Weekend Event Planner

These are the 10 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

You'd better hope you didn't plan to go out of town for Memorial Day weekend, because it is absolutely packed with big events. Among your choices will be a social media star, a Broadway musical tour, new local theater, the finale of a classical music festival, three concerts featuring big name performers, and a great way to honor those who have sacrificed for our country.

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, May 24

Jake Paul and Team 10 in concert
Social media entrepreneur and influencer Jake Paul, who has just north of 15 million subscribers for his YouTube channel, will bring his debut Team 10 Tour to the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving. The outing will feature live musical performances, exclusive merchandise, audience participation, special guests, games, and challenges.

AT&T Performing Arts Center Broadway Series: Jersey Boys
One of the most popular jukebox musicals of all time, Jersey Boys returns to Dallas, playing at Winspear Opera House through Sunday. The story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons tells how a group of blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the tracks became one of the biggest American pop music sensations of all time. The show features all their hits including “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Oh What A Night,” “Walk Like A Man,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” and “Working My Way Back To You.”

Theatre Three presents Self-Injurious Behavior
For anyone who has cared for a child with ASD, it can be all-consuming and exhausting. In this very personal account of a woman’s struggle to raise her autistic son, we are reminded that life never turns out the way you plan it. Through every effort to do what is best for her son, she discovers that loss, sacrifice, and little leaps of faith can lead to the life that maybe you didn’t plan — but the life you love. The play will run in the Theatre Too space at Theatre Three through June 10.

Final days of SOLUNA Festival
The SOLUNA Festival will come to a close with three final events. The highlight will be Beethoven's Ninth at Meyerson Symphony Center Thursday through Saturday, featuring Jaap van Zweden's final appearance as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. There will also be Passport to the Park at Klyde Warren Park on Sunday, featuring a day of free, culturally diverse performances and activities, and the Memorial Day Concert and Fireworks Display at Flag Pole Hill Park on Monday.

Friday, May 25

Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers in concert
Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers will co-headline this concert at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory. Steely Dan, which will be without founding member Walter Becker, who died in 2017, has released nine albums in their career, including 2003's Everything Must Go. The Doobie Brothers have released 14 albums in their career, including 2014's Southbound.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Off Broadway on Flora: Celebrity Autobiography
Celebrity Autobiography features a first-rate comedic ensemble performing from the actual memoirs of a wide range of celebrities. The passages run the gamut from the “poetry” of Suzanne Somers to the most famous Hollywood love triangle in history — Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, and Eddie Fisher. The production, playing on Friday and Saturday at Moody Performance Hall, has a cast that includes Mario Cantone, Laraine Newman, Robert Wuhl, and creators Eugene Pack and Dayle Reyfel, plus a special appearance by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

Saturday, May 26

97.1 The Eagle presents BFD 2018
The annual BFD concert, presented by 97.1 The Eagle, is a festival-style event featuring performances by a slew of hard rock bands. This year's event will include A Perfect Circle, Stone Temple Pilots, Theory of a Deadman, Nothing More, I Prevail, Candlebox, 10 Years, and The Blue Stones.

Exodus Music & Arts Festival
Gospel artist Kirk Franklin, in a unique partnership with Live Nation Urban, will host and headline the inaugural Exodus Music & Arts Festival at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory. This first-of-its-kind festival, which champions the genre of gospel music, will feature a spiritual lineup with performances by Franklin, Marvin Sapp, Tamela Mann, Tye Tribbett, and more.

Sunday, May 27

Carry The Load presents Dallas Memorial March
Carry The Load will present its eighth annual Dallas Memorial March to honor and celebrate the nation’s heroes over Memorial Day weekend. The event will feature music, inspirational speeches, stories of fallen heroes, flag ceremonies, and more. The march is the culmination of two national relays that have traveled more than 6,400 miles to Dallas carrying the American flag. The event will take place Sunday and Monday, ending at 3:30 pm on Memorial Day in Reverchon Park.

Justin Timberlake in concert with The Shadowboxers
It's been 3 1/2 years since pop superstar Justin Timberlake graced Dallas with his presence, and fans are definitely going to get their money's worth. Timberlake will perform at American Airlines Center on both Sunday and Monday, giving the masses songs from his new album, Man of the Woods, along with his other hits. If for some reason you can't get into these two concerts, he'll be back yet again next January.

Carry The Load presents Dallas Memorial March at Reverchon Park on May 27 and 28.

Photo courtesy of Carry the Load

Carry The Load presents Dallas Memorial March at Reverchon Park on May 27 and 28.

event-planner

Movie Review

Oddly violent film Love Hurts serves as vehicle for Oscar-winner star

Photo by Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures

Ke Huy Quan in Love Hurts.

Career revivals like the one that has happened to Ke Huy Quan are extremely rare in Hollywood. As a child, he scored two big back-to-back roles in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies. While he found occasional work after that, his career mostly went dormant starting in 2002 until he was cast in Everything Everywhere All at Once, a role that won him an Oscar.

Now, he’s the toast of the town, including his first-ever starring role as the lead in Love Hurts. Quan plays Marvin Gable, a relentlessly positive real estate agent who’s the top seller in his area. But from the beginning of the film, it’s clear that he has a hidden backstory, as he receives a veiled threat in a note from a woman named Rose (Ariana DeBose), who is seen early on defacing many of his advertisements around town.

When a heavy called The Raven (Mustafa Shakir) confronts Marvin at his office, he is pulled back into his old life, one where he was involved in the criminal enterprise of his brother, Knuckles (Daniel Wu). Soon he’s dodging attacks on multiple fronts, looking out for Rose, and all the while trying to keep up appearances at his day job.

Directed by Jonathan Eusebio (a stunt coordinator making his directorial debut) and written by Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, and Luke Passmore, the film is one big excuse to have Quan show off the martial arts skills he demonstrated in his Oscar-winning role. While there is some semblance of a story, it’s mostly to set up the various fight scenes; there’s little attempt to make the audience care about any of the stakes.

Instead, Eusebio and his team vacillate between moments of calmness and sequences with extreme violence. Quan and his fellow combatants (in addition to Shakir, he faces off against Marshawn Lynch, Cam Gigandet, and others) engage in a series of creative moves designed to inflict as much pain as possible. The juxtaposition of the seemingly mild-mannered Marvin with his abilities works relatively well, as does the variety of implements used as weapons (pencils, boba straws, feathers, and more come into play over the course of the film).

But the lack of a full story catches up with the film in the end, as instead of building to some kind of grand finale, there are diminishing returns with every scene. The filmmakers try to distract with a semi-amusing romantic connection between The Raven and Marvin’s assistant, Ashley (Lio Tipton), something that works much better than allusions to a bond between Marvin and Rose. There’s also a mini-Goonies reunion with Sean Astin as Marvin’s boss that’s kind of fun, but the antipathy between Marvin and his attackers never fully develops.

Quan is a joyful presence who does his level best to make himself into a lead actor, but he’s not served well in the film as a whole. DeBose, an Oscar winner herself, seems to be stuck in a rut of mediocre roles, ones that don’t allow her to show off her skills like West Side Story. Lynch shows again he’s reliable in comic sidekick roles, while Tipton and Shakir are the only other actors to make any kind of impact.

The Valentine’s theme of Love Hurts is not the only part of the film that feels tacked on. While the idea of letting Quan show off his skills is a good one in theory, very little thought appears to have been put into making that showcase effective. The result is a forgettable action comedy that puts more emphasis on ultraviolence than its story.

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Love Hurts opens in theaters on February 7.

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