The Austin City Council on September 17 gave the green light for the treasured Trail of Lights to become a drive-thru-only experience in 2020.
Along with that big change, the event, hosted by the Trail of Lights Foundation and the City of Austin, won’t charge admission this year and is being extended to 30 days from the typical 15 days.
City council approved an ordinance allowing the holiday tradition to switch to a drive-thru format this year from the traditional walk-thru format due to the coronavirus pandemic. About 1,300 cars per night will permitted to go through the annual holiday lights extravaganza.
Normally, visitors stroll through Zilker Park to check out lighting displays, spin under the lights of the massive Zilker Tree, and sample goodies from food trucks. The ordinance says that in 2020, the “traditional in-person event is not possible, safe, or in alignment with protecting the community’s health.”
Founded in 1965, the Trail of Lights attracts about 400,000 visitors a year. In 2019, it featured more than 2 million lights, 90 lighted holiday trees, and over 70 other holiday displays and lighted tunnels. Early on, the Trail of Lights was a drive-thru affair.
In a statement, James Russell, executive director of Trail of Lights Foundation, says the schedule and other details of the 2020 edition will be announced in mid-October.
In a 2019 release, the foundation called the Trail of Lights “a not-to-be missed tradition and community-wide event that celebrates the spirit and the people that make Austin unique.”
Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, and Julian Dennison in Y2K.
Movies that rely on nostalgia can be successful if they’re timed right. Generally, 25-30 years seems about the right amount of time to try to take advantage of people’s fond feelings for a certain era, which is why movies/TV shows about the ‘80s have been prevalent for much of the 21st century, and ‘90s-set films started to pop up in the last 10 years.
Y2K, a horror comedy that plays on the fears of technological mayhem many people thought would happen at the turn of the century, is right on the cusp of that rule, taking place nearly 25 years after its timeline. It centers on two teenage boys, Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison), who are opposite in demeanor but have an unshakeable bond. Eli likes a popular girl, Laura (Rachel Zegler), and Danny convinces him to crash a New Year’s Eve party where she’ll be.
As the clock strikes midnight and the year moves from 1999 to 2000, everything that uses an electrical current goes haywire, with many of them combining forces to attack the humans around them. Eli and Danny find themselves on the run with Laura, as well as two stoners, Ash (Lachlan Watson) and CJ (Daniel Zolghadri), with each of them trying to use their unique skillset to help defeat a growing robot army.
Directed by Kyle Mooney and written by Mooney and Evan Winter, the film lands some solid jokes about the era in its opening 20 minutes or so, whether it’s the extreme slowness of dial-up internet, the goofy user names from AOL Messenger, or the various high school cliques of the time. However, many of them seem to echo ones told in 1999’s American Pie, a weird kind of art-imitating-art moment instead of commenting on real life.
The jolt of the machines attacking partygoers seems to promise a fun-if-bloody romp, but Mooney and Winter don’t seem to know where to take the story. They establish the computer bona fides of Eli and Laura early on, but when it comes time for them to put their talents in action, it feels like two actors going through the motions instead of real people who know what they’re doing. Almost none of the characters are believable or entertaining, and the few that rise above are dispatched way too early.
And because the filmmakers don’t make you care about the main group, nothing they face is that interesting, either. The villainous robots are made up of a bunch of disparate parts, which would seem to offer the opportunity for funny sight gags. Mooney and his team fumble most of their chances, though, leaving that side of the story stuck in limbo where it’s not absurd enough to be hilarious or scary enough to really count as horror.
Martell, Dennison, and Zegler are each rising stars who have their individual charms, but only Dennison is able to make much of an impact. Zegler, who starred in West Side Story and will soon be Snow White, is especially misused. They try to shoehorn in a cameo by Limp Biskit lead singer Fred Durst, but his appearance makes little sense and adds almost nothing to the story.
Filmmakers who want to mine nostalgia, especially in a comedy, need to really commit to the bit instead of throwing in a few references and needle drops. Mooney, who’s making his directorial debut, demonstrates little feel for timing, and so most of the film is like a car spinning its wheels, going nowhere.
