Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Dallas this New Year's weekend

Most people will be focused on bringing in the New Year this weekend, but Christmas isn't quite done with us. In addition to a Christmas-themed concert and theater production, events will include a circus, an electronic dance music festival, a huge bowl game, theater in black and white, an annual concert tradition, and fireworks.

Below are the best ways to spend your last weekend of 2017. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, December 28

Dallas Children’s Theater presents Lone Star Circus' Cirque Joyeux
Ring in 2018 at Dallas Children's Theater with thrilling daredevils, electrifying jugglers, mesmerizing acrobats, hilarious clowns, and endearing four-legged performers. Dallas’ very own Lone Star Circus gets you up close and personal with circus stars from around the world at Cirque Joyeux, a family-friendly New Year tradition. The production will play at least twice a day through Monday.

Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis
Marking the 33rd anniversary of Mannheim Steamroller's annual Christmas Tour and the release of Mannheim Steamroller Christmas, Chip Davis will direct and co-produce this performance that will feature Mannheim Steamroller classics, along with dazzling multimedia effects. The concert will take place at the Pavilion at the Toyota Music Factory, which will be set up in a rare intimate theater configuration.

Friday, December 29

Lights All Night
The 8th annual Lights All Night will once again celebrate New Year's Eve at Dallas Market Hall, offering festival-goers of all ages access to some of the most sought-after electronic acts across the globe. Performers will feature EDM heavyweights Bassnectar and Porter Robinson (DJ set) as headliners, along with Marshmello, Illenium, NGHTMRE, Seven Lions, Ugly God, Smokepurpp, and many more.

Goodyear Cotton Bowl: USC vs. Ohio State
Bowl season in Dallas-Fort Worth wraps up with the 2017 edition of the Goodyear Cotton Bowl. Even though it won't have any say in who will win the national championship, the bowl game at AT&T Stadium will feature a stellar matchup between the USC Trojans of the Pac-12 Conference and the Ohio State Buckeyes of the Big Ten Conference.

Pegasus Theatre presents A Minor Case of Murder
With the help of his best friend (and paid-by-the-hour assistant) Nigel Grouse, and the long-suffering Detective Lt. Foster of the Metropolitan Police, world-famous detective and aspiring actor Harry Hunsacker will go on an all-new adventure. The production, running through January 28 at the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson, is in Living Black & White, a technique which uses trade-secret makeup, special lighting, meticulous costumes and sets, and stylized acting to create the illusion that the audience is watching a black-and-white movie brought to life on stage.

Saturday, December 30

Bob Schneider in concert with Roxy Roca and Ryan Berg & The Velvet Ears
Although he appears locally on multiple occasions throughout the year, it's become a tradition for Austin-based musician Bob Schneider to return for an end-of-the-year show in Dallas. For this concert at Granada Theater, Schneider will be joined by opening acts Roxy Roca and Ryan Berg & The Velvet Ears.

Sunday, December 31

AT&T Streaming Lights at Reunion Tower
While there are plenty of ways to celebrate the beginning of the new year, the most explosive way is with the annual fireworks shot off from Reunion Tower. You're not allowed to set up camp in the footprint of the tower, so scout out a place on the west side of the Trinity River, along the levees and Trinity Overlook Park, then watch and listen to the radio simulcast on NOW 102.9 FM.

Monday, January 1

Lightwire Theater presents A Very Electric Christmas
With New Year's Day falling on a Monday this year, you can extend your weekend activities with Lightwire Theater's A Very Electric Christmas, which will have two performances at Winspear Opera House. In this story, a young bird named Max gets blown off course during a snowstorm, and he ends up alone and lost at the North Pole. He encounters many fanciful creatures in a magical tale of family, friendship, and hope set to timeless holiday hits.

Lone Star Circus' Cirque Joyeux will play every day through January 1 at Dallas Children's Theater.

Dallas Children's Theater presents Lone Star Circus Holiday Spectacular

Photo courtesy of Lone Star Circus

Lone Star Circus' Cirque Joyeux will play every day through January 1 at Dallas Children's Theater.

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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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