wound down, I headed north to the Terminix stage. I was determined to meet pop on its own terms, and that meant getting as close to Cardi B. as humanly possible. In her red sequined catsuit and rainbow wig, the most successful female rapper in history was all carefully calculated swagger. To all the done-up ladies in spandex who thought it would be a good idea to wear heels to day three of an outdoor music festival colloquially known as “Memphis In Mud,” she was exactly what they needed at that moment.
Chris McCoy

Hoopers get set for Cardi B

At no time was I closer than a quarter mile from Cardi B.

When I discovered I was actually being pushed backwards from the stage, I decided to bail about halfway through to check out The Killers, for the sake of journalistic completeness. It would turn out to be a fateful mistake. The FedEx stage was hosting about 75 percent of the Cardi B crowd, which meant it was bursting at the seams with revelers. After trying to absorb the Killers for a couple of songs, I called it a night and started making my way toward the south exit — just in time to get caught in the swirling climax of Cardi B’s show. Then, as the show ended, I, along with approximately 10,000 others, were pinned against the eastern line of fences and hospitality tents as the crowd was given conflicting instructions on which way to go. The crowd control was nonexistent at the choke point, save for a lone security guard at the Budweiser tent who yelled “Keep moving!” without specifying a direction. For about 10 minutes, it felt like a legitimately dangerous situation, verging on a stampede, until enough people at the head of the line had cleared out to release the pressure on the back ranks. It was an unfortunate ending to an otherwise successful Beale Street Music Festival. 

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday: Webbstar

Music Video Monday is raking it in.

“Cash.” That’s the name of Webbstar’s MVM debut. It’s a rap-rock grinder about getting that paper. The video was directed by Ryan Peel, with Bronson Worthy lensing, and editing by Hot Key Studios. It’ll get you in the mood for the work week.

Music Video Monday: Webbstar

If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com. 

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Rising Redbirds

CREDIT: Adolis Garcia

The Memphis Redbirds return to AutoZone Park this week after a lengthy (13-game) road trip. Good time for a refresher on a few rising stars as the club seeks a third consecutive Pacific Coast League championship.

Adolis Garcia

• Adolis Garcia — The 26-year-old Cuban is blocked by an abundance of outfielders with the parent club in St. Louis. Which means Garcia will likely anchor the batting order for manager Ben Johnson throughout the Triple-A season. Through Sunday, he leads the club with eight home runs and 25 RBIs. The one thing that might compromise Garcia’s impact for Memphis this season? A trade. A lesson we learned a year ago when the Cardinals dealt Oscar Mercado to Cleveland: extra outfielders are easily moved for more coveted commodities (pitching or low-level prospects).

• Daniel Ponce de Leon — There’s no commodity in baseball more valuable than starting pitching and the Cardinals are blessed in this area. Having fully recovered from a skull fracture suffered during the 2017 season, Ponce de Leon won nine games for Memphis last season and started four games for the Cardinals. With Michael Wacha briefly on the injured list, St. Louis promoted the 27-year-old righty for a start against Milwaukee on April 23rd. He earned the win, striking out seven and allowing but one run in five innings, only to be demoted to Memphis to make room for Wacha’s return to the rotation. “Ponce” is 2-1 with a 3.57 ERA for the Redbirds. There are big-league teams for whom he’d be starting every fifth day. They just don’t call Busch Stadium home.


• Andrew Knizner — Catching prospects in the Cardinal system tend to find themselves eventually making a living in other systems. Carson Kelly appeared to be the man to finally succeed the ageless Yadier Molina in St. Louis, only to be shipped to Arizona in the deal that brought Paul Goldschmidt to the Cardinals. The eighth-ranked prospect in the Cardinals system, Knizner is the latest to carry “heir apparent” status behind the plate for Memphis. The 24-year-old Knizner is a better hitter than Kelly, currently slashing .329/.391/.456 for the Redbirds. He comes equipped with a strong arm and has time to develop his catching skills at Triple-A, with former All-Star Matt Wieters currently backing up Molina in St. Louis.

• Tommy Edman — The PCL has long been a hitter’s league. Edman’s .333 batting average barely places him among the circuit’s top 20. But the infielder’s bat is proving to be a top-of-the-order spark plug for the Redbirds, his versatility — as a second-baseman or shortstop — expanding Johnson’s options when putting together a lineup card. Edman starred in last year’s PCL playoffs, hitting .432 over the Redbirds’ nine-game run to the Triple-A national championship. Keep that performance in mind as the 23-year-old Californian finds his way. There’s no intangible for a professional baseball player like confidence.

• Austin Gomber — Like Ponce de Leon, Gomber has already established major-league credentials. The 25-year-old lefty went 6-2 in 11 late-season starts for St. Louis last season, helping the Cardinals climb within a short winning streak of a playoff berth. (That winning streak, alas, didn’t happen in September.) He’s off to a 4-0 start for Memphis this season, with a 2.97 ERA and 37 strikeouts in 33 innings pitched. The Cardinals are currently functioning with no left-hander in their rotation and only two pitching out of the bullpen. It stands to reason Gomber will get a call for the trip up I-55 this season. Only a matter of when.

Categories
Music Music Blog

A Perfect Friday Night For Beale Street Music Fest 2019

CREDIT: Chris McCoy

Chris McCoy

Ravyn Lenae, Chicago R&B singer, opens up the FedEx stage at Beale Street Music Festival 2019.

The first Friday of Memphis in May, my wife Laura Jean and I worked through lunch creating piping fresh content for your eye- and ear-holes. Starving, we hit the South gate of the festival a little after it opened at 5 PM, intending to fuel up on carnival food before the music got started.

Like everything else, the food at Tom Lee Park has evolved over the years. What used to be a funnel cake and pronto pup stand is now several funnel cake and pronto pup stands placed strategically around the festival grounds. But there’s a lot more than that, of course. The addition of the noodle stand about a decade ago was a great leap forward for handheld cuisine, and heralded an explosion of speciality vittles like biscuit sandwiches. Now there’s enough variety to make the Iowa State Fair envious.
Laura Jean Hocking

Cloudy skies but perfect temps as BSMF 2019 opens.

The sky Friday night was not the most beautiful in the history of Memphis in May, but the conditions on the ground at Tom Lee were darn near perfect—not too hot, not too cold, no blistering sun. There was plenty of live grass, and our rain boots were not sinking into the muck yet. At our first stop, I ordered a small beer and got served a large, which I took as a good omen. But no one had run power to any of the beverage stands yet, so it was cash only. Then we grabbed some fish and fried-avocado tacos and settled into a picnic table for a mini feast. As we sat there, we watched the first big wave of people wash towards the stage.

Debate is currently raging over the future of Memphis in May in Tom Lee Park. It must be noted that the MiM folks have perfected the Beale Street Music Festival layout. In the big picture of music festivals, BSMF is one of the most accessible and easy to navigate. With the notable and lamentable exception of the Blues Tent, the problems of sonic bleed that plague festivals like Bonnaroo are nonexistent. When Orange County’s Dirty Heads got rolling at 6:20, the bass was shaking tents hundreds of feet from the Terminix Stage. But when we headed north to the FedEx Stage to check out Ravyn Lenae, we stepped into a new sonic environment.

Lenae, and R&B singer from Chicago blessed with legs for miles, towered above the crowd. Her mezzo soprano voice floated comfortably in an upper register unreachable by most pop songstresses.
Laura Jean Hocking

Brandon Santini plays the Blues Tent

Continuing north, we ended up at the Coca-Cola Blues Tent, where Brandon Santini and his band were absolutely tearing it up as the crowd filled in. Here’s a BSMF ProTip: when you need a break from the heat or to sit down for a minute, go to the Blues Tent. The music is always at least competent, and usually great. Sometimes, as with Santini on Friday, you can watch an act having the night of their lives while you catch your breath.

Heading back down South, we arrived just in time to watch the biggest party of the night break out. BlocBoy JB, the Memphis rapper whose “Look Alive” was a huge hit last year, almost missed the festival after an MPD traffic stop found him with weed and a firearm. Fresh out of 201, the lithe MC had what looked like half the crowd on stage with him three songs in. Thousands bounced along as clouds of cannabis smoke ascended to heaven.

As a side note, way too many of y’all are mixing your cannabis with tobacco. I’m not talking about rolling a blunt with a cigar paper, which is a time-honored and practical method. I’m talking about actually rolling tobacco into your joints. This is an abomination—what the late, great Memphis music producer Jim Dickinson would have called a “decadent European practice”. Have some self-respect and smoke your weed pure like Jah intended.
Chris McCoy

Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry is bathed in light as she whips up the crowd.

We returned to the Terminix stage for Chvrches. It was the last night of the tour for the Glasgow, Scotland, band, and they left it all on the stage. Singer Lauren Mayberry is pint-sized, even in platform shoes, but she radiates confidence and can work a crowd with the best of them. Swirling in a pink tutu, she and her bandmates Iain Cook and Martin Doherty breathed life into their deep catalog of warm synthpop. Halfway through the set, Mayberry paused to point out a nearby funnel cake stand and tell the story of puking into a trash bin the first time she ever tried one of the fried dough pastries. Nevertheless, she said, she would probably have one again, “after I get this tutu off.”

It was a low-impact and fun Friday night. As Chvrches packed up, a wave of Dave Matthews fans descended on the stage like the undead at Winterfell. Having had our fill of Matthews’ jam-lite stylings in the 1990s, we briefly debated trying to fight the tide of baseball caps fetishists to get to Khalid before deciding to ride the wave out of the South gate. Another ProTip: The Lyft pickup area on Kansas street is the quickest way out of the festival area, and they’ve even got a promo code for free rides, courtesy of Bud Light. So use it, and be safe out there, y’all.

Categories
Music Music Blog

A Meeting of Musical Minds: Stewart Copeland Visits Como

CREDIT: Alex Greene

Alex Greene

Rev. John Wilkins and Stewart Copeland

Como, Mississippi played host to an unlikely encounter between two musical luminaries this week, as Stewart Copeland, the drummer behind Diddy’s hit “I’ll Be Missing You” (not to mention everything ever recorded by the Police), arrived at Hunters Chapel Missionary Baptist Church to bear witness to a service presided over by Rev. John Wilkins.

Copeland was there with Nico Wasserman and Alex Black, who are producing a new three-part documentary for the BBC on the cultural power of music. For the episode on music and spiritual experience, Copeland has visited such locations as Hillsong Church in New York, CeCe Winans in Nashville, and, this past Sunday, Hunters Chapel.

Alex Greene

This follows close on the heels of the popular BBC special program On Drums, in which Copeland explored “the drums as the founding instrument of popular modern music.” The response to this was so positive that this new series, as yet untitled, was planned to explore the social impact of music more generally.

Sitting through a full service, Copeland was visibly moved by the experience, as an enthusiastic congregation and choir, led by Rev. Wilkins, sang with fervor. Some church members were so swept away as to need the assistance of ushers, who rushed down the aisles to steady and calm them. Eventually Copeland jumped to his feet and began singing and clapping with everyone else.

The congregation was gracious and welcoming to the visitors. Rev. Wilkins’ manager Amos Harvey, also in attendance, commented, “It just felt so good, so open and inclusive. It was almost hypnotic at times.”

Copeland, for his part, was glowing after the service. As the crew interviewed Rev. Wilkins on his own, Copeland sampled the victuals in downtown Como, and spoke about the power of music and his love of composition for cinematic soundtracks. “When Tom Cruise kisses a girl with all the love and sincerity he can, it’s my job to show the sinister intent behind what he’s doing,” he noted, by way of example. Beginning with 1983’s Rumble Fish, Copeland composed soundtracks for a good 20 years.

Nowadays, Copeland regularly revisits his compositions in live performances with symphony orchestras around the world. The current tour of such shows, which feature Copeland on drums, is known as Stewart Copeland Lights up the Orchestra, and will next take him to Poland and Italy for dates this June.

After lunch, Copeland returned to the church to play with Rev. Wilkins and speak to him about the spiritual significance of both gospel and the blues. The church environs, a bucolic landscape of pastures, woods, and lakes, made for a serene setting as the two waxed philosophical. As Rev. Wilkins demonstrated his father’s time-honored composition, “Prodigal Son,” Copeland joined in on a percussive frying pan from Brazil. “Would you like your eggs up or scrambled?” he quipped as they closed the song. “I guess that was pretty scrambled.”

Alex Greene

Cameraman Alex Black gets the shot as inverted Deity looks on.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Long Shot

Seth Rogan and Charlize Theron in Long Shot

Long Shot is a new film starring Seth Rogan and Charlize Ther…

ALL HAIL IMPERATOR FURIOSA, WARRIOR OF THE WASTELAND, CONQUERER OF THE CITADEL!

I’m sorry. That happens sometimes when I try to talk about Charlize Theron. She is one of our greatest living screen actors, with dozens of film credits and an Academy Award she earned for playing serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster. But for many cinephiles, she is now indelibly associated with her role in Mad Max: Fury Road, where she stole the show from the title character of George Miller’s 2015 masterpiece.

Furiosa is an icon of female power, and liberation from the patriarchy. In Long Shot, Theron plays Charlotte Field, the blisteringly competent Secretary of State under President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk) who is blisteringly stupid.

Before we continue drooling over Furiosa, I want to praise Odenkirk, director Jonathan Levine, and writers Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah. Long Shot is a romantic comedy, but its setting is contemporary American politics, which is a bloody minefield. The overwhelming presence of the orange criminal in the White House threatens to crowd out any comedy potential. And yet, he must be acknowledged in some way. Chambers is clearly not Trump, but Odenkirk plays him as a distracted, incompetent, and thoroughly corrupt rube, because portraying the president as a reasonably competent patriot would simply be unbelievable in 2019. That’s where we are as a nation.

Anyway, Charlotte is a Hillary-esque figure trying her best to put together an international agreement to curb climate change. She’s also in the midst of putting together a run for the presidency herself, assisted by Maggie Millikin (June Diane Raphael) and Tom (Ravi Patel), her fiercely loyal aides.

Meanwhile, Seth Rogan plays Fred Flarksy, a crusading investigative journalist whom we meet in the middle of a farcical attempt to infiltrate a group of neo-Nazis. Fred finds out his newspaper is being bought by Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis), a Rupert Murdoch stand-in who will stymie Flarsky’s truth seeking. Fred quits in a rage, and his rich friend Lance (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.) takes him to a ritzy party to help him forget his troubles. There, he sees Charlotte, who he remembers used to babysit him when she was a hyper-responsible pre-teen and he was even more awkward than he is now.

‘They’re called fingers, but have you ever seen them, like, fing?’

The party scene, which is long and complex and ends in horrible (read: hilarious) humiliation for Fred, is a joy. It’s a fine piece of comedy writing, well-staged by the director and effortlessly executed by the cast, that seamlessly integrates the personal and political. When the dust clears, Fred has a new job as a speech writer for Charlotte, and a new, very unlikely romance is brewing—a “long shot”, if you will.

Is there any more tired cliche than the perfect woman romantically paired with a schlubby guy? From Married With Children to The Simpsons, it’s been pretty much the norm on TV sitcoms for decades. And yet, somehow, we come out believing that the guy who wrote an article called “The Two Party System Can Suck A Dick (Actually Two Dicks)” could get it on with the Secretary of State. Theron and Rogan present the ideal avatars of the stereotypes as they fall in love during the film’s globe-hopping middle acts. Rogan’s got the comedy chops to spare, and Theron…

HAIL IMPERATOR FURIOSA!

…Theron is an effective straight woman. Director Levine wisely doesn’t saddle her with schtick, but uses her acting skills strategically. In one rollicking sequence, Theron gets laughs with a realistic impression of a partier rolling on MDMA. She doesn’t go big and mug for the camera (that’s Rogan’s job) she just delivers the lines while low-key trying to keep it together. The implied joke that maybe negotiations between politicians would go better if one or both parties were on drugs that enhanced their empathy lands naturally.

The way Long Shot differentiates itself from the sexist sitcom cliche is by exploring the difficulty men have in ceding power to women, even if—perhaps especially if—the women are clearly more skilled and intelligent. Frank thinks he’s woke as he can get, but time and again he runs up against his own self-righteousness and unexamined assumptions. As the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl rom-com cycle plays out, he’s just trying to hang on as she is making the kind of career-over-home decisions that a male character would be saddled with in earlier decades. By the time the When Harry Met Sally-inspired denouement rolls around, the couple have found a unique equilibrium that they are still trying to understand. Maybe that’s the portrait of all successful relationships that the romantic comedy, when done right, points us towards.

Long Shot

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U of M to Revamp Dining With Local Food Options

CREDIT: Twitter- M. David Rudd

Twitter- M. David Rudd

Rendering of the new Tiger Den dining hall


The University of Memphis will offer new and non-traditional dining options — including more local food — on campus beginning in the fall.

The university parted ways with the food service company Aramark last month after a 30-year partnership and entered into a new 15-year contract with New York-based Chartwells Higher Ed.

The new partnership will have “profound impact on your dining options and experience on campus,” U of M president M. David Rudd said in a letter to the campus announcing the move last month.

Through the partnership with Chartwells, local food trucks, where students can use Dining Dollars, will be added to the on-campus dining options.

Also, the main dining hall, Tiger Den, will get a total makeover, the campus Chick-fil-A will be expanded to include a full service menu, and a new barbecue restaurant will open this summer.

So far, Rudd has confirmed that Gibson’s Donuts will be one of the new local options on campus in the fall.

The move will increase the university’s investment in the community, Rudd said, by “directing expenditures toward locally-owned businesses and diverse suppliers in the Memphis community.”

Twitter- M. David Rudd

Examples of outdoor pop-up food stations coming to the U of M in the fall

Other changes prompted by the new partnership include technology investments to include point-of-scale system updates, a new mobile app, ordering kiosks, and outdoor pop-up food stations.

Chartwells also provides dietitians to guide menus and encourage healthy eating habits on campus.

“We will see some exciting changes in on-campus dining — changes that recognize that dining service is a critical part of the broader community experience,” Rudd said.

U of M to Revamp Dining With Local Food Options