Weekend Event Planner

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

It will be an extremely music-filled weekend in and around Dallas, with seven of the nine slots on this week's list taken up by concerts. Performers will include stars in K-pop, rap, rock, country, pop, Broadway, and Mexican music, appeasing fans of multiple genres. The non-music options of the weekend include a comedian and a new local theater production.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. If you want more options, check out our calendar for an even longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, August 13

Don Toliver in concert
Rapper Don Toliver, a Houston native, comes to Dallas for the second time in three months as part of his Octane World Tour. Toliver has been at the top of the genre since his debut in 2020, with each of his five albums making the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, culminating with his new album, Octane, which went to No. 1. He'll perform again at American Airlines Center, joined by special guest Chase B.

Friday, August 14

Majestic Theatre presents Ari Matti
Ari Matti is an Estonian-born stand-up comedian known for his bold, high-energy style and sharp observational humor. Blending his Eastern European roots with global experiences, he's performed across the U.S. and the U.K., Europe, Canada, Asia, and Australia. He is also a regular comedian on Kill Tony. He'll perform for one night only at Majestic Theatre.

Muse in concert
The English rock band Muse has been going strong for over 25 years, having released their debut album in 1999. They've always been big in their native U.K., with each of their eight albums since 2003 going to No. 1 there. It took a little more time for U.S. audiences to warm up to them, but they had a run of four top 10 albums from 2006-2015, culminating in the No. 1 Drones. They'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion in support of their new album, The Wow! Signal.

Megan Moroney in concert
The future is bright for country singer Megan Moroney, who quickly caught the attention of fans with her 2023 debut album, Lucky, and went even higher with her quick follow-up, Am I Okay?, in 2024, which went to No. 3 on the Billboard Country chart. She's reached the top of the mountain with her new album, the appropriately titled Cloud 9, which went to No. 1 on both the Billboard Country chart and the overall Billboard 200. She'll play at American Airlines Center, joined by JP Saxe and Solon Holt.

Theatre Arlington presents 33 Variations
You don’t have to know Beethoven to find yourself thoroughly absorbed by the theatricality with which playwright Moises Kaufman has tied a historic event. The legendary mystery surrounding one of Beethoven’s compositions links to a drama about a fatally ill Beethoven scholar, her relationship with her daughter, and the daughter’s burgeoning romance. Drama, memory, and music combine to transport audiences from present-day New York to 19th century Austria in this American play. The production runs through August 30 at Theatre Arlington.

Saturday, August 15

Train in concert
Train comes to Dallas as part of The Drops of Jupiter: 25 Years in The Atmosphere Tour. The tour features Train’s most iconic, chart-topping hits, including “Hey, Soul Sister,” “Drops of Jupiter,” “Drive By,” and more from their catalog spanning three decades. The band has released 11 albums in their career, most recently AM Gold in 2022. They'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion.

Joshua Henry in Concert with the Plano Symphony Orchestra: "Get Up, Stand Up!"
The Plano Symphony Orchestra will welcome Broadway star Joshua Henry in concert in “Get Up, Stand Up!” A 2026 Tony Award winner for his role as Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime, Henry is a Grammy-winning performer known for his Tony Award-nominated leading roles in Carousel, The Scottsboro Boys, and Violet, as well as for playing Aaron Burr in Hamilton. Henry, who released his debut album, Grow, in 2021, will perform at Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas.

BTS in concert
Arguably the biggest concert(s) of the summer in Dallas-Fort Worth, K-pop band BTS is making their big comeback after a scheduled hiatus that allowed the young band members to complete their compulsory military service in South Korea. Now they're ready to conquer the world again, starting with their new album, Arirang, and a world tour that will include shows on Saturday and Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Sunday, August 16

Hermanos Espinoza in concert
Hermanos Espinoza, led by brothers Joel and Leonel Espinoza, hails from the South Texas city of Edinburg. The regional Mexican music group made their debut in 2022 and immediately broke through with the single "Prueba de Fuego," which notched over 100 million streams. Since then, they've put out a number of other singles and live EPs, finally releasing their debut album, Linaje, earlier this year. They'll play at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving.

Photo courtesy of HYBE

BTS will perform at AT&T Stadium in Arlington on August 15 and 16.

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Movie Review

Korean monster movie Hope delivers thrills despite its lengthy runtime

Photo courtesy of Neon

Hwang Jung-Min and Hoyeon in Hope.

Monster movies can take on all sorts of different flavors, from all-out mayhem to quieter ones where the monster can sometimes be the protagonist. The new South Korean film Hope splits the difference to a degree, delivering action-packed sequences while also attempting to understand the non-humans in a way.

The story starts in medias res, with an unseen creature having already done great damage to a huge bull and laying waste to much of a small Korean town. The local sheriff, Beom Seok (Hwang Jung-Min), tries to take control of the situation in the town, while a group of hunters led by Sung Ki (Zo In-Sung) travel into the nearby woods to see what they can find there.

Thus starts a nearly nonstop, 160-minute epic of each side trying (and mostly failing) to defend themselves against gigantic creatures who seem hellbent on destroying everything in their path. It’s not until 40 minutes into the film that the audience is shown one of the monsters in detail, and the less said the better about what it actually looks like, as the mystery behind it keeps the intrigue going.

That initial section of the film is the best, as Beom Seok — eventually joined by deputy Sung Ae (Hoyeon) — goes on a frantic hunt around the town, always just far enough behind the monster to keep from seeing it. The utter destruction he witnesses and his interactions with various locals are intense and oddly funny, with the hectic conversations he has laced with fear and incredulity over how different people choose to act.

Writer-director Na Hong-jin bounces back and forth between the people in the town and the group in the forest, doing his best to maintain the momentum of the first section. This approach works for a while as each group makes their own discoveries about the creatures and has run-ins with them that more often than not are ill-fated. Using a mixture of relatively good CGI, great production design, and an abundance of gore, the filmmaker shows he knows how to make an effective blockbuster-style film.

The trouble is, he doesn’t know when to stop. Somewhere around the two-hour mark of the movie, the story starts to become repetitive and Hong-jin introduces elements that don’t mesh well with what has come before. For some reason, he decides that some of the creatures should speak, a move that is baffling on several fronts. The biggest one is that they are voiced by English-speaking actors like Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell, but each speaks a non-human language, rendering their performances moot.

Jung-min puts in a fantastic lead performance, one that requires him to vacillate between abject terror and in-control leadership. In-Sung is almost as good, although his character requires him to play one note over and over again. Hoyeon, who some may recognize from Squid Game, delivers an extra shot of energy when she enters the film, something she keeps going despite her character being forced to say some bad lines.

If Hong-jin had kept the focus Hope a little tighter, the sci-fi thriller might have ended up toward the top of this year’s films. But by choosing to extend the story into territories that don’t add much to the plot or make much sense, the filmmaker puts a damper on what was a fun and brutal monster movie.

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Hope is now playing in theaters.

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