This year's hottest headlines

The 10 hottest stories that had Dallas talking in 2019

Editor’s note: What was Dallas reading in 2019? We are so glad you asked. Here's a look back at the 10 most-read CultureMap stories from the past year. From a world-famous French bakery saying "bon jour" to Dallas to glamorous weddings, a horror museum gone wrong, and a big purchase by Jerry Jones (who appears twice on the list), these are the stories that intrigued readers this year. Find out our most popular dining, arts and entertainment, society, and real estate stories in their own lists, too.

1. Jerry Jones buys $250 million superyacht that’s as long as a football field. Jerry Jones, the high-flying billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, lassoed one heck of a Christmas gift last year: a $250 million, helipad-equipped superyacht bearing the name of his wife. Websites that cover the yachting industry report that Jones took delivery of a nearly 360-foot, Dutch-built yacht on December 20, 2018 somewhere in Scandinavia.

2. How to get every possible discount at the 2019 State Fair of Texas. The State Fair of Texas, which had its 24-day run at Fair Park starting September 27, is a fall tradition for many around the Lone Star State. With deals being offered by the State Fair and other entities, there's no reason you should ever pay full price. In August, we rounded up all the ways for fair-goers to save money on tickets.

3. World-famous bakery from France makes Texas debut in downtown Dallas. Dallas' baked goods scene just keeps getting better every day, and this year saw the news of a big arrival: La Tarte Tropézienne, a French bakery recognized worldwide for a certain cream-filled tart, will open its first-ever storefront outside of France in Dallas. In September, we broke the news that the bakery will open downtown, next to/beneath the Hotel Joule, at 1604 Main St., in 2020.

4. Horror Museum in Deep Ellum shuts down early on opening night. The so-called Horror Museum & Chocolate Bar, a new place in Deep Ellum that advertised itself as "the scariest Horror Museum in the world," had what would have to be called a difficult opening night on September 27, with such scathing reviews that the owners shut it down early. Despite the complaints, the owners said a few days later that that the show would go on.

5. Dallas bride marries Prince Charming in glamorous wedding at The Joule. It was all eyes on Gina Ginsburg and Grant Farmer last spring, as the couple said I do under the watchful gaze of The Joule’s iconic 30-foot-tall “Eye” sculpture. The newlyweds met in 2015 through a mutual friend and wed on April 20, 2019, in an event that was nothing less than a modern Dallas fairy tale.

6. Dallas home of golfer Lee Trevino is being razed, everything must go. After five years on and off the market, the Dallas home of professional golfer Lee Trevino was finally sold — but the new owners intend to raze it and start over. Meanwhile, there was a sale in early November, and everything had to go.

7. Uptown Dallas bar transforms itself into Game of Thrones museum. If you were a walking, breathing human being, you surely knew that April 14 was the premiere of HBO's Game of Thrones, which was, tragically, on its final season. One Dallas bar was pulling out the stops to mark it in style. Ill Minster Pub transformed itself into a GoT museum of sorts, with installations that are dedicated to Game of Thrones memorabilia.

8. Real Housewives of Dallas star LeeAnne Locken lifts the veil on her $4 million wedding. Take away the TV cameras, the million-dollar tiara, and the People magazine reporter, and LeeAnne Locken and Rich Emberlin were just two people pledging their love in a heartfelt wedding on April 27, 2019. But simple “I do’s” just won’t do when you’re a star of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Dallas.

9. Jerry Jones now owns second most valuable sports empire in the world. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expressed disappointment about the team's 17-9 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on December 22. But he could hardly be disappointed about a title he did win recently. On December 18, four days before Dallas’ dismal performance in Philly, Forbes magazine crowned Jones the head of the world’s second most valuable sports conglomerate.

10. DFW billionaire retains crown as richest person in Texas for 2019, Forbes says. Walmart heiress Alice Walton of Fort Worth remained the richest person in Texas, according to the Forbes 400 ranking, released in early October. What was really astounding, though, was that her estimated net worth skyrocketed by more than $6 billion in just one year.

Meet the "Bravo Eugenia."

Photo courtesy of Oceanco

Meet the "Bravo Eugenia."

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Movie review

Over-the-top The Bride! makes other Frankenstein movies seem subtle

Photo by Niko Tavernise

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley in The Bride!.

The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is now over 200 years old, with Mary Shelley’s book having been adapted or referenced in close to 500 films. Less common is the character of The Bride of Frankenstein, which existed in the original text but has more often than not been excised in adaptations. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has tried to rectify that by giving the character a big showcase in her new film, The Bride!.

Gyllenhaal has reimagined the story as one in which a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) becomes possessed by the spirit of Shelley (also Buckley). At the same time, the already-existing Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) approaches Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who specializes in reanimation, with the request to make him a wife. When Ida falls to her death in an “accident” involving her boyfriend (John Magaro), the ideal corpse becomes available.

After Ida’s resurrection, she and the monster become restless being studied by Dr. Euphronius and decide to break out to experience the world. The world, naturally, is not exactly welcoming to them, and soon the couple are on the run for causing mayhem, including a few murders. In hot pursuit are detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), as well as other authorities.

It’s clear that Gyllenhaal wanted to merge the Frankenstein story with Bonnie & Clyde, especially since she sets the film in the mid-1930s. And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea if having the monster and The Bride going on a crime spree was truly the focus of the movie. But most of the time there’s less intentionality in their misdeeds and more confusion, leading to a muddled plot with no clear direction or end goal in mind.

One of the biggest problems is that Gyllenhaal starts the energy of the film at an 11, giving her and everyone else nowhere to go but down. She dabbles in multiple different tones, at times going the straight drama route and other times making what seems like full-on camp. At one point, she even has the monster and the Bride in a dance sequence set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which would be hilarious as an homage to Young Frankenstein if the film weren’t so disjointed.

Most baffling of all is what Gyllenhaal wants from The Bride character. She morphs multiple times over the course of the film, from close to unintelligible at the beginning to rough-and-tumble at the end. There are hints at the lack of control she has over her autonomy, including Shelley’s possession of her and the monster lying to her about her past, but any commentary that Gyllenhaal might be trying to make gets lost amid the oddity of the film as a whole.

Both Buckley and Bale are all-in for their performances, which definitely fall in the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Each scene is pitched so high that there’s little nuance to either of them, and neither is on par with their previous Oscar-caliber roles. The high-powered supporting cast of Bening, Sarsgaard, Cruz, and Jake Gyllenhaal is watchable based on previous roles, but none of them elevate this particular movie.

Whatever intentions Maggie Gyllenhaal had in making The Bride! are only halfway legible in a film that can never find its tonal footing. There has rarely been subtlety in movies featuring Frankenstein’s monster and related characters, but this one makes all the others seem like stuffy dramas in comparison.

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The Bride! is now playing in theaters.

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