Weekend Event Planner

These are the 12 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

It's going to be a music-heavy weekend around Dallas, including not one but two big-name concerts taking place at the former home of the Texas Rangers. The slate of events also includes a new Halloween season event, a visit from a country music legend, comedy from a provocateur, two new theater productions, and a singer who'll take State Fair attendees down "Old Town Road."

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, October 10

Howell Farms presents Pumpkin Nights
Pumpkin Nights is a new interactive Halloween experience and festival in DFW. Visitors are transported into an enchanted world with multi-sensory Halloween displays and seven Pumpkin Lands created with more than 3,000 artistically hand-carved real and synthetic pumpkins. Featuring lands like Forbidden Pumpkin City, Great Pumpkin Hall, Pumpkin Pirate Cove, and Enchanted Pumpkin Forest, the family-friendly event will be at Howell Family Farms in Arlington through November 3.

Maverick Theatre Company presents Harvey
In Harvey, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary, Elwood P. Dowd insists on including his friend Harvey in all of his sister Veta’s social gatherings. Trouble is, Harvey is an imaginary, 6 1/2-foot-tall rabbit. Playwright Mary Chase won the Pulitzer Prize for this delightful and insightful comedy about seeking happiness, identity, and acceptance of those who are different, and courtesy toward others in our everyday lives. The play will run at the Studio Theatre at UT Arlington through Sunday.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
Dizzying pyrotechnics and soaring melodies have given Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto a treasured place in pianists’ repertoire and in the hearts of audiences. Pianist Joyce Yang will be featured in this concert, which will include Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 and the Dallas premiere of Michael Ippolito’s Nocturne. There will be four performances through Sunday at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Tanya Tucker in concert
Country music legend Tanya Tucker has been a force in the industry for almost 50 years. Making her debut in 1972 at the tender age of 14, she's notched top 10 albums on the country charts in four different decades. That includes her new album, While I'm Livin', her first album in 10 years. She'll play at the Granada Theater.

Kacey Musgraves in concert with Lucius
Before heading back down to the Austin City Limits Festival this weekend, country singer Kacey Musgraves will play two straight nights at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving. There's been no hotter singer in the genre than Musgraves since her debut in 2013, with all three of her studio albums going to No. 1 on the Country charts. 2018's Golden Hour even earned the rare feat of winning both Best Country Album and Album of the Year at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

Eric Andre: Legalize Everything
Eric Andre is the creator and host of Adult Swim’s hit series The Eric Andre Show, in which he has rattled the minds of TV censors, celebrity guests, and viewers alike since 2012 as the world’s most unstable talk show host. You can expect the unexpected when Andre comes to the Majestic Theatre as part of his Legalize Everything World Tour.

Friday, October 11

Jason Aldean in concert
It's country music heaven in Dallas-Fort Worth this weekend. Just as Kacey Musgraves takes the stage in Irving, Jason Aldean will step up to perform at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Aldean's last four albums have reached No. 1 on both the Country and Billboard 200 charts, and there's no reason to believe that his next album, 9, won't do the same when it's released in November. He'll be joined by Kane Brown, Carly Pearce, and DJ Silver.

Teatro Dallas presents Villa
A regional premiere, Villa is a story about reclaiming one's country. In this slyly surprising and gripping play, Guillermo Calderon puts the audience in the room with three women charged with deciding the future of the Villa Grimaldi, an infamous detention camp of Chile’s Pinochet government. The production will run at Teatro Dallas through November 2.

Toadies in concert
It's always a good day when Fort Worth originals Toadies take the stage again. This concert at South Side Ballroom will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album, Rubberneck. The concert, which will include performances by Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights and The Bluebonnets, will also feature a variety of other songs from their long career.

Saturday, October 12

Billy Joel in concert
It's been over four years since Billy Joel made an appearance in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and he's making his return count by performing in the unique venue of Globe Life Park in Arlington. It's been almost 20 years since Joel released his last studio album, but his catalog of hits like "Piano Man," "Just the Way You Are," "Tell Her About It," and "We Didn't Start the Fire" are more than enough to entertain a ballpark full of fans.

Sunday, October 13

The Women’s Chorus of Dallas presents 30th Anniversary Concert: That’s Our Jam!
The Women's Chorus of Dallas will present its 30th Anniversary Concert, That's Our Jam!, featuring favorite songs, old and new, with TWCD alumnae and Turtle Creek Chorale back onstage together. Before the concert at Moody Performance Hall, guests can view the exhibit "30 Years of Music and Memories" with a champagne reception. Artist Erica Stephens will present original paintings inspired by the music performed at the concert.

State Fair of Texas presents Billy Ray Cyrus
Some 27 years after taking the world by storm with "Achy Breaky Heart," Billy Ray Cyrus has made a name for himself once again by collaborating with Lil Nas X on perhaps the song of the year, "Old Town Road." The rapper won't be present for this free concert at the State Fair of Texas, but you can fully expect Cyrus to play those hits and more at Fair Park.

Billy Joel will play at Globe Life Park in Arlington on October 12.

Billy Joel/Facebook

Billy Joel will play at Globe Life Park in Arlington on October 12.

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Movie Review

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck team up for Netflix crime thriller The Rip

Photo by Claire Folger/Netflix

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in The Rip.

For as closely tied together as Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are, it might come as a surprise how few times they’ve led a movie together. They’ve appeared alongside each other in Good Will Hunting, The Last Duel, and Air, but the only time they were on equal footing in a story was Kevin Smith’s Dogma. So the fact that they are the two true stars of the new Netflix movie The Rip makes it a rare opportunity for the longtime friends to square off against each other.

Damon and Affleck play Lt. Dane Dumars and Detective Sgt. J.D Byrne, respectively, the two highest ranking members of a Miami police department squad that specializes in drug and drug money raids. A tragedy to begin the film already has the team - which includes Detectives Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor), and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandina Moreno) - on edge, with the FBI and DEA breathing down their neck.

Going off a tip, Dumars gathers the team to raid a house in nearby Hialeah that is supposed to have a stash of a relatively small amount of money. But when they get to the house occupied only by Desiree Molina (Sasha Calle), they soon discover that there’s close to $20 million there instead. The team, required by law to count the money on site, must not only fight the urge to skim a little off the top for themselves, but also worry about the Cartel and other agencies that might want a slice of the pie.

Written and directed by Joe Carnahan, the film is a surprisingly effective crime thriller made even better by its high-quality cast, which also includes Kyle Chandler as a DEA agent. The story is designed for the audience to not know who’s trustworthy until the last possible second, and the various twists and turns it takes are well done, with barely a hint of narrative cheating.

Taking place entirely at night, the mood is set right from the start, with the only surprise being that Carnahan didn’t add in rain for extra effect. He keeps things tense with a number of subtle elements, including having the house located in a seemingly deserted cul-de-sac. This allows for the characters to remain on high alert at all times, with anything out of the ordinary - an unexpected noise, a flashing light, etc. - adding to the stress of the situation.

The only element that could have used a bit more of a punch-up is the characterization. The story is set up to cast suspicion on almost everybody, making it tougher to understand exactly what type of person each of them is. As the two leads, more time is spent with Dumars and Byrne, leaving everyone else with slightly underwhelming arcs. It’s to the credit of the actors that everyone else below Damon and Affleck is still compelling.

Damon and Affleck play their sometimes friendly, sometimes adversarial roles well, showing an ease together that’s a result of their friendship and the acting skills they’ve honed over 30+ years. Taylor, an Oscar hopeful for One Battle After Another, and Oscar nominee/Emmy winner Yeun have a pedigree that elevates their supporting roles. Chandler, Moreno, and Calle each get just enough to demonstrate why they were cast in their respective roles.

Damon and Affleck have had their individual ups and downs throughout their careers, but when they choose to work together, the results are usually good-to-great, as they are in The Rip. It’s a different take on a crime thriller that features a story that will keep viewers guessing until the very end.

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The Rip is now streaming on Netflix.

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