Pregaming before a Moody Center show will soon be more luxe.
rendering courtesy of Moody Center
Ricky Martin shares his la vida loca with Pitbull and Enrique Iglesias on February 9, Olivia Rodrigo bares her soul on February 28, and Madonna takes a victory lap on April 14. There are many reasons to go to Moody Center in the upcoming weeks. Now, the state-of-the-art venue is adding two more.
A tony private suite and an intimate speakeasy will debut in April, offering those who can pony up the funds for VIP perks a truly luxurious experience.
Founder's Room Speakeasy collaborates with Wally's Wine & Spirits entrepreneur Christian Navarro. The moody 1,000-square-foot, 50-capacity space squeezes in a bar and tufted banquettes under the watchful eye of framed portraits of musical greats. In addition to offering cocktails and bubbles, the lounge will serve a selection of posh snacks.
Although Founder's Room is a membership-only watering hole, a waiting list is available for those who hem and haw too long to secure a spot. For a small fee, procrastinators can join The LineUp — a privileged group that offers exclusive news and offers for upcoming shows.
Those looking to amp up their evenings can book the upcoming Bunker Suite next to Germania Insurance Club. The plush room, clad in slatted walls, features plenty of screens, a bar, and the kind of sleek lighting that makes Taylor Swift friendship bracelets look like Harry Winston.
Moody Center's website lets music lovers sign up for details on both spaces. Resources for new lines of credit are, sadly, not linked.
The most important thing for any movie to establish early on is its tone. No matter the genre, a film needs to make its audience understand how they should feel as the story unfolds so that they’re willing to go along with whatever transpires on screen. A film that doesn't do that, such as the new Onslaught, runs the risk of failing to connect with viewers even if it has some interesting or fun elements to offer.
One of the biggest issues for the movie is that it fails to fully invest in its main character, Celeste (Adriana Arjona). She’s a military veteran who now lives in and manages a desert trailer park, which is filled with a motley crew of offbeat people. She also has a contentious relationship with her ex, who unexpectedly drops off their daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), soon after the film begins.
Celeste has a stash of high-powered weapons, showing she hasn’t left her former career fully behind. Her expertise comes in handy when something goes wrong at a nearby military contractor facility run by Hans Kemmler (Dan Stevens), and a trio of super soldiers escapes into the wild. Trained to kill everyone in their path, it’s not long before they set their glowing eyes on the trailer park.
Directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, the film has elements of horror, action, and comedy, but the filmmakers struggle to find the right combination of the three. Wingard and Barrett divide the film’s focus between the trailer park and the military facility for a long time at the beginning of the film, and the quirkiness of people at the former mixed with the bold weirdness of the people at the latter keeps viewers off balance in a bad way.
Once they finally settle into the main part of the story where the super soldiers go on a rampage, the filmmakers overpromise and underdeliver. The showdown between a seemingly unstoppable group and an angry woman and her band of misfits seems destined to be highly entertaining, but comes off as underwhelming. The sequence is filled with brutality with no meaning and heroics that feel more accidental than purposeful.
The ham-fisted way in which the story plays out is disappointing since the film has a bunch of characters who could have been great if used properly. The trauma of Celeste’s military career and personal life is hinted at, but doesn't come into play as much as expected. Hans and his wife Hanna (Rebecca Hall) are completely off-the-wall, but their eccentricities seem to be apropos of nothing. The super soldiers are initially intimidating, but the climactic sequence undercuts them significantly.
Arjona has yet to fully break out despite some good roles in Hit Man and the Disney+ show Andor. She makes for a good lead here, embodying the toughness of a military veteran while still being relatable. Stevens and Hall go all in with their bonkers characters, but the story doesn’t serve them well. Comic relief comes in the form of Reginald VelJohnson and Eric Wareheim, and they do a great job in smaller roles.
A movie like Onslaught is typically one where the audience just turns off their brains and enjoys the carnage. But Wingard and Barrett try a little too hard by throwing in oddball characters that don’t add much to the story, forgetting to pay enough attention to the mechanics of the plot in the process.
