Weekend Event Planner

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

The various events this weekend allow you to spread your wings — in one case, literally — and explore multiple areas in Dallas and beyond. Among the offerings are a major golf tournament, two big theater productions, an arts and music festival, comedy from one of the best, a concert from a big-time band, and dancing from stars of reality TV.

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, May 18

2017 AT&T Byron Nelson Championship
After 35 years at the Four Seasons Las Colinas Country Club, this is the final AT&T Byron Nelson Championship to take place in Irving. Next year, the tournament moves to Dallas' new Trinity Forest Golf Club. A high-powered group of golfers have come to say goodbye to the course, including defending champion — and newly-crowned Masters champion — Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, and more. The tournament goes on through Sunday.

Commemorative Air Force presents AirPower History Tour
FIFI, the Commemorative Air Force’s iconic Boeing B‐29 Superfortress, flies into Dallas Executive Airport for a four-day barn-storming aviation event. The B-29 and other vintage military aircraft are on display for the tour, which features hands-on, interactive exhibits and activities, like flight simulators inside an authentic C-47 cockpit and trainer airplane. The event takes place through Sunday.

Dallas Theater Center presents Inherit the Wind
When a public school teacher is arrested for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to his sophomore students, two powerhouse lawyers face off in a court of law. The nation watches as science and faith collide, bringing a small southern town to its knees. Dallas Theater Center presents the play, inspired by the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial, through June 18 at Kalita Humphreys Theater.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Into the Woods
Into the Woods, the Tony Award-winning musical classic by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, is a mixture of multiple different fairy-tales you knew and loved as kids, with an adult twist. The show, which had a big-screen adaptation in 2014, includes dazzling songs like “Children Will Listen” and “No One Is Alone.” The production runs at Winspear Opera House through May 28.

Friday, May 19

2017 Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival
Celebrating 25 years in 2017, the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival is an eclectic event that includes four main performance stages featuring national, regional, and local bands, including headliners Lynyrd Skynyrd and The B-52's. The festival, taking place through Sunday, also features a Singer/Songwriter contest, a Battle of the Bands contest, kids area, marketplace, and more.

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Paula Poundstone
Heralded as one of the United States' foremost comics, Paula Poundstone’s quick-thinking, unscripted approach to comedy makes for a perfect fit as a regular panelist on NPR’s No. 1 show, the screwball weekly news quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, where she holds the record for game losses. Poundstone showcases her skills at this special concert at Majestic Theatre.

Saturday, May 20

Nasher Sculpture Center presents Roni Horn
The Nasher Sculpture Center presents its 2017 summer show "Roni Horn," featuring large-scale, cast glass works by the American artist. For her Nasher show, eight large-scale cylindrical cast glass sculptures of varying colors occupy the museum’s main gallery. It's the artist’s first U.S. museum presentation of her work since 2010 and the first to focus specifically on her cast glass sculpture. Horn also participates in the museum's speaker series on Saturday. The exhibit is on display through August 20.

Sunday, May 21

Train in concert with O.A.R. and Natasha Bedingfield
Train is one of those bands that manages to release just enough hits to stay relevant. They made their mark with "Drops of Jupiter" in 2001, then faded for a few years before rising back up with "Hey Soul Sister" in 2009, then faded again until 2012's "Drive By." They haven't had a hit recently, but they're obviously due. They play at Starplex Pavilion in support of their 10th studio album, A Girl, A Bottle, A Boat, alongside opening acts O.A.R. and Natasha Bedingfield.

Julianne and Derek Hough: Move - Beyond - Live on Tour
Brother and sister dancing duo Julianne and Derek Hough made their names on Dancing with the Stars, and after multiple championships for each (two for her, six for him), they've taken their personal show on the road. The siblings' show at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie features brand-new stage production inspired by the elements — earth, wind, fire, and water — as well as the Move Company Dancers for group performances.

Dallas native Jordan Spieth leads the field at the 2017 AT&T Byron Nelson Championship, taking place May 18-21 at Four Seasons Las Colinas Country Club.

Jordan Spieth/Facebook

Dallas native Jordan Spieth leads the field at the 2017 AT&T Byron Nelson Championship, taking place May 18-21 at Four Seasons Las Colinas Country Club.

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Movie Review

Comedy all-stars Jack Black and Paul Rudd can't save Anaconda sequel

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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