Weekend Event Planner

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

As the new year begins, many of the best things to do in and around Dallas will involve events ending. Seven of the 12 events on our list are ones you may have seen previously, but which are all making their final bow this weekend. Additionally, you can see the annual visit of a Chinese dance troupe, local ballet, a combo of comedy and classical music, or some fantastic local music.

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, January 3

Perot Museum presents "Ultimate Dinosaurs"
There has always been a big dinosaur presence at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, but for the past six months, their dinosaur cup has overflowed thanks to the traveling exhibit "Ultimate Dinosaurs." This weekend will be your final opportunity to view the exhibit, which reveals a new breed of dinosaur that evolved in isolation in South America, Africa, and Madagascar that is unfamiliar to most North Americans. The exhibit will close on Sunday.

Ronald McDonald House of Dallas presents The Trains at NorthPark
The Trains at NorthPark is a holiday tradition, but now that the holidays are over, it too must come to an end. This weekend is your last chance to see the display with more than 750 moving railcars on a 1,600-foot elaborate configuration of tracks and scenes. The display, ending on Sunday at NorthPark Center, features cityscapes ranging from downtown Dallas to Washington, D.C. to Mount Rushmore.

Shen Yun
Making its annual visit to the Dallas area, Shen Yun lets audiences travel back to the magical world of ancient China. Audiences will experience a lost culture through the breathtaking art of classical Chinese dance and see legends come to life. Shen Yun pushes the boundaries of the performing arts to make this possible, with a unique blend of colorful costuming, high-tech backdrops, and live orchestra. There will be five performances through Sunday at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Broadway Series: A Bronx Tale
The musical A Bronx Tale will wrap up its short two-week run at Winspear Opera House this weekend. The production takes audiences to the stoops of the Bronx in the 1960s, where a young man is caught between the father he loves and the mob boss he’d love to be. Bursting with high-energy dance numbers and original doo-wop tunes from the songwriter of Beauty and the Beast, A Bronx Tale is an unforgettable story of loyalty and family. There will be five more performances through Sunday.

Dallas Summer Musicals presents The Phantom of the Opera
If you didn't make time before or after Christmas to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Music Hall at Fair Park, you'll have a few more chances this weekend. Cameron Mackintosh’s spectacular new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical boasts many exciting special effects, along with the beloved story and thrilling score. There will be six more performances through Sunday.

Friday, January 4

Plano Metropolitan Ballet presents The Little Mermaid
The Plano Metropolitan Ballet presents an original fairytale ballet, The Little Mermaid, in which Ariel explores her world with the colorful characters under the sea. The ballet's run at the Courtyard Theater in Plano will feature a variety of performances for Girl Scouts, offering an embroidered mermaid patch for every Girl Scout, and an autograph session with the dancers after every performance. The production will run through January 19.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents The Second City Guide to the Symphony
The celebrated theater troupe Second City takes a satirical look at the players, the composers, and the personalities in a blend of original sketch comedy, new music, and orchestral classics. This program is the equivalent to a PG-13 movie, so some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. The concert will take place on Friday and Saturday at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Saturday, January 5

The KXT Local Show presents Motorcade with The Tomorrowpeople & Cryptolog
This concert at The Kessler is headlined by the new Dallas group Motorcade, but the appeal for many will be the reunion of The Tomorrowpeople, marking the first live appearance by the 20-year-old band since 2015. In their opening slot alongside Cryptolog, The Tomorrowpeople will be playing their '90s-era tracks and some new material.

Sunday, January 6

Dallas Art District exhibits closing day
It's moving day for exhibits on display at all of the museums in the Dallas Arts District. The Crow Museum of Asian Art will close "Immortal Landscapes: Jade from the Collection," which spotlights mountains that lie at the heart of Chinese culture and art, and "The Art of Lacquer," which introduces lacquerware objects from the museum’s collections. Nasher Sculpture Center will close "The Nature of Arp," which provides a long-overdue look at the achievements of Jean (Hans) Arp, one of the most important and multifaceted artists of the modern era. And the Dallas Museum of Art will close "Cult of the Machine: Precisionism in American Art," which examines American culture from the 1910s to the Second World War and reveals how the American love affair with new technology and mechanization shaped architecture, design, and the visual culture of the United States.

Shen Yun will be at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson through January 6.

Photo courtesy of Shen Yun

Shen Yun will be at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson through January 6.

event-planner

Movie Review

Daniel Craig searches for elusive new bond in audacious film Queer

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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