Funny or Die's annual Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival has brought some big-name comedians to Dallas the past few years, and 2015 will even bigger with Amy Schumer and Aziz Ansari headlining the festival when it makes a stop at Gexa Energy Pavilion on October 18.
The Dallas date is the last on the festival's tour, which will hit 18 cities between August 28 and October 18, including Houston on October 16 and Austin on October 17.
Schumer and Ansari will be at every stop on the tour, which will also feature a rotating cast of 20 other comedians, including Anthony Jeselnik, Ashley Barnhill, Bridget Everett, Dave Attell, Jay Pharoah, Jeff Ross, Jim Norton, John Mulaney, Michael Che, Nick Kroll, Nick Thune, Nikki Glaser, Rachel Feinstein, Rory Scovel, Sebastian Maniscalco, Tim Minchin, T.J. Miller and Todd Barry.
Schumer and Ansari are natural picks for headliners, as they are two of the hottest comedians working today. Schumer is earning much praise for her Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer and for her upcoming film Trainwreck, while Ansari followed up the end of Parks and Recreation with the bestselling book Modern Romance.
The festival also features a second stage hosted by Big Jay Oakerson that will highlight local and emerging comedic talent in each city.
The Citi® cardmember pre-sale begins Thursday, July 9 through Citi's Private Pass® Program. Tickets for the general public, which range between $29.75 and $99.75, go on sale beginning Friday, July 10 at www.livenation.com.
Aziz Ansari will be the co-headliner at the festival that will also feature a rotating cast of 20 other comedians.
MoviePins.com
Aziz Ansari will be the co-headliner at the festival that will also feature a rotating cast of 20 other comedians.
Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in We Live in Time.
The art of filmmaking is one that can be done in myriad ways, although the vast majority of them tend to follow the three-act structure of telling a story linearly from beginning to end. Filmmakers that play around with that structure, as is done in aptly-named
We Live in Time, must find sufficient ways in which to involve viewers or they risk undercutting the power of the story they’re trying to tell.
Within the first few minutes of the film, it has shown scenes featuring Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield) in the midst of early love, interacting with their young daughter, and reacting to the news of a cancer diagnosis for Almut. Two of those revelations are ones that are typically held back in a story focused on the romance of one couple, so the fact that they’re shown right away is an indication that director John Crowley and writer Nick Payne have great confidence in their ability to keep viewers hooked.
The film continues its transmogrification of time throughout, sometimes stopping to show a few scenes in a row from one period in Almut and Tobias’ life together, but more often than not mixing them up as a way of comparing and contrasting how alike or different they are. Each scene builds upon the next to paint a picture of the couple’s unique love.
Organizing the film as a traditional narrative would have been the safe way to go for the filmmakers, as it has all the hallmarks of the grand romance turned tearjerker. This mixing up of the story definitely makes it stand out, although the results are hit-and-miss. When Crowley sticks with one timeline longer than he had previously, it helps to connect with the two main characters. When he goes through the multiple times rapidly, it forces the audience to play catch up, slightly hampering the story’s progress.
The scenes that work the best are the ones depicting the couple’s burgeoning bond, as it shows who they were as individuals and what they were becoming together. The film mostly elides the age gap between the two actors (Garfield is 41, Pugh is 28), and that’s for the best as the characters have an affinity for one another that transcends any other concerns.
As the film progresses, it does become a little difficult to keep the timelines straight. The story contains certain markers that aid in the storytelling, but the rapidity with which Crowley goes back and forth between different times, as well as similar looks for the two stars, leads to questions about when a certain segment is taking place.
Even if the story is not quite as powerful as it could have been, both Pugh and Garfield put in great performances. The former Oscar nominees each have a way of saying a lot with just their faces, and their expressiveness often does more to elicit emotions than the story itself. Few other actors get much time to make much of an impact, but Lee Braithwaite makes a nice impression as a sous chef to Almut, who is an acclaimed chef.
Going the linear route might have helped the legibility of the story of
We Live in Time, but it also would have made it the same as most other films in its genre. The strength of the narrative is somewhat muted by its early reveals, but it still has a very affecting arc for the central couple, aided by two award-worthy actors demonstrating their significant talents.
