Austin country music legend Ray Benson revealed March 31 that he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
In a Facebook post, Benson — who celebrated his 69th birthday on March 16 — says he’d been feeling tired for about 10 days. Benson sought a COVID-19 test March 21, but no tests were available, he says. On March 30, he again sought a test and this time was able to get one. He was notified the morning of March 31 that his test had come back positive.
Benson, one of the most prominent musicians in Austin, is the frontman for the Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel. He’s also released several solo albums. Benson has earned nine Grammy awards and 30 Grammy nominations.
Benson says he feels tired and has a headache, but isn’t experiencing two other COVID-19 symptoms — a fever and a cough. The musician says he had mostly been alone recently, had worn a mask and had been washing his hands and using hand sanitizer, but still wound up being infected with the virus.
He urged his Facebook followers to take the current coronavirus seriously. “Do not listen to right wing BS!” Benson wrote.
On March 19, Benson hosted the livestreamed Luck Reunion festival from Austin. Performers included Willie Nelson and sons Lukas and Micah Nelson; Neil Young; Paul Simon; and Edie Brickell. One of the originally scheduled acts was country singer-songwriter John Prine, whose wife revealed he is critically ill with COVID-19.
The country music industry is still reeling from the March 29 death of singer Joe Diffie due to complications from COVID-19.
Austin Abrams has been a professional actor for 15 years, but the 30-year-old seems to just now be getting his due. After years of mostly supporting roles in films like Paper Towns, Brad’s Status, and Weapons, he has been charged with leading two films in 2026 where he’s largely acting by himself: First Resident Evil and now Whalefall.
Abrams plays Jay Gardiner, who has returned home to California a year after the death of his hard-ass father, Mitt (Josh Brolin). The two had a tempestuous relationship, and while his mom (Elisabeth Shue) and sisters (Jane Levy and Emily Rudd) reminisce fondly about him, Jay finds it difficult to come up with good memories. The two did share a connection with the ocean, and Jay decides to honor him by going scuba diving.
Ignoring warnings of whale activity in the area, Jay makes his way out into a notoriously dangerous part of the ocean near their home. Soon after he starts swimming, he encounters a sperm whale chasing after a giant squid. Jay inadvertently gets sucked into the enormous creature’s mouth and, ultimately, inside its body. Faced with a seemingly inescapable situation, Jay’s only hope lies in the lessons his father taught him.
Directed by Brian Duffield and adapted by Duffield and Daniel Kraus from Kraus’ book of the same name, the film is at its best when it depicts Jay struggling to survive within the whale. The claustrophobic nature of the setting and the various obstacles (multiple contracting chambers, the squid, and more) he faces make every scene inside the whale feel as intense and cover-your-eyes scary as any great horror movie.
Naturally, the entire movie can’t be about his survival efforts, and so the filmmakers toggle back and forth between Jay’s ordeal in the whale to memories of times with his father. Not so coincidentally, these remembrances come with subtle or overt wisdom from Mitt that would serve Jay well in his current situation. More often than not, these flashback scenes are so on-the-nose that they come off as cheesy instead of inspirational.
It’s also difficult to derive any big emotions from the story other than revulsion at the way Jay’s body is brutalized while he’s inside the whale. None of the characters in the film receive a notable introduction to the audience before big events start happening. It’s next-to-impossible to be invested in their stories when their personalities are being revealed in bits and pieces throughout the movie.
Abrams does well enough in bringing out the terror Jay feels in the whale and the sullenness/anger he has toward his father in other scenes. But whether it’s because his lines in the whale are hard to understand (he’s often talking around a scuba mouthpiece) or the disconnect the character has with father, there’s just something missing in his performance. Brolin’s performance is one-note, and Shue, Levy, Rudd, and John Ortiz don’t appear enough to make a big impact.
With Kraus onboard as the co-writer of the film, it may be the case that Duffield was not given leeway to change the story of Whalefall too much. What might have worked in the book doesn’t seem to translate equally to the film, and while Jay’s nightmare in the whale is effective, the rest of his story doesn’t come across as successfully.
