Weekend Event Planner

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

This weekend in and around Dallas will start with a lot of theater, and end with some unique events. Choices include one national theater tour and three local theater openings, an anniversary celebration for a great new gathering spot, two big-name concerts, a fun football game for charity, a new way to meditate, and YouTube trick shots in real life.

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.

Thursday, August 8

Dallas Summer Musicals presents Fiddler on the Roof
Rich with musical hits you know and love, including “Tradition,” “Sunrise, Sunset," “If I Were A Rich Man," “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” and “To Life (L’Chaim!),” Fiddler on the Roof is the heartwarming story of fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, and life, love, and laughter. The classic musical will play at the Music Hall at Fair Park through August 18.

Pegasus Theatre presents Broadway or Bust
In a converted strip-mall carpet store, somewhere in Dallas, The Plush Pile Players are spitting tacks. They are primed to stage Dicky Steinberg’s off-off-Broadway flop Broadway Glitz when director Jan Flaggit trips on a toaster and breaks her ankle dashing all hopes. That is until a lifeline comes in the shape of bona fide Broadway director, Percy Scott. However, Jan's eccentric ensemble soon learn that their new messiah may not be all he seems. The production will run at Bath House Cultural Center through August 24.

Friday, August 9

Texas Live! First Anniversary Celebration
Texas Live! in Arlington will celebrate its first birthday with a three-day birthday bash. The event, going on through Sunday, will feature several special guests, a surprise announcement, cash giveaways, live music from the Emerald City Band, Steve Helms, TX Red Dirt Roads, and Dr Pepper Kidd’s Day 2019. And with 10 venues under one roof, there’s a different party happening just around the corner.

Theatre Arlington presents Brighton Beach Memoirs
Dreaming of baseball and girls, Eugene must cope with the mundane existence of his family life in Brooklyn: formidable mother, overworked father, and his worldly older brother Stanley. Throw into the mix his widowed Aunt Blanche and her two young (but rapidly aging) daughters, and you have a recipe for hilarity, served up Neil Simon-style. The production will run at Theatre Arlington through August 31.

Uptown Players presents The Cake
To close its 18th season, Uptown Players will present the regional premiere of Bekah Brunstetter’s new comedy, The Cake. Della’s North Carolina bakery is legendary. She is overjoyed when her best friend’s daughter returns from New York to get married and asks Della to make her wedding cake. Della, a sweet-natured Christian, is forced to re-examine her deeply-held beliefs and her own marriage when she realizes there is not one bride, but two. The production will run through August 25 at Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Saturday, August 10

moe. and Blues Traveler in concert
Preeminent progressive rock band moe. and legendary platinum-selling band Blues Traveler will co-headline the All Roads Runaround Tour. The concert will showcase one set from each band plus a special collaborative set. moe.'s last album was 2014's No Guts, No Glory, while Blues Traveler's last album was 2018's Hurry Up & Hang Around. They will be joined by G. Love in this concert at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving.

BvB Dallas Powder-Puff Football Game
The ongoing rivalry between Team Blonde and Team Brunette continues as they battle it out off the field in fundraising, and on the field in an epic flag-football game at the Cotton Bowl. BvB Dallas is a young-professionals organization dedicated to raising money and awareness for Alzheimer’s Disease research and care. The game will be called by Donovan Lewis and Ty Walker from 1310-FM's The Ticket, and will include dances from the Mavs Maniaacs and more.

Dierks Bentley in concert with Jon Pardi, Tenille Townes, and Hot Country Knights
There are few country singers with a higher profile than Dierks Bentley. He has released nine albums since his debut in 2003, including 2018's The Mountain, with all but two of them reaching the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Country charts. Those albums have yielded 11 No. 1 songs, including "Come A Little Closer," "Free and Easy," and "Somewhere on a Beach." He'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion with support from opening acts Jon Pardi, Tenille Townes, and Hot Country Knights.

Sunday, August 11

MindTravel SilentWalk
At MindTravel SilentWalk, guests can be carried away by the deep feeling of freedom and connection of the newest way to practice walking meditation. Led by MindTravel creator and composer, Murray Hidary, participants will explore the Dallas Arboretum while guided by music delivered through headphones. The evocative, improvisational piano music ignites freedom and expansiveness that amplifies the healing and inspirational power of being surrounded by beauty.

The Dude Perfect Pound It Noggin Tour
The guys of Dude Perfect have been wowing people on YouTube for years with their impressive trick shots, and now they'll come to Allen Event Center as part of their first-ever live tour. Tyler Toney, Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert, and twins Coby and Cory Cotton, the five best friends from Frisco, will perform the ultimate variety show, highlighting fan favorites such as Overtime, Stereotypes, Battles, and stunts.

Dierks Bentley will play at Dos Equis Pavilion on August 10.

Photo courtesy of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Dierks Bentley will play at Dos Equis Pavilion on August 10.

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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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