A Movie Master Comes to Town
🎥 Roger Deakins talks movies · Metro salaries · Film rundown · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone.
We'll be breaking for Christmas and New Year's over the next two weeks, so our regularly scheduled programming will be replaced by briefer interludes here and there. Back in full force on January 6th.
In other news, the Daily Wire picked up our story about the Cookeville Christmas parade fiasco and included some updates on the community's Christian-focused event this weekend. You can read that here.
Onward.
Tim Robbins’s prison break in The Shawshank Redemption remains etched in the minds of the American consciousness thanks to that movie’s ubiquitous run on basic cable. Even as Shawshank has maintained its #1 spot on the IMDb Top 250 for years, it’s easy to overlook the scene’s power.
Lit by a flashlight, Robbins’s Andy Dufresne crawls through 500 yards of sewage in an unbroken shot before ripping off his soiled shirt as rain washes over him. It’s one of the most recognizable moments in American cinema. But, as the man responsible for pulling it off told a Nashville audience during a recent weekend visit, he thinks it’s embarrassingly overlit.
From December 6th-8th, British cinematographer Roger Deakins, and his wife, James, set up shop in Nashville to share the lessons they learned working on some of the greatest movies of the past three decades. Throughout their stay, Team Deakins—as the duo refer to themselves on their recently launched podcast—revisited nearly every facet of their collaborations for hundreds of local fans and film professionals thanks to a series of events that the Nashville Filmmakers Guild spearheaded.
Beginning with a special screening of the Coen Brothers’s new classic O Brother Where Art Thou? at Belmont and ending with a two-hour Sunday afternoon discussion of his career, a host of moderators prodded Deakins for insights into his artistic process. Yet, the two-time Oscar winner approached the near hagiography with a clear-eyed pragmatism, proving himself a man fulfilled by his work but in search of a sense of perfection only he can see.
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🖋️ Edited by Megan Podsiedlik.
💸 Highest Paid Metro Employees As it turns out, Mayor O’Connell is only the 63rd highest salaried employee in Metro, earning $209,898 per year. Yesterday, the Tennessean published the salaries of the city’s highest paid Metro employees based on Nashville’s open data portal:
- $317,824 – Water Services Director Scott Potter
- $295,825 – Chief Medical Director Gill Wright III
- $287,260 – Police Chief John Drake
- $272,909 – Transportation Director Diana Alarcon
- $269,750 – Chief Development Officer Bob Mendes
- $265,561 – Fire Chief William Swann
- $265,494 – Director of Development/Special Projects Mark Sturtevant
- $265,336 – Finance Director Kevin Crumbo
- $264,020 – Metro Action Commission Executive Director Cynthia Croom
- $260,228 – Planning Executive Director Lucy Kempf
You can also check out how Metro stacked up compared to the top ten earners in other similarly-sized cities across the country.
🩺 Metro (W)Hea(l)th Director Speaking of salaries, the council signed off on a salary increase for Metro’s Director of Health this Tuesday. The pay for Nashville’s new director, Dr. Sanmi Areola, was increased from $235,000 to $260,000. In September, the council declared racism a public health crisis, and the new director is expected to address gun violence by engaging with “a community of over 150 grassroots non-profit organizations” to find equitable solutions.
Areola is replacing Gill Wright, who first stepped in as interim director four years ago after the Board of Health forced former Director Michael Caldwell to resign. At the time, the council’s concerns over Caldwell’s prolonged commitment to coronavirus patient information sharing with MNPD and the board’s frustrations with his lack of transparency led to his ouster. “I am amazed at the job I am doing,” he told his colleagues during a meeting in 2020, before swiftly getting the boot.
🏢 Return To Office AT&T workers will be returning to regular, in-office work week next month despite recent studies showing that office mandates stifle workforce growth when compared to allowing hybrid work flexibility. AT&T is working to avoid the recent mistake made by Amazon, which set up company-wide RTO mandates starting in January only to realize they didn't have the adequate office space to do so. The company has since had to postpone the mandate for offices in New York, Phoenix, Austin, Nashville, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta.
DEVELOPMENT
- Germantown apartment building sells for $83 (Post)
- Sandoval to bring restaurant to Nashville (Post)
- Germantown Artist Lofts project stalls (Post)
✹ WEEKLY FILM RUNDOWN: December 20-24
The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a list of new and upcoming films, The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a complete list of upcoming releases, check out our 2024 Film Guide.
Mufasa: The Lion King (Dir. Barry Jenkins; Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Keith David) At least Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is at the helm of this inevitable prequel to 2019’s live-action remake that traces the teen years of Mufasa and Scar. Now playing in theaters.
Homestead (Dir. Ben Smallbone; Starring Neil McDonough) In the latest from Angel Studios, a group of preppers led by a former green beret fend off threats to their compound after a nuke hits Los Angeles. Now playing in theaters.
The Belcourt’s Holiday Classics As expected, Nashville’s nonprofit cinema brings the Christmas cheer with holiday classics (Love Actually, It’s a Wonderful Life, Die Hard) and some inspired seasonal cult fare. In addition to the aforementioned, this week brings Brazil (Director’s Cut), Blast of Silence, Bad Santa, and Rosemary’s Baby.
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.
TONIGHT
🎄 Amy Grant & Vince Gill Christmas at the Ryman @ Ryman Auditorium, 3p & 7:30p, $50+, Info
🎻 Handel's Messiah @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $60+, Info
🎸 Marble Teeth @ DRKMTTR, 8p, $10, Info
🪕 Ashby Frank @ Station Inn, 9p, $25, Info
🪕 The Lubben Brothers @ The Underdog, 7p, $10, Info
🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
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