Weekend Event Planner

These are the 9 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

If you love history, this is a good weekend to experience it in Dallas, as several events have it at the forefront. Among the offerings are two shows from a big Dallas band from the '90s, stand-up from two comics who've been around a long time, a festival featuring vintage airplanes, a tour of classic Dallas homes, and more.

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 11

Tripping Daisy in concert with Pearl Earl
Tripping Daisy was one of the biggest Dallas bands of the 1990s, dominating locally before scoring some national fame thanks to their hit "I Got a Girl." They're reuniting for the first time in 17 years at Saturday's Homegrown Music & Arts Festival, and they'll warm up for their headlining gig with this special VIP concert at Club Dada. They are joined by opening act Pearl Earl.

Friday, May 12

Improv Addison presents Tom Arnold
Tom Arnold has been a TV and movie actor for so long that it's easy to forget that he started out like many comedians — on the stand-up circuit. He returns to his roots to poke fun at his Midwest past and marital follies, and share absurd Hollywood stories. Arnold is a ball of chaos and charisma on stage, which he shows off at Improv Addison in five sets through Sunday.

Joe Rogan in concert
A stand-up comedian for more than 20 years, Joe Rogan has a unique and intense comedic style. He's also a versatile entertainer, having appeared as an actor in a variety of TV shows and movies, hosting Fear Factor, serving as color commentator for UFC fights, and hosting The Joe Rogan Experience, a popular comedy podcast. He performs at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Saturday, May 13

Cavanaugh Flight Museum presents 2017 Warbirds Over Addison
North Texas aviation buffs have the chance to see, touch, and even fly in a variety of planes from Cavanaugh Flight Museum. During its biggest weekend of the year, the museum flies many of its treasured WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam-era airplanes, including the P‐51 Mustang, AD-5 Skyraider, FM2 Wildcat, and more. Guests can also enjoy aircraft on display, plus a Naval carrier aircraft operation demonstration and a Sherman tank demo. The event takes place on both Saturday and Sunday.

Swiss Avenue Historic District Mother's Day Home Tour
The 44th annual Swiss Avenue Historic District Mother’s Day Home Tour is a weekend-long tribute to Dallas’ historic past, featuring seven early 20th-century homes, an art fair, a vintage auto display, a children’s play area, live entertainment on the Avenue, free horse-drawn carriage rides, complimentary air-conditioned mini-coaches, food, drinks, and more. The tour takes place on both Saturday and Sunday.

Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce presents Home Depot Asian Festival
The family-friendly Asian Festival, taking place at Fair Park, showcases Asian food trucks and cuisines from countries such as Sri Lanka, Philippines, Korea, and China. It also includes cultural performances like martial arts, acrobats, and lion dances; arts and crafts; a children's zone; and a cultural pavilion area for visitors to explore and learn about each culture.

Homegrown Music & Arts Festival
The annual Homegrown Music & Arts Festival is a great showcase for bands both local and national, headlined this year by the reunited Tripping Daisy. They are joined at Main Street Garden by Mutemath, White Denim, Porches, Lower Dens, Still Corners, Motorcade, RC and the Gritz, El Gato, Cure for Paranoia, Lizzie Boredom, and Greg Schroeder.

TITAS presents Command Performance Gala
The Command Performance Gala features 12 artists from leading companies who will light up the stage at Winspear Opera House. Among the performers during the program are Boston Ballet’s principals Dusty Button and Lasha Khozashvilli; Momix; aerial dance company Bandaloop; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Matthew Rushing, with Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s Claude Alexander III; Beijing Dance Theater’s Linshu Feng and Jie Zheng; and SMU Division of Dance alumnus and Bruce Wood Dance Project’s Albert Drake.

Sunday, May 14

Texas Rangers present Triple Play Game Show Spectacular
The Texas Rangers are off to a rough start on the field this year, but this event is a fun way to get up close and personal with players while raising money for a good cause. The evening at the Hilton Anatole features players competing in a series of games, a live and silent auction, and more, all to support the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation's efforts to build the Texas Rangers MLB Youth Academy at Mercy Street Sports Complex in Dallas.

Tim DeLaughter, seen here with the Polyphonic Spree, fronts the reunited Tripping Daisy at two shows in Dallas on May 11 and 13.

Photo courtesy of Earth Day Texas

Tim DeLaughter, seen here with the Polyphonic Spree, fronts the reunited Tripping Daisy at two shows in Dallas on May 11 and 13.

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Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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