Tori Amos brings her Unrepentant Geraldines tour to Winspear Opera House on July 29.
Tori Amos/Facebook
When a musician plays at Winspear Opera House, the concert takes on a sheen of class. Tori Amos comes to Dallas on July 29, 2014, as part of her Unrepentant Geraldines tour, and she'll grace the same stage that has seen the likes of Tony Bennett, Harry Connick Jr. and Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons.
The North American leg of the tour starts July 16 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and hits 28 cities, including Austin on July 30. The tour is named after Amos' 14th album, which is scheduled to be released May 12.
Amos' last couple of albums, Night of Hunters and Gold Dust, delved deeply into classical music, making her a good fit for a venue that normally houses opera, theater and other arts. In fact, the last time she came to Dallas, at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie in 2011, it was with her Night of Hunters tour that prominently featured a string quartet.
Unrepentant Geraldines, though, is said to be a return to Amos' pop rock roots for which she became famous in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Tickets for the Dallas date officially go on sale Friday, March 7, but anyone who pre-orders her new album will receive a special code that gives them access to a March 4 pre-sale.
Photo by Andrea Resmini / courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
undefined
The beauty of movies is that they can often expose a mass audience to stories that would otherwise be forgotten. The tale told in The Penguin Lessons is not that remarkable on the surface, but it holds a deeper meaning to it that the film demonstrates through its relaxed but insightful storytelling.
Set in Argentina just as President Isabel Martínez de Perón is being overthrown in 1976, it centers on Tom Michell (Steve Coogan), who arrives as the new English teacher at St. George’s, a school in Buenos Aires. His initial teaching style is, shall we say, lacking, as he shows little interest in making the boys in his class behave or learning the proper way to coach them in rugby.
When unrest related to the military coup forces the school to go on break, Tom travels to Uruguay for an unplanned vacation. An attempt at picking up a woman there instead leads to a discovery of an oil-covered penguin on a beach, which immediately bonds with him. Essentially forced to bring it back with him, the presence of the penguin at the school changes his teaching and much more.
Directed by Peter Cattaneo and adapted by Jeff Pope from the book by the real-life Michell, the film is a crowd-pleaser with political undertones. The character of Tom is a misanthrope, so it’s easy to predict early on that the penguin will not only thaw his somewhat frozen heart, but also open up his eyes to how he could be living his life in more meaningful ways.
But the inherent politics of the story changes the dynamics of the film. Tom strikes up a friendship with Maria (Vivian El Jaber) and Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio), a grandmother and granddaughter who are housekeepers at the school, and when Sofia is kidnapped off the street for protesting against the new government, it alters the tone of the film considerably. The lighthearted nature that comes with the presence of the penguin is juxtaposed with much more serious situations, providing an interesting balance to the movie.
Of course, most of the charm of the film comes from how they use the penguin, and that aspect never gets old. There’s just something about seeing the (well-trained) penguin following Tom around, gobbling up fish fed to it by the students and others, or just standing benignly as multiple people pour out their feelings to it that brings a smile to your face. The filmmakers succeed in avoiding sappiness, proving genuinely heartfelt sentimentality instead.
Coogan’s career has featured a number of zany characters, but he plays this role with a good amount of subtlety. Even when Tom softens over time, Coogan keeps him stoic, which works well for both the character and the film. Jonathan Pryce gets a few good scenes as the school’s headmaster, but El Jaber winds up as the heart of the film as the bond between Maria and Tom evolves.
The Penguin Lessons is an easy watch with lots of superficial pleasurable elements. It’s not designed to be an ultra-dramatic story, but when it chooses to go down that road, it’s equally effective in those moments as it is when it just wants to show viewers a cute penguin.
