Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

This is the rare weekend when the Dallas area will have very few visitors from out of town. That's a good thing for those who like to live local, as almost all of the events featured in this week's roundup focus on local organizations. They include a movie festival, classical music, three theater productions, a waterpark birthday, and a Japanese holiday celebration.

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 10

North Texas Film Festivals presents Best of Fests
Film festivals based in Dallas, Fort Worth, and around the area Texas have joined forces for the first time to present a Best of Fests film festival. Twenty-two different film festivals will present films that either were popular with their audiences or represent their programming esthetic. The films will be screened at venues across Dallas that include Alamo Drafthouse Cedars, Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas, Studio Movie Grill Northwest Highway, and the Texas Theatre. Screenings will take place through Sunday.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Mahler's The Song of the Earth
Leonard Bernstein declared the monumental “Song of the Earth” to be Gustav Mahler’s greatest symphony. This concert at Meyerson Symphony Center, taking place three times through Sunday, begins will also feature Mozart’s lavish “Prague Symphony.” The concert will feature mezzo-soprano, Kelly O’Connor, and tenor, Russel Thomas, under the direction of Donald Runnicles.

Friday, January 11

Eisemann Center presents Herman's Hermits
At the age of 15, Peter Noone achieved international fame as lead singer of the legendary '60s pop band Herman’s Hermits. His classic hits included “I’m Into Something Good,” “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter,” “I’m Henry VIII, I Am,” “Silhouettes,” and many more. Noone and the Hermits will play at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson.

Cry Havoc Theater presents From the Table: A Celebration of Food
When a community gathers together, whether for celebration or for mourning, one constant remains: food. Humanity’s relationship with food is one of necessity – but an individual’s relationship with food is one of history. The teens of Cry Havoc will set the table for a celebratory exploration of how our lives are defined by the food we consume and the stories tied to it. Cry Havoc Theater Company is partnering with Cafe Momentum to create a communal food experience for the audience. The production will run at South Dallas Cultural Center through January 19, with a special abbreviated performance at Cafe Momentum on Sunday.

Imprint Theatreworks presents In the Next Room (Or The Vibrator Play)
In the Next Room (Or The Vibrator Play) is a comedy about intimacy, awakening, and most importantly ... equality. The play is set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used “devices” to treat women for imagined hysteria. This entertaining work of self-discovery shows that human connection is not simply a means to an end, but a vital part of life itself. The production will run at Bath House Cultural Center through January 26.

Shakespeare Dallas presents Hamlet
For its inaugural indoor performance, Shakespeare Dallas will perform Hamlet, perhaps William Shakespeare's most well-known drama. The Winter Season, taking place at Moody Performance Hall, is designed with a smaller cast in mind, making the performances more intimate for audiences. The production will run through January 20.

Saturday, January 12

Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark 1st Birthday Party
Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark has not only made year-round waterpark fun available to the masses, but it almost instantly became the best waterpark experience anywhere in Dallas-Fort Worth. Activities at Epic Waters' 1st Birthday Party will include the introduction of the new Epic Waters rubber duck mascot at a mascot party, birthday cake for guests, dance contests, and hourly raffles for Epic Waters passes, parties, and swag.

Sunday, January 13

Japan-America Society of Dallas/Fort Worth presents Mochitsuki New Year’s Celebration
Celebrate the new year with Japanese music, food, and fun at Fujitsu Network Communications in Richardson. Guests can try their hand at traditional Japanese games and calligraphy, see a traditional mochitsuki (rice pounding) demonstration, and sample fresh mochi. The event will feature performances by Dallas Kiyari Daiko, Dr. Capital, and the Cherry Blossoms Choir.

Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark will celebrate their first birthday with a special celebration on January 12.

Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark in Grand Prairie

Photo courtesy of Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark

Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark will celebrate their first birthday with a special celebration on January 12.

event-planner

Movie review

Over-the-top The Bride! makes other Frankenstein movies seem subtle

Photo by Niko Tavernise

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley in The Bride!.

The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is now over 200 years old, with Mary Shelley’s book having been adapted or referenced in close to 500 films. Less common is the character of The Bride of Frankenstein, which existed in the original text but has more often than not been excised in adaptations. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has tried to rectify that by giving the character a big showcase in her new film, The Bride!.

Gyllenhaal has reimagined the story as one in which a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) becomes possessed by the spirit of Shelley (also Buckley). At the same time, the already-existing Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) approaches Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who specializes in reanimation, with the request to make him a wife. When Ida falls to her death in an “accident” involving her boyfriend (John Magaro), the ideal corpse becomes available.

After Ida’s resurrection, she and the monster become restless being studied by Dr. Euphronius and decide to break out to experience the world. The world, naturally, is not exactly welcoming to them, and soon the couple are on the run for causing mayhem, including a few murders. In hot pursuit are detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), as well as other authorities.

It’s clear that Gyllenhaal wanted to merge the Frankenstein story with Bonnie & Clyde, especially since she sets the film in the mid-1930s. And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea if having the monster and The Bride going on a crime spree was truly the focus of the movie. But most of the time there’s less intentionality in their misdeeds and more confusion, leading to a muddled plot with no clear direction or end goal in mind.

One of the biggest problems is that Gyllenhaal starts the energy of the film at an 11, giving her and everyone else nowhere to go but down. She dabbles in multiple different tones, at times going the straight drama route and other times making what seems like full-on camp. At one point, she even has the monster and the Bride in a dance sequence set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which would be hilarious as an homage to Young Frankenstein if the film weren’t so disjointed.

Most baffling of all is what Gyllenhaal wants from The Bride character. She morphs multiple times over the course of the film, from close to unintelligible at the beginning to rough-and-tumble at the end. There are hints at the lack of control she has over her autonomy, including Shelley’s possession of her and the monster lying to her about her past, but any commentary that Gyllenhaal might be trying to make gets lost amid the oddity of the film as a whole.

Both Buckley and Bale are all-in for their performances, which definitely fall in the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Each scene is pitched so high that there’s little nuance to either of them, and neither is on par with their previous Oscar-caliber roles. The high-powered supporting cast of Bening, Sarsgaard, Cruz, and Jake Gyllenhaal is watchable based on previous roles, but none of them elevate this particular movie.

Whatever intentions Maggie Gyllenhaal had in making The Bride! are only halfway legible in a film that can never find its tonal footing. There has rarely been subtlety in movies featuring Frankenstein’s monster and related characters, but this one makes all the others seem like stuffy dramas in comparison.

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The Bride! is now playing in theaters.

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