Box Office Kryptonite
🦸🏻♂️ Superman has people up in arms · Runaway Jury goes home · Taking out the trash · Weekly film rundown · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone. There’s a new Superman movie, and it’s doing pretty well. Jerod talks about the people who make part of their living hating on it… The runaway jury returns home… Murfreesboro stakes a claim on Mt. Trashmore… And our weekly film rundown showcases all the new movies playing in theaters this weekend.
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From $9 billion budget cuts under debate in Congress to the Epstein brouhaha, the first full week after July 4th was stuffed to the brim with newsworthy items. But in pockets of the internet, large and small, the only real story was James Gunn’s new Superman movie. Some folks bristled at Gunn’s red carpet sound byte that Superman was obviously an immigrant. Others rolled their eyes at yet another reboot of a franchise long troubled by its central figure’s perfection. Regardless, the internet’s loudest influencers quickly reached consensus. For them, Gunn’s take ranked somewhere between “not good” to terrible.
Nevermind that the movie won over most critics and has a nearly perfect Rotten Tomatoes audience score while grossing more than $125 million its opening weekend. Only their opinions mattered. Their goal was not to enter into a conversation or provide substantial commentary. It was simply to dissuade audiences from seeing the movie, to erode whatever semblance of cultural common ground we have left without even offering a remotely comparable substitute.
Clocking in at 127 minutes, Superman is a modest time commitment by summer blockbuster standards. It’s also a colorful and dynamic spectacle perfect for the moviegoing season–even if it never quite rises to the level of Gunn’s Guardians films or this summer’s Thunderbolts*. In the legacy media days, seasoned film critics like Siskel and Ebert would spend a six-minute block of time justifying the directions of their thumbs and move on.
However, wrapping one’s head around the full spectrum of Superman discourse is a heroic undertaking that requires sifting through an onslaught of half-hour YouTube post-mortems from ScreenCrush’s “Best Superman Ever?” to Ben Shapiro’s foregone conclusions. In the time it took me to do a cursory dive into the YouTube Superman content, I could have watched the movie five times. Or revisited every MCU entry leading up to the first Avengers. Or read two books.
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⚖️ Spell Broken: Runaway Grand Jury Decisions Reversed In the second quarter of this year, a Davidson County grand jury heard 43 of the 47 no true bills dismissed by the runaway grand jury in the first quarter. According to the Banner, though the new grand jury members did not know which of the cases they heard were resubmissions, all 43 received indictments.
Theeda Murphy, the foreperson of the runaway grand jury, surmised that the police must have done a better job making their case this time around. MNPD Public Affairs Officer Kristin Mumford told the Banner that both grand juries heard the same exact presentations.
In addition to being a self-proclaimed mystic, hermit, and witch, Theeda Murphy is a progressive, anti-police activist. In a piece published in the Scene, Betsy Philips categorized Murphy as a police abolitionist: “I think I’m fairly typifying her opinion in saying she believes the police do more harm than good, and we have no evidence that MNPD is even remotely willing to or capable of being accountable to the community they serve.”
🗑️ Taking Out The Trash This week, the Murfreesboro City Council unanimously voted to annex the Middle Point Landfill into the city limits. The decision allows the city “to exercise some municipal oversight of the landfill due to its potential impact on the health and quality of life of its citizens.”
“While the city cannot interfere, let alone prohibit, BFI landfilling operations at Middle Point Landfill, to the extent practical, the goal of annexation is to achieve oversight to ensure BFI and Republic Industrial Operations comply with city ordinances,” explained Assistant City Manager Sam Huddleston. It will also result in “modest property tax revenue” for the city as improvements add value in the area.
Affectionately known as “Mt. Trashmore,” Middle Point is the dumping ground for 34 counties in Tennessee, including Davidson. According to Fox17, we drop off 1,800 tons of trash in the Rutherford County landfill every day. That’s about half of the waste that comes out of Davidson County.
Metro's contract to dump in Middle Point expires in 2027, and though there are varying reports, Mt. Trashmore is expected to reach capacity by January 2029. In June, the council established the new Metro Department of Waste Services, which is now responsible for solid waste disposal services. It comes as no surprise that 38 percent of the waste we send to landfills is construction and demolition materials. New disposal strategies have been drawn up in Metro’s Solid Waste Master Plan, “which aims to reduce the waste we send to landfill by 90 percent over the next 30 years” through redesign, reuse, deconstruction, recycling, and downcycling.
DEVELOPMENT
- Downtown alternative hotel business preps to re-open (Post)
- Wedgewood-Houston site eyed for project (Post)
- Tennessee Oncology opens new flagship (Post)
- Deacon’s New South adds oyster bar (Post)
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✹ WEEKLY FILM RUNDOWN: July 18-24
The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a complete list of upcoming titles, check out the 2025 Film Guide.
Eddington (Dir. Ari Aster) The mind behind Hereditary and Midsommar takes on the pandemic with this tale of a smalltown Texas sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) who throws his cowboy hat into the ring to challenge a wokescold mayor (Pedro Pascal)’s reelection bid with violent consequences. Its reception at Cannes was too polarizing to not touch all the right nerves. Now playing in theaters.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (Dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson) The remake/reboot of the 90s slasher was clearly made by folks who thought there was no way Kamala could lose the election. Even the return of Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt can’t save this from being the frontrunner for worst film of 2025. Now playing in theaters.
Sorry, Baby (Dir. Eva Victor) A24’s dramedy about two estranged friends who rekindle their relationship in the wake of a tragedy is one of the year’s best-reviewed movies. Now playing at The Belcourt.
Afternoons of Solitude (Dir. Albert Serra) The director of 2021’s incredible Pacification returns with a lyrical documentary on bullfighting. Now playing at The Belcourt.
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.
TONIGHT
🎸 Yeah Yeah Yeahs @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, $100+, Info
🎸 The Head And The Heart @ Ascend Amphitheater, 7p, $32+, Info
🎻 The Goonies with Members of the Nashville Symphony @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $30+, Info
🪕 Williamson Branch @ Station Inn, 9p, $25, 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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Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Edward Landstreet (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).