Weekend Event Planner

The absolute best events to party for New Year's weekend in Dallas

New Year's Eve falls on a Thursday this year, so most of the fun things worth doing around Dallas take place then or on New Year's Day. They include a number of big concerts, two new theater productions, one big football game, and a new family-oriented event at Fair Park.

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, December 31

Lights All Night
This electronic dance music festival has become an annual New Year's tradition in Dallas, bringing in some of the best EDM acts around. The two-day festival moves to its third location in four years, this time taking over Dallas Market Hall. Among the performers are Hardwell, Kaskade, Thomas Jack, Yellow Claw, and Porter Robinson.

New Year's Evil with Hellyeah, Nothing More, and Sevendust
If you prefer your New Year's Eve celebration a little more hardcore, then this concert at the Bomb Factory is for you. Headbanging and mosh pits are the orders of the day at this night-long event, featuring performances from headliners Hellyeah and Nothing More, with support from Sevendust, Red Sun Rising, Islander, and Even the Dead Love a Parade.

Cotton Bowl Classic: Alabama vs. Michigan State
Last year AT&T Stadium played host to the first-ever College Football Playoff championship game. This isn't the ultimate game, but it's still very important, as the winner of the semi-final game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Michigan State Spartans will advance to the championship game in Arizona on January 11 to face either Clemson or Oklahoma.

Pegasus Theatre presents Death Is a Bad Habit
If you've never seen one of Pegasus Theatre's patented Living Black & White productions, you owe it to yourself to go. Using trade-secret makeup, special lighting, meticulous costuming, and set creation, combined with stylized acting, the company creates the illusion that the audience is watching not just a play, but a 1930s-'40s black-and-white movie brought to life onstage. The play runs at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson through January 24.

Backdoor Comedy's New Year's Eve Bash
2015 has had its fair share of depressing events, so why not end the year with some laughs? Backdoor Comedy Club hosts two shows featuring comedians Paul Varghese, Linda Stogner, and other Backdoor favorites. If you go to the second show, you get a ticket to a future show, party favors, a champagne toast at midnight, and dancing after the show.

Theatre Three presents I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change!
Now back for the 16th time, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change! has become a tradition at Theatre Three. This time, the celebration and exploration of the mating game features two actual married couples, Kim and Max Swarner and Amy Mills and Doug Jackson. The hilarious revue that pays tribute to those who have loved and lost and lived to try again runs through, naturally, February 14.

KXT's New Year's Eve Bash with Jonathan Tyler, Somebody's Darling, and Dovetail
This New Year's Eve concert at the Granada Theater eschews national acts for local ones. Put on by independent music radio station KXT, the concert features performances by Jonathan Tyler, possibly without his band the Northern Lights; Somebody's Darling, returning from their new home in Nashville; and Dovetail.

W Dallas Victory presents Stop the Clock New Year's Eve Party
If all you want to do is dance, drink, and have fun on New Year's Eve, you could do a lot worse than this party at the W Dallas Victory. Taking place in Altitude on the hotel's 33rd floor, you can dance to music from DJ Lucio all night long and get a complimentary champagne toast at midnight. Most tickets are sold out, but some are still available if you book a room.

Friday, January 1

Day 1 Dallas
Day 1 Dallas is a brand-new family fair specifically designed for children and families to celebrate New Year’s Day together at Fair Park. The celebration features interactive activities; performances by Collins Key, Cody Lovaas, and Debby Ryan at the Music Hall at Fair Park; carnival food; and a spectacular fireworks show to end the day.

Shen Yun 2016
The return of the Chinese dance group Shen Yun has become another New Year's tradition in Dallas, as they've returned to perform at Winspear Opera House around the same time for the past three years. The troupe honors the Chinese past through both dance and music, showing off a stunning visual and emotional experience you won’t find anywhere else. Performances take place through January 10.

Shen Yun performs at Winspear Opera House through January 10.

Photo courtesy of Shen Yun

Shen Yun performs at Winspear Opera House through January 10.

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Movie Review

Korean monster movie Hope delivers thrills despite its lengthy runtime

Photo courtesy of Neon

Hwang Jung-Min and Hoyeon in Hope.

Monster movies can take on all sorts of different flavors, from all-out mayhem to quieter ones where the monster can sometimes be the protagonist. The new South Korean film Hope splits the difference to a degree, delivering action-packed sequences while also attempting to understand the non-humans in a way.

The story starts in medias res, with an unseen creature having already done great damage to a huge bull and laying waste to much of a small Korean town. The local sheriff, Beom Seok (Hwang Jung-Min), tries to take control of the situation in the town, while a group of hunters led by Sung Ki (Zo In-Sung) travel into the nearby woods to see what they can find there.

Thus starts a nearly nonstop, 160-minute epic of each side trying (and mostly failing) to defend themselves against gigantic creatures who seem hellbent on destroying everything in their path. It’s not until 40 minutes into the film that the audience is shown one of the monsters in detail, and the less said the better about what it actually looks like, as the mystery behind it keeps the intrigue going.

That initial section of the film is the best, as Beom Seok — eventually joined by deputy Sung Ae (Hoyeon) — goes on a frantic hunt around the town, always just far enough behind the monster to keep from seeing it. The utter destruction he witnesses and his interactions with various locals are intense and oddly funny, with the hectic conversations he has laced with fear and incredulity over how different people choose to act.

Writer-director Na Hong-jin bounces back and forth between the people in the town and the group in the forest, doing his best to maintain the momentum of the first section. This approach works for a while as each group makes their own discoveries about the creatures and has run-ins with them that more often than not are ill-fated. Using a mixture of relatively good CGI, great production design, and an abundance of gore, the filmmaker shows he knows how to make an effective blockbuster-style film.

The trouble is, he doesn’t know when to stop. Somewhere around the two-hour mark of the movie, the story starts to become repetitive and Hong-jin introduces elements that don’t mesh well with what has come before. For some reason, he decides that some of the creatures should speak, a move that is baffling on several fronts. The biggest one is that they are voiced by English-speaking actors like Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, but each speaks a non-human language, rendering their performances moot.

Jung-min puts in a fantastic lead performance, one that requires him to vacillate between abject terror and in-control leadership. In-Sung is almost as good, although his character requires him to play one note over and over again. Hoyeon, who some may recognize from Squid Game, delivers an extra shot of energy when she enters the film, something she keeps going despite her character being forced to say some bad lines.

If Hong-jin had kept the focus Hope a little tighter, the sci-fi thriller might have ended up toward the top of this year’s films. But by choosing to extend the story into territories that don’t add much to the plot or make much sense, the filmmaker puts a damper on what was a fun and brutal monster movie.

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Hope is now playing in theaters.

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