Making spirits bright

Holiday smash-hit Radiance returns to Dallas-Fort Worth with fun new Halloween and Christmas events

It's beginning to look like a hot, steamy second half of July — a perfect time to talk fall and winter holidays. The folks behind last year's smash-hit Radiance! Holiday Light Spectacular are back for 2021 and flipping the switch on dazzling new events for both Halloween and Christmas.

First will be a brand-new, family-friendly Halloween event, Frights’n Lights Frisco, "where ghouls glow, spirits shine, and things go 'bump' in the light!" Peerless Production Group says in a July 13 release. "Bridging the gap between basic pumpkin patches and the gore of traditional haunted houses, Frights’n Lights is an Instagram wonderland chock full of ‘phantasmic’ photo opportunities and features the largest and safest trick-or-treat trail in Texas."

They promise a land filled with thousands of shining, intricately carved jack-o-lanterns and a thrilling cast of spine-chilling Hollywood stars brought to life by a ghoulish gallery of giant-sized lanterns and lights. There'll also be haunted games, the Headless Horseman’s Haunted Hay Maze, rides, Halloween-themed concessions, and a retro drive-in movie on a 40-foot screen, they say.

The event will take place at Riders Field (formerly Dr Pepper Ballpark) in Frisco, on select dates from September 30-November 6. Tickets will go on sale in September; prices have not been disclosed.

Then will come Radiance! featuring Frozen in Frisco, "a magnificent winter carnival sure to fill every member of your family with the spirit of the season," they promise.

Running November 18-January 6 at Frisco's Riders Field, it's a two-part experience covered by one ticket. Radiance!, held as a drive-thru event last year, becomes a theme park-style ride in a vehicle that guides guests through the show. "This means less wait time and more fun for you and your family this holiday season," the organizers say, addressing one of the biggest (and only?) complaints about the 2020 edition.

Visitors can expect an all-new, mile-long light trail of over 3 million RGB lights, animated to favorite holiday tunes, leading into the inaugural Frozen in Frisco winter-themed festival.

The event will feature a two-story outdoor ice tubing hill, ice skating under the stars, bumper cars on ice, snowball toss with real snow, a 108-foot Ferris wheel, Christmas carousel, buckin’ reindeer rides, a Christmas Story escape room, s’mores fire pits, a holiday market, and more.

“Radiance! was immensely successful last year thanks to our wonderful guests, and we were just getting started," says Jill Lank, CEO of PPG, in the release. "We are thrilled to be back in Frisco with an even bigger and better experience for everyone to come out and enjoy all the holidays have to offer."

But wait, there's more — Frisco doesn't get all the fun. That wouldn't be fair.

Radiance! A Holiday Light Spectacular is also returning to both Weatherford and Decatur for 2021, with an enhanced mile-long drive-thru holiday experience. They're adding more scenes, a million more dazzling animated lights, and VIP experiences that include exclusive light tunnel photo opportunities and faster access.

Radiance! At the Ranch in Weatherford (Parker County Sheriff's Posse, 2251 Mineral Wells Hwy.) will run November 18-December 31, while Radiance! Decatur (Reunion Grounds Joe Wheeler Park, 2901 FM 51 #100) will run November 18-December 26.

And ...

A fourth location — aptly named Radiance! at the Races — will launch this November at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis (7500 US-287) and give guests the chance to drive along "a dragster track arched with animated tunnels, racing-themed holiday scenes, and dancing lights galore." It will run November 18-January 1.

Tickets to all Radiance! events will go on sale soon; prices have not been disclosed. For more details, visit FrightsnLights.com and RadianceChristmas.com.

Ice hill tubing, coming this holiday season.

Photo courtesy of Radiance

Ice hill tubing, coming this holiday season.

families holidays event-planner

Movie Review

Wicked: For Good loses cinematic magic in rushed second-act sequel

Photo by Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked: For Good.

Splitting the film adaptation of the musical Wicked into two parts makes a certain kind of sense beyond the financial incentive of making fans pay for two films. Like most stage musicals, there’s a definitive break between the two acts, and it’s hard to resist going out on the high note of “Defying Gravity” for the first film. And expanding the story for the films puts the entire story at around 5 hours, much too long for one sitting.

However, separating them puts a spotlight on the strengths and weaknesses of each act of the musical, and it's a popular opinion that the second act is inferior to the first act. In the awkwardly-named Wicked: For Good, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is firmly ensconced as the Wicked Witch of the West, striking fear in people across Oz. Meanwhile, Glinda (Ariana Grande) has ascended as the protector of the land’s citizens, even as she hides the fact that she doesn’t possess the powers that Elphaba does.

The story speeds through a number of different arcs, including Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose (Marissa Bode), becoming governor of Munchkinland; Glinda essentially forcing Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) to commit to marrying her; even more bad revelations involving the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh); and more. Hanging over all of it is the tenuous bond between Elphaba and Glinda, which is tested on multiple occasions.

Director John M. Chu, working from a script by original musical writer Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, leads the way on the faithful adaptation that is perhaps a bit too faithful. Chu helmed the memorable adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights that brought more life to an already lively production. He accomplished similar results in Wicked part one, but For Good often feels less than cinematic, with many scenes coming off as static and too much like a stage production.

The second film contains a lot of story movement, including the vague or explicit introduction of the four main characters from The Wizard of Oz, providing plenty of opportunity for creative staging or deeper storytelling. Instead, things just sort of happen, with Holzman and Fox failing to see the necessity of connecting story dots in a movie setting. With lots of extra time to work with (the run time is 2 hours and 17 minutes), giving more information about significant events shouldn’t have been an issue, and yet the filmmakers rarely give the audience that luxury.

The songs, as they should be, are the showcase of the film, and yet none of the sequences measure up to the ones in the first film. The rushed storylines make it difficult to connect with emotionally-resonant songs like “As Long As You’re Mine” and “No Good Deed.” “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble,” new songs created for the film for Elphaba and Glinda, respectively, are decent but lack power. “For Good” is the one everyone is waiting for, but it too fails to land properly.

Erivo and Grande certainly give it their all, and when they’re allowed to dig deep into their characters, they make as much of an impact as they did in the first film. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near as often, and their characters’ bond suffers. Most of the other actors are done no favors by the whirlwind storytelling, but Goldblum still stands out in his various scenes.

Creating a whole film for the second act of Wicked gave Chu and his team a perfect chance to slow things down and give the events it contains extra meaning. Unfortunately, they turned For Good into something that feels less like an expansive movie and more like a slightly more interesting version of the stage production.

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Wicked: For Good opens in theaters on November 21.

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