A buzzy interactive experience is cropping up in San Antonio this summer as local festival grounds bloom to life with acres upon acres of sunflowers.
Through Sunday, July 18, Traders Village, located at 9333 Southwest Loop 410, will welcome visitors for the first time to its 10-acre Sunflower Field, complete with an abundance of various types of sunflowers, walking paths that saunter through the meadows, and even a winding sunflower maze for bloom buddies to romp through.
Open on Saturdays 10 am-6 pm and Sundays 10 am-5 pm, the Sunflower Field experience also promises acres of photo ops — as well as a professional photographer who can print photos onsite — and plenty of sightings of Buzz, the official “spokesbee” of the Sunflower Field.
Tickets for the Sunflower Field run just $7.99 for adults and kids age 3 and older, and include a wristband good for all-day visits to the flower fields. Kids 2 and younger get in free.
But amusement fans wanting to make hay while the sun shines should opt for the $14.99 combo tickets, which gain holders all-day access to the Sunflower Field plus all-day access to Traders Village’s family-friendly carnival rides — including the 128-foot-high Fleafall drop, the Pharaoh’s Fury swinging boat ride, and the antique carousel.
Parking is an additional $5 per car.
All ticket holders will also be able to check out Traders Village’s petting zoo and inflatable slide attractions. And for a few extra bucks, visitors can take a few shots with the absurdly entertaining apple cannon.
The Sunflower Field includes a winding maze flower lovers will be happy to get lost in.
Traders Village/Instagram
The Sunflower Field includes a winding maze flower lovers will be happy to get lost in.
While the sport of pickleball was invented way back in the 1960s, it has exploded in popularity in the 2020s. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out a way to make a movie about the craze, and a comedy like the new Apple TV+ film The Dink provides the best way to honor and make fun of the divisive sport at the same time.
Dusty Boyd (Jake Johnson), aka The Hammer, is a former tennis phenom who’s now working as an instructor at a club owned by his dad, Chuck (Ed Harris). While the two don’t always see eye-to-eye, they have a mutual hatred for pickleball, which they have begrudgingly allowed on the property by giving it the worst court.
Dusty is hoping to stop all future pickleball expansion by winning a one-on-one grudge match, but when he injures his wrist, he’s given a prescription of pickleball as a form of rehab. Older women like Candace (Mary Steenburgen) are the only people he can find to play with, and despite his disdain for the sport, he soon falls prey to its low-key charms.
Directed by Josh Greenbaum (Will & Harper) and written by Sean Clements, the film is probably the best advertisement pickleball will ever have. Dusty’s introduction to the sport serves as a lighthearted tutorial for the uninitiated while still getting in some nice digs at its expense. The other players - Candace, Gail (Cleo King), and Judy (Lynn Marie Stewart) - are equally welcoming and critical of Dusty, who initially has trouble adjusting to the game’s different rules.
The film’s approach to the story is silly but never stupid. Dusty is a blowhard, but he’s also able to admit when he’s wrong, especially when Candace introduces him to multiple things he had never considered before. A long-standing feud between Dusty and Andy Roddick provides more than just a goofy cameo for the real-life tennis star. The film also pushes right to the edge of being over-the-top before pulling back, allowing it to keep a semblance of reality to it.
Clements’ story follows a tried-and-true formula, making the film very predictable but enjoyably so. Where it earns its comedy credentials is in its finer details, like Dusty’s love for his 1999 Buick LeSabre with under 200,000 miles on it, his trunk full of old VHS tapes, or his interactions with his assistant PJ (Aaron Chen), who manages to be the comic relief in an already funny film.
Johnson, probably best known for starring in the sitcom New Girl in the 2010s, has the right amount of smarm and niceness to pull off the role, letting viewers laugh at and root for him at the same time. The film is full of comedy all-stars in small roles like Oswalt, Chris Parnell, and Ben Stiller, but Harris steals everyone’s thunder. The line readings by the four-time Oscar nominee give an extra punch to his character’s jokes, especially one that hints at the sordid history of the tennis club.
It’s a shame that The Dink is only playing on a streaming service, as there’s a dearth of good comedies like this in movie theaters. With a solid joke-telling approach, a respect for its subject matter, and a cast who all play off each other well, this is a film that deserves to be seen by more than just those with an Apple TV+ subscription.
