Event Planner

Kenny Chesney and Mother's Day top the best events in Dallas this weekend

Mother's Day weekend has arrived, and if you've procrastinated on finding dear old Mom a gift, we're here to help. This weekend offers great opportunities, including a tour of a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, country star Kenny Chesney at Jerry World, or a diamond hunt in the dirt of Lone Star 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, May 9

Lexus Broadway Series presents Fela!
The latest Broadway musical to hit the stage at Winspear Opera House is the Tony Award-winning Fela!, a musical about the life of African composer/activist Fela Kuti. Kuti was influential in the rise of the Afrobeat genre, and the show explores both that and his political life. The production runs through May 19.

The Killers in concert with The Virgins
The Killers have come a long way since the halycon days of "Mr. Brightside" in 2003. Like any good band, they've toured incessantly, endearing themselves to fans around the world, especially in the United Kingdom. But they're back on this side of pond at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie in support of their latest album, Battle Born.

Friday, May 10

2013 FLYINGHORSE
Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts is one of the top high schools in the nation, and this event helps to celebrate all the creativity that comes out of it. The fundraiser, which starts at Wyly Theatre before moving to Booker T's theater, features performances by the best the school has to offer and jazz legend Branford Marsalis.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Full Moon Fever: A Tribute to Tom Petty
The title of this concert implies that the Dallas Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to rocker Tom Petty by themselves, but in actuality they are supporting Full Moon Fever, a Tom Petty tribute band. Expect to hear Petty classics like "Free Fallin," "Into the Great Wide Open" and "Last Dance with Mary Jane" when they take the stage at Meyerson Symphony Center.

Saturday, May 11

Summer Adventures in Fair Park
Last weekend was so packed that we completely forgot to include the kick-off of this event, which brings an early bit of State Fair of Texas flavor to Fair Park. Luckily for everybody, the event continues on weekends through May and every day starting in June. In addition to stuff like fair food and midway games, Fair Park is dotted with misters, play pools, water rides and other things to keep you cool as the weather warms up.

2013 Homegrown Music & Arts Festival
This annual festival has gotten bigger and better every year, and its fourth annual edition at Main Street Garden includes not only local talent like The Polyphonic Spree, The O's and A.Dd+, but also bands from around Texas. In all, 15 different bands on two separate stages perform. In between sets, you can visit a variety of booths featuring local vendors.

2013 Jack FM "Jack's Throwback" Festival
It must be tribute-band weekend, as this music fest takes DSO's lead by featuring those who earn a modicum of fame by emulating their musical heroes. Among the 15 bands playing at Gexa Energy Pavilion are Back in Black, Led Zepplica, Joshua Tree, Red Not Chili Peppers and Faux Fighters.

Kenny Chesney in concert with Eric Church, Eli Young Band and Kacey Musgraves
Jimmy Buffett was just in town last weekend, and this weekend his heir apparent comes to town. Like Buffett, Kenny Chesney just oozes laid-back coolness. All of his tours in the 21st century have had some kind of tropical theme, including the current No Shoes Nation tour, and he just released his own rum. Apparently the island atmosphere appeals to a lot of people, as Chesney and his opening acts will take over Cowboys Stadium.

Sunday, May 12

Mother’s Day Diamond Dig at Lone Star Park
What better way to honor Mom on her special day than by having her be a literal gold (okay, diamond) digger on the track at Lone Star Park? The first 500 females 21 and over through the gates get to go crazy for a $2,500 diamond. But even if you don't go home with the booty, you can still enjoy a day of horse racing in the midst of Triple Crown season.

Dallas Children's Theater presents The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley
The second-to-last Dallas Children's Theater show of the 2012-2013 season is a new one for the company, the Southwest premiere of The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley. We're not exactly sure how they're going to pull off portraying a character who's, you know, flat, but we can't wait to see what they come up with. The show plays through June 3.

The Tony Award-winning musical Fela! will play at Winspear Opera House through May 19.

Photo courtesy of AT&T Performing Arts Center

The Tony Award-winning musical Fela! will play at Winspear Opera House through May 19.

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Movie Review

Animated Disney film Elio is fun but falls short of Pixar top tier

Photo courtesy of Pixar

Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

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Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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