Weekend Event Planner

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

The second weekend in July around the Dallas area is all about music, comedy, and movies. You can see two big-name comedians playing distinctly different types of venues, travel to the suburbs for not one but two concerts from up-and-coming musicians, and see a classic movie after hearing an independent filmmaker talk about her craft.

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, July 7

Jim Gaffigan: Fully Dressed
Comedian Jim Gaffigan is as relatable a celebrity as you'll ever find. His popularity has stemmed from bits involving his struggles as the father of five kids, marriage in general, and, most notably, his love/hate relationship with Hot Pockets. Now star of his own TV Land sitcom, The Jim Gaffigan Show, he's bringing his stand-up tour, Fully Dressed, to Gexa Energy Pavilion.

Improv Addison presents Craig Robinson
If you're a comedy fan, it's been nearly impossible to avoid Craig Robinson in the past decade. He's arguably best known for his role on NBC’s The Office, but he has also starred in films such as Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, the Hot Tub Time Machine series, and This Is the End. He's performing six times through Sunday at Improv Addison.

Friday, July 8

Twenty One Pilots in concert
It's been a bit of a slow rise for the rock/hip-hop duo Twenty One Pilots, who released three albums before hitting it big with 2015's Blurryface and its inescapable hit, "Stressed Out." With a song on the upcoming Suicide Squad soundtrack, they look like they're heading for only bigger and better things. They are playing at Allen Event Center in Allen.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents #hearhere: Miranda July
As part of the summer speaker series #hearhere, the AT&T Performing Arts Center is presenting filmmaker, artist, and writer Miranda July. July's videos, performances, and web-based projects have been presented at major art museums, and July has written, directed, and starred in two feature-length films: 2005's Me and You and Everyone We Know and 2011's The Future. She is speaking at Winspear Opera House.

2016 Festival of Independent Theatres
The Festival of Independent Theatres returns with six new companies and two festival founders joining forces for a four-week run of summertime entertainment. Presented at Bath House Cultural Center on the shores of White Rock Lake, FIT offers eight different one-acts, presented in rotating pairs, from companies like Cry Havoc Theater Company, Echo Theatre, and WingSpan Theatre Company. The festival runs through July 30.

Saturday, July 9

Dallas Chamber Symphony in concert
As part of its series of community concerts, DCS Live!, the Dallas Chamber Symphony is presenting an outdoor concert at Encore Park, featuring light classical and jazz music from DCS' wind trio: Margaret Shin Fischer (flute), Jonathan Jones (clarinet), and Leslie Massenberg (bassoon), accompanied by Eduardo Rojas (piano).

2nd Annual Dallas Start of Summer Water Gun Fight
It's hot out there. Like, really hot, with temperatures predicted to top 100 degrees for the foreseeable future. If you're desperate for any sort of relief from the heat, you can participate in the 2nd Annual Dallas Start of Summer Water Gun Fight at Klyde Warren Park. This is for water guns only — no water balloons — and none of the guns should look like real guns.

Sunday, July 10

Texas Theatre and Majestic Theatre present Rock 'N' Roll Summer Series
Music and movies have always had a symbiotic relationship, but never more so than in the four classic movies that are part of this special series. The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night will kick things off at the Majestic Theatre, and it will be followed every week by another great music movie, with the Majestic and Texas Theatre alternating weeks hosting screenings. Gimme Shelter and The Last Waltz are also on tap.

Halsey in concert
Unlike Twenty One Pilots, electro-pop singer Halsey has had a relatively rapid rise. After putting out an acclaimed EP in 2014, she toured with Imagine Dragons and others. She quickly followed that up with her 2015 debut album, Badlands, which made it to No. 2 on the Billboard charts. She's also playing at Allen Event Center.

Jim Gaffigan performs at Gexa Energy Pavilion on July 7.

Photo by Eric Levin

Jim Gaffigan performs at Gexa Energy Pavilion on July 7.

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Movie Review

Korean monster movie Hope delivers thrills despite its lengthy runtime

Photo courtesy of Neon

Hwang Jung-Min and Hoyeon in Hope.

Monster movies can take on all sorts of different flavors, from all-out mayhem to quieter ones where the monster can sometimes be the protagonist. The new South Korean film Hope splits the difference to a degree, delivering action-packed sequences while also attempting to understand the non-humans in a way.

The story starts in medias res, with an unseen creature having already done great damage to a huge bull and laying waste to much of a small Korean town. The local sheriff, Beom Seok (Hwang Jung-Min), tries to take control of the situation in the town, while a group of hunters led by Sung Ki (Zo In-Sung) travel into the nearby woods to see what they can find there.

Thus starts a nearly nonstop, 160-minute epic of each side trying (and mostly failing) to defend themselves against gigantic creatures who seem hellbent on destroying everything in their path. It’s not until 40 minutes into the film that the audience is shown one of the monsters in detail, and the less said the better about what it actually looks like, as the mystery behind it keeps the intrigue going.

That initial section of the film is the best, as Beom Seok — eventually joined by deputy Sung Ae (Hoyeon) — goes on a frantic hunt around the town, always just far enough behind the monster to keep from seeing it. The utter destruction he witnesses and his interactions with various locals are intense and oddly funny, with the hectic conversations he has laced with fear and incredulity over how different people choose to act.

Writer-director Na Hong-jin bounces back and forth between the people in the town and the group in the forest, doing his best to maintain the momentum of the first section. This approach works for a while as each group makes their own discoveries about the creatures and has run-ins with them that more often than not are ill-fated. Using a mixture of relatively good CGI, great production design, and an abundance of gore, the filmmaker shows he knows how to make an effective blockbuster-style film.

The trouble is, he doesn’t know when to stop. Somewhere around the two-hour mark of the movie, the story starts to become repetitive and Hong-jin introduces elements that don’t mesh well with what has come before. For some reason, he decides that some of the creatures should speak, a move that is baffling on several fronts. The biggest one is that they are voiced by English-speaking actors like Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, but each speaks a non-human language, rendering their performances moot.

Jung-min puts in a fantastic lead performance, one that requires him to vacillate between abject terror and in-control leadership. In-Sung is almost as good, although his character requires him to play one note over and over again. Hoyeon, who some may recognize from Squid Game, delivers an extra shot of energy when she enters the film, something she keeps going despite her character being forced to say some bad lines.

If Hong-jin had kept the focus Hope a little tighter, the sci-fi thriller might have ended up toward the top of this year’s films. But by choosing to extend the story into territories that don’t add much to the plot or make much sense, the filmmaker puts a damper on what was a fun and brutal monster movie.

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Hope is now playing in theaters.

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