Weekend Event Planner

These are the 11 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Festival season continues in Dallas this weekend, with music in a wide variety of forms being showcased. You can also take in an award-winning Broadway play, laugh with a bunch of well-known comedians, see a famous rock group one last time, celebrate the anniversary of a local singer, listen to blues music at its finest, and more.

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, May 10

2018 SOLUNA Festival
The annual SOLUNA Festival gets going in earnest with six different events. Among the options happening on different days through Sunday will be ReMix: Mozart-Tchaikovsky-Berg at Moody Performance Hall; Melodies of a Certain Damage at Meyerson Symphony Center; Music and the Brain at Moody Performance Hall; Array with Nas, Kaleo, and more at the Bomb Factory and Canton Hall; Lihuel Gonzalez: "Las Personas No Van Juntas" at Dallas Museum of Art; and Kid Koala's Vinyl Vaudeville at Annette Strauss Square.

AT&T Performing Arts Center Broadway Series: The Humans
Stephen Karam’s The Humans, which won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, is an uproarious, hopeful, and heartbreaking play that takes place over the course of a family dinner on Thanksgiving. Breaking with tradition, Erik Blake has brought his Pennsylvania family to his daughter’s apartment in Lower Manhattan. As darkness falls, the Blake clan’s deepest fears and greatest follies are laid bare. The production will run at Winspear Opera House through May 20.

Improv Addison presents Maz Jobrani
Comedian Maz Jobrani is a founding member of The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, which first aired on Comedy Central. He has had two Showtime specials, Brown and Friendly and I Come In Peace. He is also a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and released the book, I’m Not a Terrorist but I’ve Played One on TV, in 2015. He'll perform five times through Saturday at Improv Addison.

Friday, May 11

Lynyrd Skynyrd in concert
After a career that has spanned more than 40 years and includes a catalog of more than 40 albums, Southern Rock icons Lynyrd Skynyrd comes to Dallas as part of its Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour. This will be your final chance to hear the band sing "Sweet Home Alabama" and, uh, their other songs, too. They'll play at the recently rebranded Dos Equis Pavilion.

Improv Arlington presents Arsenio Hall
Comedian Arsenio Hall has been a name brand for over 30 years, thanks to collaborations with Eddie Murphy and his eponymous talk show, which ran from 1989-1994. He's been in and out of the Hollywood spotlight since the end of that show, but audiences at the Improv Arlington on Friday and Saturday will get to see him back in his natural element, as a stand-up comedian.

MainStage Irving-Las Colinas presents The Full Monty
The Full Monty is the cult classic musical comedy with 10 Tony Award nominations and the most highly anticipated closing number of any show. After spying on their wives enjoying male strippers at a “Girls’ Night Out,” a group of unemployed, jealous and emasculated steelworkers from Buffalo concoct a bold and unclothed way to make some quick cash by letting it all hang out. The production will run at Irving Arts Center through May 26.

The Statler Presents Ricki Derek and His Swinging Big Band 20 Year Anniversary Party
The Statler will present Ricki Derek and his swinging big band in their historic ballroom for a grand celebration honoring Derek’s 20th anniversary of his first performance. It was 20 years ago, on May 14, 1998, when Ricki Derek first hit the stage and Frank Sinatra passed on to the big show in the sky.

Saturday, May 12

Commemorative Air Force Barnstorming Event
You can watch history come alive when the Commemorative Air Force AirPower History Tour barnstormers bring the sights, sounds, and stories of World War II aviation to Dallas. The event features World War II military airplanes both flying and on static display, and visitors can ride in aircraft including a C-45 Expeditor, T-6 Texan, PT-13 Stearman, and T-34 Mentor.

Homegrown Music & Arts Festival
The annual Homegrown Music and Arts Festival has become a tradition in Dallas, a day-long event that features both Texas and national acts. The lineup for this year's event, taking place as always at Main Street Garden, will include Explosions in the Sky, The Black Angels, Alvvays, Roky Erickson, UME, Vodi, D.A.R.Y.L., Medicine Man Revival, Acid Carousel, DEULL, and Sad Cops.

Sunday, May 13

Buddy Guy and Jonny Lang in concert
Fans of blues music will be in heaven at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie when Buddy Guy and Jonny Lang team up for this concert. The 81-year-old Guy is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who was a major influence on rock titans and a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound. The 37-year-old Lang is helping to keep the blues tradition alive, having released eight albums over the past 20+ years, including 2017's Signs.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Whose Live Anyway?
Whose Live Anyway? is 90 minutes of improvised comedy and songs, all based on audience suggestions. Cast members Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Jeff B. Davis, and Joel Murray will showcase some of the improv games made famous on the long-running TV show as well as some exciting new ones. Audience participation is key, with some members even being asked on stage. The show will be at Majestic Theatre.

Buddy Guy will perform with Jonny Lang at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie on May 13.

Photo courtesy of ACL Live

Buddy Guy will perform with Jonny Lang at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie on May 13.

event-planner

Movie Review

Lust eclipses romance in new adaptation of 'Wuthering Heights'

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in Wuthering Heights.

Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights is one of those classic books assigned in high school English classes, and it has received a number of film adaptations over the years, each of which differ in numerous ways from the source material. Purists won’t receive any reprieve from Emerald Fennell’s 2026 adaptation, with a title that is stylized as "Wuthering Heights” for good reason.

Cathy (played as an adult by Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) have known each other their entire lives, with Cathy’s alcoholic and inveterate gambler father (Martin Clunes) taking in Heathcliff on a whim when he was a boy. The two bond as they grow up together, although Cathy always seems to have an eye on moving up in society from their relatively impoverished lifestyle.

Cathy finally gets her wish when the rich Linton familyled by Edgar (Shazad Latif), moves in down the road, Despite discovering she has feelings for the now grown-up Heathcliff, Cathy sees Edgar as her way out and agrees to marry him. A scorned Heathcliff flees, returning years later as mysteriously wealthy. His reappearance ignites something in Cathy’s soul, and the two engage in a perhaps unwise affair.

Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) infuses the dusty material with an energy that’s not typically present in stories set in this particular time and place. Aside from the occasional Charli XCX song (the singer created a whole concept album for the film), the film looks and feels like a period piece, albeit one that doesn’t get bogged down in the drudgery that can sometimes come from films set in the distant past.

Much of that has to do with the lust the filmmaker puts into the story. Even if you’re not familiar with Brontë’s book, you can rest assured that Fennell has strayed far from the text, giving Cathy and Heathcliff thoughts and actions unthinkable in the 19th century. Fennell plays with expectations by opening the film with audio featuring creaking noises and a man grunting, conjuring up a situation far different than what is actually happening, and she also makes liberal use of rain, sweat, and tears to make the actors enticing.

What she can’t do, however, is make the two lead characters compelling. Cathy is a striver who never seems to know what she wants out of life, and Heathcliff goes from a bore to a brute over the course of the film, with no clear indication that he likes anybody, much less Cathy. Anyone expecting some kind of grand romance will be disappointed as Fennell is much more interested in making the film weird, like having the walls of Cathy’s room look like her skin, complete with freckles.

Robbie and Elordi do well enough with the material, and it’s clear that both of them are committed to bringing Fennell’s vision to life. Their styles tend to balance each other out, and if the story had been committed to their characters’ relationship, they might be lauded for their chemistry. In the end, though, the supporting actors feel more interesting, including ones played by Hong Chau, Alison Miller, and Clunes.

This version of Wuthering Heights should never be construed as an alternative to reading the book for any high schoolers out there. While Fennell makes the film interesting with her technical filmmaking choices, the story never finds its footing as it fails to sell the one thing that it seems to promise.

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Wuthering Heights opens in theaters on February 13.

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