Weekend Event Planner

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

There's a nice mix of events happening in and around Fort Worth this weekend, including a timely new theater production, comedy from a '90s legend, more ballet than you can shake a stick at, and a unique arts festival.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, October 6

Stage West Theatre presents Ann
Texas' brassy blue governor Ann Richards is back and brought to vivid life in this one-woman show, presented by Stage West through November 6. The hilarious new play brings you face to face with a complex, colorful, and captivating character bigger than the state from which she hailed.

A Thousand Horses in concert
One of the rising groups on the Nashville Southern rock scene is A Thousand Horses, a quartet that already has a top 5 hit,"Smoke," to their name. Their debut album, 2015's Southernality, made it to No. 3 on the country charts, setting up big expectations for the relatively new group. They are playing at Billy Bob's Texas.

Friday, October 7

Magnolia at the Modern presents Max Rose
Jerry Lewis hasn't exactly disappeared, but seeing him in an acting role is a rare occurrence these days. Max Rose is a story of an aged pianist (Lewis) who learned that his recently deceased wife, Eva, may have cheated on him in the early years of their marriage. The news is just as shocking to his son (Kevin Pollak) and granddaughter (Kerry Bishé), and it leads Max on a journey to track down Eva’s secret lover, Ben (Dean Stockwell). It screens six times through Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Improv Arlington presents Arsenio Hall
If you asked various people where they first saw Arsenio Hall, you’d probably get a number of different answers. But it was the success of his late-night talk show The Arsenio Hall Show that made him a household name. Hall brings his stand-up act back to the stage in this special appearance at Improv Arlington, performing four times through Saturday.

Texas Ballet Theater presents Carmen and Danse à Grande Vitesse
After opening its season last month in Dallas, Texas Ballet Theater is bringing this doubleheader to Bass Performance Hall. The dual show includes Carmen, a cautionary tale of a free spirit with an appetite for life and love who has a chance encounter with fate; and Danse À Grande Vitesse, which propels its dancers through shifting physical and emotional landscapes. There will be four performances through Sunday at Bass Performance Hall.

Saturday, October 8

Near Southside presents ArtsGoggle
Near Southside is transforming its streets, sidewalks, and businesses into a one-day art experience like no other. Area stores clear their walls, rearrange furniture, and open their doors to show off the work of a wide array of local artists. Participants range from a windows-and-doors retailer to restaurants, a co-working space, and a music school. There's also an outdoor street festival for artists, and a stage with live music and performance art.

Flying Saucer Draught Emporium presents BeerFeast 2016
Hundreds of beer lovers will be at BeerFeast at Flying Saucer Draught Emporium to sample highly sought-after, quality craft beers from more than 70 breweries. Tickets include admission to the festival, a 2016 BeerFeast T-shirt, a BeerFeast tasting glass, and a tasting card good for 12 samples of any of the more than 120 festival beers.

The B-52s in concert with The O's
Few groups live on their past the way that the B-52s do. Now celebrating their 40th year, the group will live forever thanks to eternal party songs like "Rock Lobster," "Love Shack," and "Roam." They are joined by local favorites The O's at this fundraising concert at Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts in Arlington, which puts on more than 50 free concerts every year with the money earned from paid concerts like this.

Russian Grand Ballet presents Swan Lake
There's only one opportunity to see this full-length classic production of the world’s most famous ballet, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, featuring Russia’s brightest ballet stars. The combination of pure romanticism, the story about love and deception, and Tchaikovsky’s famous music will be on display at Arlington Music Hall.

Stage West Theatre presents Ann through November 6.

Photo by Buddy Myers

Stage West Theatre presents Ann through November 6.

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Movie Review

Horror film Speak No Evil is a different kind of scary

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and Blumhouse

Scoot McNairy and James McAvoy in Speak No Evil.

Blumhouse Productions has become the premier horror movie company over the past 15 years, starting with 2009’s Paranormal Activity. Over that time they have made all types of scary movies (along with the occasional non-horror), ones that range from silly to gory, ones that will haunt your dreams to ones that are more psychological in nature. Their latest, Speak No Evil, falls in the latter category, playing with perceptions in a way that may not please everybody.

Based on the 2022 Danish film of the same name, it follows Louise and Ben Dalton (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy), an American couple living in London who, as the film begins, are on vacation in Italy with their daughter, Agnes (Alex West Leifer). There, they meet Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Francioni), who are staying at the same hotel with their son, Ant (Dan Hough). After hitting it off, the two couples soon agree for the Daltons to visit Paddy, Ciara, and Ant at their rural home in Ireland.

The visit to Ireland starts off well, but Louise and Ben soon start to feel uncomfortable with a variety of things. Paddy and Ciara’s attitudes toward parenting put the two couples at odds, especially when Paddy is overly critical of Ant, who they say is mute due to a congenital tongue condition. More and more is revealed as the story goes along, with each disclosure seemingly worse than the last.

Written and directed by James Watkins, the film is light on horror but heavy on personal drama and explorations of the human psyche. It might cause more than a few discussions among married couples about what they would do in a similar situation, as much of the story revolves around how people often hide their true feelings for the sake of being polite. Louise’s discomfort comes well before that of Ben, who’s often willing to give Paddy and Ciara the benefit of the doubt, but both of them bite their tongues until it proves impossible to hold back.

The enjoyment of the film by individual viewers will depend on their appetite for scary things. While Paddy and Ciara come off as strange, especially compared with the buttoned-up Louise and Ben, Watkins relies more on the building of tension instead of outright frights for the majority of the film. There’s an explosion of that tautness in the final act, but the time it takes to get to that point may not be fully satisfactory for some.

Instead, the film is character-driven, with the clashing traits at the heart of the drama. Louise and Ben are still struggling to come to terms with their recent move to London, and the stress of that and other marital issues colors many of their scenes. Paddy and Ciara seem to be gaga over each other, but there are signs of cracks that belie their free-spiritedness. The truth is easier to find between the two kids, although Ant’s condition prevents him from being fully forthcoming.

McAvoy has the ability to go from utterly charming to outright terrifying in no time at all, and his performance is what drives the film to be as engaging as it is. Davis is great at showing disbelief or outrage, and she makes sure the audience never trusts Paddy and Ciara. McNairy makes Ben into someone who’s especially timid, giving the chameleonic actor another level to play. Francioni is not as well-known as the other three main actors, but she holds her own.

While the killing and gore is kept to a minimum in Speak No Evil, it succeeds because of the way it pits its characters against each other psychologically. Blumhouse continues to show that they know multiple ways to make horror films, including the awfulness of not knowing when to confront someone over behavior you don’t like.

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Speak No Evil opens in theaters on September 13.

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Horror film Speak No Evil is a different kind of scary