Weekend Event Planner

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

While many events in and around Fort Worth have either been postponed or canceled during the coronavirus pandemic, some 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 over the long Christmas weekend. While not every event is out of the house, they all promise to provide a nice distraction from the everyday life.

If you're looking for restaurants to take guests over the holidays, click here. If you're looking for the best Christmas lights around town, click here.

Wednesday, December 23

Holiday events galore
There is no shortage of in-person, drive-thru, and virtual holiday events to see, and most of them will be available every day this weekend. Options include Texas Christkindl Market, Lone Star Christmas, Jingle All the Way, Holiday in the Park, Luminova Holidays, Radiance!, Gift of Lights, and The Nutcracker.

Dinosaur Drive-Thru
Taking place in the parking lot at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Arlington, Dinosaur Drive-Thru features over 60 animatronic dinosaurs. Throughout the 45-minute show, visitors will stay in their vehicles to see dinosaurs displayed in chronological order, which will go along with an interactive audio tour guide describing all of the interesting facts, and some jokes, about each dinosaur, in both English and Spanish. The show will take place on various days through January 10.

Friday, December 25

Casey Donahew in concert
Country singer Casey Donahew had a nice run of success on the national country music scene, charting four straight albums in the top 10 on the Billboard Country charts in the 2010s, including the No. 3 All Night Party. He hasn't let the time of quarantine slow him down, releasing an all-acoustic album, Lost My Brother's Goat, earlier this year. He'll play a special Christmas show at Billy Bob's Texas.

Saturday, December 26

CBS Sports Classic: Gonzaga vs. Virginia
College basketball fans will get a belated Christmas present when the No. 1 team in the nation, the Gonzaga Bulldogs, face off against the No. 16 Virginia Cavaliers in the CBS Sports Classic at Dickies Arena. Gonzaga is already a formidable team, having beaten Kansas (currently ranked No. 3), West Virginia (currently ranked No. 7), and Iowa (currently ranked No. 4).

Magnolia at the Modern: Wild Mountain Thyme
Headstrong farmer Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Blunt) has her heart set on winning her neighbor Anthony Reilly's love. The problem is Anthony (Jamie Dornan) seems to have inherited a family curse and remains oblivious to his beautiful admirer. Stung by his father Tony's (Christopher Walken) plans to sell the family farm to his American nephew (Jon Hamm), Anthony is jolted into pursuing his dreams in this comedic and romantic tale. The film will screen three times through Sunday and three times January 2-3 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Flatland Cavalry in concert
Flatland Cavalry, a country/Americana band from Lubbock that has released an EP and two studio albums, has experienced a modicum of national success, with their first album, Humble Folks, peaking at No. 38 on the Billboard Country charts. They'll play at Billy Bob's Texas in support of their 2019 album, Homeland Insecurity.

Sunday, December 27

Rodney Carrington in concert
There are many entertainers who try their hand at multiple disciplines, but Rodney Carrington might be the only country music singer/stand-up comedian working today. Much of his material, which includes six albums dating back to 1998, is of the, shall we say, dirtier variety, making him an acquired taste. He'll perform at Billy Bob's Texas.

Claws Out Comedy presents Sunday Night Spotlight
Tulips FTW will host their first comedy showcase since opening their doors last month. Claws Out Comedy's Sunday Night Spotlight will feature stand-up performances by Josh Johnson, M.K. Paulsen, Ruth Banks, Eileen Hopkins, and Rose Katherine.

A slew of holiday events, including Radiance! A Holiday Light Spectacular, will continue throughout Christmas weekend in and around Fort Worth.

Photo courtesy of Radiance

A slew of holiday events, including Radiance! A Holiday Light Spectacular, will continue throughout Christmas weekend in and around Fort Worth.

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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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