More than 20 years into his filmmaking career, we know what to expect from a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. There will probably be a cultish organization, with strange practices and unclear motives. The dialogue will sound simplistic on the surface, but conceal deeper meaning. The sex will be weird. There will be mutilation, often self-inflicted. Someone will get licked. Emma Stone will do a little dance.
And yet, Lanthimos’ films are always surprising. Even if you’ve seen everything he’s done, from his 2001 Greek debut My Best Friend to his 2009 breakthrough Dogtooth to last year’s masterpiece Poor Things, you’ll probably have no idea what will happen next when you watch Kinds of Kindness.
Lanthimos’ latest reunites key members of the Poor Things cast: Emma Stone, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Bella Baxter, the dead woman brought back to life after having the brain of her unborn child implanted in her skull, and Willem Dafoe, the mad scientist who did the deed. Joining them is Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, and Mamoudou Athie. Kinds of Kindness is divided into three parts: Each segment is its own isolated story, with the actors playing completely different characters. In “The Death of R.M.F.,” Plemons plays Robert, a corporate executive whose boss Raymond (Dafoe) issues daily memos which control every aspect of his life. When Robert is ordered to deliberately crash his car, he balks, and Raymond cuts him off. Unsure of what to do with his sudden freedom, Robert flails wildly.
In “R.M.F. Is Flying,” Plemons plays Daniel, a police officer whose wife Liz (Stone) is missing at sea. His partner Neil (Athie) tries to keep Daniel on track, but when Liz is rescued, his insanity only deepens.
In “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” Stone and Plemons play Emily and Andrew, a pair of cultists whose leaders Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau) have issued a prophecy about a woman with the ability to bring people back from the dead. It’s Emily and Andrew’s job to find her.
Kinds of Kindness delves into three isolated stories, with Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and more playing different characters throughout.
Kinds of Kindness’ three segments may not have common characters, but they do have common themes. In each story, someone is rejected, either from a group or by an individual, and takes drastic action to try to get back into the fold. An obsession with control — who wields it, who is subject to it, who needs it — winds its way through the three stories. Stone, who has emerged as one of the best actresses of her generation, remains Lanthimos’ muse. Her three characters couldn’t be more different, and she is brilliant in all three roles. In the third segment, she even tries her hand at stunt driving.
Plemons’ talent shines throughout the film. In the first segment, his disorientation at having to make his own decisions after a decade of Dafoe dictating his every move is at first hilarious, then poignant, then horrifying. In “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” his vulnerability as a grieving husband gives way to a steely, destructive determination.
Dafoe, the consummate pro, works wonders with Lanthimos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou’s often difficult material. In the hands of lesser actors, these stories might come off as silly. Filippou also co-wrote The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which means Kinds of Kindness is a different flavor from the visual extravagance of Poor Things. Instead of the fantastical steampunk cities of an alternate Europe, Kinds of Kindness was filmed on location in New Orleans. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan brings out the Crescent City’s threatening, surreal side.
As with all of Lanthimos’ films, this isn’t for everyone. But if you’re already on board with his unique, often disturbing world view, you will find Kinds of Kindness ranks with the director’s best work.
Kinds of Kindness is now playing at Studio on the Square and Collierville Cinema Grill & MXT.
Tulsa 1921 (Photo: Courtesy Memphis Media Masters)
At the corner of South Main and Huling, on the sidewalk around Urevbu Contemporary, look down. You’ll see tiles marked with titles like Tulsa 1921; Johnstown, PA, 1923 Massacre; and Memphis Massacre 1866. Scan the QR code with your phone, and you’ll be led to a page revealing the history behind the titles.
All of this is part of Ephraim Urevbu’s The Naked Truth Art Project, a project, he says, that’s been nine years in the making. “What we wanted to do was [find a way to] use the arts to ignite conversation,” Urevbu says. “While I was doing this project, I was asking people questions like, ‘Do you know anything about Memphis Massacre of 1866?’ A lot of Memphians who live here don’t even know about that. I have to come from Africa to just to share it. … But how can we genuinely begin to address some of these differences we have if we don’t know what is causing it? So, I wanted to go back to the beginning, bringing up all these stories.
“Let us talk about these stories, engage each other about them. And maybe we can have a common space where we can really begin to reason together. That is what this project is all about. … The reason we’re doing tiles is because not too many people come to galleries and museums, so we created tiles with QR codes on them.”
Memphis Massacre 1866 (Photo: Courtesy Memphis Media Masters)
The project goes beyond the tiles, though, as it’s an ongoing collection of over a hundred works exploring American history — the history that America is most ashamed of — its violence, racial injustice, mass shootings. “American history is a rich history,” Urevbu says. “There is the good; there’s the bad; there’s the ugly. [That’s true for the] history of every other country in the world, but every other country in the world embraces their stories. America wants to run away from their story, which is disastrous in the end, because if you don’t know your stories, there’s a tendency for us to repeat them.”
In that vein, layers of mixed media, including newspaper and magazine print, in the tile art indicate a need to uncover what’s underneath. “Our stories our embedded, hidden,” Urevbu says. “So, what I’m doing [with the tiles] is … I’m encouraging people to peel [back the layers]; as you peel, things like this begin to show up. … Each of these events ended up with blood being spilled. That’s why you see the red dots. It’s like spilling of blood. Sometimes I have to go real graphic to get people’s attention.”
As of the official unveiling of the tiles on June 19th, The Naked Truth Art Project has installed 12 tiles, all of which were manufactured in Italy to last 100 years of weather and foot traffic, but the goal is to install more in Memphis and one day have them all over America. “We have a big ambition here,” Urevbu says. “Memphis should be proud of this project. Memphis should own this project. Memphis should run with this project because this is a project that a lot of cities would be dying to have.”
The Naked Truth Art Project, Urevbu Contemporary, 410 South Main, on view now.
When imagining a musician on tour, a series of stock images probably go through your mind: a scruffy van loaded with gear, T-shirts in bad need of a laundromat, fast food wrappers stuffed in the back of an amp. But in reality, musicians have their antennas out for any venue that works, traveling not only by road, but by rails, air, and even on the high seas. Take Memphis native Happie Hoffman, aka Happie, a singer/songwriter in the indie-pop-folk vein who recently played a cruise ship. That alone isn’t that novel — there are many musically themed cruises of the Caribbean — but this one left from Tromsø, Norway, bound for the Arctic Circle.
If that sounds like a dream vacation to any Memphian oppressed by the current heat wave, there was far more to it than that, and it’s emblematic of Hoffman’s unique commitment to community. She describes her fellow passengers not as fans or patrons to be entertained, but as “about 150 friends, friends of friends, and creative entrepreneurs.”
Uniting all these friends was a desire to heal the world in multiple ways. The many friends on the tour came together under a few organizations that approach the issues of our day in complementary ways. “The cruise,” says Hoffman, “was in partnership with a morning dance company called Daybreaker, the Pachamama Alliance that’s working on saving the Amazon and the rain forest, and the Belong Center. Their mission is to help end loneliness.”
The Daybreaker organization may be unknown to some, though word of their unique mission — “to dance with reckless abandon at daybreak, sans substances, turning nightlife on its head” — has rapidly spread over the past decade. And it’s evolved beyond dancing, with multiple global destinations and “immersive expeditions to the most tender parts of the planet … raising millions of dollars for climate initiatives,” as their website explains. Along the way, co-founder Radha Agrawal wrote the book Belong: Find Your People, Create Community, and Live a More Connected Life and founded the Belong Center.
And, given that the poles are indeed some of the “most tender parts of the planet” in this age of climate change, Hoffman’s journey makes more sense. “I have played on four voyages to Antarctica over the past two and a half years, that started with this group of friends traveling, and this was our first time going to the Arctic,” she says.
It all dovetails nicely with Hoffman’s concern for community in all its manifestations. As detailed in our 2022 feature on her, her melodious voice first found an outlet at Temple Israel, eventually leading to her being named cantorial soloist there. “I’m a fully integrated part of the clergy team at Temple Israel,” she said at the time. “My aim is to move people spiritually, and my mode of doing that is music.”
She now lives full-time in New York City and is no longer as involved in Temple Israel services, singing mainly during the High Holy Days here, but the quest to move people spiritually has remained. Lately, her approach to that has not been through Jewish spiritual music or protest songs about the petroleum-based economy, but through her own observations about love.
Happie Hoffman as a child with her father (Photo: Ann Margaret Hedges)
Indeed, her latest songs, dropping as singles throughout this summer and ultimately culminating in an EP this fall, focus solely on love. Still, that leaves a lot of emotional territory for her to explore as she travels and performs, single-mindedly pursuing her secular music career. The first single, for example, which dropped last month, is all about her father.
“This album is about different cases of love in our lives, whether they be romantic, or dear friends, or familial,” she says, adding, “and familial love is a beautiful aspect of that, a very real one.” It’s evoked beautifully by the album’s title track, “Shooting Star,” a meditation on how fleeting our lives are, even as the love between a parent and a child endures. The video for the song is being released on Wednesday, July 3rd, and it’s a work that comes very much from the heart.
“I wrote the song when I was home for the holidays, in a songwriting session with one of my best friends and cowriters, Ori Rakib. And as we began to write the chorus, he did a thing that people writing music often do. He said, ‘This song is about your dad.’ And I immediately started crying. And then the song poured out of us.”
Songs that pour out from that emotional place are what Happie Hoffman is all about, and these days, with the world in turmoil and climate disasters looming, she may well have found the key to the higher sense of community that we’re capable of, one that can span the globe: the many faces of love.
While the new Memphis Art Museum got the green light to begin construction on Front Street last week, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Overton Park is expanding its public programming by 400 percent.
The Brooks will change its name when it moves Downtown. For now, museum officials said they want make it a hang out spot for the entire community.
“We are quadrupling the number of public programs with a goal to deepen community bonds for countless Memphians — and we’re just getting started,” said Brooks executive director Zoe Kahr. “We’re excited to grow the many ways Memphis’ art museum can be the go-to place for Memphis’ families all week long, all summer long. The museum is not only a place to view beautiful artwork, but also a gathering place for everyone in our community.”
The museum is not only a place to view beautiful artwork, but also a gathering place for everyone in our community.”
Brooks executive director Zoe Kahr
Expanded programming highlights include:
Music events held weekly: cabaret-style performances in the Terrace Room, gallery performances inspired by the art on display, and headliner shows in the Hohenberg Auditorium.
Super Saturday: Free, drop-in art-making sessions for families will now happen weekly instead of monthly starting August 3rd. Registration is required, but the sessions are free.
Figure drawing: Five times a month, artists of all levels can practice and improve their skills drawing the human form at Memphis’ art museum. All sessions are led by a local artist and either include a clothed or nude model.
Wine and art events: Wine classes, wine tastings, flower arranging workshops, art dinners, and and more.
“Christian Siriano: People Are People”: The fashion exhibition closes on August 4th.
The Brooks museum will also now be open late (until 8 p.m.) on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays.
“Songwriting for me is like entering a trance,” says RØA. “Of all of the music I’ve written, the songs I’m most proud of — I don’t really remember how they came about. I may recall the emotion or circumstance that compelled me to write, but the actual process of writing the song always escapes me.”
RØA, aka Jasmine Roach, recorded their debut EP, which will be released on September 20, at Young Avenue Sound. “Comfortable,” the first single, features recording engineer Dane Giordano on bass and Thomas Lamm on drums. The song was mixed and mastered with additional production by RØA and Jay Particular at Unkewl Sound.
RØA says “Upon listening to “Comfortable” the first couple of times, I was convinced it was a love song, as this would be the most obvious reflection of my being at that time, or so I thought. As I’ve grown more familiar with the song however, I realize that it’s more of an internal chant, an invitation to the deepest parts of myself. And this inner voice evokes a kind of initiation into a realm of more authentic expression, embodied by the phrase, ‘I just wanna make you comfortable.’”
West Tennessee Legal Services (WTLS) secured federal funding Monday, establishing it as the official nonprofit agency offering legal services to families living below the poverty line in Shelby, Tipton, Fayette, and Lauderdale counties.
Memphis Area Legal Services lost the federal funding this year, as officials had concerns about its operation. The money comes from Legal Services Corporation (LSC), a nonprofit created by Congress. That money ($940,301) will now go to the WTLS.
“LSC’s top priority is that low-income families in the Memphis service area receive high-quality assistance for their civil legal problems,” said LSC president Ronald Flagg. “We support WTLS’ expansion of services in the Memphis region and look forward to following their progress in providing effective legal services to those in need.”
The group is headquartered in Jackson. It will prioritize cases on access to healthcare, securing or retaining income, securing or retaining shelter, personal freedom and security of abused persons or institutionalized persons, and issues that affect family safety, cohesiveness, and stability.
“Our team is eager to get work providing these crucial services to individuals and families across this region,” said Ashley Holliday, executive director of WTLS. “As we grow, our focus will remain constant: to ensure that people in need have access to justice and the support they deserve.”
WTLS is actively hiring attorneys and paralegals to handle cases involving housing, domestic violence, public benefits, and consumer issues. The organization will also hire a pro bono staff attorney, who will be tasked with coordinating additional support from the private bar.
“Initially, our case volume will be limited as we grow our staff,” said Holliday. “We will increase capacity as we hire and train new team members for our Memphis office. We’ll be adding a pro bono staff attorney to build relationships with the private bar, and we anticipate seeing a significant increase in our pro bono unit’s case volume by 2025.”
Tennessee lawmakers on the Joint Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Adequacy of the Supervision, Investigation, and Release of Criminal Defendants review prison release and sentencing policies at October 6 hearing (Photo: John Partipilo)
This article was originally published by The Lever, an investigative newsroom.
As states across the country adopt harsh new sentencing laws, private prison companies are celebrating, telling investors that they soon expect more people in their prisons — and even higher profits.
From Mississippi to California, many states have taken a decided “tough on crime” tack over the past two years in a strengthening backlash to criminal justice reform efforts in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. This year, Louisiana passed a package of harsh sentencing laws that will keep some people in prison for years longer. A new parole board in Mississippi is keeping people in prison for longer terms by denying early release. In March, Washington, D.C. enacted a sweeping anti-crime package.
These laws, advocates warn, threaten to reverse years of progress in the fight against mass incarceration. Instead, they would again trap people in prison for lengthy terms, ripping apart communities and exacerbating racial and socioeconomic inequality — while enriching the private firms that manage prisons and their shareholders.
Perhaps no state is more emblematic of the recent sentencing crackdown — and the private interests that stand to benefit — than Tennessee, where one of the world’s largest prison companies is headquartered.
Since 2022, lawmakers in Tennessee have fought to enact a slate of harsh sentencing laws that are expected to increase the state’s spending on incarceration by tens of millions of dollars annually. The key power brokers behind the legislation are also some of the top recipients of private prison company cash, The Lever found.
On May 28, Gov. Bill Lee signed the latest of these proposals into law, a bill that will end the use of so-called “sentence reduction credits,” which allow people incarcerated in Tennessee to serve shorter sentences as a reward for a clean record in prison. The law, which will only apply to future offenses, is projected by the state to result in a “significant increase” in spending on incarceration.
For the people locked up in Tennessee’s prison system, who are disproportionately poor and Black, this will mean, in some cases, they will spend years longer in a prison cell. There’s little evidence that longer sentences deter crime.
But the law does have at least one key beneficiary: Tennessee’s private prison contractor, CoreCivic, formerly the Corrections Corporation of America, one of the world’s largest prison companies, which will almost certainly see new profits as a direct result of the legislation. The company, which spends millions of dollars a year lobbying both in states and on a federal level, has begun telling its investors that harsh sentencing laws across the country will soon translate to bigger profits from the 70-plus prisons it runs nationwide.
“There has been a fair amount of activity both this year, and really the last two years, within state legislatures on adjustments to sentencing reform,” Damon Hininger, CoreCivic’s CEO, who has political aspirations in Tennessee, said in an earnings call last month.
Hininger said he expected this development to lead to “pretty significant increases” in prison populations — good news for the prison company, which is often paid by how many inmates are housed in prison at a given time. Already, he said, higher occupancy rates in CoreCivic-managed prisons had led to, in turn, “strong financial results” for investors.
Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, an advocacy organization that focuses on the harms of prison industries, called Hininger’s comments “brazen” and proof that the companies “don’t think people are listening.”
“It’s a real travesty that we’re allowing industry to shape what our carceral system looks like,” she said.
David Raybin, a criminal defense attorney in Nashville, has been fighting for sentencing reform in Tennessee since the 1970s. He has witnessed decades of ebbs and flows in sentencing policies. Yet the crackdown that Tennessee lawmakers have launched over the last two years is like nothing he’s ever seen before.
“Over time, it will have an enormous effect,” he said.
“It just absolutely increased the sentences tremendously,” Raybin said.
The 2022 law was just the beginning of Tennessee’s draconian sentencing crackdown. Last year, lawmakers proposed a “three-strike” bill requiring even harsher sentences for people with prior convictions. The legislation passed a key House committee last year but did not reach the governor’s desk, though it has continued to move forward in the Tennessee Senate this session.
Should the three-strike bill ultimately pass, it will require an entirely new prison to be built in Tennessee to house 1,400 more inmates, costing taxpayers at least $384 million.
In May, ignoring the outcry of criminal justice advocates around the state, Lee signed a bill that will largely end early release from prison, which inmates were able to earn through participation in educational programming and maintaining a clean record in the system.
Now, people in Tennessee’s prisons will only be released early on parole, which in the state is rarely granted. The effect will be to “keep people incarcerated longer,” said Matthew Charles, a Nashville-based policy advisor with Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a nonprofit that advocates for more just sentencing reform.
Lee also signed a new law this spring that will impose adult sentences on teenagers after they have served a juvenile sentence, which criminal justice reform advocates say will have “alarming” repercussions for youth in the state.
It will take several years before the full impact of the laws becomes clear as new cases wend their way through the courts.
“It’s not immediate,” said Dawn Deaner, the executive director of the Nashville organization Choosing Justice Initiative. She estimated that it would take more than five years to start to see the full effect of the new sentencing laws.
“But we’re going to see the prison populations grow,” she said.
The people that have the money
Tennessee is an important state for CoreCivic, as evidenced by the company’s significant lobbying expenditures in the state. The private prison company is headquartered in Nashville, and it has long been one of the state’s biggest political spenders. Since 2009, the company has spent $3.7 million on lobbying and campaign donations in the state, a Lookout analysis found.
In response to a request for comment from The Lever, CoreCivic spokesperson Brian Todd wrote the company “supports candidates and elected officials who understand the limited but important solutions our company can provide,” and noted that it employs 1,200 people at its prisons in Tennessee.
Although a Tennessee law from the 1980s mandates that the state have only one privately run prison, CoreCivic has carved out a loophole after years of attempts to rewrite the law entirely. The company now runs four of the state’s fourteen prisons by routing contracts through counties rather than the state. Together, the value of those four contracts exceeds$200 million.
Lobbying records from last year indicate that CoreCivic has a small army of eight lobbyists working on its behalf in Tennessee’s state house. According to state campaign spending data aggregated by FollowTheMoney.org, Lee, Tennessee’s current governor, has received the most money from the private prison company of any politician in the nation: $65,400 over the last two election cycles, including donations from company executives, making the company one of his largest donors.
This year, Hininger, CoreCivic’s CEO, who is said to be considering a run for Tennessee governor in 2026, chaired a fundraiser dinner for the state Republican Party and personally gave each attendee a souvenir glass emblazoned with the state’s Republican Party logo. Hininger himself has donated more than $100,000 to politicians in Tennessee over the years.
Meanwhile, lawmakers who have pushed the slate of harsh sentencing laws in Tennessee have been rewarded.
House Republican Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland), a former county prosecutor, has spearheaded the sentencing bills in the state, championing the sweeping 2022 law and sponsoring the more recent bill that did away with early release.
“He’s been very active in trying to pass harsher sentencing laws,” said Deaner of the Choosing Justice Initiative.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton, center, with House Majority Leader William Lamberth at left and Republican Caucus Leader Jeremy Faison. (Photo: John Partipilo)
Lamberth is also one of CoreCivic’s biggest beneficiaries in Tennessee, receiving $8,500 from the company. So, too, are other Republican champions of the sentencing bills, including Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge), who has received $7,500 from CoreCivic, House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) ($10,000), and Rep. Jerome Moon (R-Maryville). ($3,000).
The money is “absolutely” having an impact on policy, Deaner said.
“Who are the people that have the money in Tennessee?” she said. “Particularly in rural places, there’s not a lot of wealthy donors.”
In the absence of other campaign funding sources, this state of affairs has allowed CoreCivic to wield an especially significant influence with state lawmakers, she said.
Driven by greed
CoreCivic regularly claims it does not lobby on sentencing-related bills — in Tennessee or elsewhere — and did so again in response to questions from The Lever.
“CoreCivic does not lobby or take positions on any policies, regulations or legislation that impact the basis for or duration of an individual’s incarceration,” said Todd, the company spokesperson.
But it’s clear from executives’ statements to investors that they are, at the very least, monitoring these laws closely.
“Going forward, the next three years to five years, a lot of states are looking at pretty significant increases [to prison populations] because, again, of changes, maybe, in sentencing reform,” Hininger said in the May call.
For the first time in a decade, prison populations across the country are rising after a dramatic drop in 2020 during the pandemic, when court backlogs and early releases due to COVID-19 lowered the number of people in prisons. The majority of states have reported an increase in the number of people incarcerated in their prisons over the last two years, according to a study published by the U.S. Department of Justice last November. According to the report, there were currently more than 1.2 million people behind bars — raising the country’s already sky-high incarceration rate.
A significant part of this incarceration surge is the return of normal court systems as judges worked through case backlogs that had persisted through the pandemic. But tough sentencing laws, criminal justice reforms say, also appear to be playing a role. Prison executives agree.
“In conclusion,” Hininger said in May. “The macro environment in which we operate continues to improve.”
The agency found Tennessee is seeing one of the country’s sharpest increases in its prison population — a reported 8 percent surge between 2021 and 2022. Colorado, Montana, and Mississippi all reported incarceration rates growing at 8 percent or above, and another 42 states reported some growth in their prison populations.
Many of CoreCivic’s prison contracts, including in Tennessee, are paid on a “per inmate, per day” basis, meaning that these fluctuations in prison populations directly impact the company’s bottom line. Many of the company’s facilities, its financial statements show, are not at full occupancy levels — and laws that could change this would put money directly into the pockets of prison companies.
CoreCivic’s “unholy alliance,” in the words of one state Democratic lawmaker, with the state of Tennessee illustrates just how greatly private interests are profiting from rollbacks to criminal justice reforms — whether that’s prison companies raking in cash from harsh sentencing laws or the bail industry’s success in Georgia, which reimposed cash bail requirements after experimenting with bail reform, a move that will benefit bail bond agents and insurers.
“This moment is revealing exactly what we’ve known about the carceral system,” Tylek of Worth Rises said. “The expansive use of incarceration as a solution to social failures is driven by greed.”
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.For more information on The Lever, go here.
Construction on the new Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Downtown can continue “full steam ahead” after a court ruling Friday.
Shelby County Chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson denied a request from Friends of Our Riverfront (FOR) to stop the build. The group has long contended that land at the top of the bluff, where the new museum is being built, is public.
“Neither the city nor Brooks owns this property,” the group has said. “Memphians have an easement to use the property as a public promenade and the city is the trustee. This means that the city can use this land only for the specific purpose of a riverfront greenway.”
With this, the group sued the city and the Brooks in September to halt construction. The court ordered the group to post a bond of $1 million to offset damages to the project should it be temporarily halted. FOR urged the court to waive the bond. The Brooks and city officials asked the bond to be set at $5 million.
The group never posted the bond. So, the judge dismissed its request to stop construction.
“This victory paves the way for us to bring Memphis one of the greatest cultural institutions in the country,” Brooks Chief development Officer Melissa Whitby said in an email to museum members. “This achievement would not have been possible without the unwavering support of our community, patrons, and partners. We are deeply grateful for your trust and commitment throughout this journey.”
Credit: Memphis Art Museum
FOR made no immediate public comment on the decision. In a Facebook post Thursday, the group said, “hard to believe a huge Soviet-style building that blocks the riverfront is actually good for anybody, Brooks included.”
The group has long fought projects along the bluff. It wants to conserve the riverfront from Big River Crossing to the Wolf River Greenway “as green space for public enjoyment, preserving its historic, natural, and authentic character.”
Credit: Friends for Our Riverfront
The Brooks broke ground last year on the new museum at the corner of Front and Union, the site of the former Memphis Fire Services Division headquarters. The museum will have a new name, the Memphis Art Museum, and is slated to open next year.
In her email, Whitby said the facility is expected to attract 150,000 new visitors to Memphis, generate about $100 million in economic impact, and “provide transformative experiences to more than 30,000 school-age children annually.”
“For years, our goal has been to establish for the people of Memphis one of the greatest cultural institutions in the country,” said Carl Person, chair of the museum board. “Today, thanks to the unwavering dedication of many, many supporters, we are closer than ever to making that dream a reality. This portion of our riverfront will soon be home not only to a world-class art museum, but acres of new, open, art-filled, and accessible public space for everyone to enjoy.”
Grind City Brewing Company will host a fireworks display from this view on July 4th (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Pyrotechnics fans can go uptown for the Downtown Memphis Fireworks @ Grind City Brewing Company on July 4th.
Grind City Brewing Company at 76 Waterworks Avenue will host the event with fireworks, live music, food, and drinks. “Everything is ready to rock and roll for the fireworks,” says Grind City president Hopper Seely.
The event will be held in the tap room and on the brewery’s two acres from noon to 10 p.m. “We have the Memphis skyline in the background. We have the bridge. We have the Pyramid. It is quintessential Memphis.” And, he adds, the brewery features “a beautiful natural landscape along the skyline.”
Seely describes the event as a family occasion. It’s for “people from uptown, downtown, Mud Island, the Pinch, and the medical district.” Or anywhere.
Seely believes the last time a Mud Island July 4th fireworks display was held downtown was in 2021. “The first Fourth of July for the brewery, we had just a really great day. Everybody was lined up with blankets and chairs along the fence line watching the fireworks. It was awesome.”
It “has just been kind of a downer in Memphis” after they stopped doing the July 4th downtown fireworks, he says. “Then it hit us. It was a Hail Mary. What if we do it?”
They shared the idea with the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC), which “helped us understand the legality of doing it. Permits. Coding. That kind of stuff. The Commission gave us their support to have the fireworks here and we’re very excited.”
Seely is planning for a crowd. “We are expecting at least 1,000 people to be here. We are able to have up to 5,500 people on site. We’ve got just under two acres of space, so people will be able to sit, play, and watch the fireworks.”
There are picnic tables on the grounds, but attendees are encouraged to bring blankets and chairs.
Hopper Seely (Credit: Michael Donahue)
“It’s going to be a slightly elevated Fourth of July experience,” says Grind City marketing director Anna House. “It almost becomes like a courtyard/backyard experience with food on one side, games and inflatables on the other side.”
A lot of shows are designed for people to just watch the fireworks and go home. “We wanted this to be a party.”
People can bring refillable water, but other drinks, as well as alcoholic drinks, will have to be purchased from the brewery and food from the food trucks. “To make sure the food vendors do OK,” Seely says.
Grind City will feature “a few drink options,” including its popular seasonal drink Krispie Treat that they will re-launch at the event. “It is our rice lager that tastes like a home-made krispy treat.”
They will be launching their “Southern Suga’” on July 4th. “It is our newest seltzer and is like a spiked sweet tea, served with a lemon wedge.”
Krispie Treat and Southern Suga’ (Credit: Anna House)
Participating food trucks are Chi Phi Food Truck (Chicago-style hot dogs and Philly cheese steaks), Mempops, El Mero Taco (Mexican), and Champs BBQ (Memphis-style barbecue).
Two lots of paid parking will be available on a first-come-first-served basis but, Seely says, “We will have the police monitor the street for any street parking.”
“We are excited about the fireworks at Grind City,” says Milton Howery III, vice-president of marketing, communications, and events for the DMC. “This event will bring great economic activity to the uptown neighborhood, the north Memphis community, and those communities that connect to downtown and uptown.”
Also, he says, “The DMC is working with other downtown partners to bring the fireworks back to the riverfront in 2025.”
In the meantime, in addition to Grind City’s show, the Red, White & Boom Celebration will be held July 3rd at AutoZone Park. And the “Liberty For All” festival will be held July 3rd at Liberty Park.
“The fireworks that were on the riverfront the people could see shoot up from Mud Island, those fireworks were typically a joint effort between multiple entities,” Howery says. Those displays ended a few years ago because of Covid and downtown construction.
To get to Grind City Brewing Company, go north on Second Street by way of Main Street or Front Street to Waterworks Avenue.
Best Actress winner Emma Stone stars in Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness. (Courtesy Searchlight Pictures)
There’s plenty of great stuff on the big screen in Memphis, so quit doomscrolling and go see a movie this weekend.
Kinds of Kindness
Best Actress winner Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and director Yorgos Lanthimos reunite for another absurdist comedy after the triumph of 2023’s Poor Things. They are joined by Jesse Plemons (whose performance earned him a Best Actor nod at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival), Margaret Qualley, and Hong Chau for a triptych of intertwined stories about love, death, and healing.
A Quiet Place: Day One
The third film in the series goes back to the beginning, which is the end of civilization. Blind space monsters with extremely sensitive hearing land on Earth and start eating up all the tasty people. That’s not so yummy for Lupita Nyong’o, a New Yorker who witnesses the invasion, and must escape very quietly. But don’t worry, she’s got a plan.
Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1
Kevin Costner directs Kevin Costner in this epic tale — a saga if you will — of American expansion in the West during the pre- and post-Civil War period. Expect horses, hats, and guns from this highly punctuated title.
Inside Out 2
This brilliant sequel is the biggest box office hit of the year. Head emotion Joy (Amy Poehler) must keep her human Riley (Kensington Tallman) on track as the ravages of puberty take hold, and a new emotion named Anxiety (Maya Hawke) arrives at headquarters. Beautifully animated with stealthily profound screenplay, Inside Out 2 is a must-see. (Read my full review, which, spoiler alert, borders on the rapturous.)
Kalki 2898 AD
Malco has been getting a lot of Indian movies over the last couple of years. This one promises to be different. It’s not a Bollywood song-and-dance film, as much as we love them. Kalki 2898 is the most expensive film ever made in India, weighing in at an impressive $6 billion rupees (approximately $72 million). It’s a sci fi epic inspired by Hindu mythology which is intended to kick off a Marvel-style cinematic universe. And it looks pretty cool.
