Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Fort Worth this New Year's weekend

There will be plenty of celebrating in and around Fort Worth this weekend with New Year's Eve falling on Sunday, but parties aren't the only thing going on. Other choices include a trio of comedians, concerts featuring country performers, screenings of an Oscar-worthy film, a big college football game, and the final days of holiday events.

Below are more best ways to spend your precious free time this New Year's weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events. Looking for the best New Year's Eve celebrations? Check out that list here. And for New Year's Eve dining parties, check here.

Thursday, December 28

Improv Arlington presents Tony Rock
The first of three comedy events in the Fort Worth area this weekend features Tony Rock, perhaps better known as Chris Rock's brother. But he's been able to successfully elude the shadows of his older sibling and step into his own limelight by proving himself as a skillful comedian, actor, and executive producer. He'll perform seven times through Sunday at Improv Arlington.

Turnpike Troubadours in concert
Oklahoma country band Turnpike Troubadours has been recording music since 2007, but they've hit their stride with their last three albums, each of which made the top 10 on the Billboard Country chart and ranked high on the overall Billboard 200 as well. They'll play three concerts at Billy Bob's Texas in support of their new album, A Cat in the Rain, joined by a different special guest each night - Ray Wylie Hubbard on Friday, Lance Roark on Saturday, and Miles Miller on Sunday.

Friday, December 29

Magnolia at the Modern: The Holdovers
From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, The Holdovers follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them, a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa), and with the school's head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who has just lost a son in Vietnam. The film will screen seven times through Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic: Missouri vs. Ohio State
The Cotton Bowl Classic may not mean as much this college football bowl season, as other bowls are hosting the College Football Playoffs, but the Ohio State Buckeyes and Missouri Tigers still proved themselves as two of the best teams in the nation, finishing at No. 7 and No. 9, respectively. They'll face off at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Hyena's presents Samuel Comroe
Comedian Samuel Comroe made his TV debut on Conan, and went on to appear BET’s Real Husbands of Hollywood with Kevin Hart and as a contestant on America’s Got Talent. His comedy is made up of the trials and tribulations of living with Tourette Syndrome and observational material based on his life experiences. He'll perform twice on both Friday and Saturday at Hyena's Comedy Club in downtown Fort Worth.

Saturday, December 30

Last call for holiday events
While a few holiday events extend beyond this weekend, many of them will wrap up their runs on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. This weekend is your last chance to see The Christmas Carol Experience at The Woman's Club of Fort Worth, ICE! featuring Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" at Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, The Light Park at Hurricane Harbor in Arlington, and Lightscape at Fort Worth Botanic Garden.

Sunday, December 31

Photo by David McClister

Turnpike Troubadours will play at Billy Bob's Texas through December 30.

Hyena's presents Joe Machi
Since taking 4th place on Last Comic Standing’s 8th season, Joe Machi has been busy touring the United States as a headlining stand-up comedian. He has performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and has become a regular on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld on Fox News. Machi also won the 2013 NY Comedy Festival’s Funniest Comedian Competition, and the 2010 NY Underground Comedy Festival's Emerging Comics Competition. He'll perform two shows, including one leading up to midnight, at Hyena's Comedy Club.

Drake Milligan in concert
Viewers of America's Got Talent are already intimately familiar with country singer Drake Milligan, as he came in third place in his season after being dubbed "the new Elvis of country" by judge Howie Mandel. His audition song, "Sounds Like Something I'd Do," is off his 2022 debut album, Dallas/Fort Worth, showing the Arlington native hasn't forgotten where he came from. He'll play a special New Year's Eve show at Billy Bob's Texas, featuring a countdown to midnight and other party elements.

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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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