Tag: Malco

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Film Features Film/TV

Now Playing in Memphis: Killer Dolls, Hollywood Babylon, and Hitch

The titular murder doll from M3GAN.

… And we’re back for 2023! Now that you’re over your New Year’s Eve hangover, we’ve got plenty of great stuff on Memphis’ big screens to distract you from the work you must perform now that the holidays are over.

If your post-holiday blues are leading you to a dark place, we recommend M3GAN. Nepo baby Allison Williams stars as a roboticist named Gemma who unexpectedly has to raise her orphaned niece Cady (Violet McGraw). Her big labor saving idea to create a robotic best friend for Cady who will protect her from all harm, both physical and emotional. What could possibly go wrong?

If Terminator Babies doesn’t scratch your itch for total reality escape, now is the time to catch Avatar: The Way of Water in 3D IMAX. James Cameron’s long-gestating sequel is actually pretty good, and you’ve got to see it in a theater to get the full effect.

Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt lead an all star cast in Damien Chazelle’s decadent tribute to Old Hollywood, Babylon. Did you know they did cocaine in the silent era? Because they absolutely did.

British actress Naomi Ackie tackles a hell of a difficult role in the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody. How do you play someone with a very distinctive look and a once-in-a-generation voice?

Black Lodge is spending the new year plumbing its collection for classics. On Sunday, that means David Cronenberg’s 1996 masterpiece Crash. Adopted from the J.G. Ballard novel about people who sexually fetishize automobile accidents, this slow-burn erotic thriller boasts one of Holly Hunter’s greatest (and strangest) performances.

January Tuesdays at Black Lodge are dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock, and the next one features what may be my personal favorite Hitch: 1951’s Strangers on a Train. Robert Walker was fresh out of being hospitalized for mental illness at the Menninger Clinic when he was cast as the film’s villain, and died under mysterious circumstances shortly after the premiere. Watch as the best “murderous, yet charming psychopath” in film history reels in his mark.

Thursday, Crosstown Theater screens a very different kind of classic. Werner Herzog is best known today for doing compelling, personal documentaries and guest shots on The Mandalorian. But before he was famous for his world-weary voice, he directed a string of intense films in the 1970s, many starring his frenemy Klaus Kinski. In Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Kinski stars as a Spanish conquistador who leads his band of soldiers and camp followers on a suicide mission into the Amazon jungle. In this trailer, watch for the scene where Kinski intimidates a horse. I’m betting that was an improv.

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Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Spend Saturday Night with David Bowie at the Drive-In

Ever since Ziggy Stardust left Earth in January, 2016, there’s been a David Bowie-shaped hole in the world. Let’s face it: Things have been going downhill ever since. You can get a recharge of that Thin White Duke energy at the Malco Summer Drive-In Saturday night as the monthly Time Warp Drive-In celebrates Bowie’s film career.

From the beginning, Bowie’s music and persona were tied up with acting. He trained as a mime, which heavily influenced his stage presentation; “Cracked Actor” is a standout track on his 1973 record Aladdin Sane. When Bowie got in front of a camera, the results were spectacular. He’s almost always the most interesting thing on the screen. Watch him effortlessly dominate Tony Award winner Hugh Jackman in this scene from The Prestige.

Christopher Nolan’s best film is not on the Time Warp marquee this week, but you won’t be disappointed with the selections. First up is a cult masterpiece from 1986, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. I recently revisited the dark fairy tale with actor and Black Nerd Power podcaster Markus Seaberry as part of my Never Seen It series, and it’s a highly entertaining read. The best part is our back and forth about the prominent Bowie package, which is actually thematically relevant in this story about pubescent ennui. Here’s Jennifer Connelly facing her greatest fear: David Bowie’s sexuality.

Speaking of David Bowie’s sexuality, the next film is a steamy goth horror classic from the late director Tony Scott. Released three years prior to Labyrinth, the same year as Bowie’s epochal Let’s Dance album, The Hunger stars Bowie and Catherine Deneuve as incredibly sexy vampires who take a shine to a doctor, played by Susan Sarandon. Here’s the classic opening sequence featuring Bauhaus performing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” that made a million black roses bloom.

The final movie in the Time Warp is another celebrated cult oddity. First gaining attention with the documentary about the rise of The Sex Pistols, The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, Julien Temple was one of the hottest music video directors of the 1980s, creating classic clips for Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, The Rolling Stones, and, of course, Bowie. Absolute Beginners was his high ’80s musical about the birth of rock-and-roll in England. It’s a fascinating mixture of eye-popping visuals and extremely questionable decisions. It spawned one of Bowie’s biggest hits, the theme song “Absolute Beginners,” which he does not perform in the movie. Watch the money burn in this incredibly over-the-top musical number.

The Time Warp Drive-In starts at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 24, at the Malco Summer Drive-In.

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Indie Memphis Partnering with Sundance to Bring Prestigious Film Fest to Memphis

The global pandemic has upended the film world in many ways, and film festivals were among the first to feel the heat. Held in late January, Sundance, North America’s most prestigious festival, just barely escaped the fate of festivals like the local Oxford Film Festival, which had to cancel their March screenings and scramble to mount an online presence as the economy collapsed around them. But Sundance will have no such luck in January 2021, when the epidemiological conditions will be worse than they were in the spring.

Like Indie Memphis, which had a very successful “online and outdoors” festival in October, Sundance has had time to observe and adapt to the new pandemic normal. In response, the festival is moving beyond its traditional Park City, Utah, home and taking its cutting-edge film slate to where people live.

“Even under these impossible circumstances, artists are still finding paths to make bold and vital work in whatever ways they can,” says Sundance festival director Tabitha Jackson. “So Sundance, as a festival of discovery, will bring that work to its first audiences in whatever ways we can. The core of our festival in the form of an online platform and socially distanced cinematic experiences is responsive to the pandemic and gives us the opportunity to reach new audiences, safely, where they are. And thanks to a constellation of independent cinema communities across the U.S., we are not putting on our festival alone. At the heart of all this is a belief in the power of coming together, and the desire to preserve what makes a festival unique — a collaborative spirit, a collective energy, and a celebration of the art, artists, and ideas that leave us changed.”

Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson

Indie Memphis is partnering with Sundance to bring festival screenings to the Malco Summer Drive-In, where the homegrown film arts organization anchored its 2020 festival. It’s not the first collaboration between the two festivals. Jackson gave the closing remarks at Indie Memphis’ 2020 Black Creators Forum.

“We are thrilled to be selected as a satellite partner for the Sundance Film Festival!” says Indie Memphis executive director Ryan Watt. “This is a special opportunity for the city of Memphis to take part in the most significant filmmaker-launching platform in the country. Our audience loved the Summer Drive-In during our recent film festival, and we are so grateful to Malco for making it available again for this special occasion.”

Sundance screenings will take place at the drive-in January 28th to Feb 3rd, with the exact lineup to be announced in the coming weeks. The Malco Summer Drive-In will join the ranks of venues across the country, including the Pasadena Rose Bowl, the Sidewalk Film Festival cinema in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, that will host films. All 70 Sundance feature films will be streaming on their online platform, festival.sundance.org.

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Cover Feature News

Give Memphis! Great Local Gift Ideas for the Holidays

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

If 2020 has proven anything, it’s that we need to come together to support our community — the health, happiness, and longevity of our fellow Memphians count on it now more than ever. While we may not be able to gather with friends and family for gift exchanges like we have in the past, we can still lift their spirits with thoughtful presents that help our local restaurants, retail outlets, and entrepreneurs keep doing what they do. Think local this season!

A Box of Magic

Have a giftee in your life who seeks to better understand their own power, to look within and outside for growth and restoration? Give them a box of magic, or as Sami Harvey, owner of Foxglove Pharm, calls it: a Coven Box.

“I’ve always been amazed by Mother Nature’s ability to heal, and I love finding new ways to use her ingredients to solve my problems,” Harvey says. “I started Foxglove Pharm in 2017 because I wanted to share some of those solutions with my community.”

Each subscription box ($40/month) includes a rotating variety of handcrafted herbal “remeteas” (About Last Night: Hangover Tea, Out of the Blue: Third Eye Tea, and others), scented oils, Resting Witch Face skincare products, rituals, and more special items that “honor the moon, the current astrological phase, and a featured plant.”

Sami Harvey

Each month, she partners with another local maker or small business to spotlight their wares. For her Foxglove offerings, Harvey is “the only witch in the kitchen,” so the products are small-batch and made with “ethically sourced, organic, sustainable ingredients.”

Regarding the rituals included in a box (or separately on the website), Harvey says, “These aren’t like supernatural spells that will destroy all your enemies and turn Michelle Obama into your BFF. But they’re ways to meditate and channel your energy into manifesting a better reality for yourself. The real magic ingredient is you and your intention.”

Visit foxglovepharm.com to order a Coven Box and shop products. — Shara Clark

Feed an Artist

The old cliché about “starving artists” has seldom been more true. Buying art is often the last thing folks are thinking about during tough times like these, but our Memphis painters and sculptors and photographers — and their galleries — have bills to pay, just like the rest of us. That’s why this might be a great year to put a new painting on your wall, or gift someone a work of art so they’ll be reminded of you every day.

Courtesy Jay Etkin Gallery

Untitled by John Ryan

There are many fine galleries in Memphis. Here are just a few: L Ross, David Lusk, Jay Etkin, Crosstown Arts, Orange Mound Gallery, Art Village, Cooper-Young Gallery, and B. Collective. Artists featured include Matthew Hasty, Jeanne Seagle, John Ryan, Mary Long, Roy Tamboli, Eunika Rogers, Cat Pena, Yancy Villa-Calvo, Hamlett Dobbins, Anne Siems, Tim Craddock, and many, many more. In addition, many galleries are featuring special holiday shows.

End what has been a nightmarish year on an upbeat note: Buy a piece of art. It’s good for your heart. — Bruce VanWyngarden

Let Them Eat Cake

I’d be happy to receive a Memphis Bourbon Caramel Cake from Sugar Avenue Bakery, either in or out of my stocking. This is the Sugar Avenue collaboration with Old Dominick Distillery.

Just listening to Sugar Avenue owner Ed Crenshaw describe the six-inch cake makes me crave a slice or three: “The cake is four layers. Each layer is literally soaked in a bourbon caramel sauce. And then our caramel icing, which we make from scratch.”

Courtesy Ben Fant

Sugar Avenue cake

Sugar Avenue worked with Old Dominick’s master distiller/senior vice president Alex Castle to come up with the perfect blend of cake and bourbon. Old Dominick’s Huling Station Straight Bourbon Whiskey was chosen for the cake, which has “a great hint of bourbon flavor,” Crenshaw says. “We add bourbon to the icing and ice the cake with it.”

To help you get even more into the holiday spirit, Sugar Avenue Bakery recently began adding two-ounce jars of extra caramel sauce with every bourbon-flavored cake.

Memphis Bourbon Caramel Cakes are $55 each, and they’re available at sugaravenue.com. — Michael Donahue

Accessorize in Style

When Memphians need to give the gift of stylish living, they turn to Cheryl Pesce, the jewelry and lifestyle store in Crosstown Concourse. The store takes its name from its owner, Cheryl Pesce, a jewelry maker, entrepreneur, and all-around style guru.

This month, Pesce opened a second store in the Laurelwood Shopping Center, giving Bluff City-area shoppers double the chances to find — and give — stylish accoutrements. “I’m banking on Memphis,” Pesce explains. And Memphis seems ready to support Pesce. “We had a grand open house, social distancing into the parking lot, and it went well.”

Courtesy Cheryl Pesce

Handmade jewelry from Cheryl Pesce

The store opening story is just the tip of the breaking-news iceberg, though. Pesce tells me excitedly that she’s been in touch with fashion designer Patrick Henry, aka Richfresh, about his newly designed Henry Mask. “I spoke with him today and — drumroll — we will now be carrying his masks in my Laurelwood store.”

But wait! That’s still not all. The ink is still fresh on a deal for Pesce to carry Germantown-produced Leovard skincare products. “I will be his only brick-and-mortar store in the country,” Pesce says. “So there are a lot of cool things happening, most of them local.”

In the smaller store in Crosstown, Pesce sells hand-sewn baby items, masks, Christmas ornaments, and anything with the Crosstown logo — she’s the official source for Crosstown-brand goods. Laurelwood is larger and a little more deluxe. “One of the focuses for that store is local and regional artisans,” Pesce says. She carries Mo’s Bows, Paul Edelstein paintings, and, of course, hand-crafted jewelry. “That’s really my wheelhouse.

“My studio is at Laurelwood,” Pesce says, “so not only is it made in Memphis, made by me, but it’s all under one roof now. The store, the studio. You can literally come pick out your own pearls — ‘I want this pearl on that earring’ — and then I craft it for you right there.”

Cheryl Pesce is located at 1350 Concourse Avenue, Suite 125, and at 374 Grove Park Road South, Suite 104. Find out more at (901) 308-6017 or at cherylpesce.com. — Jesse Davis

Good Reads

There’s something that comes from holding the edges of a book and being taken to a distant land or wondrous world. Whether it’s due to happenstance or the crazy and confusing world in which we find ourselves now, I have been reading more and more as the months drag on. To fuel my ever-growing hunger for words and phrases completed on the page, Novel has been my go-to place.

Novel is proof that when you are doing something you love, the results will follow. The bookstore, founded in 2017, is the go-to for other local book enthusiasts, too — and with good reason. Their staff will go to the moon and back to help you find the book that fits you just right, and if you’re looking for something specific, chances are they will be just as excited about it as you are.

Matthew J. Harris

of what gift to give this season.

Many of their aisles have felt like a second home to me the past few months. And with books in every genre, it is often easier to ask them what they don’t have, rather than what they do. Personally, I love their new-this-year home delivery option, which offers a safe way to give the gift of literature this holiday season. — Matthew J. Harris

Hit the Boards

This year has given us plenty of time to learn new skills. And what better way to get your mind pumping in both a constructive and competitive fashion than with a game of chess?

The Memphis Chess Club recently opened its new café/headquarters Downtown at 195 Madison Avenue, and the three levels of annual memberships make for a great gift, whether someone is looking to seriously pursue an interest in the game or just learn a few tips and tricks.

Samuel X. Cicci

A Memphis Chess Club membership isn’t as risky a move as the Queen’s Gambit.

The social membership ($50) allows members to play chess in the café area at any time, with tables, pieces, and clocks all provided. The full membership ($100), meanwhile, affords all of the social perks but provides unlimited and free access to all classes and tournaments, which are held at the club weekly. It also offers discounts on merchandise, and members are able to check out materials from the club’s chess library, which contains old magazines and strategy books.

For whole families looking to kickstart an interest in the game? The family membership ($150) contains all full membership benefits and includes two adults and all the children in a household.

And, hey, if chess isn’t your thing, the spacious café is a great space to just hang out or study while sipping on some brewed-in-house coffee or munching on one of chef Grier Cosby’s specialty pizzas.

Visit memphischessclub.com/join for more information. — Samuel X. Cicci

The Gift of Grub

Food is fun and helps define Memphis culture. Those who make that food and fun are in trouble.

Restaurants have maybe suffered more than any small business during this pandemic. Restrictions on them have come and gone and may come again soon. Memphis restaurateurs have shown amazing resilience in these ups and downs. They’ve shifted business models, adapted to the latest health directives, and adjusted staff levels (laying off workers and hiring them back) to match it all.

Memphis Restaurant Association/Facebook

Support local restaurants — so they can stick around.

However, we forever lost some Memphis favorites, like Lucky Cat and Grove Grill. The National Restaurant Association said nearly 100,000 restaurants across the country closed either permanently or for the long-term six months into the pandemic. Nearly 3 million employees have lost their jobs. Help restaurants out and have food fun, too. This holiday season, buy gift cards from our local restaurants.

At the pandemic’s beginning in March, we told you about a national push to buy “dining bonds” or “restaurant bonds.” Many Memphis restaurants jumped in — many selling gift cards at deep discounts. For restaurants, gift cards are quick infusions of cash, helpful in tough times.

So instead of that scarf you’re kind of on the fence about, spend the same amount on a restaurant they love. It’ll be unexpected and, yes, come with some delayed gratification — delicious delayed gratification. Present it not as a gift card but as that dish they love from that place they love.

Sing it with me: “Everybody knows, a burger and some mistletoe help to make the season bright. Memphis foodies, with their eyes all aglow, will find it hard to sleep tonight.”

Gift cards are available at almost every restaurant and for almost any amount. Check websites and socials for details. — Toby Sells

Music to Their Ears

Remember when giving music was a thing? Physical things like LPs, CDs, and cassettes could be wrapped. But now that everything’s ethereal, there’s still a way to give the gift that keeps on giving: Patreon. Musicians are embracing this platform more and more, and it’s working for them. A subscription to their accounts may just be the perfect gift for the superfan in your life who already has everything.

Mike Doughty (Soul Coughing, Ghost of Vroom) relies on his Patreon subscribers for both income and inspiration. As he told the Detroit Metro Times, “Doing a song a week is amazing, and that is really what, if I had my druthers, I’d do for the rest of my life.” Patrons can subscribe at different levels, each with premiums like CDs and T-shirts, but everyone paying at least $5 a month can access Doughty’s song-a-week and more.

Greg Cravens

Other Memphis-affiliated singer/songwriters like Eric Lewis, J.D. Reager, and (coming in December) Marcella and Her Lovers also have accounts. And last month, label and music retailer Goner Records began offering Patreon subscriptions that include access to the Goner archives and exclusive music and videos.

Patreon’s site notes that “there isn’t currently a way to gift patronage,” but if you get creative, you can search for an artist on patreon.com and buy a subscription in a friend’s or family member’s name — and they can thank you all through the year. — Alex Greene

Support Arts and Culture

“A plague on both your houses!” cried the dying Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and it seems the COVID-19 pandemic took that sentiment to heart, emptying out our theaters and concert halls and thinning out attendance at museums. But still they persisted. The organizations behind the arts we love are still at work online, virtually, distancing, and striving to keep the arts alive — especially in programs aimed at young people.

You can help the old-fashioned way by getting season subscriptions and memberships for whenever the lights come back on — and they could use that support right now. Or make a simple donation. Help keep Memphis culture alive by giving gifts on behalf of the following, but don’t be limited by this partial list — if you have other favorites, give them a cup o’ kindness as well.

Jon W. Sparks

Spring, Summer, Fall at the Brooks Museum by Wheeler Williams

Performing arts organizations:

• Playhouse on the Square (playhouseonthesquare.org)

• Theatre Memphis (theatrememphis.org)

• Opera Memphis (operamemphis.org)

• Ballet Memphis (balletmemphis.org)

• New Ballet Ensemble (newballet.org)

• Cazateatro (cazateatro.org)

• New Moon Theatre (newmoontheatre.org)

• Hattiloo Theatre (hattiloo.org)

• Tennessee Shakespeare Company (tnshakespeare.org)

• Memphis Black Arts Alliance (memphisblackarts.org)

• Emerald Theatre Company (etcmemphistheater.com)

Museums and galleries:

• Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (brooksmuseum.org)

• Dixon Gallery and Gardens (dixon.org)

• National Civil Rights Museum (civilrightsmuseum.org)

• Metal Museum (metalmuseum.org)

• Stax Museum of American Soul Music (staxmuseum.com)

• Pink Palace Museum (memphismuseums.org)

• Children’s Museum of Memphis (cmom.com)

• Fire Museum of Memphis (firemuseum.org) — Jon W. Sparks

Basket or Box It for a Gift That Rocks It

Need something sweet for your honey this holiday season? Thistle & Bee has the gift that gives twice. A relaxing gift box contains raw Memphis honey, a milk and honey soap bar, and a pure beeswax candle ($20). Every item is handcrafted and directly supports women survivors to thrive through a journey of healing and hope.

Social enterprise director at Thistle & Bee, Ali Pap Chesney, drops a stinger: “We partner with other businesses, too. Feast & Graze uses our honey.”

Feast & Graze/Facebook

Feast & Graze

The cheese and charcuterie company Feast & Grace is co-owned by Cristina McCarter, who happens to co-own City Tasting Box. Boxes are filled with goodies promoting local Black-owned businesses like Pop’s Kernel and The Waffle Iron. An exclusive limited-quantity holiday gift box, Sugar and Spice, just rolled out for the season in two sizes — regular ($74.99) and ultimate ($124.99).

Memphis Gift Basket is owned by Jesse James, who says he is rolling out a new logo this week. Along with the new logo are new products for baskets ($55-$100) that focus on diversity by including more women- and minority-owned businesses, in addition to local items with iconic names like The Rendezvous and Memphis magazine. Guess what else you might find in a Memphis Gift Basket? Thistle & Bee honey.

Now that we’ve come full circle, check out these gift box and basket businesses, as well as partnering companies, for errbody on your holiday list — including that corporate gift list.

Visit thistleandbee.org, citytastingbox.com (use code SHIP100 for free shipping on orders over $100), and memphisgiftbasket.com for more. — Julie Ray

Lights, Camera, Action

A lot of businesses have been hard-hit during the pandemic, and movie theaters have been near the top of the list. With social distancing-limited theater capacity and Hollywood studios delaying major releases into next year in the hopes a vaccine will rekindle attendance, theater chains like Memphis-based Malco have been in dire straits. The exception has been drive-in theaters, like the Malco Summer Drive-In, which have seen a renaissance in 2020.

If you want to support this local institution and give a treat to the movie-lover in your life, you can buy them a Malco gift card. Available in any denomination from $10 to $500, the gift cards can be used for movie tickets and concessions for any film now or in the future. You can also enroll in the Malco Marquee Rewards program, which allows frequent moviegoers to earn points toward free tickets and concessions.

Greg Cravens

Malco has taken extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of its patrons, including mandatory masks, improved air filters, and non-contact payment options. And if you’re not comfortable sharing a theater with strangers right now, there’s a great option: The Malco Select program allows you to rent an entire theater for a screening of any film on the marquee — and that includes screenings in the massive IMAX theaters at the Paradiso. Prices start at $100, which works out pretty well if you want to watch Wonder Woman 1984 with your pod this holiday season. And if the person you’re buying for is a gamer, Malco has a brand-new option. With Malco Select Gaming, you can bring your system to the theater and play Call of Duty or The Last of Us on the biggest possible screen. — Chris McCoy

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Experience the Special Effects Genius of Ray Harryhausen at the Time Warp Drive-In

Monster on the rampage! Ymir, the star of 20 Million Miles to Earth, hits the town.

The special effects extravaganzas that have dominated big-budget moviemaking over the last few decades could never have existed without Ray Harryhausen. He was a pioneer of not only stop motion animation, in which models are manipulated one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement, but also the aesthetic of the monster movie. Along with Ray Bradbury and Forrest Ackerman, he helped define American science fiction and fantasy during its formative years.

There’s no better way to experience Harryhausen’s genius than in the arena where they debuted: the drive-in. The monthly Time Warp Drive-In, put on at the Malco Summer Drive-In by Black Lodge Video, Mike McCarthy, and Piano Man Pictures, will celebrate Harryhausen’s genius on Saturday with two classic films from the heyday of the drive-in, the 1950s.

The first film marked the debut of the color version of Dynamation, the system Harryhausen invented for integrating live action and special effects shots. The 7th Voyage of Sinbad takes inspiration from stories in Arabian Nights, but like all Harryhausen-related mythological films, plays fast and loose with the source material. It contains not only the incredible giant horned cyclops, but also the prototype for what became Harryhausen’s most famous sequence, the skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts. Take a look at this delightfully retro trailer.
 

Experience the Special Effects Genius of Ray Harryhausen at the Time Warp Drive-In

The second film of the night is 20 Million Miles to Earth from 1957. The first spaceship to visit Venus crash lands with a deadly cargo: a monster that can double in size every day. Naturally, it gets loose from the scientists trying to study it, and carnage ensues. Coming the same year as Godzilla hit American theaters, it’s the most seminal film in the kaiju genre not made in Japan. Like King Kong, which inspired Harryhausen to get into filmmaking, the monster turns out to be the story’s most sympathetic character. I’m just loving these 50s-era trailers:

Experience the Special Effects Genius of Ray Harryhausen at the Time Warp Drive-In (2)

Gates open for the Time Warp Drive-In at 6 PM, and the films start at 7 PM. Tickets available at the Malco website. 

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We Recommend We Recommend

Time Warp: Zombies Take the Drive-In this Saturday

CREDIT: Facebook/Time Warp Drive-In

This dusk-till-dawn Halloween horrorthon movie event features four beloved flicks of undead insanity, including Zombieland, Re-Animator, Night of the Living Dead, and Return of the Living Dead.

Most of us are zombied-out after what seems like a decade of TWD. Oh, wait. It has been 10 years. Those jerks are no better off, and the series should have been canceled when (spoilers) Negan lost Lucille and became a wuss. But let’s stay on topic.

The films that will be showing at this edition of the Time Warp Drive-In are classics. You might have piled your friends in the trunk of your 1968 Dodge Charger to see cult classic gore at the drive-in for an original showing of Night of the Living Dead in the late ’60s. A quick internet search reveals that the Dodge Charger still has the roomiest trunk. Pile them in again for a night at the drive-in starting with Zombieland, the 2009 zom-com starring Woody Harrelson. These films are pure undead brain gold.

Facebook/Time Warp Drive-In

Braaaaaaaains!

Shout-out to former Contemporary Media co-worker Celeste Dixon who is part of the art and film collective Piano Man Pictures, which is offering “vintage intermission insanity between all films.” It’s nonstop horror, y’all.

We’re all pretty happy that the Time Warp is back after a COVID intermission. Just a reminder to wear your mask when outside your car or going to the snack bar so we can continue to enjoy future warped events.

Night of the Living Time Warp: Zombies Take the Drive-In, Malco Summer 4 Drive-In, 5310 Summer, Saturday, Oct. 17, 7:15 p.m., $10.

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Malco Theatres Begins Phased Reopening

After three months of shutdown, Memphis-based Malco Theatres has announced a plan to reopen all of its movie theaters. Malco owns 33 theaters with more than 340 screens across six states in the Mid-South.

Beginning on Monday, June 15th, Malco will reopen four locations in Mississippi: The Desoto Cinema Grill in Southaven, the Olive Branch Cinema Grill, the Tupelo Commons Cinema Grill, and the Renaissance Cinema Grill in Ridgeland. In Tennessee, the initial wave of reopening includes the Smyrna Cinema; while in Kentucky the Owensboro Cinema Grill will begin screenings on June 15th. In Memphis, the Malco Summer Drive-In remains open seven days a week with a slate of double features across its four screens.

“Malco is very excited to re-open theaters and welcome our customers back,” says Malco President/COO David Tashie. “We have been diligently working on implementing new measures and protocols to ensure the safety of our guests and employees, and we cannot wait for everyone to enjoy a night out experiencing movies on the big screen again.”

At this point in the year, we should be seeing mainline Hollywood studios rolling out their big guns for the summer season, But since the coronavirus pandemic shut down public gatherings in March, the studios have either rescheduled releases or shunted films into streaming services or video on demand. A handful of drive-in theaters across the country have been the only outlet for new releases. The current box office leader is The Wretched, a low-budget horror from IFC that became the first film to sit at number one for more than five weeks since 2017’s Black Panther. The Wretched has brought in $1.1 million since its release on May 1st. For comparison, Black Panther earned $700 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide.

Malco Theatres Begins Phased Reopening (2)

The initial offerings include new releases The King of Staten Island, starring SNL alum Peter Davidson and directed by comedy auteur Judd Apatow, and The High Note, a musical comedy featuring Dakota Johnson and Black-ish star Tracee Ellis Ross. There will also be summer classics such as Jaws, Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, Madagascar, and the Indiana Jones trilogy, as well as pre-COVID 2020 releases The Invisible Man, Trolls: World Tour, and I Still Believe.

Malco Theatres Begins Phased Reopening

Malco plans to reopen a new batch of theaters every week, with the goal of having the entire network operational by July 14th for the release of Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated, sci fi spy film Tenet.

You can purchase tickets for reserved seating in advance and review the newly implemented pandemic safety measures on the Malco website. 

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

International Jewish Film Festival Finale and Do the Right Thing This Week in Theaters

Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles

The 2020 Morris and Mollye Fogelman International Jewish Film Festival ends today (Tuesday, February 25th) with a sure-fire crowd pleaser. Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles is a documentary about the origin and impact of Fiddler On The Roof, the 1964 musical about a Jewish community trying to stay together in Tsarist Russia.

The Best Musical Tony winner was one of the most successful Broadway plays of all time and has become a staple of musical theater, and a touchstone for Jewish diaspora communities all over the world. The acclaimed documentary puts the play and the film adaptation in context with the political and social forces that influenced the play’s creation and its rise to take a place in the canon. The show starts at 6:30 at Temple Israel.

Cantor Abbie Strauss will open the program by singing several songs from the play, and at $5 for members and $7 for the community, you don’t have to be a rich man to attend.

International Jewish Film Festival Finale and Do the Right Thing This Week in Theaters

On Wednesday, February 26th, Indie Memphis presents Vitalina Varela, a film by acclaimed Portuguese director Pedro Costa. The screening starts at 7 PM at Malco Ridgeway.

International Jewish Film Festival Finale and Do the Right Thing This Week in Theaters (2)

The Malco Studio on the Square Thursday Throwback selection this week is Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, the 1989 masterpiece that made the director a household name (even among people who never saw the movie) and, among other epochal accomplishments, introduced a guy named Samuel L. Jackson to a wider audience.

International Jewish Film Festival Finale and Do the Right Thing This Week in Theaters (3)

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

This Sucks

CREDIT: Bianca Phillips

Bruce VanWyngarden has gone fishing this week. His column returns when he does.

A few years ago, I was having lunch with a coworker who proceeded to go on a long and sort of crazy rant about how much she hates it when restaurants bundle their straws with silverware. After that, when someone complained bitterly about something of no consequence, “straws” became a sort of shorthand dismissal.

So where do we stand, Memphis, on plastic straws? Is this as an issue “straws”?

Bianca Phillips

As a single-use plastic, plastic straws are pretty bad. Millions and millions of plastic straws are used each day in America and then tossed out to litter our lands and shores. Some cities, like Malibu and Washington, D.C., have already banned them. In New York and Hawaii, legislation is pending.

In Memphis, we’re seeing more and more restaurants abandoning the plastic straw.

Janet Boscarino, executive director of Clean Memphis, which oversees Project Green Fork, estimates that about half of Project Green Fork members (about 40 restaurants) have given up plastic straws. But, as of now, Project Green Fork does not include anything about straws in their “6 Steps to Certification” for local restaurants.

“We certainly push for the elimination of single-use plastics, which straws would fall into that category,” Boscarino says.

For Earth Day, Project Green Fork did a program they called “Don’t Suck,” which highlighted recyclable options for straws, including paper and bamboo. “We are certainly trying to raise awareness around eliminating [straws],” she says.

For Boscarino, straws are just once piece of the puzzle in reducing food waste — from bags to food containers to the food itself.

Deni Reilly, owner of Majestic Grille with her husband Patrick, says that restaurant has been straws-by-request since it opened 14 years ago. They only began to use coated paper straws about two years ago. (They go through 12,000 to 14,000 straws in a month.)

Reilly says they’ve always leaned toward being environmentally conscious. They don’t provide water, except for large parties. Their to-go glasses are biodegradable.

She says with a laugh that they do it for the sea turtles.

Octavia Young, the owner of Midtown Crossing Grill, began backing away from straws in 2016 about a year after she opened. She says she was thinking about joining Project Green Fork and started looking at what she could do. She then put up a sign: “Straws are a one-time use item that never biodegrade. Your server will only provide straws upon request in an effort to reduce our footprint. Thank you.”

Young says reaction was mixed, but ultimately, no one can argue, because as the sign says, if they want a straw, all they have to do is ask.

“Hearing about how much [waste] a restaurant produces and actually looking at it for myself, I wanted to be a better neighbor in the community that we serve,” she says.

Scott Tashie has been thinking about straws a lot lately. Tashie is owner of City Silo and three area I Love Juice Bars.

“It’s something we’ve been trying to come up with a solution on for a while, actually,” he says. “And it’s super challenging. Obviously, when you’re in a beverage-heavy business, you want to always take care of your customers, and we’ve tried different options. It’s been challenging to find something that actually works.”

At one point, Tashie was using glass straws, but then his source stopped making them. He tried a bring-your-own straw approach, too. He admits that a straw is not something that’s particularly easy to carry on you, like a reusable bag.

Tashie has been experimenting with different types of straws. Forgoing them completely won’t work because of the smoothies he sells. He recently settled on corn straws that he hooked up with through his association with Malco. (He has family ties to the movie theater chain). Malco is currently working to get corn straws at all of its theaters.

Tashie doesn’t mind the extra cost of the straws. For him, it’s worth it. “There’s only one Earth,” he says. “You can’t really put a price on it.”

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

2018: The Year In Film

If there is a common theme among the best films of 2018, it’s wrenching order from chaos. From Regina Hall trying to hold both a restaurant and a marriage together to Lakeith Stanfield navigating the surreal moral minefields of late-stage capitalism, the best heroes positioned themselves as the last sane people in a world gone mad.

Dakota Johnson in Fifty Shades Freed

Worst Picture: Fifty Shades Freed

In her epic deconstruction of the final installment of everyone’s least favorite BDSM erotica trilogy, Eileen Townsend called Fifty Shades Freed a “sequence of intentionally crafted visual stimuli” that “bears coincidental aesthetic similarity to a movie … But I believe Fifty Shades Freed is nonetheless not a movie at all, but something far more pure — a pristine document of the market economy, a kind of visual after-image created as an incidental side effect of the exchange of large sums of capital…We literally cannot perceive the truest form of Fifty Shades Freed, because to do so, we would have to be money ourselves.”

Sunrise over the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey

Best Moviegoing Experience: 2001: A Space Odyssey in IMAX

The Malco Paradiso’s IMAX screen, which opened last December, has quickly earned the reputation as the best theater in the city. During the late-summer lull, a new digital transfer of 2001: A Space Odyssey got a week’s run to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. Even if you’ve watched Stanley Kubrick’s film a dozen times, seeing it the size it was intended to be seen is a revelation. Also, all lengthy blockbusters should come with an intermission.

Chuck, the canine star of Alpha

Best Performance by a Nonhuman: Chuck, Alpha

Director Albert Hughes’ Alpha is a sleeper gem of 2018. The star of the story of how humans first domesticated dogs is a Czech Wolfhound named Chuck, who dominates the screen with a Lassie-level performance. Chuck and his co-star, Kodi Smit-McPhee, spend large parts of the movie silently navigating the hazards of Paleolithic Eurasia, and the dog nails both stunts and the occasional comedy bits. Chuck is a movie star.

KiKi Layne and Stephan James in If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Scene: The Family Meeting, If Beale Street Could Talk

Most of Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel is an intimate, tragic love story between Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne) and Fonny Hunt (Stephan James). But for about 10 minutes, it becomes an ensemble dramedy, when Tish has to tell, first, her parents that she’s pregnant out of wedlock with a man who has just been arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, then his parents. If you pulled this scene out of the film, it would be the best short of 2018.

Rukus

Best Memphis Movie: Rukus

Brett Hanover’s documentary hybrid had been in production for more than a decade by the time it made its Mid South debut at Indie Memphis 2018. What started as a tribute to a friend who had committed suicide slowly evolved into a mystery story, an exploration into a secretive subculture, and a diary of growing up and accepting yourself.

Ethan Hawk stars as a priest in existential crisis in First Reformed.

Best Screenplay: First Reformed

Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader penned and directed this piercing drama about a small town priest, played by Ethan Hawk, who undergoes a crisis of faith when a man he is counseling commits suicide. 72-year-old Schrader is unafraid to ask the big questions: Why are we here? Is it all worth it? His elegantly constructed story ultimately looks to love for the answers, but the journey there is harrowing.

Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger in Black Panther

MVP: Michael B. Jordan

Michael B. Jordan played a book-burning fireman with a conscience in HBO’s Fahrenheit 451 adaptation and the heavyweight champion of the world in Creed II. But it was his turn as Killmonger in Black Panther that elevated the year’s biggest hit film to the realm of greatness. Director Ryan Coogler knew what he was doing when he put his frequent collaborator in the the villain slot opposite Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, making their personal rivalry into a battle for the soul of Wakanda.

Regina Hall in Support The Girls

Best Performance: (tie) Regina Hall, Support the Girls and Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade

In a year full of great performances, two really stood out. In Support the Girls, Regina Hall plays Lisa, a breastaurant manager having the worst day of her life, with a breathtaking combination of technique and empathy. We agonize with her over every difficult decision she has to make just to get through the day.

Elsie Fisher as Kayla in Eighth Grade

Elsie Fisher started work on Eighth Grade the week after the 13-year-old actually finished eighth grade. She carries the movie with one of the most raw, unaffected comic performances you will ever see.

Emma Stone takes aim in The Favourite.

Best Director: Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ previous efforts has been bracing, self-written satires, but he really came into his own with this kinda true story written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Everything clicks neatly into place in The Favourite. The central troika of Olivia Coleman as Queen Anne and Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz as backstabbing cousins vying for her favor are all stunning. The editing, sound mix, and costume design are superb, and I’ve been thinking about the meaning of a particular lens choice for weeks.

Daniel Tiger (left) and Fred Rogers, star of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood

Best Documentary: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Once in a while, a movie comes along that fills a hole in your heart you didn’t know you had. Morgan Neville’s biography of Fred Rogers appears as effortlessly pure as the man himself. Mr. Rogers’ radical compassion is the exact opposite of Donald Trump’s performative cruelty, and Neville frames his subject as a kind of national surrogate father figure, urging us to remember the better angels of our nature.

Sorry To Bother You

Best Picture: Sorry to Bother You

Boots Riley’s debut film is something of a bookend to my best picture choice from last year, Jordan Peele’s Get Out. They’re both absurdist social satires aimed at American racism set in a slightly skewed version of the real word. But where Get Out is a finely tuned scare machine, Sorry to Bother You is a street riot of ideas and images. When his vision occasionally outruns his reach, Riley pulls it off through sheer audacity. No one better captured the Kafkaesque chaos, anger, and confusion of living in 2018.