Weekend Event Planner

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

UPDATE: This piece originally included the Art of Rap Festival at Gexa Energy Pavilion, which has been cancelled. Refunds for all tickets for the festival will be available at point of purchase.

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This weekend is going to be an emotional one in Dallas. One week after the tragic events of July 7, there's a memorial honoring the five fallen police officers and celebrating the freedom that they and others like them afford to us on a daily basis. The fact that the two can coexist is a testament to what makes Dallas great.

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, July 14

Bastille Day Celebrations
Anyone who knows and loves the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff is used to it hosting the annual Bastille on Bishop, a chance for people to celebrate French culture by indulging in wine, food, and other activities. This year, a second event, Bastille Day Celebration in Dallas Arts District, is taking place the following day, and it coincides with the three art museums opening up their doors for free events on the third Friday of the month.

2016 Asian Film Festival of Dallas
The Asian Film Festival of Dallas celebrates its 15th year with 33 feature-film screenings and six shorts over the course of eight days at Angelika Film Center in Dallas. The festival boasts its first Iranian film this year, as well as films from the U.S., China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. Organizers will be showcasing past film festival favorites from its first, fifth, and 10th years.

Dallas Sing/Dallas Strong
Two days after President Obama delivered a stirring address at a private service at Meyerson Symphony Center, the public is invited to the same location to honor the lives of the five fallen police officers through song. Dallas singers Denise Lee, Paul Mason, and Liz Mikel; local opera star Ava Pine; and members of the Credo Choir, Turtle Creek Chorale, and Dallas Symphony Chorus are going to be among the performers at the free event.

Pegasus Theatre presents It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder!
If you've never seen Pegasus Theatre's patented Living Black & White style of theater, you owe it to yourself to go at least once. Using a combination of lighting, makeup, and other tricks, the actors look as if they've stepped out of a 1930s movie. The latest Harry Hunsacker adventure has him trying to track down someone who's been knocking off department store Santas. The play runs at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson through August 7.

Friday, July 15

Dallas CASA presents 2016 Parade of Playhouses
The annual Parade of Playhouses at NorthPark Center features imaginative playhouses designed, built, and donated to Dallas CASA by local designers, architects, and builders. All playhouses are available to win by raffle at the end of the event, which goes through July 31. All proceeds from the raffle benefit abused and neglected children served by Dallas CASA.

Weezer and Panic! at the Disco in concert
Weezer and Panic! at the Disco are co-headlining a concert at Gexa Energy Pavilion, in support of their respective new albums. Weezer put out their 10th album, the so-called White Album, on April 1, while Panic! at the Disco released their sixth album, Death Of A Bachelor, earlier in the year. Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness is the featured special guest.

Uptown Players presents It's Only A Play
Uptown Players continues its 2016 season with the regional premiere of Terrence McNally's 2014-15 Broadway hit, It’s Only a Play, through July 31 at Kalita Humphreys Theater. The play centers around a group of actors, producers, and other theater people nervously waiting for the late-night reviews of their latest production. Hilarity ensues as each person reacts in different ways.

Saturday, July 16

Weird Al Yankovic in concert
Singer Weird Al Yankovic has been entertaining the masses with comedy songs for well over 30 years, so he knows when he's got a good thing going. Less than a year after playing at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, he returns to play for his fans yet again at Winspear Opera House, as part of his Mandatory Fun Tour.

Sunday, July 17

Texas Theatre and Majestic Theatre present Rock 'N' Roll Summer Series
The music film collaboration between Texas Theatre and Majestic Theatre continues this week at Texas Theatre, with a screening of Gimme Shelter. Not only is the documentary about the Rolling Stones one of the most famous of all time, as it details their fateful concert at Altamont, but it was also the first documentary of note from the Maysles brothers, who went on to make many other acclaimed documentaries.

Deep Blue Something in concert
If you were in high school or college in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the early 1990s, the band Deep Blue Something definitely has meaning for you. The Denton band hit it big with their hit, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," but unfortunately, superstardom did not follow. After a 14-year hiatus, the band is back with an EP, Locust House; they'll play songs from that and other albums at Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts in Arlington.

Bastille Day celebrations take place in the Bishop Arts District on July 14 and in the Dallas Arts District on July 15.

Photo by Elliott Munoz

Bastille Day celebrations take place in the Bishop Arts District on July 14 and in the Dallas Arts District on July 15.

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Movie Review

New biopic 'Jimmy' salutes Jimmy Stewart's service in World War II

Photo courtesy of Papaian Studios

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Actor Jimmy Stewart, thanks to movies such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Shop Around the Corner, and The Philadelphia Story, had the reputation early in his career as the everyman in Hollywood, someone to whom most audiences could relate. That became even more true when Stewart entered the military during World War II, a period that is explored in the new biopic, Jimmy.

The film was co-produced with Fort Worth-based Papaian Studios and received a red-carpet premiere as part of the Lone Star Film Festival on Wednesday, November 4. Stewart had several ties to Fort Worth, which were celebrated at the event.

Stewart (KJ Apa) was riding high in 1941, coming off his first (and only) Oscar win for The Philadelphia Story. As depicted in the film, his life is upended when he receives a military draft notice as the U.S. prepares for war. He’s determined to serve, but people like studio head Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander) try to talk him out of it. Already an experienced pilot, he eventually joins the war in Europe, flying the B-24 bomber.

Despite his celebrity status, Stewart requests to be treated the same as any other soldier, which means flying multiple missions over enemy territory. He moves up the ranks, becoming a leader tasked with, among other things, reporting the deaths of service members to their families. He also starts a friendship that develops into a romance with Lady Julia (Kara Killmer), giving him a distraction from the horrors of war.

Directed by Aaron Burns and written by Justin Strawhand, the film has the clear goal of being a hagiography for Stewart, showing all of his good qualities and few of his bad ones. In fact, the character of Stewart is harder on himself than the actual movie is, chastising himself over the deaths of fellow soldiers that he likely could not have prevented. The filmmakers go to great lengths to show how good and well-respected Stewart was, something that may well be true, but doesn’t make for great drama.

The bulk of the film features Stewart at war, following him and others as they fly multiple missions and commiserate over the price of combat. The sequences are fine, but the film’s budget does not appear to be high, and so the CGI needed to recreate the scenes is noticeably subpar. Because Burns and Strawhand usually keep to surface-level storytelling and don’t go deep on any character besides Stewart, his time at war is engaging but slight.

The film is bookended by Stewart and Frank Capra (Max Casella) making It’s a Wonderful Life, Stewart’s first film after coming back from war. It’s here where the movie becomes most interesting as Stewart, still affected by his war experience, struggles to bring the character of George Bailey to life. The behind-the-scenes look at the film-within-the-film and the recreations of its iconic scenes are catnip for anyone who knows/loves the Christmas classic.

Apa, best known for starring as Archie on the TV show Riverdale, does extremely well as Stewart. He nails Stewart’s quavering voice and the way he ambles about plays right into the actor’s established persona. Casella and Killmer get the most play in supporting roles, and each does solid work as characters trying to understand Stewart. Alexander, Sarah Drew as Hedda Hopper, and Rob Riggle as a colonel each go a little too big in their respective parts.

Jimmy is probably best watched as an approximation of the man Stewart was in the 1940s, not as something that’s completely true to life. The film elides or stretches the truth on multiple occasions, which is par for the course in biopics. It could have used some stronger storytelling to make Stewart feel like a real person, not merely a replica of the famous actor.

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Jimmy is now playing in theaters.

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