Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

It's a top-heavy weekend in and around Dallas, with big events happening everywhere you look. They include a showcase for art, two music festivals, a visit from a big country singer, stand-up from a well-known comedian, a film festival, new opera, a world premiere play, a huge block party, and a celebrity performing in an unexpected way.

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

Thursday, April 12

Dallas Art Fair
The Dallas Art Fair at Fashion Industry Gallery offers collectors, arts professionals, and the public the opportunity to engage with a rich selection of modern and contemporary artworks presented by leading national and international galleries. The Preview Benefit on Thursday offers the opportunity to preview and purchase exhibited works prior to the public opening of the fair. The main fair will run Friday through Sunday.

Friday, April 13

Toyota Music Factory Grand Opening Celebration
Toyota Music Factory, located in the Las Colinas Urban Center in Irving, is hosting a three-day grand opening celebration featuring lots of entertainment and activities. Guests can experience a range of live performances from local bands and well-known musicians, as well as strolling entertainment attractions. There will also be appearances and autograph sessions with the Dallas Cowboys Rhythm & Blue and the Mavs ManiAACs.

CFW Festival
The inaugural CFW (Craft Beer, Food, and Wine) Festival will bring North Texas’ premier craft beer brands, wine brands, and world-class restaurants together for two days at Globe Life Park in Arlington, with live entertainment, chef-inspired cooking demonstrations, and music. The festival will feature performances by Young the Giant and R.LUM.R on Friday, and Josh Abbott Band and Lonestar on Saturday.

Brad Paisley in concert with Dustin Lynch, Chase Bryant, and Lindsay Ell
There have been few country artists as reliable as Brad Paisley over the past 20 years. He delivers a new album every couple of years, and his quality has remained so high that each of his past nine albums has gone to No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts, including 2017's Love and War. He'll play at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, where he will be joined by Dustin Lynch, Chase Bryant, and Lindsay Ell.

Mike Birbiglia in concert
Comedian Mike Birbiglia is one of those celebrities you recognize even if you don't know you recognize him. He's had supporting roles in movies like Trainwreck and TV shows like Orange is the New Black and Girls. He's also written and directed two movies — Sleepwalk with Me and Don't Think Twice. He will bring his "The New One" stand-up comedy tour to the Majestic Theatre.

EARTHxFilm
In conjunction with the EARTHx festival taking place at Fair Park next weekend, EARTHxFilm will highlight over 100 features, shorts, VR, AR and MR content, in addition to workshops, panels, music, and art, over the course of the next 10 days. It will take place at venues throughout the city, starting with an opening night screening of Louie Psihoyos’s The Game Changers at Angelika Film Center. Other screenings and events will take place at Texas Theatre, Wyly Theatre, Dallas Contemporary, and Fair Park.

The Dallas Opera presents Don Giovanni
After more than two centuries, the argument rages on as to whether Don Giovanni is the greatest of Mozart’s many masterpieces. Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecień stars as the insatiable womanizer who became a living legend. Dallas Opera Music Director Emmanuel Villaume conducts an all-star cast in this boldly provocative, R-rated production from Lyric Opera of Chicago, playing six times at Winspear Opera House through April 29.

WaterTower Theatre presents Bread
This world premiere by award-winning Dallas-born actress and playwright Regina Taylor weaves a compelling family drama of hopes, fears, thwarted dreams, and dark secrets against a turbulent backdrop of racial tension and social upheaval. When a relative returns home, buried family tensions resurface and the past casts a troubling shadow across an uncertain future. The play will run at WaterTower Theatre in Addison through May 6.

Saturday, April 14

Old 97's County Fair
It's always a good time when Dallas' own Old 97's put on a show, and that goes double when they host an event like Old 97's County Fair at Main Street Garden. The one-day festival will feature performances by Old 97's, Lord Huron, The Mavericks, Valerie June, Paul Cauthen, The Bottle Rockets, Erika Wennerstrom of Heartless Bastards, Jaime Wyatt, and Bastards of Soul.

Dallas Arts District presents Changing Perspectives Block Party
In celebration of Dallas Arts Month, the Dallas Arts District is hosting Changing Perspectives, a block party featuring two performances by Australia's Strange Fruit, a performing arts company that fuses theater, dance, and circus atop 15-foot sway poles. Other performers will include Dallas' Skyline High School Band, the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts' Gospel Choir, Jessie Frye, Bandan Koro African Drum and Dance Ensemble, Alebrije, and The Bralettes. There will also be local Makers and Artisans Faire, food truck fare and libations, a gif photo booth, live speed painting, dancing in the street, and more.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents #hearhere: Bill Murray, Jan Vogler, and Friends
Bill Murray and Jan Vogler met during their travels and became friends in New York. Curious about each other’s artistic world and interests, the actor and the cellist soon had the idea to work together on a project. This program, which features music and poetry, showcases the core of the American values in literature and music and communicates the bridges artists have built between America and Europe. It will take place at Winspear Opera House.

Sunday, April 15

TAO: Drum Heart in concert
TAO: Drum Heart is the latest production from TAO, internationally-acclaimed percussion artists. Their modern, high-energy performances showcase the ancient art of Japanese drumming by combining highly physical, large-scale drumming with contemporary costumes, precise choreography, and innovative visuals. The performance will be at Annette Strauss Square.

Old 97's County Fair will be at Main Street Garden on April 14.

Photo courtesy of Old 97's

Old 97's County Fair will be at Main Street Garden on April 14.

event-planner

Movie Review

Korean film No Other Choice uses dark comedy to tell deeper story

Photo courtesy of Neon

Lee Byung-hun in No Other Choice.

When Parasite won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2020, it signaled a shift in how international feature films were viewed not only by Academy voters, but also American filmgoers, who made it the fifth-highest grossing non-English language film of all time. Extra attention has been paid to other international films in the intervening years, including the new South Korean film, No Other Choice.

Starring Lee Byung-hun of Squid Game fame, the dark comedy chronicles the increasingly desperate actions of Man-su, a middle manager at a paper factory who is laid off due to automation. After months of trying to find a job at another paper company, he finally finds a good prospect only to learn that several other men may be better candidates. Man-su decides that the only solution is to eliminate the competition.

The only problem is Man-su is a bit of a coward; an early plan at standing up to his company in the face of the lay-offs meets an anticlimactic end. His wishy-washy ways seem to permeate his life, from putting off treatment on a painful tooth to not communicating with his more willful wife to actually going through with his vengeful ideas. He bumbles his way through every aspect of his life, virtually daring anyone to call him out on his poor decision-making.

Written and directed by Park Chan-wook, and co-written by Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Jahye Lee, the film initially seems to be another approach toward telling the class division story that’s at the center of Parasite and Squid Game. And it is that to a degree, as those in charge of the paper companies and the hiring committees are either indifferent or unsympathetic to the plight of those who have been forced out of work.

But the more we see of Man-su, the more it becomes clear that his is a story all its own, one where a man claims there is “no other choice” when in fact there are plenty of other options. The men in the film in general don’t come across well, with many of them reacting to stress by turning into whiners who believe the world is out to get them. Some situations turn violent as the film goes along, events that most of the time could have been avoided if the people involved actually took the time to think things through.

The film features a somewhat confusing story made even more puzzling if you don’t speak Korean. On first viewing, it’s initially unclear why Man-su is doing what he’s doing, or why he’s going after certain people in particular. The plot becomes more understandable as the film progresses, but Chan-wook includes several side plots that muddle things further even as they broaden certain characters. There are also a couple of visual text jokes that can easily be missed if you don’t know where to look.

Byung-hun is great as a man who can’t seem to get out of his own way. The role is almost in direct contrast to the one he played on Squid Game, making it easy to see how well he can adapt to different stories. Son Ye-jin as Man-su’s wife Miri and Lee Sung-min as Bummo, one of Man-su’s intended victims, are also highly engaging.

Like any film not in English, No Other Choice requires viewers to pay strict attention to the screen to get full enjoyment of the actors and their dialogue. While it doesn’t hit as hard as a comedy because of this factor, it’s still a greatly entertaining film whose underlying message makes it become a little deeper.

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No Other Choice is now playing in theaters.

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