KVUE — Rumors have been swirling about the land that a popular cafe and music venue sits upon, and they're partly true. H-E-B has purchased the land that The Nutty Brown Cafe and Amphitheatre calls home.
The 65-acre property along Highway 290 includes the 20 acres Nutty Brown sits on. H-E-B closed on the property last week but told Nutty Brown owner Mike Farr he could stay and operate as long as he wanted.
"Before the acquisition, they reached out to me they made sure that I understood that I was welcome to stay and operate as long as I wanted," Farr said. "It's not one of these stories where the big bad company comes and kicks the guy off the corner. It's nothing like that at all."
Farr said while he's grown his business over the past 13 years, the area around it has grown as well. He said he knew it was a matter of time before the land was sold.
H-E-B released a statement Thursday, saying in part, "The Nutty Brown Cafe will continue with their operations and Texas country music concert series. We have no plans to develop the property at this time."
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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.
