Weekend Event Planner

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

This weekend around Dallas is dominated by concerts, seven in total, with four of them featuring acts still riding high on music they released long ago. There will also be two new theater productions, the start of a unique Biblical exhibition, two great comedy events, and the end of a milestone art exhibition.

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

Thursday, August 24

Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper: "Freaks on Parade" 2023 Tour
Shock rockers Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper are joining forces to co-headline the 2023 "Freaks on Parade" Tour. Cooper is as long-lasting as they come, having released albums in seven different decades, including 2023's Road. Zombie truly lives up to his reputation, with seven albums with scary-sounding titles, most recently 2021's The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy. They'll be joined at Dos Equis Pavilion by supporting acts Ministry and Filter.

Lyric Stage presents Cinderella
Lyric Stage opens its 30th season with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. The adaptation of the timeless fairytale brings new spirit to the story of a young woman forced into servitude who dreams of – and achieves – a better life. The musical features some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beloved songs, including “In My Own Little Corner,” “Impossible,” and “Ten Minutes Ago.” The production will have five performances through Sunday at Majestic Theatre.

Carin León in concert
Mexican singer/songwriter Carin León has been taking the Latin music world by storm since releasing his debut album, El Malo, in 2019. He's now released three albums in four years, including the new Colmillo de Leche, which marked his first entry onto both the Top Latin Albums and Regional Mexican Albums charts on Billboard. He's developed quite the following, as indicated by this concert taking place at American Airlines Center.

Friday, August 25

50 Cent in concert
Rapper 50 Cent comes to Dallas as part his "The Final Lap" Tour. He will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of his 2003 debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin', performing dozens of fan-favorite and chart-topping hits along with select tracks that have not been performed live in years. He'll be joined at Dos Equis Pavilion by special guests Busta Rhymes and Jeremih.

Theatre Arlington presents Avenue Q
Avenue Q is a puppet-filled comedy (for adults) that follows a group of twenty-somethings seeking their purpose in big-city life. The laugh-out-loud musical tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton, who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q. He soon discovers that, although the residents seem nice, it’s clear that this is not your ordinary neighborhood. The production runs through September 10 at Theatre Arlington.

Randall King in concert
A throwback to classic country, Randall King formed an Americana group in college called the Randall King Band, which released an album called Old Dirt Road before splitting. He then debuted as a solo artist in 2016 with the EP Another Bullet before releasing his first self-titled album in 2018. He'll play at Longhorn Ballroom in support of his 2022 album, Shot Glass.

Hyena's presents Helen Hong
A fan favorite on the hit NPR podcast Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Helen Hong has been a recurring character on HBO's Silicon Valley, CBS' The Unicorn, and others. She will perform four times through Saturday at Hyena's in Mockingbird Station.

Saturday, August 26

Kidz Bop "Never Stop Live" Tour
The Kidz Bop Never Stop Live Tour introduces four new Kidz Bop Kids - Jackson, Kiya, Shila, and Tyler - who will perform today's biggest hits live on stage. Kidz Bop is touring in support of their album Kidz Bop 2023, which includes pop hits like "Anti-Hero," "About That Time," "Sunroof," and "Late Night Talking." The concert takes place at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving.

Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo in concert
Fans know and love Pat Benatar for hit songs like "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," "Love Is a Battlefield," "We Belong," and more. The name Neil Giraldo may not be as familiar, but the guitarist has been Benatar's musical partner since 1979, and her husband since 1982. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together in 2022, they will play at Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie.

Sunday, August 27

Nasher Sculpture Center presents Mark di Suvero: "Steel Like Paper" closing day
After seven months, Mark di Suvero’s “Steel Like Paper” will come to a close at Nasher Sculpture Center. The milestone exhibition of the sculptor’s more than six-decade career surveys di Suvero’s work, showing rarely-seen drawings and paintings along with small and moderately scaled sculptures, as well as some of the artist’s first forays into working at a large scale.

Please Don’t Destroy Live
The comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy - Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy - performed live sketch together all over New York City before they landed their current gig, writing and making videos for Saturday Night Live. Videos like “Three Sad Virgins” featuring Taylor Swift and Pete Davidson, “Good Variant,” “Hard Seltzer," “The Stakeout,” “Hangxiety,” and more have made them an invaluable part of the legendary program. They'll perform live at The Factory in Deep Ellum.

Summer Block Party featuring Jodeci, SWV, and Dru Hill
Fans of '90s R&B will want to be on hand for the Summer Block Party, as it will feature performances by Jodeci, SWV, and Dru Hill. Each of the groups was a mainstay on the Billboard R&B charts in the '90s, with Jodeci having the most success with three No. 1 albums. They'll play all the hits at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory.

Photo by Hannah Bell

Theatre Arlington presents Avenue Q, August 25-September 10.

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Movie review

Over-the-top The Bride! makes other Frankenstein movies seem subtle

Photo by Niko Tavernise

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley in The Bride!.

The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is now over 200 years old, with Mary Shelley’s book having been adapted or referenced in close to 500 films. Less common is the character of The Bride of Frankenstein, which existed in the original text but has more often than not been excised in adaptations. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has tried to rectify that by giving the character a big showcase in her new film, The Bride!.

Gyllenhaal has reimagined the story as one in which a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) becomes possessed by the spirit of Shelley (also Buckley). At the same time, the already-existing Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) approaches Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who specializes in reanimation, with the request to make him a wife. When Ida falls to her death in an “accident” involving her boyfriend (John Magaro), the ideal corpse becomes available.

After Ida’s resurrection, she and the monster become restless being studied by Dr. Euphronius and decide to break out to experience the world. The world, naturally, is not exactly welcoming to them, and soon the couple are on the run for causing mayhem, including a few murders. In hot pursuit are detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), as well as other authorities.

It’s clear that Gyllenhaal wanted to merge the Frankenstein story with Bonnie & Clyde, especially since she sets the film in the mid-1930s. And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea if having the monster and The Bride going on a crime spree was truly the focus of the movie. But most of the time there’s less intentionality in their misdeeds and more confusion, leading to a muddled plot with no clear direction or end goal in mind.

One of the biggest problems is that Gyllenhaal starts the energy of the film at an 11, giving her and everyone else nowhere to go but down. She dabbles in multiple different tones, at times going the straight drama route and other times making what seems like full-on camp. At one point, she even has the monster and the Bride in a dance sequence set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which would be hilarious as an homage to Young Frankenstein if the film weren’t so disjointed.

Most baffling of all is what Gyllenhaal wants from The Bride character. She morphs multiple times over the course of the film, from close to unintelligible at the beginning to rough-and-tumble at the end. There are hints at the lack of control she has over her autonomy, including Shelley’s possession of her and the monster lying to her about her past, but any commentary that Gyllenhaal might be trying to make gets lost amid the oddity of the film as a whole.

Both Buckley and Bale are all-in for their performances, which definitely fall in the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Each scene is pitched so high that there’s little nuance to either of them, and neither is on par with their previous Oscar-caliber roles. The high-powered supporting cast of Bening, Sarsgaard, Cruz, and Jake Gyllenhaal is watchable based on previous roles, but none of them elevate this particular movie.

Whatever intentions Maggie Gyllenhaal had in making The Bride! are only halfway legible in a film that can never find its tonal footing. There has rarely been subtlety in movies featuring Frankenstein’s monster and related characters, but this one makes all the others seem like stuffy dramas in comparison.

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The Bride! is now playing in theaters.

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