In a rare and as yet singular event, former Secretary of State and Senator Hillary Clinton will make a joint appearance with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, at the newly opened The Pavilion at the Music Factory in Irving.
Scheduled for Friday, November 17, the event is titled, "A Special Evening with President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton." So far, there is scant information about it, but it seems sure to sell out, with only 4,000 seats available in the venue's indoor theater where it's being held. There are no other similar events of its kind on either of their schedules.
But the Clintons seem likely to focus on their ongoing work with their eponymous foundation, and the initial release indicates that there will be a question and answer portion to the event. Whether they will discuss the 2016 election or Donald Trump's presidency is unclear.
Although an appearance like this is uncommon, the Clintons have not been recluses since the election. They've been seen multiple times at Broadway shows in New York City, typically greeted with a warm reception, as was the case at a recent production of Oslo. Hillary has also been active on the speech circuit.
Tickets for the special event go on sale on Friday, August 18, through Ticketmaster, with prices yet to be revealed.
Monster movies can take on all sorts of different flavors, from all-out mayhem to quieter ones where the monster can sometimes be the protagonist. The new South Korean film Hopesplits the difference to a degree, delivering action-packed sequences while also attempting to understand the non-humans in a way.
The story starts in medias res, with an unseen creature having already done great damage to a huge bull and laying waste to much of a small Korean town. The local sheriff, Beom Seok (Hwang Jung-Min), tries to take control of the situation in the town, while a group of hunters led by Sung Ki (Zo In-Sung) travel into the nearby woods to see what they can find there.
Thus starts a nearly nonstop, 160-minute epic of each side trying (and mostly failing) to defend themselves against gigantic creatures who seem hellbent on destroying everything in their path. It’s not until 40 minutes into the film that the audience is shown one of the monsters in detail, and the less said the better about what it actually looks like, as the mystery behind it keeps the intrigue going.
That initial section of the film is the best, as Beom Seok — eventually joined by deputy Sung Ae (Hoyeon) — goes on a frantic hunt around the town, always just far enough behind the monster to keep from seeing it. The utter destruction he witnesses and his interactions with various locals are intense and oddly funny, with the hectic conversations he has laced with fear and incredulity over how different people choose to act.
Writer-director Na Hong-jin bounces back and forth between the people in the town and the group in the forest, doing his best to maintain the momentum of the first section. This approach works for a while as each group makes their own discoveries about the creatures and has run-ins with them that more often than not are ill-fated. Using a mixture of relatively good CGI, great production design, and an abundance of gore, the filmmaker shows he knows how to make an effective blockbuster-style film.
The trouble is, he doesn’t know when to stop. Somewhere around the two-hour mark of the movie, the story starts to become repetitive and Hong-jin introduces elements that don’t mesh well with what has come before. For some reason, he decides that some of the creatures should speak, a move that is baffling on several fronts. The biggest one is that they are voiced by English-speaking actors like Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, but each speaks a non-human language, rendering their performances moot.
Jung-min puts in a fantastic lead performance, one that requires him to vacillate between abject terror and in-control leadership. In-Sung is almost as good, although his character requires him to play one note over and over again. Hoyeon, who some may recognize from Squid Game, delivers an extra shot of energy when she enters the film, something she keeps going despite her character being forced to say some bad lines.
If Hong-jin had kept the focus Hope a little tighter, the sci-fi thriller might have ended up toward the top of this year’s films. But by choosing to extend the story into territories that don’t add much to the plot or make much sense, the filmmaker puts a damper on what was a fun and brutal monster movie.
