POPCORN WARS!

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.

Movie Theater Popcorn Gets Heated

When the Uptown Theater went dark in 2020, and its celebrated marquee seemed destined to read “I ASSURE YOU WE ARE NOT OPEN” in perpetuity, its neighbors at the Lagoon Cinema picked up the slack. Rather than quipping about movies as the Uptown had, the Lagoon started using its sign to directly address onlookers. Who can forget “YOU PEOPLE IN THE APARTMENTS READING THIS NOW SHOULD COME SEE A MOVIE HERE”? But now shit is getting serious. The Lagoon isn’t just claiming it’s got the best popcorn in Minneapolis—it’s calling out its competitors by name.

Rival cinemas quickly took the bait and/or accepted the challenge. The Main Cinema noted on its Facebook page that Snoop Dogg had once said “This shit’s good” after eating its popcorn (a fact a witness has independently verified to Racket). The Main also updated its marquee.

If we’re reading that correctly, they’re not only saying they have the best popcorn in town but the best popcorn across the Spider-verse. Quite a claim!

The Riverview Theater, which kept busy in the early days of the pandemic, when theaters were closed, by selling to-go popcorn (a side hustle it continues to this day), chimed in as well. 

The Trylon has so far remained silent on the issue. 

Hm, maybe we’ll have to do a Racket Special Investigation and settle this question once and for all... 

MPD's Inclusive Discrimination Makes DOJ History

Last week, we pulled some of the most horrifying excerpts from the U.S. Department of Justice’s long-awaited rundown on the rotten state of the Minneapolis Police Department. Today, sharp-eyed Minnesota Reformer reporter Deena Winter spotted another damming tidbit: For the first time ever, as part of that same report, DOJ discovered a police department that discriminates against Native Americans as well. “This is the first time we have made a finding that the police department unlawfully discriminates by using force after stops against Black and Native American people,” Kristen Clarke, DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at Friday’s presser.

Investigators sifted through five years of data, ultimately concluding that MPD searched and used force against Blacks and Native Americans more often than against whites. As you might expect, the Native community isn’t exactly shocked by this finding. “They spent all that money to come up with what we’ve been saying for years,” Native activist Mike Forcia told Winter. In fact, the city of Minneapolis paid Forcia a $125,000 settlement in 1999 after he was brutalized by a cop, Brian Sand, who was later promoted by MPD. Sand eventually apologized to Forcia, and the two men even worked together at last year’s May Day Parade. “I forgave him,” Forcia tells The Reformer. 

Steady Pours Get Steadier

For the last few years, Steady Pour has operated as a private bartending company, hosting event series and fun collaborative happenings in their northeast Minneapolis space. And for a little while now, a little note on the SP website has read, "We are hoping to open up Steady Pour as a bar and restaurant in the near future – Stay tuned!" Are ya still tuned in? In a release today, owner Jeff Seidenstricker says the biz has been granted an on-site liquor license and plans to "shift from our previous 'private event only' model to a 'open to the public four days a week' model." We like the sound of that! They're partnering with Jamie Malone of Paris Dining Club (and Grand Cafe before that) to bring the thing to life. It opens July 6.

Never Forget: Taylor Swift Can Sound Like Us

How outraged or non-outraged should we be about Taylor Swift’s (admittedly rock-solid) Fargo-i-fied besmirchment of our hideous tongues from 2009? Sound off in the comments! (And click here for additional T-Swift coverage as Minneapolis officially mutates into Swiftieapolis.)