Celebrate 2017

These are the best ways to party on New Year's Eve in Dallas-Fort Worth

Whether you had a good or bad year in 2016, the dawn of 2017 brings the promise of a fresh start. End the year with a bang by taking in one of the best New Year's Eve events in Dallas-Fort Worth— presented in alphabetical order — most of which encompass more than just drinking, dancing, and counting down until midnight.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Reliant Lights Your Holidays
After being postponed due to weather, Reliant Lights Your Holidays is now taking place on New Year's Eve. AT&T Performing Arts Center's iconic venues and trees will be illuminated by hundreds of thousands of dazzling LED lights, and visitors can also enjoy a gigantic New Year's Eve fireworks show; a holiday concert featuring A.B. Quintanilla y Elektro Kumbia; a performance by the cast of The Book of Mormon; and community performances from South Grand Prairie High School Ballet Folklorico, the Tap Dazzlers, and Studio One Dance Center's Elite Competition Team.

Dallas NYE Ball
Organizers of the seventh annual Dallas NYE Ball expect a big crowd, so they've divided the party into two levels at Crowne Plaza. The Las Vegas Room in the grand ballroom hosts a massive dance floor where partygoers can enjoy a mix of pop, hip-hop, and electronic music; multiple bars; and the annual Beer Pong Tournament, among other things. The Times Square room in the upstairs ballroom offers a more intimate setting, with DJs spinning a mix of the best songs from the '80s, '90s, and '00s.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents New Year's Eve Celebration
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra rings in the New Year with your favorite Strauss waltzes and Viennese-inspired revelry, led by conductor Andrew Grams. The majesty of Meyerson Symphony Center and a free champagne toast at intermission ensure that the annual concert is one of the best places to be for New Year's Eve.

Fort Worth Symphony presents New Year's Eve Celebration
A strike by the musicians of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra wiped out their entire fall schedule, but they are putting that in the past by returning for their annual New Year's Eve concert. Ring in 2017 at Bass Performance Hall with a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, a few other surprises, and a balloon drop at midnight set to "Auld Lang Syne."

Lights All Night
Taking place December 30 and 31, the two-day Lights All Night festival draws tens of thousands for the ultimate party experience. For its seventh annual celebration and second turn at Dallas Market Hall, Lights All Night features headliners deadmau5, Above & Beyond, Zedd, A$AP Ferg, Nero, RL Grime, and Tchami, among many other acts.

Marvelous Nerd Year's Eve
The inaugural Marvelous Nerd Year's Eve is a new kind of New Year's celebration: a four-day geek expo at Sheraton Dallas featuring over 30 celebrity guests, artists, and authors. Celebrities include Stan Lee, Michael Rooker, Nichelle Nichols, Jason Mewes, Brian O'Halloran, Sean Gunn, Robert Picardo, Maurice LaMarche, Glenn Morshower, and more. The event, taking place December 29-January 1, also includes an attempt to break the world record for largest gathering of people dressed as comic book characters.

New Year's Eve at Billy Bob's Texas: Eli Young Band with Green River Ordinance
The Eli Young Band, which started in Denton before heading to Nashville, returns to their roots with this special New Year's Eve concert at Billy Bob's. The group hit it big with their 2014 album, 10,000 Towns, and they're getting ready to release their sixth album in 2017. They're joined by another hometown band, Green River Ordinance.

Reunion Tower presents New Year's Eve Fireworks
You can't actually go to or around Reunion Tower to watch its fireworks, unless you're attending Cloud Nine's masquerade-themed party, but the best views are from a distance anyway. There's a watch party at the Old Red Museum, as well as the New Year No Rules party at W Dallas Victory. Or just find a nice parking spot within sight of the tower, and enjoy the show at midnight.

The Rustic presents NYE Bash
Singer Charley Crockett headlines The Rustic's New Year’s Eve Bash. Crockett, who has a unique sound blending a rich and diverse heritage of both new and traditional music, is joined by The Voice's Dana Harper and Medicine Man. Tickets to the event are free, but special tickets that include complimentary appetizers and a reserved seat on The Rustic’s outdoor patio are being given away by KXT 91.7.

South Side Ballroom '80s NYE Bash
We may be going into 2017, but you can flashback to the 1980s at South Side Ballroom this NYE. The concert features a bunch of '80s tribute bands, including Strangelove, a Depeche Mode tribute; The Cured, a Cure tribute; Panic, a tribute to The Smiths and Morrissey; Electric Duke, a tribute to David Bowie; and DJ PFM spinning '80s before and between sets.

Deadmau5 is one of the headliners at Lights All Night, taking place at Dallas Market Hall on December 30 and 31.

Photo by Matt Barnes

Deadmau5 is one of the headliners at Lights All Night, taking place at Dallas Market Hall on December 30 and 31.

holidays celebrities music tv movies event-planner

Movie review

Adam Scott gets creeped out exploring eerie Irish hotel in Hokum

Photo courtesy of Neon

Adam Scott in Hokum.

There are relatively few actors who can switch back and forth between comedy and drama easily, but Adam Scott is the rare exception. He’s equally as well known for starring in comedy projects like Parks & Recreation, Party Down, and Step Brothers as he is for dramas like Big Little Lies and Severance. He’s going the latter route again in the new horror film, Hokum.

Scott plays author Ohm Bauman, who’s trying to finish his latest book. In an effort to avoid distractions and also pay tribute to his parents, he retreats to an Irish hotel where his mom and dad spent their honeymoon. Bauman, who is about as stand-offish as you can get, and the staff of the hotel are at odds almost right away, although Bauman finds a kind of kinship with Jerry (David Wilmot), a seemingly-homeless man he meets in a nearby forest.

Bauman becomes intrigued with the story of the hotel’s closed-off honeymoon suite, which is said to be haunted. His curiosity, though, seems to trigger a variety of strange things, one of which ends with him in an extended stay at the hospital. He returns to the hotel determined more than ever to discover what’s really happening in the honeymoon suite, with things both normal and supernatural blocking his way at every turn.

Written and directed by Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy, the film’s approach to horror is both subtle and overt. On the good side is Bauman’s story, which gradually gets deeper as more is revealed about his past, especially the premature death of his mother. Bauman’s trauma over her loss influences his thinking and actions, and a possible connection between his current situation and his personal history broadens the scope of the plot.

There is plenty of creepiness to be found in the film, starting with the dark and decrepit nature of the hotel itself. Any building where a particular room is off-limits naturally inspires intrigue, and McCarthy does a solid job of building tension. That’s why it’s strange and disappointing that he gives in to the lamest of horror tropes - a sudden appearance by an odd-looking person accompanied by a big screeching noise - on multiple occasions.

The film is at its best when it features weird moments that are never or only slightly explained. A dead body in a rabbit suit is echoed by the unexplained broadcast from Bauman’s youth featuring a terrifying TV host with bulging eyes and rabbit ears. Bauman’s explorations take him into the hotel’s basement via a dumbwaiter, where he encounters all manner of strange things, including what seem to be witches. Because most of these things are left to the audience’s imagination, they hit harder in the moment.

Scott is known to be understated in his acting, and that skill works well in this particular role. Although he clearly plays Bauman as freaked out, he never indicates panic, and that level-headedness makes his character someone you want to follow no matter how dark the path might be. The mostly-Irish supporting cast is not well-known, but Wilmot and Florence Ordesh make the most of their short time on screen.

Hokum - a title that is also not explained - is a horror film that earns its bona fides through mood more than action. Even though not much of consequence happens throughout the film, it still keeps you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out what will happen next.

---

Hokum is now playing in theaters.

movies film