In the realm of recent music stars to come out of Dallas-Fort Worth, Kelly Clarkson tends to get the headlines. But Demi Lovato is arguably just as big a star.
The singer, actress, reality show judge and Dallas native will attempt to show why when she performs at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie, on February 17, 2014, as part of The Neon Lights Tour.
It will be a 27-city tour across North America, starting in Vancouver, British Columbia, on February 9, and ending in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 30. Lovato is touring in support of her fourth album, Demi, which came out in May 2013. Opening act duties will be split by Little Mix, who will perform at Verizon Theatre, and Cher Lloyd.
Additionally, Lovato is using her other job as judge on The X Factor to her advantage by bringing former X Factor finalists Fifth Harmony on tour as a second opening act at every stop. Lovato returned for her second season on the reality singing competition — the show's third overall in the U.S. — earlier in September.
Lovato, of course, has been in the public eye for quite a while, first with her stint on several Disney Channel productions and later with her music career. After an extended break from acting, she'll participate in a little Fox synergy by appearing in at least two episodes of Glee this season.
Tickets for all dates on The Neon Lights Tour go on sale to the general public Saturday, October 5, although Citi cardmembers will have access to a pre-sale tickets beginning Wednesday, October 2, through Citi's Private Pass Program.
Career revivals like the one that has happened to Ke Huy Quan are extremely rare in Hollywood. As a child, he scored two big back-to-back roles in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies. While he found occasional work after that, his career mostly went dormant starting in 2002 until he was cast in Everything Everywhere All at Once, a role that won him an Oscar.
Now, he’s the toast of the town, including his first-ever starring role as the lead in Love Hurts. Quan plays Marvin Gable, a relentlessly positive real estate agent who’s the top seller in his area. But from the beginning of the film, it’s clear that he has a hidden backstory, as he receives a veiled threat in a note from a woman named Rose (Ariana DeBose), who is seen early on defacing many of his advertisements around town.
When a heavy called The Raven (Mustafa Shakir) confronts Marvin at his office, he is pulled back into his old life, one where he was involved in the criminal enterprise of his brother, Knuckles (Daniel Wu). Soon he’s dodging attacks on multiple fronts, looking out for Rose, and all the while trying to keep up appearances at his day job.
Directed by Jonathan Eusebio (a stunt coordinator making his directorial debut) and written by Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, and Luke Passmore, the film is one big excuse to have Quan show off the martial arts skills he demonstrated in his Oscar-winning role. While there is some semblance of a story, it’s mostly to set up the various fight scenes; there’s little attempt to make the audience care about any of the stakes.
Instead, Eusebio and his team vacillate between moments of calmness and sequences with extreme violence. Quan and his fellow combatants (in addition to Shakir, he faces off against Marshawn Lynch, Cam Gigandet, and others) engage in a series of creative moves designed to inflict as much pain as possible. The juxtaposition of the seemingly mild-mannered Marvin with his abilities works relatively well, as does the variety of implements used as weapons (pencils, boba straws, feathers, and more come into play over the course of the film).
But the lack of a full story catches up with the film in the end, as instead of building to some kind of grand finale, there are diminishing returns with every scene. The filmmakers try to distract with a semi-amusing romantic connection between The Raven and Marvin’s assistant, Ashley (Lio Tipton), something that works much better than allusions to a bond between Marvin and Rose. There’s also a mini-Goonies reunion with Sean Astin as Marvin’s boss that’s kind of fun, but the antipathy between Marvin and his attackers never fully develops.
Quan is a joyful presence who does his level best to make himself into a lead actor, but he’s not served well in the film as a whole. DeBose, an Oscar winner herself, seems to be stuck in a rut of mediocre roles, ones that don’t allow her to show off her skills like West Side Story. Lynch shows again he’s reliable in comic sidekick roles, while Tipton and Shakir are the only other actors to make any kind of impact.
The Valentine’s theme of Love Hurts is not the only part of the film that feels tacked on. While the idea of letting Quan show off his skills is a good one in theory, very little thought appears to have been put into making that showcase effective. The result is a forgettable action comedy that puts more emphasis on ultraviolence than its story.
