Weekend Event Planner

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

There's something for everyone going on around Dallas this weekend, including a huge designer clothes sale, concerts featuring big names from the past and present, three new theater productions, a chance to hang out with reality TV celebrities, local viewing opportunities for a unique sports event, and more.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Monday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, August 24

Fashion Industry Gallery presents FIG Finale 2017
At FIG Finale, taking place at Fashion Industry Gallery through Saturday, shoppers can find designer deals up to 75 percent off retail from top stores and brands. FIG Finale features women's, men's and children's clothing, shoes and accessories. The Thursday event requires a VIP ticket, while the Friday and Saturday tickets are open to the public for $5 per day.

100.3 Jack FM presents Lost '80s Live
Children of the 1980s will be in heaven at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie when 100.3 Jack FM presents Lost '80s Live. The concert will feature performances from Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet, Cutting Crew, Wang Chung, Naked Eyes, Berlin, The Flirts, Tommy Tutone, Dramarama, and Christopher Anton of Information Society.

Ochre House Theater presents Kaptain Kockadoo
Ochre House Theater will present the world premiere of Kaptain Kockadoo, a new dark musical comedy with original live music from Ochre’s first all-girl band. In the musical, the Kaptain and his crew will navigate the world of children’s television through the eyes of a religious zealot. What would you do to get to heaven? What would the Kaptain do? The production will run through September 9.

Friday, August 25

Cheer 4 Your Life presents It’s A Jungle Out There
Fans of Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, and American Ninja Warrior will enjoy this fundraising event, where they can mix and mingle with favorite former players from those shows. The evening at Granada Theater will consist of dinner, open bar, silent and live auction, dancing, and performances from Cheer 4 Your Life teen beneficiaries. The following day, the same players will compete in Warriors Games at Lake Highlands Recreation Center, participating in challenges similar to those seen on Survivor.

Uptown Players presents The Tribute Artist
To close its 16th season, Uptown Players will present the regional premiere of Charles Busch’s The Tribute Artist. An out-of-work female impersonator assumes the role of his elderly landlady after she dies in her sleep in order to hang on to her valuable Greenwich Village townhouse. This "perfect" scheme goes awry and leads to a wild path of twists and reversals plotted by an eccentric rogues' gallery of outrageous schemers. The play will run through September 10 at Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Saturday, August 26

Soul Rep Theatre presents The Trinity River Plays
Regina Taylor’s Trinity River Plays spans 18 years in the life of Iris and her Oak Cliff matriarchal family. Set in the 1970s through the 1990s, the piece is an interlocking of three emotional one-act plays — Jar Fly, Rain, and Ghost(story). Collectively, they form a searing family drama colored by situations and nuances unique to the Dallas region. There will be two performances on Saturday at Irving Arts Center.

Reunion Tower presents Reunion Lawn Party
The final Reunion Lawn Party of the year includes live music by Petty Theft, featuring Mike Rhyner of Dallas’ “The Ticket,” food trucks, lawn games, and a special Lawn Takeover by the Dallas Mavericks. In addition to the food truck fare, attendees will have an opportunity to purchase a wide selection of domestic and imported beers and wines from the Beer Garden host, The Nodding Donkey.

Lady Antebellum in concert with Kelsea Ballerini and Brett Young
It's been an eventful 10 years for country trio Lady Antebellum. Each of their six albums, including their new album, Heart Break, has reached the top 5 in both the Billboard Top 200 and Country charts. They've also had a string of No. 1 hits and are a staple at the multitude of country music award shows. They will be joined at this concert at Starplex Pavilion by opening acts Kelsea Ballerini and Brett Young.

The Piano Guys in concert
The Piano Guys are four dads who became a sensation thanks to their original self-made music videos, including versions of One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen. Their blend of classical music with pop has made them an Internet phenomenon, with over 500 million YouTube views. They'll play at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor
It may be more of a spectacle than a true boxing match, but that doesn't make the matchup between boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and mixed martial artist Conor McGregor any less interesting. There are plenty of watch parties around town for the event taking place in Las Vegas, but you can watch it best on the big screen at most area Cinemark theaters and the AMC Mesquite 30.

Mary J. Blige in concert with Lalah Hathaway
Over the past 25 years, Mary J. Blige has established herself as the grande dame of R&B/hip hop music. She's worked with virtually every big name in her genre, including Nas, Lil' Kim, Ja Rule, Method Man, Eve, 50 Cent, Drake, Diddy, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West. She'll play at the Music Hall at Fair Park in support of her new album, Strength of a Woman. The opening act will be Lalah Hathaway.

Sunday, August 27

Foundation45 presents Deep Ellum Water Balloon Wars
With temperatures still hovering near 90 degrees, we'll take any excuse we can to cool down. You'll have plenty of opportunities to get doused with water at the Deep Ellum Water Balloon Wars, an adults-only event taking place behind Trees. It will feature water balloon battles, water slides, dunk tanks, music, food, and drinks in the heart of Deep Ellum. Attendees must at least 18 years old.

Lady Antebellum will play at Starplex Pavilion on August 26.

Photo by Eric Ray Davidson Photography

Lady Antebellum will play at Starplex Pavilion on August 26.

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Movie Review

Remake of Schwarzenegger classic The Running Man stumbles

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Glen Powell in The Running Man.

For all its cheesy ‘80s greatness, the original version of The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was a very loose adaptation of the novel by Stephen King. For the new remake, writer/director Edgar Wright has tried to hue much closer to the story laid out in the book, a decision that has both its positive and negative aspects.

Glen Powell takes over for Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a family man/hothead who can’t seem to hold a job in the dystopian America in which he lives. Desperate to take care of his family, he applies to be on one of the many game shows fed to the masses that promise riches in exchange for humiliation or worse. Thanks to his temper, Ben is chosen for the most popular one of all, The Running Man, in which contestants must survive 30 days while hunters, as well as the general population, track them down.

Given a 12-hour head start, Ben earns money for every day he survives, as well as every hunter he eliminates. Since he only has a relatively small amount of money to use as he pleases, Ben must rely on friendly citizens who are willing to put their own lives on the line to help him. That’s a task made even more difficult as the gamemakers, led by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), use advanced AI to manipulate footage of Ben to make him seem like a guy for which no one should root.

Co-written by Michael Bacall, the film is shockingly uninteresting, working neither as an exciting action film, a fun quippy comedy, or social commentary. The biggest problem is that Wright seems to have no interest in developing any of his characters, starting with Ben. Our introduction to the protagonist is him trying to get his job back, a situation for which there is little context even after we’re beaten over the head with exposition.

The situation in which Ben finds himself should be easy to make sympathetic, but Wright and Bacall speed through scenes that might have emphasized that aspect in favor of ones that make the story less personal. The filmmakers really want to showcase the supposed antagonistic relationship between Ben and Dan (and the system which Dan represents), but all that effort results in little drama.

Ben has a number of close calls, and while those scenes are full of action and violence, almost every one of them feels emotionally inert, as if there was nothing at stake. It doesn’t help that Wright doesn’t set the scene well, making it unclear how far Ben has traveled or who/what he’s up against. There are times when Ben feels surrounded and others when he can walk freely, weird for a society that’s supposed to be under almost complete surveillance.

Powell has been touted as a movie star in the making for several years following his turn in Top Gun: Maverick, but he does little here to make that label stick. With no consistent co-star thanks to the structure of the story, he’s required to carry the film, and he just doesn’t have the juice that a true movie star is supposed to have. Nobody else is served well by the scattershot film, including normally reliable people like Brolin, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, and Lee Pace.

The Running Man is a big misfire by Wright and a blow to Powell’s star power. On the surface, it has all the hallmarks of an action thriller with a side of social commentary, but nothing it does or says lands in any meaningful way. Schwarzenegger’s one-liners in the original film may have been goofy and over-the-top, but at least they made the movie memorable, which is way more than can be said of the remake.

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The Running Man opens in theaters on November 14.

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