Weekend Event Planner

Lone Star Film Festival and Jay Leno top best weekend events in Dallas-Fort Worth

It's a rare win for those living in the west end of Dallas-Fort Worth this weekend, as fully half of this weekend's best events will take place in Tarrant County. The slate is also heavy with movies, as it features two film festivals, a groundbreaking of another Alamo Drafthouse and music from classic Hitchcock films.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, November 6

2014 Lone Star Film Festival
The 2014 edition of the Lone Star Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday, but there are plenty of other great movies to see before it ends on Sunday. They include a conversation with Julian Schnabel and screening of Before Night Falls, Wild starring Reese Witherspoon and Life Partners with Gillian Jacobs and Leighton Meester. Films will screen at both AMC Palace 9 and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Stars & Stripes Film Festival
You won't find any new films at the Stars & Stripes Film Festival, but it'll be worth attending to show your patriotism on Veteran's Day weekend. Thirteen military-themed movies, like Tora! Tora! Tora!, Saving Private Ryan and Platoon, will screen over four days at Angelika Film Center Dallas. You'll also be able to hear real accounts from Medal of Honor veterans who fought in the battles. Proceeds from the festival will benefit Sons of the Flag.

Jay Leno in concert
Love him or hate him, Jay Leno is still one of the most famous comedians on the planet, having served as host of The Tonight Show for 22 years. In advance of his first appearance on The Tonight Show since handing it over to Jimmy Fallon on Friday night, Leno will entertain the crowd at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth to benefit the UNT Health Science Center Foundation.

Friday, November 7

Eli Young Band's 2014 House Party
The Eli Young Band is one of the most successful country groups to come out of the area, forming at UNT in 2000 and going on to have two No. 1 songs and a recent No. 1 album, 2014's 10,000 Towns. For the second straight year, they'll take over Globe Life Park in Arlington for a country festival that will also feature Gary Allan, Pat Green, Cody Johnson and Maddie and Tae.

Fashion X Dallas
It'll be a fashion-filled weekend at Fashion Industry Gallery in downtown Dallas when Fashion X Dallas comes to town. For three consecutive nights, visitors can take in runway shows from a juried selection of emerging designers and nationally recognized contemporary brands, and shop at various pop-up shops.

Saturday, November 8

Alamo Drafthouse presents Dallas groundbreaking and Ferris Bueller's Day Off screening
It was a bolt of exciting and unexpected news when Alamo Drafthouse announced they were building a second location in the Cedars neighborhood just south of downtown Dallas. They'll celebrate an unofficial groundbreaking of the new theater with a party at The Cedars Social, along with an outdoor screening of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Milan Gallery presents The Art of Dr. Seuss Collection
Dr. Seuss is beloved for his extensive collection of children's books, but few know that he took his unique artistic eye off of the printed page and applied it to paintings and sculptures, as well. Milan Gallery in Fort Worth will host an exhibit of his works through November 24, with special receptions being held on November 8 and 9.

Bastille in concert
British rockers Bastille broke out in 2013 thanks to hits like "Pompeii" and "Of the Night." This will be their second visit to the area in 2014, as they were also part of the Edgefest lineup back in April. They'll headline this time around at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, with Ella Eyre serving as opening act.

Sunday, November 9

2014 Dallas Sample Sale
It's never too early to start your Christmas shopping, and the annual Dallas Sample Sale will help you do so in style. The sale, taking place at Dallas Market Hall, has a little something for everyone, including gifts, apparel, jewelry, toys, children’s clothing, holiday decorations, home accessories and furniture. The event starts Thursday and goes through Sunday.

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra presents Hitchcock
The films of Alfred Hitchcock will likely never go out of style, and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra will be the latest local group to honor his work with a weekend full of concerts featuring scores from some of his most iconic works. Selections from To Catch A Thief, Vertigo and North By Northwest will be accompanied by scenes from each film played on the big screen at Bass Performance Hall. The series starts Friday and goes through Sunday.

Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, is one of many great films screening as part of the 2014 Lone Star Film Festival, taking place through November 9 in Fort Worth.

Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, is one of many great films screening as part of the 2014 Lone Star Film Festival, taking place through November 9 in Fort Worth.

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Good as gold

Dallas gymnast Skye Blakely wins gold at 2026 world championships

Day 7 - Artistic Gymnastics World Championships Rotterdam 2026

Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images

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ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — American Skye Blakely soared to the women's all-around gold at the world gymnastics championships on Friday, putting together four stellar routines as other top competitors faltered.

The 21-year-old's total of 55.733 included a dazzling set on uneven bars and a stoic and steady performance on balance beam and no major form breaks or falls, giving the Dallas native a moment of redemption after bids to make the 2020 and 2024 U.S. Olympic teams ended due to injury.

Blakely was born in Dallas and lives and trains in Frisco, at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA); she's also a student-athlete at the University of Florida.

Blakely broke into tears when she walked off the podium at the end of her floor exercise in the final rotation, her long and painful journey with an unforgiving sport hitting a high note that seemed far away during lengthy rehabs that taxed both her mind and her body.

Liudmila Roschina earned silver at 55.199. Ke Qinqin of China took bronze at 55.032.

Algerian Kaylia Nemour's bid to become the first gymnast from Africa to win an all-around title at worlds ended with a fourth-place finish. The 19-year-old's finals got off to a rough start in her first rotation when her feet didn't land squarely on the springboard while vaulting, forcing her to do a simpler vault that cost her valuable points.

While Nemour recovered spectacularly thanks in large part to an uneven bars routine that is one of the hardest routines done on any apparatus by any gymnast — male or female — in the world, it wasn't quite enough to reach the podium.

American Claire Pease's hopes of joining Blakely on the medal stand ended when she hopped off beam on her way to a seventh-place finish. Pease, a Sunnyvale native, also trains at WOGA in Frisco.

Blakely and Pease were competing two days after the U.S. saw its long run of gold medals in the team finals at worlds end with a second-place finish to resurgent China. That up-and-down night included Blakely failing to get credit for a connection during her beam routine that cost the Americans nearly a point in a meet where they missed out on gold by a fraction of that.

There were no such issues this time around. Blakely headed to beam atop the leaderboard after an excellent start on vault followed by a bars routine that's pretty good in its own right.

Still, beam is something different. And this time there were no missed connections and barely a wobble. Her score of 14.200 kept her in front and turned her floor exercise largely into a victory lap.

The tears after she saluted the judges were real. So were the ones when her spot atop the sport became official about 15 minutes later.

Blakely then draped the American flag over her back while posing for the cameras becoming the ninth U.S. woman — and sixth this century — to win a world all-around crown.

While the picture figures to get considerably more crowded in the next two years ahead of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Blakely's perseverance and talent have thrust her back into the conversation.

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