More than 92,000 people gathered in Irving for National Red Bull Flugtag to watch homemade planes take 30 foot dives into Lake Carolyn. The first Flugtag to make it to North Texas, the event was part of a five-city nationwide party to celebrate man’s dream to fly as the birds do. Thirty-two teams participated in Irving.
The competition was fierce and the costumes even fiercer. In the end, the Texas Tomcats came away with the title thanks to a 72-foot flight that earned perfect marks from the judges. It probably helps that the Tomcats are all pilots.
Duck Tape Dynasty and its mallard duck plane earned runner-up, while the Texas Bull Fighters and their Texas flag-inspired craft earned third place.
Red Bull Flugtag began in 2002, but this was the first year that the event took place in multiple cities. The other Flugtags were in Chicago; Miami; Washington, D.C.; and Long Beach, California
Team Hee Haw brought the spirit of frontier life to Las Colinas.
Photo by Danny Hurley
Team Hee Haw brought the spirit of frontier life to Las Colinas.
Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, and Julian Dennison in Y2K.
Movies that rely on nostalgia can be successful if they’re timed right. Generally, 25-30 years seems about the right amount of time to try to take advantage of people’s fond feelings for a certain era, which is why movies/TV shows about the ‘80s have been prevalent for much of the 21st century, and ‘90s-set films started to pop up in the last 10 years.
Y2K, a horror comedy that plays on the fears of technological mayhem many people thought would happen at the turn of the century, is right on the cusp of that rule, taking place 24 years after its timeline. It centers on two teenage boys, Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison), who are opposite in demeanor but have an unshakeable bond. Eli likes a popular girl, Laura (Rachel Zegler), and Danny convinces him to crash a New Year’s Eve party where she’ll be.
As the clock strikes midnight and the year moves from 1999 to 2000, everything that uses an electrical current goes haywire, with many of them combining forces to attack the humans around them. Eli and Danny find themselves on the run with Laura, as well as two stoners, Ash (Lachlan Watson) and CJ (Daniel Zolghadri), with each of them trying to use their unique skillset to help defeat a growing robot army.
Directed by Kyle Mooney and written by Mooney and Evan Winter, the film lands some solid jokes about the era in its opening 20 minutes or so, whether it’s the extreme slowness of dial-up internet, the goofy user names from AOL Messenger, or the various high school cliques of the time. However, many of them seem to echo ones told in 1999’s American Pie, a weird kind of art-imitating-art moment instead of commenting on real life.
The jolt of the machines attacking partygoers seems to promise a fun-if-bloody romp, but Mooney and Winter don’t seem to know where to take the story. They establish the computer bona fides of Eli and Laura early on, but when it comes time for them to put their talents in action, it feels like two actors going through the motions instead of real people who know what