Weekend Event Planner

These are the 10 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

Music once again rules the venues around Dallas this weekend, with no fewer than seven of the 10 top events featuring musical acts. The performers will range from favorite local acts to national music legends, with a nice mix of genres to please multiple palates. Also on tap are a new local theater production, a new art opening, and a visit from two comedy masters.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time Thursday through Monday. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, October 12

Uptown Dallas, Inc. presents Uptown Block Party
The second annual Uptown Block Party will be a night full of music, beer, and food in the great outdoors. Taking place at Griggs Park, it will feature performances by Bob Schneider and The Gibbonses, free beer from Peroni, free sliders from the Katy Trail Ice House, and more.

Spoon in concert with Mondo Cozmo
Austin-based Spoon, which released its first album in 1996, took a while to get some national acclaim, but they've been going like gangbusters since 2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga thanks to hits like "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb,""Don't You Evah," and "Got Nuffin." They'll play at House of Blues Dallas in support of their new album, Hot Thoughts. They'll be joined by opening act Mondo Cozmo, known for providing the theme song to the podcast Anna Faris is Unqualified.

Friday, October 13

Aaron Lewis and Blackberry Smoke in concert with Alex Williams
It's been quite the career transition for Aaron Lewis. Formerly the lead singer of the rock band Staind, Lewis moved into country music in 2012 and has stayed there throughout the band's extended hiatus. He'll co-headline this concert at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving in support of his 2016 album, Sinner. Blackberry Smoke, playing in support of the 2016 album, Like An Arrow, will co-headline, with Alex Williams serving as opening act.

Herbie Hancock in concert
Now in the sixth decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock remains where he has always been: at the forefront of world culture, technology, business, and music. In addition to being recognized as a legendary pianist and composer, Hancock has been an integral part of every popular music movement since the 1960s. He'll play a special concert at Annette Strauss Square.

WaterTower Theatre presents Pride and Prejudice
Following the runaway success of her adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, playwright Kate Hamill returns to the immortal English writer with a fresh take on Jane Austen’s most famous novel. As the story of the Bennet daughters and their formidable social-ladder climbing mother unfolds, strong-willed Lizzie charts an independent course as she negotiates mixed feelings about the aloof and seemingly snobbish Mr. Darcy. The production will run through November 5 at WaterTower Theatre in Addison.

Saturday, October 14

Nasher Sculpture Center presents "Paper Into Sculpture" opening day
The latest exhibit at Nasher Sculpture Center will pay tribute to an underappreciated artistic medium: paper. The artists in "Paper into Sculpture" — Noriko Ambe, Marco Maggi, Joshua Neustein, Nancy Rubins, and Franz West — play on tensions between commonly held understandings of sculpture and what paper can and cannot do, pushed to its physical limits. The exhibit opens on Saturday and will be on display through February 4, 2018. There will also be an artists panel on Saturday.

Dallas VideoFest presents 2017 Ernie Kovacs Award: Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald
Dallas VideoFest will honor Kids in the Hall co-founders Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald with the coveted Ernie Kovacs Award. Both Foley and McDonald will be in attendance at Alamo Drafthouse in Richardson to receive the award, and will participate in a panel discussion, a Q&A with fans, and a rare screening of the iconic Kids in the Hall film, Brain Candy.

Portugal. The Man in concert with Tank and the Bangas
It's amazing how one song can change a band's career. Up until this year, the oddly-punctuated Portugal. The Man had barely registered on a national scale, releasing seven albums without so much as a whiff of a hit. But their current single, "Feel It Still," is as inescapable a song as any in recent memory, raising their profile immeasurably. They'll play at the Bomb Factory alongside opening act Tank and the Bangas.

Sunday, October 15

KEGL Freaker's Ball featuring Mastodon, Halestorm, In This Moment, Beartooth, and Greta Van Fleet
Bad news for anyone who bought tickets to this event purely to see Marilyn Manson: The headliner canceled this and multiple other appearances after being injured during a recent concert. Mastodon, which was scheduled to be in Houston on Sunday, has ditched that concert to take Manson's place. They'll be joined by Halestorm, In this Moment, Beartooth, and Greta Van Fleet at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees featuring Joan Baez, Steve Earle, and Patty Griffin
Produced by Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, in partnership with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees is raising awareness and money to support expanded educational opportunities for displaced people through JRS's Global Education Initiative. Funds raised from the tour help refugees to heal, learn, and thrive. This special concert at Majestic Theatre will feature performances by Joan Baez, Lila Downs, Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, and James McMurtry.

WaterTower Theatre presents Pride and Prejudice starting October 13 and running through November 5.

Photo by Evan Michael Woods

WaterTower Theatre presents Pride and Prejudice starting October 13 and running through November 5.

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Movie Review

Film sequel Avatar: Fire and Ash is a technical and visual feast

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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