Views & Tunes

New golf course and restaurant launch live music series this summer

Unmatched skyline views, a gentle summer breeze, refreshing beverage in-hand, and a scratch-made meal — what's missing?

Live music, and East River 9 and Riverhouse have it. The golf course and restaurant are introducing a new Live Music Summer Series, and the best part is, it's free.

From 7-9 pm each Friday and Saturday night, June through August, grab a table on Riverhouse's beautiful patio and listen to a wide variety of local and regional musicians playing everything from country and blues to classic rock and alternative.

The diverse lineup is posted monthly on Riverhouse's website, but here's what's on tap for June:

June 16: Cole Stephens
June 17: Western Jelly
June 23: Billi Jo Jones Duo
June 24: Barditch Hippies
June 25: The Cheeney Brothers

“Our new concert series is a laid-back summertime event for the whole family,” says Clayton Freels, founding partner of the concepts. “We are excited to showcase talented, local artists, and we invite everyone to come out and enjoy the free live music, delicious food and drinks, and a fun atmosphere.”

To make the experience even more delicious, Riverhouse recently announced Abhijeet “AJ” Junnarkar as the new event and culinary director.

Prior to founding and operating his own event catering business for the past decade, AJ served as executive chef at the Downtown Aquarium, Hotel Derek, and Intercontinental Hotel.

In his new role at Riverhouse, he's already introduced an elevated private event program that caters to corporate outings, fundraisers, and social gatherings.

He's also helped refine the scratch kitchen’s culinary offerings, curating a new, expanded menu that includes several new Tex-Mex entrees, as well as fine meats and desserts.

Riverhouse is also launching a weekend brunch menu that features breakfast tacos, sweet cream pancakes, and chicken fried steak and eggs. New menu offerings will debut later this month.

For those who haven't experienced Riverhouse yet, the full-service restaurant and patio bar offers plenty of indoor and outdoor seating options for groups of all sizes, as well as a central lawn with a kids playscape and lawn games.

And then there's East River 9, the only public, nine-hole, par-three golf course inside the 610 Loop.

The links-style short course is composed of holes that range from 80-150 yards; a natural grass, 300-yard driving range with a downtown skyline backdrop; a 12,000-square-foot social putting green; and a pro shop featuring merchandise, rental clubs, and refreshments. Two staggered tee boxes play into all nine greens and provide players with the ability to play two unique nine-hole rounds.

The active, outdoor destination also features six pickleball courts. If you haven't succumbed to pickleball mania yet, the easy-to-play mash-up of tennis, badminton and ping-pong is a delight for all ages and skill levels.

Only a mile outside of downtown, East River 9 and Riverhouse are located on the site of Midway’s 150-acre East River development in the Historic Fifth Ward.

For Father's Day weekend, they're doing it up big with coffee, cigars, and cars.

A car show stocked with luxury and classic autos is happening 9 am-12 pm on Sunday, while East River 9 will be rolling custom-made cigars and you can get caffeinated at the gourmet coffee bar inside Riverhouse.

A special Father's Day menu will also be available, with bottomless mimosas and espresso martini flights to really kick it up a notch.

For more info, follow East River 9's Instagram or Riverhouse's Facebook event page.

Photo courtesy of East River 9 and Riverhouse

The greenspace is kid and dog-friendly.

concerts music golf dinner chefs promoted

Movie Review

Onslaught's brutal mix of horror, action, comedy can't find its footing

Photo courtesy of A24

Adria Arjona in Onslaught.

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 in finding 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 keep 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 are hinted at, but don’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.

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Onslaught opens in theaters on September 4.

movies film

Views & Tunes

New golf course and restaurant launch live music series this summer

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Movie Review

Onslaught's brutal mix of horror, action, comedy can't find its footing