This weekend in San Antonio you can rock out with a Texas music legend or dance with the stars. For a full list of happenings in Alamo City, visit our events calendar.
Thursday, July 13
Classic Theatre presents Burning Patience Teatro Farolito brings the premiere of Burning Patience to San Antonio as part of the Classic Presents series. The beloved production, which was later adapted to the screen in the 1994 film Il Postino: The Postman, closes this weekend. Performances through Sunday.
Friday, July 14
Jimmie Vaughan in concert with Lou Ann Barton Texas music legend Jimmie Vaughan, founding member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds and renowned guitarist, takes the stage at the Aztec Theatre for one night only.
Saturday, July 15
Dancing with the Stars Live! - Hot Summer Nights Hit television show Dancing with the Stars is bringing the magic to the Majestic Theatre for one night. Fans will watch dazzling live performances by cast members, including 2017 winning team Rashad Jennings and Emma Slater, plus many more stars.
Ghostland Observatory in concert Austin-based electro-rock group Ghostland Observatory plays Whitewater Amphitheater in support of their 2015 EP, Life of the Party. Tickets are still available.
Sunday, July 16
2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup San Antonio is one of nine cities hosting early round games of the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Head to the Alamodome to watch Jamaica play El Salvador and Curacao go up against Mexico.
Dancing with the Stars brings the magic to the Majestic Theatre this Saturday.
Photo courtesy of Dancing with the Stars Live
Dancing with the Stars brings the magic to the Majestic Theatre this Saturday.
Music biopics never seem to go out of style, although they’re rarely very good because most of them tend to tell the same story. A musician/band gets discovered, rises to popularity, experiences trouble at their peak due to (insert sex/drugs/alcohol/ego), and either finds a measure of redemption once they’ve been sufficiently humbled or dies due to their lack of control.
Paradoxically, what few music biopics fail to do is properly showcase the music that made the person popular in the first place, a mistake that A Complete Unknown doesn’t repeat, becoming a smashing success in the process. The film follows Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) over a roughly four-year period from when he first arrived in New York City in 1961 to his then-revolutionary electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
Dylan seeks out well-known folk singers Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and an ailing Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) when he first arrives, with Seeger taking him under his wing. Dylan starts to establish himself in the local club scene with his unique songwriting voice, meeting fellow singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), with whom he starts an on-and-off relationship. As his popularity grows, his reaction is antithetical to what’s expected, as he rarely engages with fans and focuses on his next song(s) instead of the ones for which he became known.
Directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line) and written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, the film may not be much of a revelation for Dylan superfans, but for casual fans or those who know nothing about him, it is one of the most effective music biopics in recent memory, if not ever. Not only does Mangold track the musical evolution of Dylan, but he gives the full context of the people who influenced him most, including Guthrie, Seeger, Baez, and more.
The film is not a musical in the traditional sense, but the amount of music in it makes it the next best thing. Rarely does more than a few minutes go by before someone is singing, either on stage, for someone close to them, or as part of the songwriting process. Whether you’re a folk music fan or not, the way the genre is showcased in the film will make you believe in its power and why it was so popular at that particular point in time.
Dylan is famous for his enigmatic personality, and Mangold does a great job of maintaining that elusiveness while still exploring what drove Dylan early in his career. His relationships with Baez and the fictional Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) give him some dimension, but why he continually went back-and-forth between them (or why they put up with him) is only lightly explored. The film keeps most of the drama focused on the music, and it’s this decision that makes it as compelling as it is.
Chalamet has been “The Next Big Thing” since his Oscar nomination for Call Me By Your Name, but the combination of the Duneseries, Wonka, and now this has firmly established him as the star he is. His Dylan impersonation (including singing) is subtle-yet-clear, and he has the cool factor that makes him completely believable in the role. The supporting cast is also off-the-charts good, with Norton and Barbaro making the best cases for awards notice.
While 2024 has had its fair share of great movies, A Complete Unknown — in this critic’s opinion — should now be the favorite to win Best Picture at next year’s Oscars. It bucks the trend of mediocre music biopics by giving moviegoers the transporting feeling of what it was like to experience Dylan’s meteoric rise, and why his early songs remain so indelible.