If you're a country music fan in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, 2013 is shaping up to be quite the year. Country pop princess Taylor Swift is bringing all her break-up song glory to Cowboys Stadium in May, and at least one major country act will be showing up at Gexa Energy Pavilion every month through October.
Live Nation recognizes the significance of that, so they are offering the so-called "Country Megaticket," specially priced packages that give you tickets to five major shows: Tim McGraw on June 22, Brad Paisley on July 27, Keith Urban on August 17, Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley on September 13, and Jason Aldean on October 26.
Each package includes parking and an opportunity to buy next year's Megaticket early, while the Gold and Silver packages allow you to buy the exact same seats for each concert.
Granted, none of the packages is cheap. They run from $149.75 (plus fees) for lawn tickets to $599.75 for seats in the 100 sections, but you also have the ability to lock in your seats to huge concerts weeks or months before others are able to purchase individual tickets — an advantage that could be worth the upfront expenditure.
Tickets are now on sale and will only be available for a limited time.
Keith Urban will play at Gexa Energy Pavilion on August 17.
Keith Urban.net
Keith Urban will play at Gexa Energy Pavilion on August 17.
Of all the formulaic movie genres, Christmas/holiday movies are among the most predictable. No matter what the problem is that arises between family members, friends, or potential romantic partners, the stories in holiday movies are designed to give viewers a feel-good ending even if the majority of the movie makes you feel pretty bad.
That’s certainly the case in Oh. What. Fun., in which Michelle Pfeiffer plays Claire, an underappreciated mom living in Houston with her inattentive husband, Nick (Denis Leary). As the film begins, her three children are arriving back home for Christmas: The high-strung Channing (Felicity Jones) is married to the milquetoast Doug (Jason Schwartzman); the aloof Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz) brings home yet another new girlfriend; and the perpetual child Sammy (Dominic Sessa) has just broken up with his girlfriend.
Each of the family members seems to be oblivious to everything Claire does for them, especially when it comes to what she really wants: For them to nominate her to win a trip to see a talk show in L.A. hosted by Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria). When she accidentally gets left behind on a planned outing to see a show, Claire reaches her breaking point and — in a kind of Home Alone in reverse — she decides to drive across the country to get to the show herself.
Written and directed by Michael Showalter (The Idea of You), and co-written by Chandler Baker (who wrote the short story on which the film is based), the movie never establishes any kind of enjoyable rhythm. Each of the characters, including competitive neighbor Jeanne (Joan Chen), is assigned a character trait that becomes their entire personality, with none of them allowed to evolve into something deeper.
The filmmakers lean hard into the idea that Claire is a person who always puts her family first and receives very little in return, but the evidence presented in the story is sketchy at best. Every situation shown in the film is so superficial that tension barely exists, and the (over)reactions by Claire give her family members few opportunities to make up for their failings.
The most interesting part of the movie comes when Claire actually makes it to the Zazzy Sims show. Even though what happens there is just as unbelievable as anything else presented in the story, Showalter and Baker concoct a scene that allows Claire and others to fully express the central theme of the film, and for a few minutes the movie actually lives up to its title.
Pfeiffer, given her first leading role since 2020’s French Exit, is a somewhat manic presence, and her thick Texas accent and unnecessary voiceover don’t do her any favors. It seems weird to have such a strong supporting cast with almost nothing of substance to do, but almost all of them are wasted, including Danielle Brooks in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. The lone exception is Longoria, who is a blast in the few scenes she gets.
Oh. What. Fun. is far from the first movie to try and fail at becoming a new holiday classic, but the pedigree of Showalter and the cast make this dismal viewing experience extra disappointing. Ironically, overworked and underappreciated moms deserve a much better story than the one this movie delivers.
