weekend event planner

Here are the top 10 things to do in Houston this weekend

The holidays are over, the weather is agreeable, and if traffic is any indicator, Houston is back in the swing of things. That means a slew of events for you to enjoy this weekend. Look for artful affairs, a rockin' Texas band, a food fest, and a fab dance party.

Thursday, January 10

Trans Film Series presents The Music Man
The Station Museum of Contemporary Art and Gender Reel Houston are in the middle of their Trans Film Series, a three-part series of films selected and presented by local trans individuals. This month's selection is the 1962 film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Music Man, selected and presented by Alexis Melvin. Melvin is president of the Transgender Foundation of America (TFA) and has been active in equality and transgender activism since the mid '60s. 7 pm.

Friday, January 11

Tapestry Players presents Little Women: The Broadway Musical
Written some 150 years ago, Louisa May Alcott's semi-autobiographical novel, Little Women, is a pioneering, feminist classic. The Civil War story of love and family deftly and subtly presents ambitious women in a way that's charmingly relatable more than a century later — to wit, a movie version starring Greta Gerwig is slated for next year. Alcott's tale has seen myriad adaptions on screen and stage, including a popular Broadway musical. Local fans can delight in Tapestry Players' presentation of the musical, which starts Friday and runs through Sunday. Directed by David Gow, with musical direction by Sid Davis. 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday; 2:30 pm Sunday, January 13.

Judy Ledgerwood: Power Pose at Barbara Davis Gallery
It's the third solo exhibition at Barbara Davis Gallery for Midwestern artist Judy Ledgerwood. Her latest collection features paintings that, while small to monumental in scale, are still vigorous, richly layered and fiercely colorful. While her painted shapes reference tapestries or quilts, she also exploits the unique material qualities of paint to position questions of value in the painterly tradition. It will be on display through February 9. 6-8:30 pm.

Rebecca Morris: The Ache of Bright at Blaffer Art Museum
With a title coming from a poem by Martha Ronk, in which she describes the affective qualities of sunlight in Los Angeles, abstract-painting Angeleno Rebecca Morris will give spectators 10 large-scale paintings, made by the Guggenheim Fellow over the last four years. This will be Morris’ first solo U.S. museum presentation since 2005 and the first time her work has ever been exhibited in Texas. It will be on display through March 16. 6 pm.

Rainbow on ICE at Discovery Green
Expect a very flamboyant — but still eco-friendly — evening with this annual LGBTQ celebration/ultimate dance party. DJ Joe Ross will be providing the music, while Drag Houston will come with some hellafied entertainment. (They are scheduled to reenact the music video for Ariana Grande's "thank u, next.") There will also be a mini-fashion show featuring costumes by Yahaira Dehill, made from recycled materials. 7-10 pm.

Culture Wars at Warehouse Live
Culture Wars isn't the current state of our country, but rather, an edgy, electro-rock trio from Austin that's poised to hit the big time. That should be enough for curious, local music geeks to step away from their burgeoning vinyl album collections and check them out live. Speaking of albums, serious music fans should check out the band's self-titled, debut EP, produced by longtime collaborator Robert Sewell and mixed by Manny Marroquin (Kanye West, Imagine Dragons) and Alan Moulder (The Killers, Nine Inch Nails).

Expect a raucous show and songs with an '80s new wave twist — like the catchy single “Money (Gimmie, Gimmie)” — that will get into your head and stay there. SWELLS and No Rehearsal will also be on the bill. 8 pm.

Stacyfest: a benefit for our friend Punk Rock Stacy at Rudyard's
For three nights straight, Rudyard's will be holding a series of benefit shows for a good friend of theirs. Stacy Hartoon, better known as Punk Rock Stacy, has been a fixture in Houston's punk rock scene for years. Last November, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and, now, several bands in and around H-Town (The Beaumonts, Denim Demons, Project Grimm, etc.) will be performing to raise money for her medical bills. And if you can't turn up at any of the shows, there is also a GoFundMe page. 8 pm (5 pm Sunday).

Saturday, January 12

Hops n' Hot Sauce Festival at SpindleTap Brewery
When you partake in something very spicy, don't you feel the first thing that will, if not alleviate the pain, then make things slightly buzzed is a nice, cold beer? Well, this fest will offer both piping-hot delicacies from food vendors as well as foamy, satisfying ale from SpindleTap Brewery. There is also a hot pepper eating contest, a spicy food challenge, and a silent auction. And don't forget that a portion of ticket sales go to Addi's Faith Foundation. 11 am.

Le Jardin de Nicole presents The Mad Hatter's Luncheon
Le Jardin de Nicole (aka Nicole's Garden) is organized exclusively for charitable purposes. So, here we go with this luncheon, which will be a grand affair as ladies and gentlemen showcase fancy, creative hats that are as big as Texas. The luncheon will also honor some cutting edge change-makers, whose impact have positively affected the lives of Houstonians and exemplified healthy living. All proceeds will help Nicole’s Garden underwrite Health Fest Houston. 11 am.

"Sharon Kopriva: Meditations, Migrations and Muses" at Deborah Colton Gallery
Yet another female artist will be showing off a solo exhibition for the third time this weekend. This multimedia production is the work of Houston artist Sharon Kopriva. Her career has taken her through investigations of Pre-Columbian cultures in Peru, exclamations of her Catholic faith, inspirations from the spiritual forest of the Pacific Northwest and, most recently, an exploration of Muses of the Visual Arts. It will be on display through February 23. 6-8 pm.

Sunday, January 13

Senso at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The MFAH's "Discovering the Passionate Films of Luchino Visconti" film series will be closing up shop this weekend. There will be screenings of essential Visconti films Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia) on Friday and Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) on Saturday. On Sunday, there's a last-chance screening of his 1954 period costume drama Senso, about a married Venetian countess (Alida Valli) whose allegiance to her Italian people during wartime gets sidetracked when she has an affair with a caddish Austrian officer (Farley Granger). 5 pm.

From Sharon Kopriva's "Meditations, Migrations and Muses."

Meditations, Migrations and Muses Sharon Kopriva

Photo courtesy of Sharon Kopriva

From Sharon Kopriva's "Meditations, Migrations and Muses."

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Movie Review

Glen Powell stumbles in remake of sci-fi classic The Running Man

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Glen Powell in The Running Man.

For all its cheesy ‘80s greatness, the original version of The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was a very loose adaptation of the novel by Stephen King. For the new remake, writer/director Edgar Wright has tried to hue much closer to the story laid out in the book, a decision that has both its positive and negative aspects.

Glen Powell takes over for Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a family man/hothead who can’t seem to hold a job in the dystopian America in which he lives. Desperate to take care of his family, he applies to be on one of the many game shows fed to the masses that promise riches in exchange for humiliation or worse. Thanks to his temper, Ben is chosen for the most popular one of all, The Running Man, in which contestants must survive 30 days while hunters, as well as the general population, track them down.

Given a 12-hour head start, Ben earns money for every day he survives, as well as every hunter he eliminates. Since he only has a relatively small amount of money to use as he pleases, Ben must rely on friendly citizens who are willing to put their own lives on the line to help him. That’s a task made even more difficult as the gamemakers, led by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), use advanced AI to manipulate footage of Ben to make him seem like a guy for which no one should root.

Co-written by Michael Bacall, the film is shockingly uninteresting, working neither as an exciting action film, a fun quippy comedy, or social commentary. The biggest problem is that Wright seems to have no interest in developing any of his characters, starting with Ben. Our introduction to the protagonist is him trying to get his job back, a situation for which there is little context even after we’re beaten over the head with exposition.

The situation in which Ben finds himself should be easy to make sympathetic, but Wright and Bacall speed through scenes that might have emphasized that aspect in favor of ones that make the story less personal. The filmmakers really want to showcase the supposed antagonistic relationship between Ben and Dan (and the system which Dan represents), but all that effort results in little drama.

Ben has a number of close calls, and while those scenes are full of action and violence, almost every one of them feels emotionally inert, as if there was nothing at stake. It doesn’t help that Wright doesn’t set the scene well, making it unclear how far Ben has traveled or who/what he’s up against. There are times when Ben feels surrounded and others when he can walk freely, weird for a society that’s supposed to be under almost complete surveillance.

Powell has been touted as a movie star in the making for several years following his turn in Top Gun: Maverick, but he does little here to make that label stick. With no consistent co-star thanks to the structure of the story, he’s required to carry the film, and he just doesn’t have the juice that a true movie star is supposed to have. Nobody else is served well by the scattershot film, including normally reliable people like Brolin, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, and Lee Pace.

The Running Man is a big misfire by Wright and a blow to Powell’s star power. On the surface, it has all the hallmarks of an action thriller with a side of social commentary, but nothing it does or says lands in any meaningful way. Schwarzenegger’s one-liners in the original film may have been goofy and over-the-top, but at least they made the movie memorable, which is way more than can be said of the remake.

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The Running Man opens in theaters on November 14.

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