Dallas fans of the folk rock group Mumford & Sons have been waiting a long time for the band to head this way again. But their patience will be rewarded on June 11 when Mumford & Sons stop by Gexa Energy Pavilion alongside Michael Kiwanuka and Mystery Jets.
It's been so long since Marcus Mumford and his bandmates graced our fair city that they hadn't even been nominated for their first Grammy Award yet. That was way back in November 2010 at House of Blues Dallas. Since then they've gone on to be nominated for 12 Grammys and win two, including Album of the Year for their latest, Babel.
Mumford & Sons is at the forefront of a somewhat unlikely folk rock revival. Groups such as Old Crow Medicine Show and The Avett Brothers have been around longer, but they all seemed to operate under the radar until the emergence of the British band. Now those other groups and newer ones like The Lumineers, nominated for Best New Artist at this year's Grammys, are reaping the rewards that had previously eluded them.
True to form, Mumford & Sons are not doing a full North American tour. The Dallas date is just one of 17 new concerts that will be interspersed between previously announced festival stops and the group's so-called "Gentleman of the Road Stopover" tour. The majority of those 17 concerts will take place in Western states.
You can register now for an invitation-only presale designed to give as many people as possible an equal chance at buying tickets — and to make sure those tickets end up in the hands of true fans. Tickets will go on sale to the general public April 5.
Mabel (Piper Kurda) and King George (Bobby Moynihan) in Hoppers.
For the first 15 years of their history, animation studio Pixar delivered one classic film after another, an astonishing streak that included their first 11 movies. Things got bumpy starting with Cars 2 in 2011, and even though the majority of their output has been good-to-great ever since, their releases are no longer considered slam dunks like they once were.
They’re back with an original film, Hoppers, trying to return to form by going back to the animal world. The film centers on Mabel (Piper Kurda), a 19-year-old environmentalist who’s trying to stop a new highway being built by Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) in the fictional city of Beaverton. Her activism has as much to do with helping displaced local animals as it does with being nostalgic for her youth, in which she spent years observing nature with her Grandma Tanaka (Karen Huie).
She finds an unlikely possible solution when she discovers that her college professors have created a system that allows them to transfer - or hop - their consciousness into animal-like robots. Hijacking a beaver robot, Mabel joins up with the local wildlife, including beaver King George (Bobby Moynihan) to try to convince them to help her execute her plan. But with the highway almost complete and Mayor Jerry willing to do anything to make it happen, Mabel might be too late.
Directed by Daniel Chong and written by Jesse Andrews from a story by Chong, the film cycles through a variety of genres in its 105-minute running time, including comedy, drama, thriller, and even a touch of Pixar-style horror. When Pixar has been at its best, it seamlessly goes back and forth between genres, trusting that audiences will go along with them for the ride, and Hoppers feels like a return to form in that respect.
Humor rules the day as Mabel adjusts to being part of the animal world while her professors desperately try to get her and their robot back. Mabel encounters not only wildly confusing things like “pond rules” (if a predator catches you, you don’t fight it), but also the existence of a hierarchy within the world that involves kings or queens from various animal classes like reptiles, birds, amphibians, fish, and insects. Her one-track mind and the way of the world she is invading clash in a variety of funny ways.
As the film goes along, Chong, Andrews, and the rest of the filmmaking team also find a way to burrow into the audience’s heart. There are many elements that threaten to tip into eye-rolling territory, but the filmmakers consistently pull back before that happens. The number of fun characters on both the human and animal side helps in that regard, as does the simple yet profound message they’re trying to convey.
Pixar has assembled one of the best voice casts in recent memory for this film, including such big names as Meryl Streep, Dave Franco, Melissa Villaseñor, Vanessa Bayer, and the late Isiah Whitlock, Jr. However, due to the sheer number of characters, only Kurda, Moynihan, and Hamm truly stand out. Still, they all fit together well and give the always-stellar animation even more life.
Since the pandemic, Pixar has only released one truly great film (Inside Out 2), but with Hoppers and the seemingly bulletproof Toy Story 5 coming within a few months of each other, they might go back-to-back on that front. Like the classic films from the studio, it has goofy, heartfelt, and exciting parts, mixing together for an enthralling time at the theater.
