Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

While many events in and around Dallas have either been postponed or canceled during the coronavirus pandemic, organizations have pivoted to virtual or socially distanced events to continue offering the masses some entertainment while we need it the most.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. While not every event is out of the house, they all promise to provide a nice distraction from the everyday life.

Thursday, March 25

Thin Line Fest — A Virtual Pop-up Experience
Thin Line Fest, the biggest documentary film festival in Texas, returns, virtual pop-up style. The festival will feature world-class cinema and music delivered directly to viewers, including 27 features, 44 shorts, and 17 musical performers, all livestreaming for free. Going on through Sunday, the fest’s virtual platform offers attendees the chance to mingle with filmmakers, musicians, and other attendees in virtual venues between screenings and performances.

Texas Ballet Theater presents "The Poetry of Expression: Part I "
Texas Ballet Theater will present new works created specifically for a digital format in its first all-digital mixed repertoire production. The production features The Story of You by Carl Coomer, in which viewers can follow the dancers on a journey of self-discovery and expression, through the concrete and the abstract; and VREC by Riley Moyano, in which viewers can take an adventure through dimensions, experiencing different sites and styles of dance. The production will be available to stream through April 9.

Friday, March 26

AURORA presents Daniel Iregu: Antibodies
AURORA will present Antibodies, a new interactive artwork by Montreal-based artist Daniel Iregui, at West End Square, the first public green space in Dallas’s West End Historic District. Iregui’s interactive digital sculpture reacts to the movement of park visitors via motion sensor and will be installed as the inaugural project within West End Square’s Innovation Arcade, a section of the park designed to showcase a rotation of temporary digital installations. The sculpture, which will be on view at the east side of the park through April 4, is accompanied by a web-based version of the artwork that can be viewed at aurora.antibodies.webcam.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents "Lush Life"
Vocalist Bernard Holcomb joins conductor Jeff Tyzik to bring the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn to life in this tribute to one of the most iconic collaborations in the history of American music. The concert will have three performances through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Avant Chamber Ballet presents "Together We Dance"
Avant Chamber Ballet presents "Together We Dance," an inspiring program bringing together three of Dallas’ premier dance companies — Avant Chamber Ballet, Bruce Wood Dance, and Dallas Black Dance Theatre. Avant Chamber Ballet will present a trio of ballet choreographed by director and founder Katie Puder, all performed with live music by Cezanne Quartet. There will be one performance on Friday and one Saturday at Annette Strauss Square.

Saturday, March 27

Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts presents An Evening with C.S. Lewis
The year is 1963 and C.S. Lewis, the famous British author, is hosting a group of American writers at his home near Oxford. They are about to experience a captivating evening with a man whose engaging conversation and spontaneous humor made him one of the great raconteurs of his day. In this production, running at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson on Saturday and Sunday, Lewis recalls the people and events that inspired his thought and shaped his life; his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien; the American woman who turned his life upside down; and more.

Monster Jam
Monster Jam fans will witness a fierce battle for the event championship, with each skilled Monster Jam athlete tearing up the dirt with gravity-defying feats in 12,000-pound Monster Jam trucks going head-to-head for points in Freestyle, the Skills Challenge, and Racing competitions. The all-star truck lineup at AT&T Stadium on Saturday and Sunday marks the first time in regular competition that the three Anderson siblings will battle against each other in the same Monster Jam event.

Casting Crowns in concert
Christian rock band Casting Crowns has been at the top of the Christian music scene for the past 20 years. Each of their eight studio albums, including 2018's Only Jesus, made it to at least No. 2 on the Billboard Christian charts, and six of the eight made the top 10 on the Billboard 200. They'll play a special outdoor concert in the parking lot outside of Globe Life Field in Arlington.

Casting Crowns will play in the parking lot outside Globe Life Field in Arlington on March 27.

Photo by Robby Klein

Casting Crowns will play in the parking lot outside Globe Life Field in Arlington on March 27.

theater concerts parks dance event-planner

Movie Review

Great acting and directing drive The Christophers to artistic heights

Photo by Claudette Barius

Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen in The Christophers.

Director Steven Soderbergh is one of those filmmakers who — aside from the Ocean’s series — never seems to make the same kind of movie twice. He is somehow able to adapt his abilities to all sorts of different stories, making each of them as compelling as any other. His latest masterclass is in the London-set film, The Christophers.

Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), who restores art for a living, is approached by brother and sister Sallie and Barnaby Sklar (Jessica Gunning and James Corden) with a scheme. They want her to become the new assistant for their aging father, Julian (Ian McKellen), a famous artist known for a series called “The Christophers,” in order to gain access to unfinished paintings from the series and complete them herself.

Lori accepts the deal despite having some uneasy feelings about Julian, with whom she had a bad interaction years ago. Julian is just as wary, both because he knows of his children’s interest in the unfinished works, and because he would prefer to be left in peace. Although the trepidation on both sides continues for the bulk of the story, a grudging respect arises between two artists who know skill when they see it.

Directed by Soderbergh and written by Ed Solomon, who last collaborated on No Sudden Move, the film is astonishing in its ability to be compelling with such a small story. Much of the film is spent inside Julian’s multi-story home as Julian and Lori have low-level confrontations about a variety of things, including the meaning of his art, her abilities, the fate of the remaining “Christophers,” and more. Each conversation brings out more detail about their worldviews and their thoughts about their lot in life.

Much of the success of the film lies in the performances of McKellen and Coel. The 86-year-old McKellen has not lost his ability to astonish with the spoken word, and the monologues he delivers are engrossing even when they’re about mundane things. Coel, best known for the 2020 HBO show I May Destroy You, is a great foil for McKellen, never backing down from his challenges and giving her own unique takes on her lines.

While the film can be enjoyable for non-art lovers, those who appreciate the vagaries of the art world will have a lot to chew on. Soderbergh and Solomon debate a lot of aspects of art, including whether it’s possible to separate the art from the person making it, why some art is valued more than others, the ethics of forgery, and more. Because the film is about a fictional artist, it gives the filmmakers a bit more freedom in their criticisms.

Aside from McKellen and Coel, Gunning (Baby Reindeer) and Corden are the only other two people who get significant screen time in the film. Both of them are, let’s say, acquired tastes, and each gives an elevated performance that matches the energy of their respective characters. Tilly Botsford makes a nice impression in a small role as Julian’s masseuse.

Soderbergh’s last three films — Presence, Black Bag, and now The Christophers — have nothing in common other than the expert filmmaker helming all of them. When you can make a ghost story, a spy film, and a small film about artists equally interesting, you know you’re doing something right.

---

The Christophers is now playing in theaters.

movies film