Weekend Event Planner

These are the 6 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

While the majority of events around Dallas have either been postponed or canceled, there are a few that have popped up to offer the masses some entertainment while still adhering to the social distancing necessary during the coronavirus pandemic.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. While they're not all outside of the house, they all promise to provide a nice distraction from the everyday life.

Thursday, September 3

The Texas Tribune Festival
The annual Texas Tribune Festival, which normally takes place in Austin, will be almost entirely virtual this year, opening it up to people all over the world. It will feature a month of programming with more than 250 speakers, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, Hillary Clinton, Andrew Yang, Joaquin Castro, Julián Castro, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Eric Holder, Jeb Bush, Cecile Richards, Chasten Buttigieg, Gloria Steinem, and more. The festival continues through September 30.

Friday, September 4

Brass, Organ & Percussion of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Sarah Hicks and the DSO musicians will present a patriotic return to Meyerson Symphony Center filled with brass-tastic arrangements of spirited anthems and marches. The concert, taking place through Sunday, will feature Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, selections from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, as well as Bradley Welch playing the 4,500-pipe Lay Family Concert Organ. These concerts and other forthcoming concerts are currently available to subscribers only.

Southfork Ranch Fall Concert Series
The Southfork Ranch Fall Concert Series will present concerts featuring area tribute bands every two weeks through October 2, starting with Beatlemania '64, a tribute to The Beatles. Guests will be socially distanced in “viewing pods,” a 13-by-25-foot space marked off in the Southfork Ranch parking lot. Each pod holds up to six guests and tickets may be purchased as a group or individually. Masks must be worn when a guest leaves their pod to use the restroom or concession area.

Tupps Brewery presents Summer Drive-In Concert Series
Tupps Brewery in McKinney will host the final installment in their series of drive-in concerts, featuring a performance by Cody Canada and The Departed. Each vehicle will have a 20’ x 20’ block of space, and all guests are asked to remain in their assigned block for the duration of the concert. Portable chairs or a blanket on the ground inside a block are welcome. Face masks must be worn when leaving a block in order to visit the restrooms, brewery tent, or food truck.

Saturday, September 5

Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary presents Dinosaurs Live opening day
At Heard Natural Science Museum's 15th annual Dinosaurs Live exhibit, visitors can travel back in time along a half-mile nature trail with 10 life-size animatronic dinosaurs. The exhibit features the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex, a spitting Dilophosaurus, a Brachiosaurus, and more. There will be the opportunity to play on stationary baby dinosaurs, a photo-op Tyrannosaurus rex, and a photo op Pachyrhinosaurus. The exhibit will remain on display through February 25.

Sunday, September 6

Rulli Torres Fashion Design Studio presents Disturbance
Disturbance is a non-traditional gallery-style fashion show designed to keep everyone safe while following COVID-19 guidelines. Rulli Torres is a fashion designer who has produced numerous fashion shows benefiting nonprofits. The exhibition will be be a mock-up of pop culture as if one was going to a grocery store. Social distancing stickers will be placed throughout the exhibit, featuring around 15 installations in total. The event will be at Urban Arts Center in Dallas.

Hillary Clinton will be one of the speakers during the virtual Texas Tribune Festival, taking place through September 30.

Hillary Clinton/Facebook

Hillary Clinton will be one of the speakers during the virtual Texas Tribune Festival, taking place through September 30.

event-planner

Movie Review

Jessica Chastain drama Dreams stumbles through steamy romance

Photo courtesy of Teorema

Isaac Hernández and Jessica Chastain in Dreams.

The opening scenes of the new drama Dreams are bracing, fictional sequences that call to mind real-life scenarios. In them, a young Mexican man named Fernando (Isaac Hernández) goes through a somewhat harrowing journey from the back of a semi truck in South Texas all the way to San Francisco. It’s a familiar immigrant story that seems to set the stage for a film with something interesting to say.

It turns out, however, that Fernando has not made the long and arduous trek for a job. Instead, it’s to be with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), a rich woman who helps lead a foundation dedicated to multiple things, including funding dance academies. Fernando, a talented dancer, and Jennifer have been in an off-and-on affair for years, with Jennifer wanting to keep their relationship a secret.

Although both are drawn to each other in an inexplicable, lustful way, their bond is tenuous, with each of them dissatisfied for different reasons. Fernando clearly sacrifices much more of himself than Jennifer, who wants for nothing except maybe more affection from her father, Michael (Marshall Bell), and brother, Jake (Rupert Friend).

Writer/director Michel Franco seems to try to inject tension into Fernando and Jennifer’s relationship from the start, an attempt that is only halfway successful. It’s clear from the way they greet each other - not to mention a steamy sex scene shortly thereafter - that they have known each other for a good length of time. Franco is able to get across this familiarity with an economy of scenes, and the intensity of their bond holds for a while.

But as the film progresses and both of them grow disenchanted with their arrangement, Franco starts taking the story in some odd directions. The biggest issue is that it’s never clear at what point in time the story is taking place. Fernando ends up making multiple trips back and forth across the border, with Jennifer doing the same at one point, and Franco’s use of flashbacks muddies the waters, wrong-footing the audience when he should be trying to draw them further into Fernando and Jennifer’s complications.

Revelations in the final act make the story even more confusing, as both main characters start saying and doing harsh things that seem to come out of nowhere. That would be all well and good if Franco actually committed to their changes of heart, but he keeps things wishy-washy for most of the final 15 minutes, resulting in an ending that makes little sense for either character.

Despite the story issues, both Chastain and Hernández give compelling performances. Chastain has been a little under the radar since winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but she keeps this character interesting longer than it should have been. Hernández has limited credits and appears to have been cast for his dancing ability, but he goes toe-to-toe with Chastain on more than one occasion and acquits himself well.

Dreams had all of the ideas to explore a more in-depth story about the complicated immigration policies between Mexico and the U.S., or how wealthy people take advantage of those less fortunate. But Franco never finds the right footing, settling instead for a titillating and somewhat mystifying relationship story that feels half-baked.

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Dreams is now playing in select theaters.

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