New virus case numbers rose by 119 over the last 24 hours. The new cases put the total of all positive cases in Shelby County since March 2020 at 90,734.
Total current active cases of the virus — the number of people known to have COVID-19 in the county — remained flat at 1,049. The figure had dipped below 1,000 for the first time in a year last week. The number reached a record high of more than 8,000 in late December and only rose above 2,000 in October. The new active case count represents 1.2 percent of all cases of the virus reported here since March 2020.
As of Tuesday in Shelby County, 278,409 COVID-19 vaccine doses had been given. So far, 87,312 people had been given two doses for full vaccination, and 191,097 had been given a single dose.
The Shelby County Health Department reported that 1,083,670 tests have been given since March. This figure includes multiple tests given to some people.
The latest weekly positivity rate remained basically flat from the previous week, levels that are the lowest since the pandemic began in March 2020. The average number of positive cases for the week of March 14th was 3.8 percent, just a little above the 3.4 percent rate recorded for the week of March 7th. That’s down from the record-high 17.5 percent in late December.
No new deaths were reported over the last 24 hours. The total death toll now stands at 1,558.
The Memphis Tigers earned a trip to the NIT semifinals for the fifth time in the program’s rich history with a win over Boise State Thursday night in Denton, Texas. Sophomore guard Lester Quinones grabbed a Boogie Ellis miss and converted the put-back attempt to seize the lead (56-55) for the Tigers with 32 seconds left on the clock. The Broncos’ Devonaire Doutrive missed a floater on the next possession and Memphis forward DeAndre Williams pulled down the rebound. Williams’s pair of free throws with 13 seconds to play provided the margin of victory.
Now 18-8, the Tigers will face another Mountain West team — Colorado State — in a semifinal to be played Saturday in Frisco, Texas. The Rams (20-6) beat North Carolina State in another quarterfinal Thursday. (Mississippi State faces the winner of Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky in the other semifinal.) Boise State ends its season with a record of 19-9.
The Tigers fell behind early, 15-5, before outscoring the Broncos 18-4 over a seven-minute stretch of the first half. They led 31-26 at halftime and were up by eight points (50-42) with six minutes left in the game. But Boise State rallied, tying the game at 54 on an inside bucket by Mladen Armus. The Broncos took the lead when Doutrive hit one of two free throws with 47 seconds left, setting up what proved to be the game-winning field goal by Quinones.
Ellis and D.J. Jeffries led the Tigers with 11 points each and Quinones added 10 to go with seven rebounds. The Tigers prevailed despite shooting miserably from three-point range (5 for 20) and from the foul line (6 for 15).
Junior guard Alex Lomax remains sidelined with an ankle injury.
The Tigers’ previous trips to the NIT semifinals (all played at Madison Square Garden in New York):
1957 (beat St. Bonaventure in semis; lost to Bradley in final)
2001 (lost to Tulsa in semis)
2002 (beat Temple in semis; beat South Carolina in final)
[ed note: In 2017, I structured my review of Justice League as “a series of bullet points presented without any overall organizing principle.” Keeping with the spirit of form following function, this review of the Snyder Cut of Justice League will be presented as a much longer series of slightly more organized bullet points.]
Close your eyes. Envision Superman. What color is his costume? Is it blue, with a red cape and yellow trim? Wrong. It’s black, with black highlights, like Batman.
The S? Gray.
Henry Cavill as Superman in Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
In 2017, when the original Justice League was in post-production, director Zack Snyder had just turned in a cut of the film he called “90% done” when his daughter Autumn died. Snyder took a leave of absence, and Avengers director Joss Whedon stepped in to finish the film. Following the orders of Warner Bros. execs who called the Snyder Cut “unwatchable,” Whedon rewrote the script and did some reshoots to bring it in under two hours. The resulting film grossed $657 million, and yet is considered a box office bomb.
Last week, a Baltimore businessman offered to buy Tribune Publishing, the nation’s third largest newspaper chain, for $650 million.
Disappointed that the film starring Batman (Ben Affleck), Superman (Henry Cavill), The Flash (Ezra Miller) , Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) grossed only enough money to run the entire United States government from 1790-1836, DC comics fans on Reddit started a campaign to “release the Snyder Cut!”
Historical budget numbers are readily available online, proving that the internet is a glorious wonder for which we should all be thankful.
Ciaran Hinds as Steppenwolf
The villain of the original Justice League is Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds), an utterly forgettable soldier in the army of the planet Apokolips. His master Darkseid (Ray Porter) is a new addition in the Snyder Cut. His inclusion helps the plot make slightly more sense.
Darkseid, the biggest big bad in the DC universe, bears a striking resemblance to Thanos, the biggest big bad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Maybe it’s the other way around.
The character design tends to be both super busy and dull at the same time. It’s actually kind of impressive.
Ben Affleck experiencing angst as Batman.
After a pressure campaign lasting years, the online Snyder Cut agitators got their way. Warner Bros. greenlit a restoration project, which eventually consumed an estimated $70 million, proving once and for all that the internet was a mistake.
The running time for Zack Snyder’s Justice League is four hours and two minutes. Other films that break the four hour mark include Shoah, the 1985 Holocaust documentary that runs 9 hours, 26 minutes; OJ: Made in America, the seven-hour ESPN documentary series which had a limited theatrical run in 2016; Carlos, the 2010 biopic of terrorist Carlos the Jackal, which clocked in at 5 hours, 39 minutes; the 1927 silent epic Napoleon which takes 5 hours, 32 minutes to meet its Waterloo; and Sleep, which is just footage of Andy Warhol’s boyfriend sleeping for 5 hours, 21 minutes.
You think I won’t keep wasting your time with random facts I found on the internet? Well, I sat through the damn Snyder Cut, so buckle up, motherfuckers!
The record for the longest film ever made is held by Erika Magnusson and Daniel Andersson. The sole pubic screening of their film Logistics at the House of Culture in Stockholm lasted from December 1, 2012 to January 6, 2013.
What sets Justice League apart from those other extremely long films is that, as we enter hour four, we learn that Bruce Wayne was traumatized by witnessing the death of his parents, which later caused him to dress like a bat and fight crime. These stunning facts have never before been revealed in a film, with the exception of Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), Batman Forever (1995), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Batman v. Superman: The Dawn Of Justice (2016).
The revelation about Batman’s parents comes via a conversation with The Joker (Jared Leto) during a dream sequence epilogue which has nothing to do Steppenwolf, Darkseid, or anything, really. I have no idea why it’s there, except to give Jared Leto cocaine money.
Ezra Miller as The Flash
Here is a partial list of scenes shot in slow motion during this four-hour, two-minute movie:
A close up of Bruce Wayne’s razor while he’s shaving
Aquaman drinking whiskey on a pier
A man digging a hole.
A woman looking at The Flash.
The Flash moving super-fast.
The Flash staring at a girl.
The Flash staring at a hot dog.
Cyborg playing football. (There’s quite a bit of this.)
Cyborg looking sad because his father isn’t there to watch him play football.
Steppenwolf picking up a handful of dirt.
Superman going super-fast
A Humvee flying through the air
Cyborg’s father (Joe Morton) disintegrating. (This one worked.)
A shell being ejected from the Batmobile’s guns.
The heroes riding into the final battle with Steppenwolf. (This one kinda worked, too, even if we’ve seen it many times before, such as in Joss Whedon’s Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron.)
The Batmobile exploding.
The Superfriends just kind of standing there, not looking particularly happy, or sad, or anything, really, despite the fact that they’ve just won the final battle and saved the world. (The film still has more than 30 minutes to go at this point.)
Jason Momoa as Aquaman, aka Moist Batman
Snyder’s direction of actors is indifferent, at best. Everyone seems to be instructed to glower grimly as if every trip to the Gotham DMV is the Battle of Gettysburg. In other words, he tells everyone to be more like Batman. This is another example of Creeping Batmanization. Wonder Woman? Girl Batman. Cyborg? Black robot Batman. Aquaman? Moist Batman. Superman? Super-Batman. The only character who doesn’t act like Batman is The Flash, and he is constantly shamed for it.
I don’t know if Jared Leto does cocaine.
The big revelation in Superman v Batman: The Dawn of Justice is that both Superman and Batman’s mothers were named Martha. In the Snyder Cut, we find that Martha Kent was actually J’onn J’onzz, aka the Martian Manhunter, who was my favorite character in the 2001 animated TV series Justice League, which is superior to both cuts of this film in every conceivable way.
GOAT Batman movie? Mask of the Phantasm.
The excessive length of the film is a plus for HBO Max, the streaming service which debuted the Snyder Cut. Streamers value continued engagement above all other metrics, so the longer the better, as far as they’re concerned.
In the time it takes to watch the Snyder Cut once, you could watch Mask of the Phantasm, which is also on HBO Max, 3.16 times.
Instead of a standard HD 16:9 aspect ratio, or a widescreen 2.76:1 aspect ratio, the Snyder Cut is presented in an old-fashioned, square 4:3 aspect ratio. This is just pointless and pretentious enough that I like it. So, kudos to you, Zack Snyder.
$370 million, the total amount of money spent on the original Justice League and the Snyder Cut, is greater than the 2020 budget of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, combined.
Don’t make Superman angry. You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
In my original review of Justice League, I wrote: “The high-functioning sociopaths running the Hollywood studios are uniquely unsuited to making good superhero movies, because they fundamentally cannot grasp what is appealing about a character motivated by pure altruism.” This remains true.
Snyder and writer Chris Terrio simply do not understand Superman. He is an avatar of the benevolent protector, and a fundamentally nice guy. It’s not edgy or insightful to point out that an invulnerable, super-strong alien who can fly and shoot freakin’ heat rays from his eyes would eventually come to view the humans it was supposed to protect as puny, flawed, contemptible things. That’s the purpose of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, which Snyder adapted for the big screen in 2009. There is a moral dimension to Superman. He is so powerful, he will always win any fight. So the key to writing a good Superman story is to put him in the horns of a moral dilemma. He must choose the lesser of two evils, or sacrifice Lois Lane to save Metropolis, or something like that. Superman’s purpose is not to be a badass, it’s to explore the nature of “goodness.”
Henry Cavill remains the worst actor to ever play Superman. Give me drunk, chubby George Reeves any day.
Don’t get me started on Lois Lane (Amy Adams). What have they done to you?
Watchmen was the last Zack Snyder film I enjoyed. I even bought the Blu-Ray.
Ben Affleck, who got all swole to play Batman, portrayed George Reeves in the 2006 film Hollywoodland. He was good in that film. He sucks as Batman.
Ray Porter as Darkseid.
Remember that commercial for the video game Gears of War where the soldier dressed all in black is running through a dark, ruined city and fighting monsters, which are also black, set to a slow, romantic cover of Tears for Fears “Mad World”? Imagine watching that at half speed on a loop for half a work day.
The Snyder Cut might make a good screensaver, except the blank stripes on either side of the screen due to the 4:3 aspect ratio would eventually lead to visible burn-in lines on your monitor. So it fails at that, too.
When the Superfriends gather in Superman’s spaceship to use Kryptonian technology and a little Flash razzmatazz to bring Clark Kent back from the dead, the spaceship’s A.I. begs them to stop. In that moment, I felt kinship with the Kryptonian A.I.
The Wonder Twins, shapeshifting aliens from the 1970s Superfriends cartoon, are, sadly, nowhere to be seen. Come on, Zack! I want to see an eight-armed Arcturian space platypus solve a problem with a jackhammer made of ice, which is actually her brother!
RELEASE THE WONDER TWINS CUT!
Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman
Writer Chris Terrio, who penned Batman v Superman, Justice League, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, is the greatest living example of the mediocre white guy who keeps failing up.
Here’s a short list of scenes Justice League rips off from other films:
Joker’s bank heist from The Dark Knight.
The lighting of the warning beacons of Gondor from Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The cavalry charge from the battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. Twice.
The climax of the 1978 Superman, where Supes flies faster than the speed of light to travel backwards in time and change history to save the world. (The Flash does it.)
Let’s say you’re a film director, and you want to portray The Flash traveling at superhuman speed. You would show The Flash operating at normal speed, while the world around him is moving in slow motion, because that’s how things would look to The Flash, right? WRONG. The correct answer is that The Fastest Man Alive is depicted in slow motion, while the rest of the world is at, like, super slow motion. That’s why Zack Snyder is worshipped as a genius on the internet, and you are not.
The boneheaded choice of casting Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in Man of Steel still haunts us a decade later.
Ray Fisher as Cyborg
I’m not sure how he does it, but Snyder manages to ruin the sole good scene in the original Justice League, where Cyborg and The Flash dig up Clark Kent’s dead body in the middle of the night.
At one point, Cyborg’s father is hassled by agents of the Office of Secret Intelligence from The Venture Bros.
I’d watch a Cyborg movie starring Ray Fisher—provided it was less than two hours long.
Does that look like a trident to you?
After four years and $370 million, Aquaman’s trident STILL. HAS. FIVE. POINTS. Not three points, which is what differentiates a trident from a pitchfork. Five (5). All hail Aquaman, who rules as rightful King of Atlantis with the symbol of the seas, his mighty PITCHFORK!
Credit where credit is due: the executives at Warner Bros. who called the Snyder Cut “unwatchable” were absolutely right.
There will be much fine music online this week, but perhaps the standout event will be tonight’s live-stream from Royal Studios, brought to us by the Take Me to the River Education Initiative and Martin Shore, director of the original documentary, Take Me to the River. Meanwhile, Goner TV soldiers on with their mix of gonzo comedy, videos, discussions of new releases and live-streamed performances. Beyond that, many other musos soldier on to keep your screen lit up with entertaining sounds. Be sure to tip them generously!
REMINDER: The Memphis Flyer supports social distancing in these uncertain times. Please live-stream responsibly. We remind all players that even a small gathering could recklessly spread the coronavirus and endanger others. If you must gather as a band, please keep all players six feet apart, preferably outside, and remind viewers to do the same.
ALL TIMES CDT
Thursday, March 25 7 p.m. The Hi Rhythm Section, Marcus Scott, Lawrence Boo Mitchell and Martin Shore – live from Royal Studios YouTube
New virus case numbers rose by 118 over the last 24 hours. The new cases put the total of all positive cases in Shelby County since March 2020 at 90,615.
Total current active cases of the virus — the number of people known to have COVID-19 in the county — fell slightly to 1,049. The figure had dipped below 1,000 last for the first time in a year last week. The number reached a record high of more than 8,000 in late December and only rose above 2,000 in October. The new active case count represents 1.2 percent of all cases of the virus reported here since March 2020.
As of Tuesday in Shelby County, 269,913 COVID-19 vaccine doses had been given. So far, 84,049 people had been given two doses for full vaccination, and 185,864 had been given a single dose.
The Shelby County Health Department reported that 1,080,702 tests have been given since March. This figure includes multiple tests given to some people.
The latest weekly positivity rate rose slightly over the previous week but is still among the lowest levels since the pandemic began in March 2020. The average number of positive cases for the week of March 7th was 3.4 percent, just a little above the 3.3 percent rate recorded for the week of February 28th. That’s down from the record-high 17.5 percent in late December.
Ten new deaths were reported over the last 24 hours. The total death toll now stands at 1,558. Not all of these deaths likely occurred within the last 24 hours as reports are collected from many agencies.
The Grizzlies have won three straight games after defeating the Thunder 116-107 Wednesday in Oklahoma City.
It took a massive third period for Memphis to take control of the game for good. Grizzlies outscored the Thunder 33-20 in that period — after giving up four straight turnovers.
Dillion Brooks led the way for Memphis with 25 points off 8 of 13 from the field and 8 of 9 at the charity stripe. The Grizzlies improved to 9-4 when Brooks scores 20 points or more this season.
— Bally Sports: Grizzlies (@GrizzOnBally) March 25, 2021
Meanwhile, Jonas Valanciunas chipped in 16 points and 15 rebounds to tally his 28th double double of the season as the Grizzlies improve to 21-20 for the year.
— Bally Sports: Grizzlies (@GrizzOnBally) March 25, 2021
Off the bench, Brandon Clarke chipped in a near double-double with eight points and nine rebounds. Clarke was huge defensively with a career high five blocks plus two steals. Clarke became the third Grizzlies reserve in franchise history behind Stromile Swift and James Johnson to record 2+ steals and 5+ blocks.
The Thunder had seven players in double figures. Moses Brown led OKC with 19 points and 12 rebounds as a reserve. Lu Dort finished with 14 points, three rebounds and three assists as the Thunder fall to 19-25 for the season.
Up Next
The Grizzlies play back to back against the Jazz in Utah, Friday and Saturday night.
Marc Burch may be gone, but there’s a new young gun set to rock the man-bun in 901 FC’s backline.
The team announced the signing of 21-year-old defender Brecc Evans, whose versatility makes him suited for multiple positions across the defense.
Evans gained experience through several years in the FC Dallas (a Major League Soccer team) Academy from 2014-2018. He played 93 matches during his time there and regularly competed for trophies, having guided his team to a U-16 National Championship in 2016, as well as the Dallas Cup Super Group title in 2017.
After a collegiate season at Cal Poly in 2018, Evans gained his first taste of the USL in 2019 with North Texas SC, a side in League One (the division below 901 FC). And what a taste it was, captaining the team to the division title. And that all came while ranking third in the league as a passer, with 1,543 total passes and an 87.3 percent completion rate.
“We are delighted to have signed Brecc for the 2021 season,” said 901 FC sporting director Tim Howard. “For such a young player, he has captained a side to a League One championship and shown immense ability at multiple positions along the backline.”
Last season, Evans split time between Austin Bold FC and North Texas SC. 901 FC’s 11th signing, he will work closely with fellow defensive stalwarts Zach Carroll, Mark Segbers, Skylar Thomas, and midfielder-turned-defender Raúl González.
901 FC’s home opener will take place on Wednesday, June 16th, against Atlanta United 2.
New virus case numbers rose by 101 over the last 24 hours. The new cases put the total of all positive cases in Shelby County since March 2020 at 90,497.
Total current active cases of the virus — the number of people known to have COVID-19 in the county — fell slightly to 1,060. The figure had dipped below 1,000 last for the first time in a year last week. The number reached a record high of more than 8,000 in late December and only rose above 2,000 in October. The new active case count represents 1.2 percent of all cases of the virus reported here since March 2020.
As of Tuesday in Shelby County, 261,380 COVID-19 vaccine doses had been given. So far, 80,519 people had been given two doses for full vaccination, and 180,161 had been given a single dose.
The Shelby County Health Department reported that 1,077,457 tests have been given since March. This figure includes multiple tests given to some people.
The latest weekly positivity rate rose slightly over the previous week but is still among the lowest levels since the pandemic began in March 2020. The average number of positive cases for the week of March 7th was 3.4 percent, just a little above the 3.3 percent rate recorded for the week of February 28th. That’s down from the record-high 17.5 percent in late December.
Two new deaths were reported over the last 24 hours. The total death toll now stands at 1,548.
For Never Seen It, I watch a classic (or maybe not-so-classic) film with an interesting person who is watching it for the first time. Sam Cicci is an associate editor at Contemporary Media, and covers Memphis 901 FC for the Memphis Flyer. He chose Spike Lee’s 1989 masterpiece Do The Right Thing.
Chris McCoy: Tell me what you know about Do The Right Thing.
Sam Cicci: Well, not a whole lot. It’s one of those things that I’ve just heard referenced a lot. I think my parents liked it when it came out. I know it’s about simmering racial tensions in New York City in what, the late eighties maybe? And it’s centered around a pizza parlor or something. I know it’s kind of like, uh, I think it’s about African-Americans and Italian immigrants, and just kind of how those cultures are clashing in this community.
CM: Have you ever seen any other Spike Lee movies?
SC: I don’t think so. I think I’ve only seen half of Da 5 Bloods.
CM: Well, this is going to be great, then!
SC: Yeah, I’m excited. I feel like there’s a big hole in my pop culture repertoire.
120 minutes later…
CM: Sam Cicci, you are now a person who has seen Do The Right Thing. What did you think?
SC: Well, it was really good. It was phenomenal! And I’m also just filled with this overwhelming sense of sadness after it wrapped up. I guess, uh, watching it, especially in today’s climate…it was made in 1989, is that right?
CM: Yeah, ’89.
SC: I feel like it could have been made today, or 10 years ago. It has sort of a timeless feel to it. That is just really depressing, when you think about it like that.
CM: Yeah, I really felt Ruby Dee at the end. Mother Sister, you know, she just screams “No!” for probably 30 seconds of screen time. It really brought tears to my eyes this time. I feel that overwhelming sense of frustration. I really relate to that right now after like the last, you know, well, I guess five years, but really the last year specifically. When she’s screaming, it just really hit me. The whole thing is so prophetic, like when Radio Raheem is put in a choke hold by a cop and strangled to death. That’s exactly what happened to George Floyd, right?
SC: You hear the police sirens, and that cop car starts rolling up the street, and you know it’s only going to end one way at that point. And there’s just this pit in your stomach. You know, a lot of people are giving flack to Radio Raheem, but he never does anything to warrant that. He’s just walking around with his boombox going “Hey, you guys!” and giving his “love and hate” spiel. He just seems like he’s kind of hanging out. He is never aggressive with anyone, except for when Sal destroys his boombox. It’s just heartbreaking to see what happened to him at the end of the movie. It was just so real.
CM: I think what’s interesting about Radio Raheem is, yeah, it’s obnoxious to walk into somebody’s restaurant with a boom box. But it’s not get-killed-over obnoxious.
CM: This is a film that had a huge influence on my life. I was 18 years old in 1989, and I wanted to be a filmmaker, and Spike Lee was one of the people that made me want to be a filmmaker. This time, it felt a lot deeper. It’s a movie that’s gotten deeper with time. I felt like, back in the day, it really taught me a lot. But now, one thing that struck me this time was, this movie is not about answers. It’s almost like he’s struggling to sort of define what the actual problem is. All of these characters are really multifaceted. Spike himself, Mookie, he’s kind of a jerk, you know? He’s a deadbeat dad. But everybody has bad parts and good parts.
SC: Absolutely. I agree with your point, too, about, trying to figure out what the issue is, exactly. You spend a lot of time with everyone and every group, and between all these characters, there is just kind of this simmering tension, a little bit of racism between all the different groups who occupy this neighborhood. But even through all that, there is a coexistence there that seems to be running fairly smoothly. I find myself sympathizing with Buggin’ Out’s protest. It feels tough to unpack this all at once, right after watching it. I understand that he’s angry; I don’t know if taking it out on Sal like that is the best way to do it. But it also feels like the only place he can direct his anger. And on the flip side, I don’t know why Sal can’t just put some photos of Black people up on his wall of fame.
Mookie (Spike Lee) and Sal (Danny Aiello) in front of the all-Italian “Wall of Fame.”
CM: Yeah, ’cause it’s all gesture, right? Putting Muhammad Ali up there costs him nothing. Maybe he even learns something.
SC: His son, Pino, is pretty racist. But Sal on the other hand, he wants to live here and stay in business here. But then just being unwilling to do that little gesture, it shows that he really hasn’t connected with the neighborhood that supports him as much as he should have.
CM: He doesn’t want to put Black people on the wall. He only wants Italian people on the wall, because this is an Italian restaurant. This is my restaurant. I built this with my hands, and I’m Italian, and also the food here is Italian food. So there should be Italian people on the wall. Then the black people in the neighborhood, in Bed-Stuy, they’re like, no, this is our neighborhood. So that’s why we should have people like us on the wall. I understand both points of view. I don’t want somebody coming into my house and telling me what kind of art I can put on my wall. But on the other hand, they’re his customers, and they sustain the place, and they want to see themselves represented. There’s also another layer to the movie. These people are all in this together. They’re all alike on a deeper level that they can’t even see. Buggin’ Out and his band of aggro friends, they can’t see Sal’s point of view, even though it’s not that different from their own. Everybody has blind spots in this movie, that’s what I’m trying to say.
SC: It’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot to think about. The part that’s still so relevant now was really upsetting.
CM: The riot at the end, that sequence is just amazing. It’s so well put together and it just looks great. And yet, it’s also really emotional. Of course, since The Mayor tells Mookie at the beginning, “Do the right thing,” the question of this movie has always been, “Does Mookie do the right thing or not?” And I don’t think the movie knows.
SC: It got me thinking about current events as well, where one side will value property damage over the life of an innocent person. Everything just keeps spiraling.
CM: It’s Shakespearian, in that way. Did it feel stagey to you?
SC: What do you mean by that, exactly?
CM: I love how theatrical it feels, like it’s almost a stage play.
SC: Oh! I can see that for sure. You’ve got this kind of small setting, and you’re hopping around among a bunch of little vignettes. Everyone comes together at the end, but you have these self-contained stories throughout. I could definitely see that making a jump into the theater.
CM: I guess the other big part of this movie is “Fight the Power”, the Public Enemy song in the intro with Rosie Perez dancing. I saw an internet poll a couple of years ago, and this was voted the best opening credits sequence of all time—and it wasn’t even close.
CM: I just love everything about it. “Fight The Power” is my favorite hip hop song of all time, and she was a Soul Train dancer.
SC: Really?
CM: Yeah, this was her first part. She was a regular on Soul Train when she auditioned for this movie.
SC: Wow. I was going to say, I bought new speakers for my TV recently and didn’t realize how high I had them cranked up when I started the movie. And then I was like, Whoa, I’m ready to go now! Ready to go fight the power or join a protest or something! Let’s do this! And I wish I could dance! That was another thing: It really started out with a bang. It started on a high, and then gradually spiraled down as things took a turn.
On the Bed-Stuy street in Do The Right Thing.
CM: It just looked hot. That’s one thing that this movie does well, because it was filmed mostly outside. But they were blasting the lights the whole time, so it felt hot, you know? And I think that really adds to the tension.
SC: Literal and figurative heating up. I think that just helps push people to a breaking point.
CM: You feel that in Memphis, sometimes, don’t you?
SC: Oh yeah.
Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin’ Out.
CM: So, would you recommend people watch Do The Right Thing?
SC: Absolutely. First of all, I just thought it was a really good movie across the board. And on top of that, it’s still so relevant. I hate saying that over and over again, because I want that to not be true. But I liked seeing so many names I recognized pop up. There’s Martin Lawrence, and Giancarlo Esposito, I hadn’t realized he was in this. He’s so good.
CM: Buggin’ Out is just a classic character. And then, Samuel L. Jackson is the DJ. Most of these people were at the beginning of their careers. I think Sam Jackson had been around for a while at that point, but he was all bit parts, like, he’s the guy who robs the McDowell’s in Coming To America.
SC: I’m curious, how was this movie received when it first came out? What was the reception like?
CM: A lot of people thought it should have been nominated for Best Picture. It wasn’t. Driving Miss Daisy won that year.
SC: Oh, god.
CM: Yeah. A lot of the debate was what I said earlier: “Does Mookie do the right thing?” The ending was very controversial, because of the riot. In retrospect, I think some people laid expectations on Spike to give us all the answers to racism, but that’s not his purpose here. He’s trying to frame the question. I mean, it’s just like today, you know? Like you said, nothing has changed. If that ending came out in a film today, it would provoke exactly the same conversation as it did in 1989. I swear. It’s depressing just to say it out loud, but it’s true. It’s the truth.
SC: Yeah. What is Mookie supposed to do?
CM: I don’t know.
SC: It’s an impossible situation.
CM: There aren’t any right answers. Part of what is so insightful about this movie is that it’s a bunch of ordinary people faced with these completely unsolvable moral dilemmas. There’s a series of them, and it escalates until you’re sitting on the curb with Mookie while the neighborhood is going up in flames. In that moment, this is not a person who thinks he’s done the right thing.
SC: The look on his face was like, ‘Oh no…’.
CM: But that’s part of the point. Racism backs people into these corners, you know? Like you said, Sal is generous throughout the whole thing. Danny Aiello, by the way is so good in this.
SC: Oh, he’s amazing!
Danny Aiello as Sal
CM: I found that very moving, this time, when he says, “Look at this whole neighborhood. They grew up on my food.” That means something, that’s beautiful to me. But then his kid, John Turturro, he’s awful. Another thing I found really remarkable this time was the conversation between Mookie and Pino, where they actually sit down and kind of try to work it out for a minute. That seems like a very screenwriter thing to do—let’s put these two characters together, bounce them off each other, see what happens, you know? And I don’t mean that in a denigrating way. It’s a time-honored writing tradition, believe me. What was really interesting to me was, they saw their commonality and kind of chose not to pursue it.
SC: Yeah. The crux of the whole flashpoint is, even though there is all this commonality here, they just can’t, in the end, quite get it together. And I guess they want to fight the power, but the power is this, you know, institutional racial and economic disenfranchisement. It’s not really there on screen. There’s not a physical manifestation of it, except for when the police show up, so there’s just not really an outlet for their anger.
CM: I think you’re exactly right. They’re looking for something to fight, but the thing that they need to fight is not there in front of them, so they just start fighting each other.
The Sal’s Pizzaria staff: Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Richard Edson, and John Turturro.
SC: Man, what a movie! what should I watch from Spike Lee next?
CM: Well, you should finish watching Da 5 Bloods. Start again, maybe, with fresh eyes. It should have been nominated for Best Picture, because it literally was the best picture last year. Spike got flat robbed. I think as part of it was the fact that Oscar season was longer this year, and Da 5 Bloods came out back in the summer. People forgot about it. But the man gets no respect. Driving Miss Daisy? Give me a break.
SC: When you say it out loud, it sounds so terrible. I remember thinking about Spike Lee not getting respect, too, in other ways. There was that whole fiasco he got in with the Knicks a while back, at Madison Square Garden, when they kept denying him entry through some door he’d always been using for games. He’s been buying floor seats to that garbage team for years, they should build a statue of him for that. It must be excruciating to support the Knicks.
CM: We can agree on that. Somebody needs to be building statues of Spike Lee.
Rangers Jessica Gossett, Jimmy Warren, and
Decoda Muller
(Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
“Who cooks for you?” might be the number one question asked at T.O. Fuller state park in South Memphis. It won’t be asked by visitors. It will be asked of visitors — from a resident barred owl, aptly named Hero.
Barred owls are indigenous to this area and have a distinctive call that sounds like a question to many, specifically the question, “Who cooks for you?” This inquisitive bird found a place at the park’s interpretive center, formerly the golf clubhouse for the old course that closed in 2012. Four years later, this state-of-the-art nature center opened, where injured animals are nursed back to health and released back to the wild.
Who cooks for you? Ranger Decoda Muller and Hero the owl. (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Hero sustained injuries that would not allow him to be released. He shares the center as his home with a screech owl, a turtle, and a corn snake with similar stories. To earn their keep at the center, the resident animals are employed by park rangers for teaching opportunities on and off the park grounds.
Also earning his keep is the fourth park manager in the history of T.O. Fuller State Park, Jimmy Warren, who took the reins from Ranger Calvin Robinson in March 2017. Nearing his four-year anniversary as park manager, Warren, a retired Memphis police officer, talks about park features, activities, and possibilities. He has a personal vested interest in the park, as the first park manager with roots in the area.
Ranger Jimmy Warren poses while holding a terrapin. (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
“This state park was built in 1938 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and was the first state park opened for African Americans east of the Mississippi. It was named after Dr. Thomas O. Fuller in tribute to the man who was an African-American educator, leader, and pastor for our community,” Warren says.
“After 30 years as a community officer, I wanted to come back to my neighborhood and do what I could for my park, my neighborhood, and my community,” Warren continues.
Warren grew up one block from T.O. Fuller Park and attended nearby Mitchell High School. The park was his backyard, the place where he and his family enjoyed all the amenities it had to offer.
His memories include a classmate who lived in the area where the C.H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa stands now. The area was called Chucalissa Village in recent history while Native Americans still lived on the property. The Choctaw Nation tribe, led by Chief Grady Jones, made their own clothes and jewelry, among other things. Warren remembers the daughter of Chief Grady, Mitchell High School classmate Sandra Jones. Her family gifted Warren some bowls made by their tribe. He laments that after seeing an Antiques Roadshow episode where similar bowls were appraised at a high value, his gifts were long gone.
After four years under his leadership, what has Warren done with the park? And what does he have planned? Increasing foot traffic was a goal at the top of Warren’s list.
At the interpretive center, a program has been implemented called Conservation Consequences. It serves the students in local public schools — specifically those in the 38109 ZIP code and Whitehaven. Topics are focused on preservation (including the resident critters) and life skills. Rangers talk about conservation and preservation, while community leaders engage students in conflict resolution skills — and the consequences of not using those skills.
A Tires to Trails grant was recently awarded to the park. It combines efforts to clean up the area with creating ADA-compliant usable trails by recycling old tires that were gathered during a recent MLK Day of Service. A company in Bristol, Tennessee, grinds them to concrete consistency for usable trail-building material.
Current park amenities include a baseball and soccer field, basketball courts, a swimming pool, and tennis courts. Where the golf course used to be is now open grassy and hilly land, an area perfect for watching wildlife.
Aerial views of T.O. Fuller State Park show acres of fields and forest. (Photos: Justin Fox Burks)
Warren says that when he was a kid, he used to watch Eddie Payton — the brother of the former Chicago Bears great, Walter Payton — play golf where the grassy area is now. He vividly remembers Eddie running around the golf course to intimidate his opponents. The intimidation tactic, Warren says, was due to the fact that Payton liked to bet on his golf game but was really bad at golf.
“He [Payton] had these huge legs like tree trunks and wore shorts, so he could run around the course and try and scare his opponents,” reminisces Warren, with a chuckle. “The end result is that I witnessed him lose money, a watch, and various other personal items. He was just bad at golf.”
Warren is happy that the public can now enjoy watching eagles, deer, ducks, and numerous other wildlife species where Eddie used to run.
Many of the plans to increase park traffic have been put on hold or have been transformed to fit current health mandates. Ranger Jessica Gossett is tasked with maintaining and implementing evolving programs as the pandemic rules and regulations wax and wane.
Snake charmer? No, that’s Ranger Jessica Gossett. (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Leaning on her educational background through AmeriCorps and substitute teaching, Gossett says, “Through play, children learn about the environment. Play is learning. Programs focus on hands-on and recreational play. Sometimes that means I just go out there and play games, have fun, and run around with young park visitors.”
Some programs Gossett has in the works, awaiting relaxed health mandates, are a program teaching about light pollution, a weather teaching program (developed by a University of Memphis intern), and a geology teaching program. Future activities she hopes to initiate as more people get vaccinated, include LARPing, yoga, and fieldwork.
Look for tree-planting opportunities in April and a program in development called Backyard Greens that showcases plants at the park — and in your backyard — that were brought by settlers to our area. These include purple deadnettle and henbit, two very similar plants in the mint family. One is invasive. Both are edible. Participants will learn to identify and use these plants, as well as other common weeds, in salads and for medicinal purposes.
For now, most programs are still virtual or on-demand. Gossett recently initiated some virtual programs on T.O. Fuller Park’s Facebook page, which include a Black History series, a Living History series about enslaved and free women, and a Black Women’s Suffrage in Tennessee presentation, in honor of the centennial of the 19th amendment.
Gossett says he has noticed a drop in park visitors who may not know that the day-use area is open. “The day-use area is great to view wildlife. If you are still and quiet, you’ll meet great blue and little blue herons, as well as the occasional beaver.”
Catching a beaver at play one day in the day area, Gossett videoed the semiaquatic rodent and posted its activities on the park’s Facebook page. She’s also come face-to-face with a beaver during a survey of the wetlands.
“Beavers are territorial. While surveying the wetlands for an upcoming wetland hike that is in the works, I was stopped by beavers. By ‘stopped,’ I mean they rammed my kayak. Earlier that same day, I accidentally scooped up a diamondback water snake in shallow waters with my paddle.”
Rangers Jessica Gossett, Jimmy Warren, and Decoda Muller (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
In case you are wondering, Gosset said that the beaver was more concerning. Diamondback water snakes are non-venomous.
Ranger Decoda Muller works in tandem with Gossett but uses a different skill set. Muller, who has a carpentry background, has designed bat boxes with donated supplies. While there are many bats who call the park home, Gossett says she wants more, because she was bitten by a mosquito recently. She hopes to find students or scouts who want to put together, paint, and install more bat boxes throughout the park under Muller’s direction.
Muller is currently presenting the birds of prey and reptile programs on demand. Weed wrangles, traditional hikes, kayaking, plant programs, tree-planting, and birding programs will be scheduled in the near future.
As of now, the pool and basketball courts will be closed this year. Other areas that host low-contact sports are open, including soccer fields, baseball fields, and tennis courts. Reading programs that can be accessed virtually and that feature park storyteller Mother Wit (Joy Scott) and the rangers will be added, as well as prerecorded Native American history presentations.
The 1,138 acres of parkland have lots of self-guided activities, Gossett says, especially after a rain, when the ephemeral creeks (temporary creeks) are flowing.
“Along the Discovery trail near the visitor center, these creeks pop up after a rain. At this time, visitors can find crawdads in the muddy silt and see raccoons who come out to feast on them. Native American homestead features like brick and ceramic remnants can be found while the creeks are running,” Gossett says.
T.O. Fuller is the only state park within the Memphis city limits. The park protects and showcases a unique natural habitat while offering a wide range of outdoor recreational assets. Rangers Warren, Gossett, and Muller invite you and your group to come out and experience the magic.
