Supercar showcase

Fast cars, food, fashion, and philanthropy kick DFW mega show into high gear

The luxury lifestyle extravaganza known as the Park Place Luxury & Supercar Showcase — it packs in too much to be called an "auto show" — kicks into high gear at the Four Seasons Resort in Las Colinas on September 28. Organizers are expecting a crowd of 5,000 — more than double the number that the inaugural event attracted in 2017.

"The Park Place Luxury & Supercar Showcase is more than incredible cars, it is a lifestyle event,” says Liz Shafton, experiential marketing director for Park Place Dealerships, in a release. “In addition to fashion, guests will enjoy live music, pop-up shops, and amazing food from premier restaurants and popular food trucks.”

And it all benefits a good cause: the Baylor Scott & White Irving Foundation, which will receive proceeds from the day.

For the first time, Park Place will donate a 2020 Lexus UX — the first-ever Lexus compact crossover — to be raffled off to one lucky attendee. Raffle ticket proceeds will benefit Baylor Scott & White Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center in Irving. (Purchase tickets for $100 here.)

"Proceeds from the raffle also will work in tandem with the Four Seasons Resort and Club’s efforts to fund a CT Simulator, the Discovery RT, that is used for treatment planning on every patient who receives radiation therapy,” Shafton says.

Throughout the day, attendees can ogle some of the most coveted brands in the world, including Rolls-Royce, Maserati, McLaren, Bentley, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Volvo, Land Rover, and Jaguar. Within the event will be a juried Collectors’ Concours, featuring a diverse selection of rare supercars, luxury, sports, vintage, and classic cars from private collectors. The motoring festival also will include a Car Club Expo powered by Park Up Front.

But the cars really are just the start. It's a fashion and foodie event, too.

Highland Park Village will present a runway fashion show produced by Jan Strimple inside the climate-controlled Porsche Pavilion at 1:30 pm. The show will feature fall looks from prestigious designers Alice + Olivia, MARKET, St. John, Trina Turk, and Theory. Several brands will have retail pop-up shops inside the Porsche Pavilion for guests to browse throughout the day.

Dallas’ own "Mad Hatter" Shane Walker will judge a “Haute Hat” contest for both women and men immediately after the fashion show. Hats will be judged on creativity, style, and "most outrageous."

“I was astonished by the creativity and participation of last year’s Haute Hat contestants,” Walker says. “I anticipate even more dappers and divas strutting their stuff this year.”

By the way, suggested attire for the day is "Concours Casual," which means pairing a hat with a resort-inspired ensemble and comfortable shoes, organizers say.

Be sure to arrive with an appetite. DFW restaurants serving savory cuisine include The French Room, LAW, III Forks, Cool River, Dallas Chop House, Dallas Fish Market, Wild Salsa, Oven and Cellar, Wicked Butcher, Outlaw Tap Room, Kai, Toulouse, Whiskey Cake, Mexican Sugar, Texas de Brazil, Princi Italia, CRU Wine and Food Bar, Pacific Table, Cork & Pig Tavern, Make Your Life Sweeter, and Carlton Provisions.

And food trucks that will be onsite throughout the day include Texas de Brazil, Fast Furious Grill, BellaTrino Pizzeria, SoCal Tacos, Melt Ice Creams, Honey Lu’s Coffee, and Pecos Pete’s Natural Tea + Soda.

The beverage selection will not be slim.

"Guests can refresh with the Tito’s ‘Collector’s Cup,’ Don Julio ‘Supercarita,’ Aviation Gin ‘Spirit of Park Place,’ Maker’s Mark Classic Old Fashions and cooling slushes, as well as Peroni Beer,” Shafton says.

One last thing the organizers stress: The kids can come, too. A Kid’s Zone will feature the North Texas Diecast Collectors Club’s interactive, 60-foot downhill Hot Wheels track and other attractions for the littlest car enthusiasts.

The event takes place 10 am to 4 pm September 28, with tickets ranging from $25 for general admission to $125 for VIP access. For more information, visit the event's website.

The supercar showcase takes place September 28 at the Four Seasons Resort.

Park Place Dealerships presents Luxury & Supercar Showcase

Photo by David Alvey

The supercar showcase takes place September 28 at the Four Seasons Resort.

luxury charity

Movie Review

Comedy all-stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd can't save Anaconda sequel

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film