This year, Texas country music fans can double their listening pleasure as the festival expands from one day to two. Thousands will set their blankets down on the LBJ Library Lawn on the University of Texas campus to see 20 artists perform on two stages the weekend of Saturday, May 4 and Sunday, May 5.
The lineup, which includes a who’s who of Texas country bands and singers, was released Monday. Lone Star Jam 2013 features returning favorites, including Stoney LaRue; Texas country staples like Cory Morrow and Roger Creager; and local crossover artist, Bob Schneider.
The full lineup includes:
Saturday, May 4: Stoney LaRue Reckless Kelly Roger Creager Aaron Watson Charlie Robison Whiskey Myers Granger Smith Curtis Grimes William Clark Green
Sunday May 5: Jack Ingram Cory Morrow Kyle Park Bob Schneider Dirty River Boys Cody Johnson The Cadillac Black The Rankin Twins
As if that list wasn’t enough to get your toes tappin’, one more Saturday headliner and two more Sunday headliners have yet to be announced.
A limited number of early bird two-day passes sold out last week. The next two-day passes go on sale this Friday, February 1 for $60 each. You can order tickets for the sixth annual Lone Star Jam at texasperformingarts.org, by calling 1-800.982.BEVO, and at all Texas Box Office Outlets.
Stoney Larue Lone Star Jam 2012, Stoney will also be headlining again at this year's event.
Photo by Meredith Rainey
Stoney Larue Lone Star Jam 2012, Stoney will also be headlining again at this year's event.
For a story that is 3,000 years old and has been referenced innumerable times since the advent of the moving picture, it’s striking that The Odyssey has not been adapted into a film more often. Christopher Nolan’s new film is, depending on your definition, just the fourth time in film history that someone has attempted to tell the original story. (Oddly, the third film — The Return — came out just two years ago.)
Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, who has been gone from his home of Ithaca for over 20 years. Waiting at home for him is his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland), as well as a hall full of suitors — most notably Antinous (Robert Pattinson) — who are hoping that Penelope will finally believe that Odysseus is dead and choose to marry one of them.
In typical Nolan fashion, the film goes back-and-forth in time often to show what has happened to Odysseus in the past two decades. His sea voyages with his crew have him attacking Troy using the legendary Trojan Horse; taking on the cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin); trying to escape the clutches of the witch Circe (Samantha Morton); living with the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron); communing with the vision of Athena (Zendaya); and more.
Nolan, who wrote and directed the epic film, has a clear reverence for the material and, perhaps more than any current filmmaker, has the chops to make the sprawling story feel coherent. With a plethora of characters who have names that take some time to understand for those not familiar with the ancient tale, it’s extremely tough to wrangle everything and everyone together, and Nolan and his team make that trick seem relatively easy.
However, there’s a difference between making the story comprehensible and making it compelling, and Nolan is not as successful on this front. As portrayed in this film, it’s difficult to care whether Odysseus ever finds his way home. His connection with Penelope and Telemachus is tenuous, at best, and his status as a hero is called into question on multiple occasions. Complicated protagonists are nothing new, but in a story where the hero’s journey is the whole point, Nolan fails to make the quest all encompassing.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some standout moments along the way. The sequence in Polyphemus’ cave is tremendous, as are a few other scenes in which Nolan’s reported reliance on practical effects make you wonder how the crew accomplished what they did. Damon has said this is the hardest movie he’s ever made, and that effort shows up in every scene, especially those on the water.
At 56 years old, Damon is getting close to elder statesman status in Hollywood, and he ably embodies the role of the respected and feared leader. Hathaway, Holland, and Pattinson get the next most screentime, and each makes their character interesting if not mesmerizing. The murderer’s row of the supporting cast — Theron, Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya, Elliot Page, Morton, Jon Bernthal, John Leguizamo, and more — give each scene a nice sheen whether or not their individual arcs make sense.
While the technical achievements of Nolan and his team in The Odyssey are admirable and occasionally awe-inspiring, the story he lays out is not quite as overwhelming. The structure he chose to use doesn’t allow the story to overcome the episodic nature of Odysseus’ brutal journey, keeping big emotions mostly at bay.
