Weekend Event Planner

These are the 7 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

The weekend between Christmas and New Year's is not usually a prime time for new events, but this year is an exception as we wait for 2019 to begin. Featured events include a tour of a Broadway musical, an electronic music festival, circus performers, big-time college football, and a black-and-white play. You can also get an extra holiday fix courtesy of two special concerts.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events. Making plans for New Year's Eve? Here are the best parties and top restaurants for dining out that night.

Thursday, December 27

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Broadway Series: A Bronx Tale
Broadway’s hit crowd-pleaser takes audiences to the stoops of the Bronx in the 1960s, where a young man is caught between the father he loves and the mob boss he’d love to be. Bursting with high-energy dance numbers and original doo-wop tunes from the songwriter of Beauty and the Beast, A Bronx Tale is an unforgettable story of loyalty and family. It will play at Winspear Opera House through January 6.

Friday, December 28

Robert Earl Keen's Cosmic Cowboy Christmas
At this concert, Robert Earl Keen and his band will perform tongue-in-cheek holiday favorites, Keen standards, new renditions of classic holiday hits laced in bluegrass, and more. Keen has recorded 19 full-length albums, including 2015's Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions. For this concert at House of Blues Dallas, he'll be joined by opening act, Shinyribs.

Lights All Night
Lights All Night celebrates its ninth year, offering festival-goers access to some of the most sought-after electronic and dance music acts in the world. Headliners at the two-day festival, taking place on Friday and Saturday at Dallas Market Hall, will include Diplo, Tiësto, Rezz, and Gucci Mane. Other notable performers include What So Not, Anti Up, Shiba San, Ekali, Mr. Carmark, and more.

Dallas Children's Theater presents Lone Star Circus’ Forever
In a fun and daring tribute to the birth of the modern circus, Dallas’ own Lone Star Circus brings its unique brand of spectacle back for the holidays in this all-new show. Jugglers, acrobats, clowns, and four-legged performers from around the world come together to create a parade of not-to-be-forgotten moments for the entire family. The show will be at Dallas Children's Theater through January 1.

Saturday, December 29

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic: Notre Dame vs. Clemson
The fight for college football's national title runs through Arlington this year. In one of the two semifinals for the College Football Playoff, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will face off against the Clemson Tigers in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic at AT&T Stadium. The winner will go on to play either Alabama or Oklahoma in the CFP Championship Game on January 7 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

Pegasus Theatre presents Clowning Around with Murder
In Clowning Around with Murder, someone has murdered the Founder and Head Professor of the Clown College. Harry Hunsacker, world famous detective and aspiring actor, meets a variety of clowns, clues, and a copper in disguise on the trail of a murderer in clown white. The play, running through January 20 at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson, features Pegasus Theatre's trademarked Living Black & White technique, where everything is presented in black, white, and shades of gray to mimic the look of an old black-and-white film come to life on stage.

Old 97's Holiday Hoopla
The Old 97's Holiday Hoopla will feature performances by the Old 97's, DIY punk rock magician CaseyMagic, and special solo acoustic set by Rhett Miller. The Old 97's are playing in support of their first-ever collection of original Christmas songs, Love the Holidays. The concert will take place at The Statler Hotel.

Dallas Children's Theater will present Lone Star Circus' Forever, December 28 through January 1.

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Photo courtesy of Dallas Children's Theater

Dallas Children's Theater will present Lone Star Circus' Forever, December 28 through January 1.

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Movie Review

Remake of Schwarzenegger classic The Running Man stumbles

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Glen Powell in The Running Man.

For all its cheesy ‘80s greatness, the original version of The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was a very loose adaptation of the novel by Stephen King. For the new remake, writer/director Edgar Wright has tried to hue much closer to the story laid out in the book, a decision that has both its positive and negative aspects.

Glen Powell takes over for Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a family man/hothead who can’t seem to hold a job in the dystopian America in which he lives. Desperate to take care of his family, he applies to be on one of the many game shows fed to the masses that promise riches in exchange for humiliation or worse. Thanks to his temper, Ben is chosen for the most popular one of all, The Running Man, in which contestants must survive 30 days while hunters, as well as the general population, track them down.

Given a 12-hour head start, Ben earns money for every day he survives, as well as every hunter he eliminates. Since he only has a relatively small amount of money to use as he pleases, Ben must rely on friendly citizens who are willing to put their own lives on the line to help him. That’s a task made even more difficult as the gamemakers, led by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), use advanced AI to manipulate footage of Ben to make him seem like a guy for which no one should root.

Co-written by Michael Bacall, the film is shockingly uninteresting, working neither as an exciting action film, a fun quippy comedy, or social commentary. The biggest problem is that Wright seems to have no interest in developing any of his characters, starting with Ben. Our introduction to the protagonist is him trying to get his job back, a situation for which there is little context even after we’re beaten over the head with exposition.

The situation in which Ben finds himself should be easy to make sympathetic, but Wright and Bacall speed through scenes that might have emphasized that aspect in favor of ones that make the story less personal. The filmmakers really want to showcase the supposed antagonistic relationship between Ben and Dan (and the system which Dan represents), but all that effort results in little drama.

Ben has a number of close calls, and while those scenes are full of action and violence, almost every one of them feels emotionally inert, as if there was nothing at stake. It doesn’t help that Wright doesn’t set the scene well, making it unclear how far Ben has traveled or who/what he’s up against. There are times when Ben feels surrounded and others when he can walk freely, weird for a society that’s supposed to be under almost complete surveillance.

Powell has been touted as a movie star in the making for several years following his turn in Top Gun: Maverick, but he does little here to make that label stick. With no consistent co-star thanks to the structure of the story, he’s required to carry the film, and he just doesn’t have the juice that a true movie star is supposed to have. Nobody else is served well by the scattershot film, including normally reliable people like Brolin, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, and Lee Pace.

The Running Man is a big misfire by Wright and a blow to Powell’s star power. On the surface, it has all the hallmarks of an action thriller with a side of social commentary, but nothing it does or says lands in any meaningful way. Schwarzenegger’s one-liners in the original film may have been goofy and over-the-top, but at least they made the movie memorable, which is way more than can be said of the remake.

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The Running Man opens in theaters on November 14.

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