Weekend Event Planner

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

The final weekend in March brings much to enjoy, including a couple of Easter celebrations, a tribute to vintage airplanes, the latest CultureMap Social, two big music festivals, and a love story reignited on stage.

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, March 24

Frontiers of Flight Museum presents Wings of Freedom Tour 2016
Aviation enthusiasts can explore and even fly in a variety of vintage aircraft during the Frontiers of Flight Museum's annual Wings of Freedom Tour, taking place Thursday through Sunday. Among the airplanes on display are a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24J Liberator Witchcraft, the B-25J Mitchell Tondelayo, and the P-51C Mustang Betty Jane.

CultureMap Social: The Ultra Edition
We kick off our 2016 events with another rad CultureMap Social. It's a white party but with a twist, as guests help us transform Seven for Parties from stark white to color with throwback art installations like paint by numbers, spin art, and more. You can also taste the new Herradura Ultra; try out a new hairstyle courtesy of Wanderdo; and enjoy drinks, food, music, and a live art activation by muralist Travis Haas McCann.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Beethoven’s Fifth
There may be no more well-known classical music piece than Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Its iconic "dun-dun-dun-duuuun" refrain is a pop culture staple, meaning you've heard at least that snippet even if you've never heard the entire piece. You can rectify that when the Dallas Symphony Orchestra plays it and other pieces Thursday through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Love Letters
Forty-six years after they broke hearts around the country in the star-crossed romance Love Story, Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw are reuniting for a special production of Love Letters, a play about two people who can’t let go of each other throughout their 50-year friendship, despite marriages and families with other people. The production runs at Winspear Opera House through April 3.

Friday, March 25

Texas Music Revolution 20
After 19 years at Southfork Ranch, Texas Music Revolution is moving to a new location: Oak Point Park & Nature Preserve in Plano. The two-day festival on Friday and Saturday features a variety of national and local musical acts, including Lee Ann Womack, Chris Knight, Quaker City Night Hawks, Stoney LaRue, Folk Family Revival, and The O's.

TITAS presents Cie Hervé Koubi
Drawing from his Algerian roots, Hervé Koubi’s work combines capoeira, martial arts, urban, and contemporary dance. Using powerful and breathtaking imagery, the group of 12 male Algerian and West African dancers seem to defy gravity. The dance troupe performs twice at Dallas City Performance Hall on Friday and Saturday

Saturday, March 26

NorthPark Center's Easter Celebration
Leap into spring among beautiful tulips, daffodils, and pansies in CenterPark Garden for NorthPark Center’s Easter Celebration. The day begins with an Easter egg hunt, where a few lucky eggs contain NorthPark Gold. The fun continues with live bunnies, face-painting, photos with the Easter Bunny, storytime with Bookmarks, and snacks and treats from NorthPark’s restaurants.

Local Brews Local Grooves: The Ultimate Craft Beer & Music Festival
The House of Blues hosts the third annual Local Brews Local Grooves, a music and craft beer festival, featuring the finest local Texas breweries and hottest bands. Breweries like Community Beer Company, Deep Ellum Brewing Co., and Peticolas Brewing Company are joined by bands like Infinite Journey, Eleven Hundred Springs, Telegraph Canyon, and Valise.

Sunday, March 27

2016 Easter in Lee Park
After an unexpected break in 2015, Easter in Lee Park is back just in time to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Guests are invited to bring a picnic basket and blanket to Lee Park in Uptown Dallas for an afternoon of festivities, including the famed Petropolitan Pooch Parade, live music, Easter egg hunt, and a special appearance from the Easter Bunny.

Lee Ann Womack is one of the headliners at Texas Music Revolution 20, taking place at Oak Point Park & Nature Preserve on March 25 and 26.

Lee Ann Womack/Facebook

Lee Ann Womack is one of the headliners at Texas Music Revolution 20, taking place at Oak Point Park & Nature Preserve on March 25 and 26.

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Movie Review

Korean film No Other Choice uses dark comedy to tell deeper story

Photo courtesy of Neon

Lee Byung-hun in No Other Choice.

When Parasite won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2020, it signaled a shift in how international feature films were viewed not only by Academy voters, but also American filmgoers, who made it the fifth-highest grossing non-English language film of all time. Extra attention has been paid to other international films in the intervening years, including the new South Korean film, No Other Choice.

Starring Lee Byung-hun of Squid Game fame, the dark comedy chronicles the increasingly desperate actions of Man-su, a middle manager at a paper factory who is laid off due to automation. After months of trying to find a job at another paper company, he finally finds a good prospect only to learn that several other men may be better candidates. Man-su decides that the only solution is to eliminate the competition.

The only problem is Man-su is a bit of a coward; an early plan at standing up to his company in the face of the lay-offs meets an anticlimactic end. His wishy-washy ways seem to permeate his life, from putting off treatment on a painful tooth to not communicating with his more willful wife to actually going through with his vengeful ideas. He bumbles his way through every aspect of his life, virtually daring anyone to call him out on his poor decision-making.

Written and directed by Park Chan-wook, and co-written by Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Jahye Lee, the film initially seems to be another approach toward telling the class division story that’s at the center of Parasite and Squid Game. And it is that to a degree, as those in charge of the paper companies and the hiring committees are either indifferent or unsympathetic to the plight of those who have been forced out of work.

But the more we see of Man-su, the more it becomes clear that his is a story all its own, one where a man claims there is “no other choice” when in fact there are plenty of other options. The men in the film in general don’t come across well, with many of them reacting to stress by turning into whiners who believe the world is out to get them. Some situations turn violent as the film goes along, events that most of the time could have been avoided if the people involved actually took the time to think things through.

The film features a somewhat confusing story made even more puzzling if you don’t speak Korean. On first viewing, it’s initially unclear why Man-su is doing what he’s doing, or why he’s going after certain people in particular. The plot becomes more understandable as the film progresses, but Chan-wook includes several side plots that muddle things further even as they broaden certain characters. There are also a couple of visual text jokes that can easily be missed if you don’t know where to look.

Byung-hun is great as a man who can’t seem to get out of his own way. The role is almost in direct contrast to the one he played on Squid Game, making it easy to see how well he can adapt to different stories. Son Ye-jin as Man-su’s wife Miri and Lee Sung-min as Bummo, one of Man-su’s intended victims, are also highly engaging.

Like any film not in English, No Other Choice requires viewers to pay strict attention to the screen to get full enjoyment of the actors and their dialogue. While it doesn’t hit as hard as a comedy because of this factor, it’s still a greatly entertaining film whose underlying message makes it become a little deeper.

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No Other Choice is now playing in theaters.

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