Weekend Event Planner

These are the 10 best things to do in Fort Worth this weekend

With this weekend closely following Valentine's Day, love will be in the air at several events, including dueling versions of Romeo & Juliet and screenings of a classic film. Other choices include Cirque du Soleil on ice, a local theater production, a home & garden convention, a timely opera, a big name comedian, a local rocker, and a gala symphony concert.

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

Thursday, February 15

Cirque du Soleil presents Crystal
At the heart of Crystal lies a captivating tale that transports audiences into a vivid world of playful imagination. Centered around the journey of a young woman named Crystal, this Cirque du Soleil show follows the woman as she embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-discovery full of whimsy and wonder. The production highlights traditional circus acts, including swinging trapeze, aerial straps, hand-balancing, banquine, and pendular poles, that have been adapted to be performed on ice. Crystal will be at Dickies Arena through Sunday.

Theatre Wesleyan presents Exit, Pursued By A Bear
In Exit, Pursued By A Bear, Nan has decided to teach her abusive husband Kyle a lesson. With the help of her friend Simon and a dancer named Sweetheart, she tapes Kyle to a chair and forces him to watch as they reenact scenes from their painful past. In the pièce de résistance, they plan to cover the room in meat and honey so Kyle will be mauled by a bear. The dark revenge comedy is a night of emotional trials and ridiculous theatrics. The production runs in Thad Smotherman Theatre at Texas Wesleyan University through February 25.

Friday, February 16

Fort Worth Home & Garden Show
The 3rd annual Fort Worth Home & Garden Show provides attendees with everything they need to solve their home and garden projects under one roof. The event, taking place through Sunday at Will Rogers Memorial Center, will feature special guest Patric Richardson (aka The Laundry Guy), seminars, cooking demonstrations, a Blackland Prairie Raptors performance, and more.

Magnolia at the Modern: Amélie
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's modern-day fairytale Amélie, originally released in 2001 and being re-released by Sony Pictures, quickly made the eponymous Parisian waitress a cultural icon. The film launched the career of Audrey Tautou, who portrays Amélie Poulain as a Nutella-eyed innocent with puckish charm in this award-winning whimsical romance. The film, which is in French with English subtitles, will screen seven times through Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Fort Worth Opera presents dwb (Driving While Black)
dwb (Driving While Black) is a montage of poetic and haunting moments examining the trials and triumphs Black mothers experience as their children come of age in a society plagued by racism and inequality. In the central narrative, we meet the Mother in her home. The dangerous world outside, however, is out of the Mother’s control, and anxiety builds in her mind and heart as her “beautiful brown boy” approaches manhood and the realities of modern life as a Black person in America. There will be performances on Friday and Saturday at Van Cliburn Concert Hall at TCU.

Improv Arlington presents Rob Schneider
Rob Schneider is an accomplished actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the award-winning NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider has gone on to a successful career in films, television, and stand-up comedy. He'll perform four times through Saturday at Improv Arlington.

Stolen Shakespeare Guild presents Romeo and Juliet
Audiences can immerse themselves in the epic tale of two star-crossed lovers from feuding families who dare risk everything for love. With thrilling sword fights, stirring poetry, and heartbreaking tragedy, Romeo and Juliet is a timeless masterpiece that continues to captivate audiences centuries after its creation. The production, which will play in repertory with Much Ado About Nothing (starting on February 23), runs through March 9 at Arts Fort Worth.

Austin Meade in concert
Texas rocker Austin Meade has slowly but surely made a name for himself on the state's music scene over the last decade. Like a lot of up-and-coming musicians, he's been a part of the festival scene, and he's served as the opening act for multiple Rockin' the River concerts at Panther Island Pavilion. He's released four albums in his career, most recently Abstract Art of an Unstable Mind in 2022. He'll play at Billy Bob's Texas.

Saturday, February 17

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra presents Gala Concert: Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry
Superstar Renée Fleming, who has recently become an outspoken advocate for the impact of music on health, is returning to Fort Worth to perform with the inimitable Rod Gilfry in a one-night-only performance of some of Broadway’s greatest hits. Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Music Director Robert Spano leads the orchestra in a program featuring the likes of “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific, “Til There Was You” from The Music Man, “Tonight” from West Side Story, “Climb Every Mountain” from The Sound of Music, and more. The event takes place at Bass Performance Hall.

Ballet Frontier presents Romeo & Juliet
The second Romeo & Juliet of the weekend is Ballet Frontier's world premiere production choreographed by Artistic Director Chung Lin Tseng to Sergei Prokofiev’s iconic score. It is a classic adaptation of the familiar story that routinely brings the audience to tears. It's a heartbreaking tale of young love and loss set to one of ballet’s favorite scores. There will be performances on Saturday and Sunday at I.M. Terrell Academy.

Stolen Shakespeare Festival: Romeo and Juliet

Photo courtesy of Stolen Shakespeare Guild

Stolen Shakespeare Guild presents Romeo and Juliet at Arts Fort Worth, February 16-March 9.

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Movie Review

Music and Lady Gaga make for unusual Joker: Folie à Deux film sequel

Photo by Niko Tavernise

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in Joker: Folie à Deux.

For a movie that was more about one man’s mental health condition than anything related to comic books, 2019’s Joker was shockingly successful, making over $1 billion worldwide and nabbing a Best Actor Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix and writer/director Todd Phillips are back with Joker: Folie à Deux(literally meaning "a madness of two"), a film that has some of the same themes but a story that could not feel more different.

After his murder spree in the first film, Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) now calls Arkham Asylum home, where he is alternately tortured and favored by the guards, and revered by his fellow patients. Arthur plays nice for the most part, which leads one of the guards, Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson), to allow him to attend a music class in the minimum security ward of the facility, where he meets Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga).

The immediate connection between Arthur and Lee allows Arthur to indulge in more than a few fantasies, ones that manifest themselves in the film as musical sequences involving the two of them. As his fortunes change and he is forced to stand trial for his crimes, Arthur returns to the fantasies repeatedly, with Lee giving him a sense of hope and security that has been missing from his life.

The film, co-written by Scott Silver, features songs so often that the boundary between reality and fiction within the story is completely blurred. Some of the songs show Arthur, Lee, or both singing at Arkham, while others emulate old musicals by creating numbers on a set meant to look like the Murray Franklin talk show from the first film. It’s fair to wonder how much, if any, of it is real or just things that Arthur has conjured to comfort himself.

Most of the songs - “Good Morning,” “Get Happy,” and “That’s Entertainment,” among others - are cribbed from the classic movie musical era of the 1930s-1960s. Their titles and lyrics have surface-level relevance to the story being told, but it’s hard to say their meaning goes deeper than that. They are also so chopped up and delivered so often that it’s difficult to tell what kind of importance Phillips was trying to put on any one individual song.

While the music is the obvious big change, the more significant one is the film’s almost total lack of action. The focus on Arthur and Lee’s possible relationship and Arthur spending most of the film at Arkham leads to very few scenes of mayhem. In fact, hardly anything of substance happens until the film’s final act, and what does happen is less impactful than what fans of the first film may want.

Phoenix, just as he did in Joker, commits fully to the role, appearing to become gaunt once again and making sure the character is sufficiently disturbing. The arc makes him quieter and less annoying this time around, which may or may not disappoint some viewers. Lady Gaga is fine as the character otherwise known as Harley Quinn, although it’s interesting that she was likely hired for her singing ability and the film rarely lets her truly let loose.

If the nihilistic tones of Joker made it a surprise billion-dollar movie, it would be even more of a shocker if Joker: Folie à Deux made anywhere near that type of money. The Joker character has been approached in many different ways, but this is one of the oddest yet.

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Joker: Folie à Deux opens in theaters on October 4.

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