The Five Spot: We Have A Developing Ruby Red Slipper Situation

Also: A monkey escape and Ridley Scott talking his shit

Editor’s note: This week’s edition of The Five Spot is free. I usually toss up a paywall after the opening section but I’m not doing it this time because… well, because I don’t want to. I’ve been looking for fun things to read this week for any number of reasons you can probably guess and it dawns on me that you might be looking for some, too. If weirdo rambling about slipper heists and warrior rhinos is something that fits into that category for you, well, here you go.

Back to regularly scheduled programming next week because getting back to things is good and important. If you like what you see here and want these Friday newsletters going forward, you can upgrade your account to a paid subscription — a buck a week, basically — by clicking…

Off we go.

FIVE: There is only one solution here

Back in 2005, almost 20 years ago, when the malls of America were flooded with layered popped collars and Juicy tracksuits and the sound of “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield playing out of 70-80 percent of the stores, a pair of ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz was stolen from a museum in Minnesota. They remained missing for over a decade, until 2018, when the FBI recovered them thanks to a year-long sting operation that involved undercover agents posing as insurance middlemen who were offering a reward for their safe return. I bring this up today for three reasons:

• There is never a bad time to bring it up

• It is honestly unbelievable to me that no one has made a loosely fictionalized limited series based on this for some mid-tier streaming service

• The stolen and recovered ruby red slippers are now on the auction block

From the Associated Press:

A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” is on the auction block nearly two decades after a thief stole the iconic shoes, convinced they were adorned with real jewels.

Okay, this last part is true. The slippers weren’t even stolen by a superfan or someone looking to capitalize on the black market memorabilia value of it all. The “hold them ransom and try to negotiate with the insurance company who was on the hook for a $1 million policy” part of it was kind of a plan that the thief stumbled into. The real motive was much simpler and much stupider: the thief thought the slippers had beem bedazzled with real rubies, not just the little pieces of red plastic that were actually used. Please read this incredible paragraph for confirmation.

The man who stole the slippers, Terry Jon Martin, was 76 when he was sentenced in January to time served because of his poor health. He admitted to using a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case in what his attorney said was an attempt to pull off “one last score” after an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value.

I do not think you can possibly imagine how jealous I am of the attorney who got to stand up in front of a judge and say “Yes, Your Honor, my client used a hammer to steal the ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz but, to be fair, it was his one last job.” Worth the price of law school right there. And frankly, that should be a viable defense anyway.

JUDGE: How does the defendant plead?

ATTORNEY: The defendant pleads One Last Job, Your Honor.

Anyway, I think the endgame of all of this is pretty clear: Some rich doofus with way too much money needs to pay like $10-20 million for these at the auction and tuck them away in some obnoxious private collection guarded by lasers and then someone needs to get together a team to steal them again. Keep the cycle going.

I think we deserve this, as a nation.

FOUR: The Gladiator II press tour is so good

I was sold on Gladiator II as soon as I saw the Warrior Rhino in the trailer, but that’s because I have the kind of brain that short circuits when I see things like a rhinoceros outfitted for battle charging into the Roman Coliseum with a gladiator standing on its back. Maybe you need more information before you commit. That’s fine. The reviews look good, if that helps. Or maybe you just need to see the film’s director, Ridley Scott, do a bunch of interviews on the press tour where he talks his charming shit like the cranky 86-year-old he is.

If so, great news. We have a few of those interviews trickling out. Here’s one with the New York Times that’s pretty good, but my favorite is this one in The Hollywood Reporter. The big thing you might have seen aggregated from this is the quote where he tells Quentin Tarantino to shut up and make another movie, but there was also this, which I adore…

When researching you for this, I literally exclaimed “What?!” when I read you haven’t yet won an Oscar. How important is that to you?

Well, I’ve been knighted twice.

Hmm. Yes, that’s fair. And a pretty good comeback to anything really, whether it’s “Did you forget to take out the trash again?” or “Tell us why we should approve you for this small business loan.” And the follow-up is even better.

I’m curious, after you’re knighted, does anything actually change in your life?

Only if somebody gets tricky and then I sign the note rudely [as “Sir Ridley Scott”]. Otherwise I don’t use it. But, of course, I respect it.

I don’t know why but the “But, of course, I respect it” at the end is hilarious to me. Good for Ridley Scott.

THREE: Here is my Star Wars idea…

Some notes:

• There is a new Star Wars trilogy on the way from writer-director Simon Kinberg, as confirmed by every trade publication in the universe this week

• There are conflicting reports over whether this will continue the story as episodes 10-12 or be its own whole new thing

• I am very happy for you if you are excited by this news but I am terrible at Star Wars and have very little in the way of useful information to add here

What I do have, however, is a stupid idea, which is this….

It would be really funny if this whole trilogy takes place way off in some part of the galaxy untouched by generations-long struggles for power and civilians learning the are blessed with The Force and it’s just three movies about a cool bartender named Rex Colorado who makes umbrella drinks at a space beach and gets himself into various sticky situations he has to charm his way out of.

Everyone would be pretty mad. Everyone but me.

TWO: MONKEY ESCAPE

To South Carolina!

A police search is underway after 43 monkeys escaped from a research facility in South Carolina on Wednesday night.

MONKEY ESCAPE

WE HAVE A MONKEY ESCAPE

WE HAVE A MONKEY JAILBREAK

The monkeys were a group of "very young females" that have never been used for testing. An Alpha Genesis spokesperson confirmed to police that the animals "are too young to carry disease," according to police statement.

"Alpha Genesis currently have eyes on the primates and are working to entice them with food," police said Thursday afternoon.

Okay, so this is another one of those things where even 30 seconds of thinking about it makes it substantially less fun. I am not trying to bum anyone out with thoughts of caged monkeys and animal testing or any of that. What I am trying to do, on the other hand, is get you to picture 43 monkeys hatching a scheme to escape — maybe one of them is the mastermind, maybe six of them climb on each other’s back and slip on a big trench coat and pretend to be an employee at the facility to sneak into the control room and open all the doors, maybe one drives the getaway car while wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket — and then striking one night when then conditions are perfect. I hope they’re all sipping mojitos in Tahiti right now.

“Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes,” Yemassee Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. Anyone who finds a monkey should not interact with it but instead call 911, it said.

Mark my words: This will be the plot of an episode of 9-1-1 in the next 18 months. Angela Bassett will find these monkeys. It will be remarkable television.

ONE: Why did it take us this long to cast Jack Black as Satan in a Santa costume?

What we have here:

• A trailer for a movie where Jack Black plays Satan…

• … who is summoned by accident when a child spells “Santa” incorrectly on his Christmas letter…

• … and then Jack Black ends up playing Satan dressed as Santa

Will this movie be any good? I have no idea. I almost don’t want to know. I just like that someone finally figured out that it should exist. We should have figured it out like 10 years ago, honestly. But we take what we can get when we can get it. That’s the lesson here.