Weekend Event Planner

These are the 7 best things to do in Fort Worth this weekend

It's Memorial Day weekend, which means plenty of people will have made plans to head out of town for a few days. For those who are staying local, you can check out a pro golf tournment, the final performances of the season by a top dance company, a new local theater production, feline films, and more.

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

Thursday, May 24

Fort Worth Invitational
The PGA Tour's annual stop in Fort Worth has gone by a few different names, most recently the Dean & DeLuca Invitational (despite there not being a Dean & DeLuca store in the state of Texas). But no matter the name, it still attracts some of the tour's top talent, including Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Zach Johnson, Adam Scott, Ryan Palmer, and Jason Dufner. The tournament takes place at Colonial Country Club through Sunday.

Friday, May 25

Magnolia at the Modern: Finding Your Feet
The Magnolia at the Modern series will present Finding Your Feet, about a middle-class, judgmental snob (Imelda Staunton) who, on the eve of retirement, discovers her husband has been having an affair with her best friend. She is then forced into exile with her bohemian sister (Celia Imrie). The film will screen seven times through Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Sundance Square presents Nissan Nightlife Concert Series: Quaker City Night Hawks
The Nissan Nightlife Concert Series will come to an end with a performance by Quaker City Night Hawks. Nissan will bring out the “TEXAS” letters for a fun photo-op for the whole family. Lawn chairs and blankets are welcome during the concert. Beverages will be available for purchase during the performances, and restaurants will be open throughout the evening.

Texas Ballet Theater presents Swan Lake
Texas Ballet Theater will close its 2017-2018 season with Swan Lake, featuring orchestral accompaniment. This classic tale of a mischievous sorcerer, Von Rothbart, and his spell on Princess Odette is one performed by companies around the world, but Stevenson’s Swan Lake is condensed into two acts instead of four. The production will have five performances through Sunday at Bass Performance Hall before moving to Dallas next weekend.

Jubilee Theatre presents Stick Fly
Stick Fly is a family affair drama that unveils the affluent, African-American LeVay family gathering at their Martha’s Vineyard home for the weekend. Brothers Kent and Flip have each brought their respective ladies home to meet their parents for the first time. As the two newcomers butt heads over issues of race and privilege, longstanding family tensions bubble under the surface and reach a boiling point when secrets are revealed. The production will run at Jubilee Theatr through June 24.

Saturday, May 26

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth presents NY Cat Film Festival
The NY Cat Film Festival is a medley of short films, documentary and narrative, that honor the mysterious felines who have fascinated mankind for centuries. Cats have their own unique and indescribable bond with people, even when living independently as community cats. This festival celebrates that attachment while giving back to animal welfare groups that protect cats and elevate their status. The films will screen twice on Saturday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Sunday, May 27

Omni Fort Worth Hotel presents Cowtown Unplugged
Omni Fort Worth Hotel will present the third installment of “Cowtown Unplugged: A Songwriter’s Showcase.” The lineup features performances by three country music singer-songwriters, including headliner Radney Foster, Matraca Berg with special guest Jeff Hanna of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Grady Spencer. The show will be emceed by New Country 96.3 host Hawkeye. The concert is open only to guests of the Omni who purchase a special package.

Jordan Spieth and many other PGA Tour players compete in the Fort Worth Invitational, taking place May 24-27.

Jordan Spieth/Facebook

Jordan Spieth and many other PGA Tour players compete in the Fort Worth Invitational, taking place May 24-27.

event-planner

Movie Review

The Apprentice looks back at formative years of Donald Trump

Photo courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment

Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice.

Before he was elected president, Donald Trump was a New York businessman who transitioned into a reality TV show host that played upon his bombastic personality. His effect on American politics over the past eight years would not have been possible without his early experiences, some of which are explored in the new film whose title cheekily references that reality show, The Apprentice.

It introduces viewers who may not know the entire history of Trump (Sebastian Stan) to his relationship with lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who was known for using all sorts of sleazy tactics to win cases. The film shows Trump meeting Cohn in the early 1970s, right when the Trump Corporation, then led by Fred Trump (Martin Donovan), was being sued for violating the Fair Housing Act for not renting to Black people.

Cohn’s success at limiting the damage in that case leads Trump to fall in love with the way Cohn approaches life, and he proceeds to call upon him for advice and help in many aspects of his own life. These include trying to strong-arm New York City officials into giving Trump a big tax break on his first hotel, setting up an odious prenuptial agreement with Trump’s soon-to-be bride, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), and more.

Directed by Ali Abbasi and written by Gabriel Sherman, the film is both crystal clear in how it wants Trump to be portrayed and yet somewhat subtle in the way it goes about it. Opening with Richard Nixon’s infamous “I am not a crook” speech, the parallels between that fallen president and one who would go on to be indicted for many crimes while president aren’t at all difficult to parse. And yet, the filmmakers do a good job of methodically building their case for how he became the person he is today.

This includes showing the young(er) Trump as somewhat awkward and out of his depth, literally going door-to-door to collect rent at Trump Village apartments and still having family dinner with the whole Trump clan. Learning at the heels of Cohn builds his confidence, especially after Cohn reveals three rules that he lives by: 1) Attack, attack, attack, 2) Admit nothing, deny everything, and 3) Claim victory, and never admit defeat.

Because it’s a two-hour film, the truth of what it’s depicting likely falls somewhere on the spectrum of another thing Cohn tells Trump: “There is no truth.” Still, there are factual bases for much of what the film dramatizes, and even the sequences that might be made up completely fall right in line with the type of man who still refuses to admit that he lost the 2020 election. When Trump and Cohn essentially switch roles as the bully and the wimp when the film moves from the ‘70s to the ‘80s, it comes as no surprise.

Stan, in his second starring role in two weeks, does a fantastic job of evolving the character of Trump. He eases into the verbal and physical traits for which Trump is now known, and the slow build helps him tremendously. Cohn is easy to hate as a real person, but love as a movie character, and Strong bursts off the screen with his performance. He is an early favorite for Best Supporting Actor, utterly transforming into a despicable person from which you want to hear every horrible syllable.

Because of Trump’s overwhelming recent influence on American society, The Apprentice is next-to-impossible to view in an unbiased manner. And the filmmakers likely don’t want you to, as they are obviously trying to demonstrate how Trump has long been this way, and it took him becoming president for the whole world to see it.

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The Apprentice is now playing in theaters.

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