Weekend Event Planner

Major film star comes to Dallas to headline best weekend events

With Thanksgiving a week away, it's time to get ready for the onslaught of holiday events. Two new ones start this weekend, and they're joined by a reprise of an acclaimed dance show, a visit from a big-time movie star, a winner of American Idol, a renowned pop artist, and more.

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, November 19

A Season of Stories: Christmas at the White House 2003
For the third straight year, the George W. Bush Presidential Center will take a look back at Christmastime at the White House when Bush was president. The exhibit, open now through January 3, gives visitors a glimpse of original White House decorations and behind-the-scenes photographs and video from the archives of the Bush administration.

The Danielle Georgiou Dance Group presents The Show About Men
The Show About Men, which Danielle Georgiou Dance Group originally premiered during the Festival of Independent Theatres, is a dance theater piece concerned with the catch-22 of manhood in modern culture. Honored as one of the best new plays by by the Dallas-Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum, the production will play at Eastfield College through Sunday.

Friday, November 20

Dallas Film Society presents the Art of Film: Isabella Rossellini
Recent honorees at Dallas Film Society's annual fundraising event, the Art of Film, have included Val Kilmer, Lee Daniels, and Marisa Tomei. Joining that list is Isabella Rossellini, known for films like Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and the upcoming Joy, starring Jennifer Lawrence. The event will take place at the Space on Oak Lawn.

Kitchen Dog Theater presents The Totalitarians
With the race for the White House in 2016 in full gear, there may be no better time for a political satire like The Totalitarians. Kitchen Dog Theater will present the regional premiere of the play, which follows one candidate's willingness to do almost anything to get elected. It will play at the Green Zone through December 19.

David Cook in concert with Andrew Ripp
He may not have achieved the fame and fortune of such American Idol winners as Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood, but David Cook has carved out his own niche in the music landscape. Now touring in support of his fourth album, Digital Vein, Cook will play in the intimacy of The Kessler alongside opening act Andrew Ripp.

Saturday, November 21

The Trains at NorthPark
One of the great things about the holidays are the traditions, and one of the best traditions in Dallas is the Trains at NorthPark. Now in its 28th year in Dallas and 17th year at NorthPark Center, the exhibit includes trains rolling across 1,600 feet of track on a journey across America, seeing landmarks like downtown Dallas, Times Square, the White House, the Grand Canyon, and more. The exhibit will be on display through January 3.

Last Comic Standing Live Tour
The NBC comedy competition has had a hit-and-miss reputation for honoring comedians, with the likes of Amy Schumer, Tig Notaro, and Gabriel Iglesias all failing to win the seasons in which they competed. You can judge for yourself how successful they were at picking comics this past season when the five finalists perform at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Road Show Company presents Peter Max: A Retrospective 1960-2015
The unique artistic style of German pop artist Peter Max has been fascinating people for decades, and a special collaborative event in Dallas and Fort Worth will pay tribute to that history. The now 78-year-old Max will be on hand at Beaudry Gallery for an artist reception on both Saturday and Sunday, at which guests can speak with him and even pick up a Max original.

Sunday, November 22

RAW Dallas presents Uprising
RAW Dallas is a group committed to showcasing rising local talent in artistic fields like art, fashion, music, dance, and more. Avant Chamber Ballet is just one of many RAW artists to be featured in the November showcase. Other onstage performances include the jazz and hip-hop styles of indie band Duo Contra and R&B stylings of Kelton Blackshear. They'll perform at Gas Monkey Live.

Isabella Rossellini will be the honored guest at Dallas Film Society's Art of Film on November 20.

Photo by Andre Rau

Isabella Rossellini will be the honored guest at Dallas Film Society's Art of Film on November 20.

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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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