Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Fort Worth this weekend

The first full weekend in September will be one to appreciate some of the best that Fort Worth has to offer. That includes a festival showcasing a variety of performing arts, a pops concert from a symphony orchestra, an appreciation of area art galleries, and a new theater production. You can also see an acclaimed new film and celebrate items from movies and TV shows.

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.

Friday, September 7

Fort Worth Fringe Fest
The Fort Worth Fringe Fest, co-produced by Texas Nonprofit Theatres and the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, features a variety of different acts that include lesser-produced theater, dance, burlesque, puppetry, poetry, and more. The festival, which welcomes performers from all over the state of Texas and beyond, will be at Fort Worth Community Arts Center on Friday and Saturday.

Magnolia at the Modern Film presents The Wife
For all of the acclaim given to Glenn Close over her 40-year career, she has never won an Oscar — despite being nominated six times. Word on the street is that drought might come to end thanks to her role in The Wife, in which she plays the titular wife, Joan Castleman, who questions her life choices after her husband, Joe (Jonathan Pryce), wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. The film will screen six times through Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Pops Series presents Superhero Soundtrack
Dust off your cape and come dressed as your favorite superhero (or villain) for a concert that will take you up, up, and away. The concert, which will be performed three times through Sunday at Bass Performance Hall, will feature some of the most memorable superhero themes of all time from blockbusters like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Supergirl, and X-Men: The Last Stand. There will also be a kid-friendly version performed on Saturday morning.

Saturday, September 8

Fort Worth Galactic Swag Expo
The Galactic Swag Expo is a family-friendly celebration of all things sci-fi, movies, comics, games, makers, and cosplay. Along with comic, movie and game artists and writers, the expo will showcase a full scale Millennium Falcon cockpit from Star Wars, Rick & Morty Flying Saucer, Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine, 1966 Batmobile from Batman TV Show, Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, and more. The expo will be at Will Rogers Memorial Center through Sunday.

Fort Worth Art Dealers Association Fall Gallery Night
The Fort Worth Art Dealers Association will present its Fall Gallery night, where visitors can take in the visual arts and the community’s unique cultural richness. Most participants are open from 12-9 pm. Visitors can take a stroll through participating galleries, museums, retail businesses, and area restaurants, and enjoy the many artists featured during this community event. Go to the event website for a full list of participating galleries.

Casa Mañana presents Hello, Dolly!
Casa Mañana presents Hello, Dolly! as the first show of its 2018-2019 Broadway Season. Hello, Dolly!, which debuted on Broadway in 1964, follows the life of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a self-proclaimed professional matchmaker who travels to New York to find a match for a half-a-millionaire and decides that match will be herself. The musical will run through September 16.

Matt & Kim in concert with Michael Christmas
Indie electronic duo Matt & Kim remain largely under the mainstream radar despite having released six albums in their career, including 2018's Almost Everyday. Those who are in the know already appreciate their upbeat music, and thanks to this concert at Texas Live in Arlington, everyone else gets a chance to enjoy their high-energy live show. They'll be joined by opening act Michael Christmas.

Sunday, September 9

Sid Richardson Museum presents Frederic Remington: "Altered States" closing day
After more than a year, Sid Richardson Museum will close the Frederic Remington: "Altered States" exhibit, which features artworks with alterations, made either by the artist or by others. However, Remington, a popular artist and illustrator in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, will have another exhibit of his work, "Another Frontier: Frederic Remington's East," on display at the museum starting September 14.

Matt & Kim will play at Texas Live in Arlington on September 8.

Matt and Kim/Facebook

Matt & Kim will play at Texas Live in Arlington on September 8.

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Movie Review

Oscar-worthy film A Complete Unknown digs deeply into Bob Dylan

Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown.

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.

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A Complete Unknown opens in theaters on December 25.

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