The Dixie Chicks will play Gexa Energy Pavilion in Dallas on August 5.
Photo by Nadine Ljewere
The Dixie Chicks have announced a 41 city North American tour in 2016, their first tour in 10 years and one that will include stops in three different Texas cities.
The tour, which will first go to 13 European cities, will kick off on June 1 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Chicks will make their way to Texas in the heat of August, visiting Gexa Energy Pavilion in Dallas on August 5 before going to Houston on August 6 and Austin on August 7.
The one-time massively popular country music trio, which started in Dallas in 1989, was virtually abandoned by country radio after lead singer Natalie Maines said the group was "ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas" in 2003. The Dixie Chicks went on to release a highly acclaimed album, Taking the Long Way, that won five Grammy Awards, including three for the defiant single, "Not Ready to Make Nice."
In the 10 years since the Chicks last toured, sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison released two albums as the duo Courtyard Hounds, while Maines released the solo album Mother in 2013. There's no word yet if the 2016 tour will be accompanied by a new album, although the group has been hinting at the possibility.
Tickets for all stops on the tour will be available in a presale on November 17. The public on-sale date for the Dallas stop is November 21, while Houston and Austin go on sale to the public on November 20.
While the horror genre is still capable of producing some innovative filmmaking, most of the output tends to fall back on jump scares and other tropes to deliver their terror. So when a film like the new Undertone tries something different, it should be applauded for the effort, even if it’s not as successful in its execution.
Evy (Nina Kiri) is a podcaster who co-hosts a show called Undertone, which focuses on paranormal videos and sounds they find on the internet. Her co-host, Justin (Adam DiMarco), lives in London, so - for kind of contrived reasons - in order to make the time difference between them work, Evy records at around 3 am her time. Evy - who lives at home with her bedridden, dying mother - is the skeptic of the two, consistently debunking clips that Justin presents to her.
Her doubts are tested when Justin brings in a series of 10 audio clips that purport to be about a boyfriend recording his girlfriend as she talks in her sleep. The audio begins in a lighthearted manner and quickly turns creepy and then sinister as unexplained things start happening. Evy senses that what she’s hearing is bleeding into her own world, especially when inexplicable actions take place in her mother’s bedroom.
Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Ian Tuason, the film is effective early on when it introduces the story concept. Making great use of sound design, Tuason essentially puts the audience inside Evy’s head, where every little sound is heightened. Setting the podcast sessions in the middle of the night ups the anxiety level for both her and the audience.
However, as the film goes along it gets a little tedious watching Evy listen to the audio, even as Tuason attempts to keep the film dynamic by moving the camera around her. The premise of the story - progressively going through 10 clips - and Tuason’s framing of shots that focus as much on the background as they do on Evy seem to promise more interesting results than actually transpire.
What ultimately holds the film down more than anything is its lack of different viewpoints. The only other person who’s actually seen is Evy’s mother, who is unable to speak. Evy speaks to Justin, another friend, and a doctor over the course of the story, and while each broadens our understanding of Evy somewhat, none of them make her a truly three-dimensional person. Getting a little more information about her history might have helped the story work better.
Kiri does her level best to vary her acting in the various podcast scenes, and even when they start to get repetitive, she remains compelling and watchable. It’s difficult to judge the other actors based on audio alone, but knowing that DiMarco also starred in season 2 of The White Lotus helps to visualize him and his acting style.
Undertone does well in creating a spine-chilling mood, but it needed something beyond that to become a truly great horror movie. Tuason shows some promise as a filmmaker, especially in the way he uses the camera to create tension, but a more complete story will serve him better the next time around.
