Weekend Event Planner

These are the 14 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

It'll be festival-central this weekend in and around Dallas, with no fewer than four notable festivals taking place. Also on the docket are visits from three funny people, two local theater productions, four different dance productions, and a concert by a big-name singer.

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, April 25

Thin Line Fest
Thin Line is a one-of-a-kind festival featuring the longest running documentary film festival in Texas, a music section featuring a mix of styles from national and regional acts, and a photo section features hundreds of photographs displayed across downtown galleries and online. The festival, running through Sunday will take place at multiple venues around Denton, including Campus Theatre, Dan's Silverleaf, the lawn of the Denton County Courthouse, and more.

Dallas International Film Festival
The 18th Dallas International Film Festival will feature screenings of more than 100 films submitted from more than 60 countries, as well as Q&A sessions with filmmakers and actors, nightly DIFF Red Carpets, a Festival Lounge, and special events. Highlights of the festival include opening night film Dude Perfect: A Very Long Shot, about the local trick shot masters; closing night film Sing Sing starring Oscar nominee Colman Domingo; The Dead Don't Hurt, a Western from writer/director Viggo Mortensen starring Vicky Krieps and Mortensen; Print It Black, a documentary about how journalists in Uvalde, Texas responded to the school shooting at Robb Elementary; and more. Screenings take place at Violet Crown Cinema in Dallas through May 2.

DMA Arts & Letters Live: An Evening with David Sedaris
David Sedaris returns to Arts & Letters Live for an evening of laughter and reflection. With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, Sedaris has become one of America’s preeminent humor writers. At this event, taking place at McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus, he will read new and unpublished material, answer questions from the audience, and sign books.

Friday, April 26

City of Grand Prairie presents Main Street Fest
The City of Grand Prairie Parks, Arts & Recreation Department will present the annual Main Street Fest. The event will include live music from Mark Chesnutt, Michael Salgado, and Parliament Funkadelic feat. George Clinton, carnival rides, arts & crafts, food & beverage gardens, an array of entertainment at the Kidzone, and more. The festival takes place through Sunday along Main Street in Grand Prairie.

Garland Civic Theatre presents You Can't Take It With You
The family of Martin Vanderhof lives “just around the corner from Columbia University - but don’t go looking for it.” Grandpa, as Martin is more commonly known, is the paterfamilias of a large and extended family of charming eccentrics. His granddaughter, Alice, is an attractive and loving girl who is still embarrassed by her family’s idiosyncrasies. When Alice falls for her boss, Tony, a handsome scion of Wall Street, she fears that their two families - so unlike in manner, politics, and finances - will never come together. The production runs through May 12 at Granville Arts Center in Garland.

Improv Addison presents Maz Jobrani
Maz Jobrani is a comedian, actor and best-selling author of I'm Not a Terrorist But I've Played One on TV. His latest standup comedy special, 2023's The Birds & the Bees, is now available for streaming on YouTube. He is also a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. He'll perform five times through Sunday at Improv Addison.

Over the Bridge Arts presents Younger Than Dirt
Younger Than Dirt is a new collaborative dance which aims to re-examine common cultural attitudes and assumptions toward different stages of life, from dating to mating, through growing up to growing old-er, all through an artistic lens of humor and poignancy. The production will have performances on Friday and Saturday at Bath House Cultural Center.

Bianca Del Rio: Dead Inside Comedy Tour
Bianca Del Rio, otherwise known as Roy Haylock, is a dimple-cheeked, larger-than-life drag queen and outrageous comic who isn’t afraid to shock and offend. Fierce, funny, and fabulous, she has sandblasted her name in the annals of pop culture on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Thanks to her snarky frankness, impeccable timing, and politically incorrect humor, she became the show’s breakout star, winning its sixth season. She'll perform at Majestic Theatre.

Saturday, April 27

Festival of Joy
At the Festival of Joy, visitors can kick off spring with a colorful celebration of spirituality and Indian culture. The day at Klyde Warren Park will be filled with bright colors, beautiful flowers, and a free vegetarian feast, along with music, dance, and interactive holistic living and cultural exhibits. There will also be a special evening stage performance by Gaura Vani, an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary artist fluent in music, film and the visual arts.

Dallas Children's Theater presents C.S. Lewis’ The Magician's Nephew
In this prequel to C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, young Digory wants nothing more than to save his ailing mother. When Digory's eccentric, bumbling magician uncle tricks him and his neighbor Polly into a world between worlds, they accidentally awaken Jadis, an evil queen who sets her sights on their own home of London. Realism and fantasy collide in this classic adventure story of good versus evil. Mythical kingdoms and deep magic await, and Narnia is born. The production runs through May 25 at Dallas Children's Theater.

World Ballet Series: Swan Lake
Swan Lake will be performed as part of the World Ballet Series. Audiences can see the iconic Dance of the Little Swans, count the 32 fouettés performed by Odile, and immerse themselves in magical Tchaikovsky's music. The production will feature richly detailed, hand-painted sets as well as over 150 radiant costumes that bring fresh representation to this timeless classic. There will be two performances on Saturday at Majestic Theatre.

TITAS / Dance Unbound presents Command Performance
At Command Performance, artists from leading companies light up the stage with spectacular, surprising, jaw-dropping performances. It is the pyrotechnics of dance - the most exciting, innovative and beautiful works being performed today. Command Performance, taking place at Winspear Opera House, also features TITAS/Dance Unbound commissioned works created specifically for this gala performance.

Ballet North Texas presents Sonata
The final production of Ballet North Texas' season, Sonata, will be a performance that encapsulates the rich history of dance. The program will celebrate both established and emerging choreographers, paying homage to the music that inspired them and the movements it ignited. There will be performances on both Saturday and Sunday at Moody Performance Hall.

Sunday, April 28

Hozier in concert
Way back in 2013, Irish singer Hozier took the music world by storm with his hit song, "Take Me to Church," off of his self-titled debut album. Although he's had some minor hits in the intervening 11 years, it's taken until 2024 for him to reach those heights again with his recent No. 1 hit, "Too Sweet." He'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion in support of his 2023 album, Unreal Unearth and recently-released EP, Unheard.

Photo courtesy of Festival of Joy

The 5th Annual Festival of Joy takes place at Klyde Warren Park on April 27.

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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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