I’ll spare you more penguin videos and bring you instead this carrier pigeon from FrontRow. We’ve started a bit of a new thing—weekend guides for theater, movies, and visual art, in addition to the music one Christopher Mosley puts together each week. Without further ado, I present the week’s new movie releases, with reviews, trailers, ratings, and parties (The Hunger Games is out on DVD today); the weekend’s concerts, including word on a band’s final performance and a little-known group that it is time you heard about; the week in visual art, with reviews, previews, thoughts on a flap over whippersnappers, a new-ish art collective, two museum closings you can’t miss, and all the gallery openings this weekend. And here’s what’s on stage, with reviews of the tremendous tour of Chicago, plus two worthy farces at local theaters. All these things can help your plan your weekend.
Friday
Got a press release yesterday telling me that Mayor Mike is hitting up tonight’s performance of Chicago at the Winspear. His date for the evening is Fort Worth mayor Betsy Price, who he apparently invited “to highlight the growing depth and diversity of arts programming in North Texas.” One wonders if Citizen Mike can support the arts without sending a press release about it. Regardless, Lindsey Wilson says this is one of the best productions of the Kander and Ebb musical she’s ever seen, which includes numerous touring productions, Broadway, and London.
You probably have a good idea of the story–small-time Chicago chorus girl Roxie Hart murders her lover in a jealous rage and concocts a ludicrous story about a burglar. Her cuckolded husband, Amos, happily takes the fall until he realizes that the guy she killed was more home wrecker than house invader. Roxie’s arrested, and faced with the prospect of execution, hires flashy lawyer Billy Flynn to spin her story. I always like the numbers “Cell Block Tango” and “Mr. Cellophane,” but Lindsey says Kecia Lewis-Evans, as Matron “Mama” Morton, delivers a sexy version of “When You’re Good to Mama” that’s reason alone to buy a ticket.
Saturday
The American Vanguards exhibit at the Amon Carter Museum is a must-see, but it closes on Sunday. The museum has put together a fascinating exhibit with art by John Graham, Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning that argues compelling, says Peter Simek, “that innovations in American art of the 1940s and 1950s have their roots in a nascent — and highly inter-connected — avant-garde in New York in the 1930s.” Time for a jaunt to Fort Worth.
Back in Dallas, violinist Daniel Hart, who has recently struck out on his own after stints playing with Broken Social Scene, St. Vincent, and The Polyphonic Spree, has a show at City Tavern. A couple months ago, Dick Sullivan reviewed Hart’s first album, The Orientalist, on FrontRow. Revisit the piece to get a taste of what you’re in for–sonic recalls of foreign places and a wandering spirit. If you like what you hear, the album is available online for a donation of $5 (or more, for those feeling especially generous).
Sunday
Oh boy. For a weird rabbit hole, look no further than the Texas Theatre, which hosts “The Unnamable Blood Bath Film Festival II,” an afternoon celebrating the work of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. It’s a double bill of The Whisperer in Darkness and the silent short The Call of Cthulhu, both faithfully adapted by The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
Meanwhile, American antihero Walt continues his fast track to hell (he’s probably there by now, right? Building a permanent residence or something?) in Breaking Bad‘s fifth and final season. Sundown at the Granada screens episode six on Sunday at 9 pm sharp, but arrive earlier to stake out seats and snag a drink. Reverse happy hour starts early for this, which means $4 Titos and $3 Texas beers.
For more to do this weekend, go here.
