Shooter Jennings will be one of the headliners at Ranch Bash on October 20 at Panther Island Pavilion.
Photo courtesy of Shooter Jennings
Ranch Bash, Fort Worth’s popular annual Texas music festival, has revealed an exciting lineup for its 2018 edition, set to take place on October 20 at Panther Island Pavilion. A secret headliner will be named in a live, on-air announcement on 95.9 The Ranch/KFWR on Monday, July 23 at 7 am.
Leading the way so far is Shooter Jennings, the son of the late Waylon Jennings, who has established his own thriving career. Jennings will release a new album, Shooter, on August 10, and his affinity for Fort Worth is clear as his most recent release was 2017's Live at Billy Bob's Texas.
Also headlining will be Austin's Sam Riggs and the legendary Asleep at the Wheel. They'll be joined by other Texas bands like Shotgun Rider, The Buffalo Ruckus, Mason Lively, Shea Abshier & The Nighthowlers, and Fort Worth-based Summer Dean. Jon Stork, winner of the station’s Battle of the Bands competition, will open the show.
The festival, produced by 95.9 The Ranch Radio, will benefit HEAR Fort Worth, the city’s music association, which works to connect businesses, bands, and industry professionals. In addition to live music on two stages, food and beverage options will be available for purchase and concert goers can visit festival vendor booths.
General admission tickets for the festival are $20. VIP tickets for $75 will include access to an elevated viewing deck, dinner buffet, private cash bars, and air-conditioned, flushable restrooms. Tickets and information will be available online at RanchBash.com concurrent with the secret headliner announcement.
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.
