Weekend Event Planner

These are the 10 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

The weekend marking the transition from March to April will not be short on celebratory events. It will include two separate grand openings, a tour showing off warplanes of the past, a whole festival of comedy, the national tour of an acclaimed musical, an annual Easter event, and a commemoration of the city's most iconic TV show.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this holiday weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, March 29

Big Beat Dallas Grand Opening Weekend
Big Beat Dallas, a highly anticipated food and entertainment venue at the Toyota Music Factory in Irving, is the creation of Billy Bob Barnett, best known for starting Billy Bob's in Fort Worth. The venue is opening with a multiday celebration featuring concerts from acts like The Texas Gentlemen, Ruthie Foster, and Joe Ely. Events will take place through Sunday.

Frontiers of Flight Museum presents Wings of Freedom Tour
The Wings of Freedom Tour will bring extremely rare bomber and fighter aircraft to the Frontiers of Flight Museum for a local living history exhibit as part of 110-city nationwide tour. Visitors will not only get a chance to view the interactive display, but they will also have an opportunity to “fly into history” aboard these legendary aircraft. The event will go on through Sunday.

The Star in Frisco presents Entertainment District Grand Opening Weekend
The Star in Frisco will host a weekend celebration for the grand opening of its Entertainment District, including live entertainment, special appearances, dining and shopping specials, and prizes for the public. Festivities throughout the weekend will include a concert by Pat Green, a Dallas Cowboys football academy, performances by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Dallas Cowboys Rhythm and Blue, and more.

Off Broadway on Flora: 600 Highwaymen - The Fever
The Fever, the latest work by 600 Highwaymen, tests the limits of individual and collective responsibility, and our willingness to be there for one another. Performed in complete collaboration with the audience, The Fever examines how we assemble, organize and care for the bodies around us. Who will you be when our eyes are on you? What will we see when we all look your way? The production will play multiple times each day through April 1 at Wyly Theatre.

Dallas Comedy Festival
Former Saturday Night Live cast member Sasheer Zamata and the award-winning improv/sketch group 3Peat will be the headliners at the 2018 Dallas Comedy Festival. The four-day festival, taking place through Sunday at Dallas Comedy House and Independent Bar & Kitchen, will feature nearly 80 other performances, including stand-up, improv, and sketch.

Dallas Summer Musicals presents Waitress
Brought to life by a groundbreaking all-female creative team, Waitress features original music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles. Inspired by Adrienne Shelly’s beloved film, the musical tells the story of Jenna, a waitress and expert pie maker who dreams of a way out of her small town and loveless marriage. A baking contest in a nearby county and the town’s new doctor may offer her a chance at a fresh start. The production will run through April 8 at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

Friday, March 30

Visit Dallas presents Dallas 40th Year Reunion
Visit Dallas will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the debut of the original Dallas TV series with cast members Linda Gray, Patrick Duffy, Charlene Tilton, and Steve Kanaly. Guests can enjoy exclusive fan events at Southfork Ranch in Parker on Friday and Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas on Saturday, experiencing up-close-and-personal memories as the cast reminisces about their careers and their time on the iconic show.

TITAS presents L.A. Dance Project
The creation of famed dancer/choreographer Benjamin Millepied, L.A. Dance Project has established itself as a force to be reckoned with in just five short years. It features great dancers, bold artistic vision, and stunning choreography. The group will perform once on Friday and once on Saturday at Moody Performance Hall.

Saturday, March 31

Dallas Art Dealers Association Spring Gallery Walk
The Dallas Art Dealers Association will present its 2018 Spring Gallery Walk, with over 20 galleries staying open into the evening hours to allow visitors to visit multiple locations. Art enthusiasts, private and corporate collectors, artists, designers and visitors to Dallas will enjoy a full spectrum of gallery openings and special exhibitions around Dallas.

Sunday, April 1

The Conservancy presents Easter in the Park
The annual Easter in the Park at Oak Lawn Park features an afternoon of festivities, including The Conservancy Pooch Parade, live music by DJ Jennifer Miller, an Easter egg hunt, a special appearance from the Easter Bunny, and a variety of food trucks. A portion of sales from the food trucks will be donated to The Conservancy.

Easter in the Park will take place at Oak Lawn Park on April 1.

Photo courtesy of The Conservancy

Easter in the Park will take place at Oak Lawn Park on April 1.

event-planner

Movie Review

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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