Weekend Event Planner

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

It's Halloween weekend, but that doesn't mean you have to be constrained by spooky events. There are plenty of other things going on, including several big-name concerts, a new air show, a new opera production, one of the last outdoor festivals of the year, and more. By the way, if you are looking for the best Halloween weekend events around Dallas-Fort Worth, you can check them out here.

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, October 27

Decks in the Park - Halloween Edition
Costumes are highly encouraged at Decks in the Park's annual Halloween Bash. In addition to music from more than seven DJs, guests get a sneak preview of the Red Bull Flying Bach show coming to the Majestic Theatre in January. There's also an after-party at the Foundation Room for those who want to keep the party going.

Celtic Thunder in concert
The new show from international megastars Celtic Thunder, Legacy, celebrates the influence of Irish and Celtic music around the world. It features a mix of lively, fast-paced, and upbeat songs, including “A Place in The Choir,” “Galway Girl,” and “Raggle Taggle Gypsy,” and slower classic ballads like “Danny Boy” and “Noreen." The concert takes place at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie.

Friday, October 28

Commemorative Air Force presents 2016 Wings Over Dallas WWII Airshow
The inaugural Commemorative Air Force Wings Over Dallas WWII Airshow commemorates the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and features Tora! Tora! Tora!, an award-winning re-creation of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Dozens of other WWII-era aircraft are being exhibited on the ramp and in the air throughout the event. The show takes place at Dallas Executive Airport through Sunday.

Dallas Symphony Pops Series: Disney's Fantasia Live in concert
If you've never seen Disney’s classic movie, Fantasia (or even if you've seen it a 100 times), seeing it with live symphony accompaniment makes it feel completely different. The Fantasia concerts, presented four times through Sunday at Meyerson Symphony Center, include works from the original 1940 film as well as selections from Fantasia 2000.

Dallas Opera presents Eugene Onegin
Set in late 19th century Russia, innocence and passion collide in the Dallas Opera's latest, Eugene Onegin. After the aristocratic and arrogant Onegin rejects a country girl's advances, the roles are reversed many years later when the two meet again at a royal ball. The opera plays four times at Winspear Opera House through November 5.

Evanescence in concert
For a band that has only released three official albums, Evanescence have had an outsized impact on the music world. The band, led by Amy Lee, has sold nearly 25 million albums since their 2003 debut, Fallen, featuring the hit, “Bring Me To Life.” They are playing at South Side Ballroom in support of their soon-to-be-released box set.

Saturday, October 29

Frontiers of Flight Museum presents Star Wars Day
Spend the day at Frontiers of Flight Museum on the “dark side” with the 501st Legion and the Rebel Legion “good guys.” The day includes special Star Wars-themed activities, including a red carpet costume contest. Guests get to meet characters from all sci-fi genres, as the Star Wars universe joins forces with the USS Joshua Sci-Fi fan club and the DFW Ghostbusters fan group.

2016 Trinity River Wind Festival
The fifth annual Trinity River Wind Festival, postponed from June, is a day of high-flying outdoor adventure and fun. The event, taking place at the Commerce Street Viaduct, includes the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center and stage show, homing pigeons from Trinity River Audubon Center, Texas Discovery Gardens butterfly display and crafts, performances by kite teams and the Alma y Corazon Tejano Ballet Folklorico, a kid’s fun zone, and more.

The Fray in concert with American Authors
The Fray achieved national success with their 2005 debut album, featuring the hit singles "Over My Head (Cable Car)" and "How to Save a Life," which went double-platinum. Anybody who buys a ticket for this concert at House of Blues Dallas receives a digital download of The Fray's new Greatest Hits Through the Years. They're joined by American Authors.

Sunday, October 30

Stevie Nicks in concert with The Pretenders
If you weren't lucky enough to catch the reunited Fleetwood Mac when they came to town in 2014, you can now see one of their most prominent members, Stevie Nicks, as she revisits her long and storied career. As if that weren't enough, the opening act for the concert at American Airlines Center is another legendary band, The Pretenders, making this the ultimate two-for-one night.

Stevie Nicks plays at American Airlines Center with The Pretenders on October 30.

Photo courtesy of LiveNation

Stevie Nicks plays at American Airlines Center with The Pretenders on October 30.

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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