Coronavirus News

Restaurants and theaters around Dallas throw down coronavirus deals

Nachos and margs from the O.T.B.

Photo courtesy of On the Border

Finding a silver lining in the coronavirus is next to impossible, but some Dallas restaurants and businesses are doing their best by serving up special offers to make it sting a little less.

Here's some deals to check out:

Big Yellow Box
Dickey's Barbecue Pit has launched a new catering innovation called the Big Yellow Box, designed to feed small gatherings. There are five new self-contained pick-up options that serve up to 12 people:

Pulled Pork Party Pack ($85) – 4 lbs. of pulled pork, slaw, barbecue beans, potato salad, rolls, pickles, onions, rolls, sauce
Sandwich Party Pack ($99) – 12 sandwiches, Caesar salad, potato salad, pickles, onions, sauce
Original Party Pack ($110) – 2 lbs. of brisket, 2 lbs. of pulled pork, slaw, potato salad, beans, pickles, onions, sauce
Wings and Ribs Party Pack ($115) – 18 ribs, 24 wings, mac & cheese, slaw, rolls, sauce
Brisket Party Pack ($155) – 4 lbs. of brisket, choice of three sides, rolls, pickles, onions, sauce

Margs to go
Uncle Julio's has launched new frozen margaritas to-go for curbside pick-up at all DFW locations. They're doing both frozen and swirl margaritas in three sizes: 16-ounce pouch for $10, half-gallon for $30, and gallon for $50. You let the margarita sit at room temperature for 15-30 minutes until it achieves that perfect slushy consistency.

Wine deals
Avanti Restaurant in Uptown Dallas is offering wine specials every Tuesday. Two of their favorite wines — such as Alias 2018 Cabernet for $35 or Jean-Luc Colombo 2018 Rose for $29 — will be featured for in-house sipping or bottle to go.

Happy hour specials
On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina has new Happy Hour specials on appetizers and drinks. It's an elevated Happy Hour menu Monday-Friday 3-6 pm, with $5 appetizers and an all-new appetizer: Queso Sampler. They're also discounting Dos Equis beers. These items are available only during happy hour and include:

Queso Sampler – Border-style queso, signature queso, and smoky queso
Mini cheese quesadillas
5 Mini Crispy Tacos with chicken or beef
4 Firecracker Stuffed Jalapeños with chicken and cheese, and a side of queso
3 Mini Burritos with choice of chicken or beef, and a side of queso
Cantina Nachos with refried beans, ground beef or chicken tinga, queso, pico de gallo, lime crema, and guacamole

Movie nights
Ida Claire in Addison has begun hosting movie nights on the patio every Thursday, when guests can enjoy a free nostalgic or classic movie, starting at 9 pm. During the showings, they'll offer special movie night bites and beverages, including $5 Ranch Waters and $5 Crawfish Corn Beignets. This week's movie is Dirty Dancing, and they'll have a $5 Dirty Martini as the special movie night drink.

Future movies include:

July 30 - Zoolander
August 6 - Footloose
August 13 - Three Amigos
August 20 - Clueless
August 27 - Office Space
September 3 - The Sandlot
October 3 - Mean Girls (it's "National Mean Girls Day," who knew)

For reservations, call 214-377-8227 or visit www.ida-claire.com.

Rent a theater
Studio Movie Grill is offering customizable private auditoriums for $200. The rental includes the entire auditorium, luxury recliners in most locations, a choice from 100+ classic movies or guests can bring their own content. Food from the SMG restaurant and full-service bar is available to add-on, and can be ordered safely from a server or through the App or Kiosk.

There are auditoriums in a variety of sizes, and will allow up to 50 people, per the current occupancy mandate.

SMG has more than 100 classic titles in rotation such as A Star is Born, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, and the Harry Potter series, as well as a robust lineup of exciting, high-quality new releases from smaller independent studios.

They're also increasing operating hours in several locations, offering showtimes Monday-Thursday 3-9 pm and expanding Friday-Sunday hours from 12-10 pm. This allows private bookings during lunchtime and in the afternoon.

hotels

Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist