The Merit of Melania
The Daily · · 7 min read
Good afternoon, everyone. Today:
- 1 Jerod takes us to the movies and reviews Melania
- 2 The Boring Co. to hold a meeting with Metro's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee about the Music City Loop
+ And much more!
Things That Never Happen But Should
Join us Thursday, February 19th for an evening with Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of The Federalist. This is the third installment of the Pamphleteer's new monthly event series. Paying Bard-level subscribers receive free access to this and future events. (Buy Tickets)
Amazon’s foray into Trumpworld is a bold indictment of the documentary genre.
The opening chords of The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” wash over a drone shot of Mar-a-Lago. As the camera shifts to a set of black high heels and then tilts up to the once-and-future First Lady, Mick Jagger screams “War, children, It's just a shot away. It's just a shot away.”
This is not a typical moment in what’s come to pass for a documentary in 2025–an endless stream of brooding explanations of lefty issues or recreations of murders rubber stamped for Netflix with overwrought scores. It’s the opening salvo of a Hollywood movie scored to a song that Martin Scorsese has used three times in his Italian and Irish gangster epics.
The film’s director, Brett Ratner, clearly knows this. So does the Hollywood trade Indiewire, which cautioned its readers on Thursday in the wake of the film’s post-pandemic box-office record for a documentary that, “Every documentary filmmaker should be worried about the success of 'Melania.’” As Addie Morfoot writes in her diatribe, Ratner’s film may well be the death knell for filmmakers “motivated to make complex nonfiction films with a worldview that disrupt the status quo.”
But it's this naked, smug lefty do-gooderism that has eroded the documentary form for the last two decades–a mode of filmmaking that has brought hagiographic documentaries on Ilhan Omar, The Obama Administration’s final year, and the rise of AOC and Cori Bush to festivals like Sundance, gussied them up with with bloated 90%+ Rotten Tomatoes scores and endowed them with multimillion dollar distribution deals only to find audiences of all political stripes wildly disinterested well before the press blitz faded. Half a decade before Melania, Amazon shelled out embarrassingly large sums for docs on Stacey Abrams and Mayor Pete that garnered less viewers than decades old episodes of Bob Ross’s PBS show and serve as further examples of the “complex nonfiction films” Morfoot cautions are endangered.
THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPEN BUT SHOULD
Welcome to America in 2026. You're sitting at the End of History. Nothing will ever happen again.
The steady march toward the impossible vision of a borderless world governed by rooms full of perfectly rational leaders incapable of committing evil in thought word or deed continues apace.
Will anything–can anything happen–that shakes us from our stupor? Is "Nothing Ever Happens" the law of the land? What should happen that hasn't happened?
Join us Thursday, February 19th as we sit down with Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of The Federalist, to discuss whether anything will ever happen again and more. (Buy Ticket)
This event is for the benefit of The Pamphleteer and free for paying, Bard-level subscribers.
⛏️ Third times the charm? The council delayed the vote on a resolution condemning the Boring Co.’s Music City Loop project again during this week’s council meeting. The Rules Committee recommended a two-meeting deferral, invoking the delay.
The resolution, sponsored by 10 council members, criticizes “the company's lack of transparency, inadequate community and Metropolitan Council engagement, and troubling labor and safety practices.”
Lead sponsor Delishia Porterfield said representatives from the Boring Co. are expected to appear before the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for a public meeting on February 19 at 4:30 p.m.
HEADLINES
Will Trump make a major disaster declaration in Tennessee?
Governor Lee put in the request a week ago, but it’s yet to be approved. That said, the delay is common. The declaration would expand recovery aid, including possible reimbursement for things like hotel stays, debris cleanup, and other efforts that benefit Nashvillians as they pull their lives back together.
TennesseanThe mayor’s board appointed NES' president and CEO, and the council approved it.
In the wake of Fern, frustrated NES customers want to know who put current President and CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin in charge. The highest position at Nashville Electric Service was selected by the Electric Power Board, a group of five unpaid members appointed by the mayor and confirmed by Metro Council.
TennesseanWere the emergency generators donated to NES delivered to illegal immigrants in Nashville?
The donations, made by Elon Musk, Tractor Supply, and others, were distributed by anti-ICE activist groups. The nonprofit distributors include the Hispanic Family Foundation, founded by owner of Plaza Mariachi, Mark Janbakhsh, who has just been sentenced on federal fraud charges. Remix Way, the group that told the mayor not to welcome assistance from the TN National Guard, also dolled out generators.
Tristar Daily
QUOTE OF THE DAY
A disaster within a disaster, Speaker Sexton talks about NES' emergency response: “It was a total disaster in and of itself. I don’t think the public wants to keep them in their leadership, based on what I see. The CEO needs to be replaced. I think the whole executive team needs to be replaced.”
TN House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville)
DEVELOPMENT
Less than 300,000 square feet of office space is under construction in Nashville, and it’s all being built in Wedgewood-Houston.
NBJSeller takes $4 million loss on raw land sitting in East Nashville planned for makeover.
PostPan Asia, pinned as the largest Asian supermarket in the Nashville area, officially opens today as part of the Chinatown development in Antioch.
Fox 17
THINGS TO DO
- View our calendar for the week 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 Fri, Feb 6
| Show | Venue | Time | Price | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Night Moves | The Blue Room | 8p | $23.41 | Info for Night Moves |
| Spano Conducts Bernstein featuring Leshnoff and the Nashville Symphony Chorus | Schermerhorn Symphony Center | 7:30p | $29+ | Info for Spano Conducts Bernstein featuring Leshnoff and the Nashville Symphony Chorus |
| Songs from the Road Band | Station Inn | 9p | Info for Songs from the Road Band | |
| Northern Soul Dance Night | Vinyl Tap | 7p | Info for Northern Soul Dance Night | |
| First Friday | The Underdog | 7p | $10 | Info for First Friday |
🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
Saturday
| Show | Venue | Time | Price | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 615 Indie Live+ feat. Ron Gallo, Kenny Sharp, Thunder & Rain, Venus & the Flytraps and more! | Multiple Venues | 6p | $20 | Info for 615 Indie Live |
| Marissa Nadler | Row One at Cannery Hall | 8p | $30.32 | Info for Marissa Nadler |
| Spano Conducts Bernstein featuring Leshnoff and the Nashville Symphony Chorus | Schermerhorn Symphony Center | 7:30p | $29+ | Info for Spano Conducts Bernstein featuring Leshnoff and the Nashville Symphony Chorus |
| Kelley’s Heroes | Robert’s Western World | 6:30p | Free | Info for Kelley’s Heroes |
Sunday
| Show | Venue | Time | Price | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Music City Puppy Bowl | Nashville Zoo | 10a | $30 | Info for Music City Puppy Bowl |
| Bluegrass Jam+ a night for musicians and singers from all over the world to gather and enjoy making music together | Station Inn | 7p | Free | Info for Bluegrass Jam |
| Sundays Between with Easy Green+ a bluegrass celebration of the music of the Grateful Dead | Tennessee Brew Works | 1p | Info for Sundays Between with Easy Green |
Today's newsletter is brought to you by Davis Hunt, Megan Podsiedlik, and Camelia Brennan.
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