Elf School

9 magical things to know about Hilton Anatole's Peppermint Park

You don’t have to travel to the North Pole to experience the magic of Christmas — the Hilton Anatole is bringing it right to Dallas with the return of Peppermint Park.

The immersive winter festival has a seemingly endless list of activities for children and parents alike, with everything from holiday train rides to arts and crafts with the Grinch. Here are nine things to know before visiting:

Dates and times
Peppermint Park is open 5-9 pm on Fridays and Saturdays from November 23-December 15, and then daily December 20-23 from 1-9 pm.

Tickets
It pays to stay at the Anatole during the holidays, because entry to Peppermint Park is included. If you're not a guest, then a la carte tickets can be purchased for $24.95 (adults) and $19.95 (kids ages 3-17), with kids under 3 getting in for free.

Parking
Parking is $20 and can be paid for upon arrival at Lot 4.

Merry activities
Take a magical train ride through the park and enjoy the light displays, predict the weather with Jack Frost, enroll in Elf School and learn what it takes to be one of Santa's helpers, mail your letters to the North Pole, or make holiday slime with the Grinch. There is also a petting zoo featuring the types of animals that would have been present during the nativity, such as donkeys, goats, lambs, and more.

Feel-good giving
To celebrate the spirit of giving this holiday, Hilton Anatole has partnered with Make-A-Wish North Texas to help make life-changing wishes come true for children with critical illnesses. As Peppermint Park opens its doors, it will feature a Make-A-Wish booth accepting personal donations along with Make-A-Wish volunteers throughout the park. To celebrate and honor the wishes of children, a portion of the proceeds from game commissions, unused coupons, and entrance commissions will be donated to the foundation.

Treats to share
Gossip Bar, located just inside the hotel and adjacent to Peppermint Park, will feature holiday-style concessions including hot cocoa, coffee, snacks, and adult beverages.

Breakfast with Santa Package
Save up to $100 and indulge in all the fun at Peppermint Park on Friday night, and the hotel will take care of breakfast on Saturday morning. Guests will enjoy standard luxurious accommodations, admission to Peppermint Park on the night of arrival, holiday movie night, a very special Breakfast with Santa for up to two adults and two children on the morning of departure, and late checkout of 1 pm.

VIP Holiday Experience Package
Save up to $100 and enjoy a private reception with Santa and Mrs. Claus before exploring all the excitement of Peppermint Park. Guests will enjoy standard luxurious accommodations, a private meet-and-greet event with Santa and Mrs. Claus on the night of arrival for up to two adults and two children, one complimentary 5x7 printed photo with Santa, admission to Peppermint Park on night of arrival, holiday movie night, valet parking for one vehicle, a very special Breakfast with Santa for up to two adults and two children on the morning of departure, and late checkout of 3 pm.

Festive fireworks
Hotel guests get to enjoy another perk with a special fireworks finale just for them on December 7. Set to holiday tunes, the display will light up Peppermint Park and telegraph the spirit of the season far and wide.

Peppermint Park returns to the Hilton Anatole beginning November 23.

Photo courtesy of Hilton Anatole

Peppermint Park returns to the Hilton Anatole beginning November 23.

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Movie Review

Comedy all-stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd can't save Anaconda sequel

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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