Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Mid-September brings an absolutely packed weekend in and around Dallas. Among the fun are five big-name concerts, a new and timely theater production, a number of activities celebrating Dallas Pride, a visit by a famous movie director, and a Dallas Cowboys event.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, September 15

Tegan and Sara in concert
For those not in the know, Tegan and Sara are sometimes reduced to "the lesbian twin sister duo." But their music makes them much more than that, as their eight albums, including 2016's Love You to Death, have established them as a big draw in both their native Canada and the U.S. They are entertaining their fans at Majestic Theatre.

Undermain Theatre presents So Go the Ghosts of Mexico (part one) – A Brave Woman in Mexico
To open its 33rd season, Undermain Theatre embarks on a trilogy of new plays exploring the U.S.-Mexico drug wars. So Go the Ghosts of Mexico (part one) – A Brave Woman in Mexico is about a 22-year-old woman who volunteers to replace a murdered police chief in a small border town. Her actions set off a chain of reactions for her husband, and perhaps the entire country of Mexico. The production runs through October 8.

Dallas Pride Weekend
There are multiple occasions for LGBT people to celebrate this weekend, starting with the 3rd Annual PlayPride Festival, which runs through September 25 at Bishop Arts Theatre Center. The 2016 Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival, going on through September 24, starts Friday at the Kalita Humphreys Theater complex. And both the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade and the Dallas Pride Festival in the Park, ending and taking place at Reverchon Park, respectively, happen on Sunday.

Friday, September 16

Dallas Museum of Art presents "Concentrations 60: Lucie Stahl" opening day
For "Concentrations 60," Lucie Stahl’s first U.S. solo museum show, Stahl presents both old and new work in an immersive installation that features a number of her Prayer Wheels (beer cans and oil drums that can be spun by the viewer). This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Dallas Museum of Art’s Concentrations series of project-based solo exhibits representing emerging and international artists. The exhibition runs through March 12, 2017.

2016 Dallas Symphony Orchestra Gala
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra opens its 2016-2017 season with this annual gala; internationally renowned pianist Lang Lang is the featured soloist. Lang Lang is as comfortable on the classical concert stage as he is performing with Metallica and Pharrell Williams. Cocktails and a luxurious dinner are being offered prior to the concert.

Band Against Cancer: The Sarah Cannon Tour with Martina McBride & Friends
The latest visit from country star Martina McBride is for a good cause, as she joins forces with Thompson Square, Cassadee Pope, and Hudson Moore to raise funds for Band Against Cancer. The charity connects people facing cancer with community-based resources and support close to home. The concert takes place at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Texas Ballet Theater presents Carmen and Danse à Grande Vitesse
Texas Ballet Theater is opening its season with a doubleheader: Carmen, a cautionary tale of a free spirit with an appetite for life and love who has a chance encounter with fate; and Danse À Grande Vitesse, which propels its dancers through shifting physical and emotional landscapes. There are four performances through Sunday at Winspear Opera House.

Saturday, September 17

An Evening with Kevin Smith: The Art of Comics
Creator of AMC’s Comic Book Men, writer, comedian, podcaster, and film director Kevin Smith has written and directed numerous films, including Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Red State, and Tusk. Fans can get up close and personal with the comics enthusiast and man who brought the world these films at Murchison Performing Arts Center in Denton.

5 Seconds of Summer in concert
Now that One Direction may be no more, there's a void in the boy band world that 5 Seconds of Summer is more than happy to fill. The Australian quartet came to fame riding 1D's coattails on tour in 2013 and have gone on to hit No. 1 with their first two albums, including 2015's Sounds Good Feels Good. They are playing at Gexa Energy Pavilion with Hey Violet.

Bomb Factory presents YO! '90s Hip Hop Party
If this concert at the Bomb Factory had taken place in the 1990s, people's heads would have exploded. Even though most of the acts, including Vanilla Ice, Coolio, Tone Loc, 2 Live Crew, Young MC, Christy Ray, and Tyler Sloan, are 20 or more years past their peak of popularity, it should still be a blast revisiting all of their hits.

Sunday, September 18

Dallas Cowboys present Star Community Day
The Cowboys will be in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, but you can still gather with fellow fans to watch the game and get a peek at their new practice facilities in Frisco at this event. Guests get to see the Tostitos Championship Plaza at the Star; the interior of Ford Center, including the high school locker rooms; and enjoy family-friendly activities such as bounce houses and games, as well as appearances by Rowdy, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and Dallas Cowboys alumni.

Leon Bridges in concert with Lianne La Havas
Fort Worth's Leon Bridges had a relatively quick rise to stardom in 2015, going from playing coffee houses to selling out places like Majestic Theatre in a matter of months. Having now toured the world, he's making his return to the area with this concert at the Music Hall at Fair Park, with support from opening act Lianne La Havas.

Leon Bridges returns to Dallas to play at the Music Hall at Fair Park on September 18.

Austin City Limits Festival ACL 2015 Weekend Two Leon Bridges

Photo by Shelley Neuman

Leon Bridges returns to Dallas to play at the Music Hall at Fair Park on September 18.

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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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