November 15 will go down as the day the music died for the Korova, a popular downtown San Antonio music venue. Less than a mile from the River Walk, the gritty space opened in 2009, and was famous for hosting raucous shows from some of the country's best punk, hardcore, and metal bands.
On Friday, November 17, Korova's owners took to Facebook to make the sad announcement. "As hard as we tried the last couple of weeks to do everything in our control to avoid having it come to this, the time has come," they wrote. "We know the rumors have been flying for a couple of weeks, some true and most not, but the truth of the matter is we fought every single day up until Wednesday evening to get operations back up and running."
In an statement to the San Antonio Express-News, owner Angel Castorena says San Antonio's shifting population was a partial factor in the venue's demise. "San Antonio is growing and it's getting harder to keep up, but we're still proud of what we did over eight years," he told the Express-News.
Some of the venue's upcoming events, including the popular Punks for Tots toy drive, will now take place at Fresca, while other shows have been rescheduled at Paper Tiger.
Though the Korova has only been shuttered for two days, the building is already under new management and will be taking on "an entirely new direction" with no plans for a live music venue. Said the owners: "It's a bittersweet ending for the place some loved to hate and some truly loved as much as we did."
Of all the formulaic movie genres, Christmas/holiday movies are among the most predictable. No matter what the problem is that arises between family members, friends, or potential romantic partners, the stories in holiday movies are designed to give viewers a feel-good ending even if the majority of the movie makes you feel pretty bad.
That’s certainly the case in Oh. What. Fun., in which Michelle Pfeiffer plays Claire, an underappreciated mom living in Houston with her inattentive husband, Nick (Denis Leary). As the film begins, her three children are arriving back home for Christmas: The high-strung Channing (Felicity Jones) is married to the milquetoast Doug (Jason Schwartzman); the aloof Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz) brings home yet another new girlfriend; and the perpetual child Sammy (Dominic Sessa) has just broken up with his girlfriend.
Each of the family members seems to be oblivious to everything Claire does for them, especially when it comes to what she really wants: For them to nominate her to win a trip to see a talk show in L.A. hosted by Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria). When she accidentally gets left behind on a planned outing to see a show, Claire reaches her breaking point and — in a kind of Home Alone in reverse — she decides to drive across the country to get to the show herself.
Written and directed by Michael Showalter (The Idea of You), and co-written by Chandler Baker (who wrote the short story on which the film is based), the movie never establishes any kind of enjoyable rhythm. Each of the characters, including competitive neighbor Jeanne (Joan Chen), is assigned a character trait that becomes their entire personality, with none of them allowed to evolve into something deeper.
The filmmakers lean hard into the idea that Claire is a person who always puts her family first and receives very little in return, but the evidence presented in the story is sketchy at best. Every situation shown in the film is so superficial that tension barely exists, and the (over)reactions by Claire give her family members few opportunities to make up for their failings.
The most interesting part of the movie comes when Claire actually makes it to the Zazzy Sims show. Even though what happens there is just as unbelievable as anything else presented in the story, Showalter and Baker concoct a scene that allows Claire and others to fully express the central theme of the film, and for a few minutes the movie actually lives up to its title.
Pfeiffer, given her first leading role since 2020’s French Exit, is a somewhat manic presence, and her thick Texas accent and unnecessary voiceover don’t do her any favors. It seems weird to have such a strong supporting cast with almost nothing of substance to do, but almost all of them are wasted, including Danielle Brooks in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. The lone exception is Longoria, who is a blast in the few scenes she gets.
Oh. What. Fun. is far from the first movie to try and fail at becoming a new holiday classic, but the pedigree of Showalter and the cast make this dismal viewing experience extra disappointing. Ironically, overworked and underappreciated moms deserve a much better story than the one this movie delivers.
