Circus News

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus is back — with stop in Dallas

Ringling Circus

Feld Entertainment

The circus is back, and better than ever: Feld Entertainment has revived the highly anticipated North American tour of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey The Greatest Show On Earth, coming to major venues in both Dallas and Fort Worth.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey - The Greatest Show On Earth will hit Dallas, then Fort Worth, as follows:

July 26-28: Six performances at American Airlines Center in Dallas
August 2-4: Six performances at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth

The immersive, live, family entertainment experience is described in a release as unlike anything audiences have ever seen, filled with acts that push the limits of human potential. Emphasis on human: Ringling, along with many other circuses, stopped using animals in its shows.

This reimagined American Icon will promises a surprising, fast-paced, action-packed production with modernized acts.

It'll also feature a local-boy-made-good: Alex "Stix" Stickels from Arlington is leading the way as Show Guide (they no longer call them ring masters). Stickels attended Lamar High School in Arlington and Texas Christian University, with an early immersion in showbiz as a member of the symphonic band, marching band, jazz band, orchestra, and drumline throughout. He's toured the world as a drummer, performing on board with Royal Caribbean and touring with an act called Recycled Percussion.

Stickels is joined by fellow cast members Lauren Irving and Jan Damm (performing as "Aria, Stix, and Nick Nack") who form the soul, rhythm, and funny bone of the show, guiding an interactive and music-filled journey.

He'll be joined by a globally diverse cast of 75 performers, hailing from 18 countries including Argentina, Canada, Cuba, Ethiopia, Italy, Mongolia, Spain, Ukraine, and the U.S.

A video offers a sneak peek into some of the splended acts that will include:

Triangular Highwire, led by The Lopez Family: Three thin wires connected in a triangular formation, creating a chandelier in the air 25 feet above the ground. Performers jump over their partners' shoulders and ride a bike on the thin wire while another does a handstand on top of the moving bike.

Double Wheel of Destiny: Four daredevil performers leap and somersault on top and across two spinning wheels that hang 30 feet in the air and move at incredibly high speeds.

Nick Nack and the Equivokee Trio. A comedic blend of juggling, acrobatics, dancing, and balancing skills.

The Ultimate Playground: The 360-degree stage is the ultimate playground with bright colors and designs that resemble a toy box that has come to life. The stage transforms into a skatepark with BMX bikes, trial bike, and extreme unicycle soar through the air during a high-adrenaline extreme sports act with double-sided ramps and a trampoline that is a launching pad for tricks and flips.

Criss-Cross Trapeze: Nine trapeze artists take on the ultimate swing set as The Flying Caceres soar in every direction in an action-packed act nearly missing each other in the air by just seconds and inches. Performers go in every possible direction in sequence with each other.

Record-Breaking Heights: Wesley Williams, the One Wheel Wonder and a Guinness World Record-setting performer, will take on a daring new challenge as he attempts to set a new world record. He will ride 10 different unicycles around the show floor – with the tallest at a shocking height of over 34 feet.

Aerial & Acrobatic Spectacle: Solo and group aerialists showcase skills from straps and hoops all at the same time and in unison. Jumping, diving, and tumbling across the floor, acrobats perform hoop diving, Chinese poles, and hand-to-hand skills.

Ringling Rocket: Will launch Skyler Miser across the entire arena at 65 miles per hour.

Musical Performances: Musical numbers will incorporate original music, pop cover tunes, and live rock-inspired drumming, with a performance by Argendance, an energetic dance troupe from Argentina.

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.

movies film

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Movie Review

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