Ms. Pac Man will be on the lineup at Free Play Arcade in Richardson.
Free Play
A game arcade with a retro theme and a unique payment approach will open in Richardson in the fall. Called Free Play, it'll offer more than 70 arcade games, most from the 1980s, including titles such as Ms. Pac Man, Defender and Tempest.
As the name suggests, every video will be set to "free play" mode, with patrons paying a single entry price for unlimited play on every game in the arcade.
In addition to the games, the arcade will include a dining area with food and beverages, including a wide selection of local and regional craft beers.
“This will be a huge draw for young professionals and video game fans from all over the area,” says co-founder and president Corey Hyden. “Nothing like this exists in DFW and, for most of the games that will be on our floor, you would have to drive hundreds of miles to find them at another arcade. It will be nostalgia overload."
The arcade is going into a former electronics store at 1730 Belt Line Rd. between Chase Place, a bar, and a Sherwin Williams store.
According to the Richardson blog, some residents complained that it would be selling alcohol, but Hyden said it will be beer and wine for his target audience of people aged 25 to 50.
Hyden and his partner Richard Boland Tregilgas II both graduated from Richardson high schools. Hyden is a litigation attorney based in Richardson; Tregilgas is CEO of imakestuff, inc., a company that develops and builds creations for use on stage and screen.
"It was extremely important to us that we open this retro arcade in Richardson," Hyden says. "The recent boom in young professionals calling Richardson home, along with our strong roots here, made Richardson the obvious choice."
The impact that writer/director/producer James L. Brooks has made on Hollywood cannot be understated. The 85-year-old created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, personally won three Oscars for Terms of Endearment, and was one of the driving forces behind The Simpsons, among many other credits. Now, 15 years after his last movie, he’s back in the directing chair with Ella McCay.
The similarly-named Emma Mackey plays Ella, a 34-year-old lieutenant governor of an unnamed state in 2008 who’s on the verge of becoming governor when Governor Bill (Albert Brooks) gets picked to be a member of the president’s Cabinet. What should be a happy time is sullied by her needy husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), her agoraphobic brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), and her perpetually-cheating father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson).
Despite the trio of men competing to bring her down, Ella remains an unapologetic optimist, an attitude bolstered by her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), her assistant Estelle (Julie Kavner), and her police escort, Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani). The film follows her over a few days as she navigates the perils of governing, the distractions her family brings, and the expectations being thrust upon her by many different people.
Brooks, who wrote and directed the film, is all over the place with his storytelling. What at first seems to be a straightforward story about Ella and her various issues soon starts meandering into areas that, while related to Ella, don’t make the film better. Prime among them are her brother and father, who are given a relatively small amount of screentime in comparison to the importance they have in her life. This is compounded by a confounding subplot in which Casey tries to win back his girlfriend, Susan (Ayo Edebiri).
Then there’s the whole political side of the story, which never finds its focus and is stuck in the past. Though it’s never stated explicitly, Ella and Governor Bill appear to be Democrats, especially given a signature program Ella pushes to help mothers in need. But if Brooks was trying to provide an antidote to the current real world politics, he doesn’t succeed, as Ella’s full goals are never clear. He also inexplicably shows her boring her fellow lawmakers to tears, a strange trait to give the person for whom the audience is supposed to be rooting.
What saves the movie from being an all-out train wreck is the performances of Mackey and Curtis. Mackey, best known for the Netflix show Sex Education, has an assured confidence to her that keeps the character interesting and likable even when the story goes downhill. Curtis, who has tended to go over-the-top with her roles in recent years, tones it down, offering a warm place of comfort for Ella to turn to when she needs it. The two complement each other very well and are the best parts of the movie by far.
Brooks puts much more effort into his female actors, including Kavner, who, even though she serves as an unnecessary narrator, gets most of the best laugh lines in the film. Harrelson is capable of playing a great cad, but his character here isn’t fleshed out enough. Fearn is super annoying in his role, and Lowden isn’t much better, although that could be mostly due to what his character is called to do. Were it not for the always-great Brooks and Nanjiani, the movie might be devoid of good male performances.
Brooks has made many great TV shows and movies in his 60+ year career, but Ella McCay is a far cry from his best. The only positive that comes out of it is the boosting of Mackey, who proves herself capable of not only leading a film, but also elevating one that would otherwise be a slog to get through.
