Call it the grown-up version of posing with Santa Claus. Since its dazzling debut in 2021, the San Antonio Botanical Garden’s Lightscape has been the essential stop for holiday photoshoots. Planners are already working hard to ensure the annual tradition is more brilliant — and accessible — than ever.
Tickets are now on sale for the showstopping exhibition, running November 17 to January 1. The festivities will include familiar displays and brand-new illuminated works from global designers.
French creative studio Pitaya will return with a new installation, "Spark Ballet." The work features dozens of hanging lanterns glowing with firefly lights as a flickering guide around the lake. Visitors will also be treated to a pair of large-scale spectacles from UK outfit ArtAV, including an array of sparkling stars and a 40-foot-high LED tree.
Some of last year’s favorites will make an encore. The "Heart Arch Walk" allows guests to stroll under a tunnel of love while "Floraison" canopies explorers with brightly lit poppies. As always, the "Winter Cathedral" provides one last selfie spot.
The ever-popular "Bluebonnets" will also mesmerize sightseers, this time with an army of life-sized cowboy nutcrackers. The "Fire Garden" will have a new addition, too — the 25-foot dragon last seen in the blockbuster Imaginary Worlds: Once Upon a Time exhibition.
Peak date tickets cost $28 for adults and $18 for children, with VIP packages and member discounts available. For the first time ever, the garden also offers Value Nights on select dates in November and December. Revelers can score tickets as low as $18 for adults and $10 for kids online.
Hannah John-Kamen, Lewis Pullman, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, and Sebastian Stan in Thunderbolts*.
For the longest time, keeping up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe felt essential for movie lovers, even if not every movie lived up to expectations. But since the end of the MCU’s Phase 3 in 2019 and the ramping up of related TV shows on Disney+, the quality of the films and the disparate nature of the storytelling has vastly brought down how important each new movie felt.
That disposable nature is on full display in the new Thunderbolts*(the asterisk makes sense by the end), which tries to make hay with a bunch of characters who’ve only been seen briefly before. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Ava Starr, aka Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) are each mercenaries who work for CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Caught up in a scandal, de Fontaine attempts to have them eliminate each other, a scheme that results in them teaming up together.
Plans for revenge, which grow to include Yelena’s father Alexei, aka Red Guardian (David Harbour), and now-Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), are waylaid by the presence of Bob (Lewis Pullman), who shows up mysteriously during the main trio’s escape attempt. It’s the powers that Bob displays that become the main thrust of the film, with de Fontaine trying to harness them for her own good and the others joining forces to prevent him from doing too much harm.
Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, Thunderbolts* does what most recent MCU movies have done: intrigue for a while before devolving into a confusing mess of CGI and poor storytelling. The filmmakers try for a light tone, especially through the comedic character of Alexei, but they never seem to find the right wavelength. The film takes a dark turn in its final hour, an interesting development that never reaches its full potential and comes to an abrupt end.
The collection of characters is as random as they come, with Yelena and Alexei last seen together in 2021’s Black Widow, John Walker last seen in the 2021 TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Ghost last seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp in 2018. Bucky, aka The Winter Soldier, is seemingly meant to be the main connective tissue that casual fans will know and enjoy, but his storyline fails to make sense, especially when he shows up out of nowhere at a crucial point in the film.
Ultimately, the film never makes a case for audiences to care about anything that happens. They throw a bone toward relating it to Captain America: Brave New World, and, of course, hint at upcoming movies, but Phase 5 of the MCU (which started with 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) has been so disjointed that it feels like the majority of it will never be spoken of again. If it doesn’t matter to those making the films, why should the audience invest in anything the characters are doing?
Despite the subpar nature of the film, it’s cast very well. Pugh is a great actor who far outshines anything she’s asked to do. Harbour hams it up amiably, and Russell finds a way to make the most of his character. John-Kamen doesn’t get as much to do as others, but she has a nice presence to her. Pullman (who, weirdly, played another funnily-named Bob in Top Gun: Maverick) has a tricky role, but he makes it work. And Louis-Dreyfus understands how to toe the line between corrupt and wholly evil.
If the next phase of the MCU (which starts with the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps) works, then the movies of the past few years will likely fade into oblivion. In the case of Thunderbolts*, it won’t be a big loss, as it showcases characters paired together for no discernible reason with forgettable results.
