Teen Girl Loses Legs Due To Woke Policies, Are "Mediocre Movies" the Key to Saving Theaters? WWII Movie Goes Full John Wick, New Music Roundup (The Five for 02/26/23)
Hey, welcome to The Five…sorry this one is a bit late.
Up first… a couple of quick product reviews.
Let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
A Tennessee teenager was visiting St. Louis for a volleyball tournament in St. Louis when she was struck by a car. The driver, Daniel Riley, was a repeat offender who had violated his parole an estimated 40-50 times, but was out on the street due to Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.
This isn’t just a local story…but a microcosm of woke politics at work in the public proscetor’s office.
Gateway Pundit has a solid review of Gardner’s record as a prosecuting attorney for the city of St. Louis:
In August 2018 Kim Gardner announced her attorneys will no longer accept cases from 28 different St. Louis City police officers. Gardner called it her “exclusion list” because they were racist. Gardner did not tell the officers what they did to get on her list but they were being censored.
In 2019 Gardner refused to charge a drug dealer who was found with 1,000 opiate pills and 30,000 in cash because she didn’t like the cop involved.
And Gardner refused to charge the killer of a 7-year-old child despite a suspect’s confession in 2019.
Also in 2020 Kim Gardner released all of the rioters and looters from jail without charges in the violent St. Louis Black Lives Matter riots.
In 2020 Kim Gardner dropped the case against a suspect who shot another man in a traffic dispute in broad daylight.
Despite multiple examples of dereliction of duty…it was this out-of-town teenager losing her legs that finally cost Gardner her job, as she was fired from her post by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. She’s not out of the office yet, as the case will now go before a judge appointed by the Missouri Supreme Court…but the evidence is overwhelming here.
Normally, The Five exists to be a publication that examines both sides of a story…but in this case, there isn’t another angle…this woman puts murderers back on the street, and she’s proud of it.
But the fascinating (and tragic) angle here is that Gardner’s press conference was full of people shouting messages of support and well wishing.
More than Presidential elections, more than cultural issues…this concerns me for the future of the nation.
I’m not sure what kind of coalition can be forged between a small, but very loud and influential group of influencers, public figures and local busybodies who are so far down the Woke rabbit hole that murder shouldn’t be punished with jail time…and the rest of us, who will have to live in places where those murderers are roaming free.
One local example is a publication that blamed “our toxic relationship with cars” and not Gardner’s incompetence, for this teen girl losing her legs.
Nope.
It’s the prosecutor’s toxic relationship with justice.
[two]
A significant trove of artifacts have been returned to Cambodia, after allegedly being pedaled on the black market.
Rare gold jewelry that dates all the way back to the 9th century has been returned to Cambodia, the southeast Asian country’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts announced Monday.
In this stash of jewels were 77 gold relics, including crowns, bracelets, and necklaces that were believed to be looted from burial grounds and ancient tombs. They are being returned to Cambodia from the collection of Douglas Latchford, a notorious British art dealer who has been accused of trafficking looted artifacts and had been indicted in the United States.
“It was not in any published books. The issue now is the team here has to evaluate it and look at each piece,” Brad Gordon, legal advisor to the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said. “It’s 77 objects altogether and the [National Museum of Cambodia] did not have much in terms of gold, so this is much more than it had in its possession.”
Researchers believe some of the artifacts were once worn by early Angkorian kings from the Khmer empire in the 9th century, which included Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and southern Vietnam. Some of the pieces include a gold necklace with a purple stone, a gold headdress, a gold belt or waistband, and a crown made from hammered gold, the New York Times reported. One thing all the items have in common is that they ended up in the possession of Latchford.
While smuggling ancient artifacts may sound like something that’s more fiction than fact…the reality is that our known (and unknown) history is under constant threat from development (i.e. shopping centers being built on top of Civil War battlefields around Atlanta in the past decade), terrorism (the Taliban has destroyed an incalculable amount of Afghanistan’s ancient history, including blowing up these statues, ISIS destroyed priceless culture and history in all these areas across multiple countries) and just plain incompetence (developers accidentally building on top of undiscovered sites by missing evidence).
It’s nice to see the archeological good guys get a win…even if they don’t literally wear fedoras, carry bullwhips and drop catchy one-liners.
[three]
Could the recent box office draw of recent “mediocre” movies like Ticket to Paradise, A Man Called Otto and 80 for Brady (wait, what? That was a movie)?
From Variety:
But I think that kind of dismissiveness misses the actual problem. The audience of adults that still yearns to see movies that aren’t fantasy blockbusters (Marvel, “Jurassic Park”), or the horror freakout of the week, has been drastically underserved. As a result, they have fallen out of the regularity of moviegoing. The rhythms of staying at home, which the media, during the pandemic, tried to sell as a new normal, almost a new ideology (you won’t have to go into the office anymore! or to a movie theater! just let it all come to you!), are still very much in play. The idea that they’re a new paradigm has not lost its sway. But I think 2022 was the year when people allowed themselves to get used to going to the movies again. What’s going to keep them there is movies they can count on for an experience that reinforces — in its very aesthetic — the comfortable and the conventional.
Because really, it has always been that way. What we imagine as “film history” is, in fact, the crème de la crème. During the heyday of classic Hollywood, people went out to the movies and saw the studio programmer of the week — thousands upon thousands of Westerns and comedies and romances and thrillers that are now long forgotten. And the 1970s, that fabled age of cinematic adventure, had a whole lot of cereal mixed in with the cutting-edge art. Yes, The Godfather and M*A*S*H and “Dog Day Afternoon and Last Tango in Paris and The French Connection and Shampoo were box office hits — but so were Billy Jack and Willard and Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Escape from the Planet of the Apes and The Towering Inferno and The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams and Rollerball.
Sure, it’s tougher for middle-of-the-road films to make a financial dent at the box office, which probably puts them at risk of the chopping block.
But a darkened movie theater, where phones aren’t allowed, provides a different kind of escapism than even the best prestige TV can offer…because you watch Yellowstone, The Last of Us and House of the Dragon at home…with your phone in reach and within feet of an untold number of chores that need to be done…which is nowhere near the same level of immersion, regardless of the quality of story.
Not everything can (or should) be a blockbuster…if you love movies, I hope you find time to love some of the average ones before they hit your living room.
[four]
Two months into 2023…some excellent records have already dropped. Let’s take a look.
According to Hardy himself, he's written some of the worst bro-country songs of the last decade, for such terrible artists as Florida Georgia Line. In a recent interview, Hardy referred to writing “douchey" songs to pay the bills when he was flat broke.
As an artist, Hardy goes to a place we haven't seen a country artist go before… into the deep waters of 00’s hard rock, particularly the post 9/11 output of bands like Puddle of Mud and Incubus, as well as 90’s staples Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden and Matchbox 20. His latest album is a throwaway disc of country fare (with the exception of the instant classic murder ballad “Wait in the Truck"), followed by a surprisingly strong set of heavy rock songs, including a guest appearance from much beloved rock band A Day to Remember.
Lyrically, Hardy writes from a grim reality, like the line:
“When there's bombs up in the sky/You won't find me strapped for back strap/Crying at the crashing Nasdaq”
If you’re not familiar with “backstrap,” it’s the premium cut of venison…Hardy’s declaration to live off a freezer full of wild game in the event of economic collapse or Russian nukes is a pretty direct callback to Hank Williams Jr’s “A Country Boy Can Survive.” Nice.
In my humble opinion, P!nk has never made a bad album… but her lastest batch of songs is notably strong, with guest appearances from Chris Stapleton, First Aid Kit and The Lumineers.
Unlike Madonna, who's now a creepy geriatric plastic surgery horror movie doll trying to come off as a sexy teenager, P!nk had managed to settle into her 40’s, marriage and motherhood without losing her strong songwriting instincts that have kept her relevant on the billboard charts since George W Bush was running against Al Gore.
Jason Isbell is one of the most prolific Americana artists of this century... And once again delivers and incredible single. I would assume this means there's a new album on the way but I'm not sure that's been confirmed.
The National have stayed relevant since the mid-aughts, without paying much attention to sonic trends hitting the charts. The Ohio indie rockers keep chugging ahead with smokey vocals, infectious downbeat percussion and sparse guitar playing. But the songwriting stays sharp, which keeps their passionate fanbase loyal. If their upcoming album is as good as this single, it will be another excellent addition to their discography.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup…
Elizabeth Olsen (Avengers: Endgame, Wind River) takes on the true story of a 1980’s Texas housewife accused of Murder in HBO’s Love & Death, leading an excellent cast that also includes Jesse Plemmons (Friday Night Lights, The Irishman) and Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous)
Yeah, this one feels like a huge hit. Coming April 27th.
Netflix may just pull off a solid murder/mystery thriller in Unseen, although it looks a tad low budget. We’ll find out March 27th.
The minds behind John Wick are doing a John-Wick-y WWII movie about a Finnish soldier going full John Wick on Nazis.
I’m so down for this.
R&B crooner Teyana Taylor leads A Thousand and One, about a woman who steals her son back from foster care and is essentially on the run…oh, and the kid is a genius.
Looks like a heavy, but rewarding, watch.
Until the next one,
-sth