Weekend Event Planner

These are the 9 best things to do in Fort Worth this Valentine's weekend

While many events in and around Fort Worth have either been postponed or canceled during the coronavirus pandemic, organizations have pivoted to virtual or socially-distanced events to continue offering the masses some entertainment while we need it the most.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this Valentine's Day weekend. While not every event is out of the house, they all promise to provide a nice distraction from the everyday life. And if you're still looking for ways to treat your beloved, here's a list of top restaurants for Valentine's dining, and here's a roundup of decadent desserts.

Thursday, February 11

Fort Worth Opera presents Moonlight Film Fest with the Metropolitan Opera
Fort Worth Opera will present the Moonlight Film Fest with the Metropolitan Opera, a festival taking place weekly over the course of three weeks at Coyote Drive-In. The second opera to be shown will be La Bohème, the production on which the musical Rent was based, which follows a group of artists struggling to survive in 1830s Paris.

Casa Mañana presents Bennett & Babs
Presented in the Reid Cabaret on the Mainstage at Casa Mañana Theatre, Bennett & Babs will feature Broadway veterans Jackie Burns and Joe Cassidy singing tunes like “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “The Way We Were,” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Guests can order drinks tableside and enjoy a socially distanced evening. The show, which is suitable for most audiences, plays through Sunday.

Friday, February 12

Magnolia at the Modern: Two of Us
Two retired women, Nina and Madeleine, have been secretly in love for decades. Everybody, including Madeleine’s family, thinks they are simply neighbors, sharing the top floor of their building. They come and go between their two apartments, enjoying the affection and pleasures of daily life together, until an unforeseen event turns their lives upside down. The film, which is in French with English subtitles, will screen five times through Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Trinity Metro presents FWO GO: All About Love (UPDATE: Due to the cold weather, both concerts will now be held indoors. The Crockett Row event will be inside Crockett Hall.)
Fort Worth Opera will partner with Trinity Metro to present All About Love, a Valentine’s Day edition of FWO GO, the company’s live, socially distanced pop-up concert series. There will be two 30-minute concerts — the first outside the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth at 6 pm, and then at Crockett Row, outside of Mash’d, at 8 pm — filled with arias, show tunes, and art songs about love. The show features two of Fort Worth Opera’s talented Lesley Resident Artists, Darius Thomas and Megan Koch.

Avant Chamber Ballet presents Still Growing + 19th Amendment
Avant Chamber Ballet will present Madison Hicks’ Still Growing and Katie Puder’s 19th Amendment as their next performance for the 2020-21 virtual season. Still Growing is a response to our experiences in 2020 and features music by Max Richter. 19th Amendment commemorates the 100th anniversary of the ratification of a woman’s right to vote. The production will be available to stream at any time through June 30.

Read Southall Band in concert
The Read Southall Band formed out of the local songwriting scene in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 2015 following the success of Southall's debut solo album, Six String Sorrow. The country band went on to release their first album, Borrowed Time, in 2017. They'll play at Billy Bob's Texas.

Saturday, February 13

Texas Live presents An Evening with Jason Boland & The Stragglers
Members of the Red Dirt/Texas Country genre, Jason Boland & The Stragglers are actually a product of Oklahoma, having gotten their start when Boland and drummer Brad Rice met at Oklahoma State University. But they've proved their Texas bona fides since then, with one of their albums named Live and Lit at Billy Bob's Texas. They'll play a special limited capacity show at Texas Live in Arlington.

Amphibian Stage Productions presents Love Sucks
Amphibian Stage Productions will present an online evening of comedy, music, and fun surprises. Eric Jon Mahlum will host comedians Lauren Davis, MK Paulsen, Erin Harper, Dante Martinez, and Hannah Vaughan, who will tell tales of love gone wrong, questionable dating advice, and maybe even tap dancing.

Ballet Frontier presents Swan Lake
Ballet Frontier will present the hauntingly beautiful classical ballet, Swan Lake. The ballet features Tchaikovsky's dynamic score, brand new sets & costumes, and iconic choreography. The theater will only have 30 percent capacity, and masks and temperature checks will be required upon entry and throughout the performance. There will be performances on both Saturday and Sunday at I.M. Terrell Academy.

Trinity Metro presents FWO GO: All About Love on February 12.

Photo courtesy of Fort Worth Opera

Trinity Metro presents FWO GO: All About Love on February 12.

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Movie Review

We Live in Time takes unusual approach to give cancer saga a new twist

Photo by Peter Mountain/courtesy of A24

Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in We Live in Time.

The art of filmmaking is one that can be done in myriad ways, although the vast majority of them tend to follow the three-act structure of telling a story linearly from beginning to end. Filmmakers that play around with that structure, as is done in aptly-named We Live in Time, must find sufficient ways in which to involve viewers or they risk undercutting the power of the story they’re trying to tell.

Within the first few minutes of the film, it has shown scenes featuring Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield) in the midst of early love, interacting with their young daughter, and reacting to the news of a cancer diagnosis for Almut. Two of those revelations are ones that are typically held back in a story focused on the romance of one couple, so the fact that they’re shown right away is an indication that director John Crowley and writer Nick Payne have great confidence in their ability to keep viewers hooked.

The film continues its transmogrification of time throughout, sometimes stopping to show a few scenes in a row from one period in Almut and Tobias’ life together, but more often than not mixing them up as a way of comparing and contrasting how alike or different they are. Each scene builds upon the next to paint a picture of the couple’s unique love.

Organizing the film as a traditional narrative would have been the safe way to go for the filmmakers, as it has all the hallmarks of the grand romance turned tearjerker. This mixing up of the story definitely makes it stand out, although the results are hit-and-miss. When Crowley sticks with one timeline longer than he had previously, it helps to connect with the two main characters. When he goes through the multiple times rapidly, it forces the audience to play catch up, slightly hampering the story’s progress.

The scenes that work the best are the ones depicting the couple’s burgeoning bond, as it shows who they were as individuals and what they were becoming together. The film mostly elides the age gap between the two actors (Garfield is 41, Pugh is 28), and that’s for the best as the characters have an affinity for one another that transcends any other concerns.

As the film progresses, it does become a little difficult to keep the timelines straight. The story contains certain markers that aid in the storytelling, but the rapidity with which Crowley goes back and forth between different times, as well as similar looks for the two stars, leads to questions about when a certain segment is taking place.

Even if the story is not quite as powerful as it could have been, both Pugh and Garfield put in great performances. The former Oscar nominees each have a way of saying a lot with just their faces, and their expressiveness often does more to elicit emotions than the story itself. Few other actors get much time to make much of an impact, but Lee Braithwaite makes a nice impression as a sous chef to Almut, who is an acclaimed chef.

Going the linear route might have helped the legibility of the story of We Live in Time, but it also would have made it the same as most other films in its genre. The strength of the narrative is somewhat muted by its early reveals, but it still has a very affecting arc for the central couple, aided by two award-worthy actors demonstrating their significant talents.

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We Live in Time opens in theaters on October 18.

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