weekend event planner

Here are the top 9 things to do in Houston this weekend

Houston Family Arts Center's Third Annual Golf Tournament

Work on your swing and potentially win some serious swag.

Courtesy photo

Spring is here, which means the days will be sunnier (read: longer). So if you’re looking for something fun to do with your weekend days — and nights — we have you covered, with some great of indoor and outdoor activities.

Thursday, March 22

Jonathan’s The Rub celebrates its 10th anniversary
Jonathan’s The Rub will be taking a trip down memory lane. The restaurant is hosting a 10th-anniversary dinner where guests can dig into a throwback feast filled with original, past-menu faves. The dinner starts at 5:30 pm. Jonathan’s The Rub has also launched a five-week, fundraising effort benefiting the Houston Area Women’s Center through April, which is Sexual Abuse Awareness Month.

Houston Latino Film Festival at Talento Bilingue de Houston

Mexican filmmakers Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo del Toro have been snatching up Oscars left and right for their movies. (Earlier this month, del Toro won a bunch of Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture for The Shape of Water.) So, if you’re looking for more cinematic work from promising Latino filmmakers, the Houston Latino Film Festival starts up its third-annual festivities this weekend. From Thursday to Sunday, features, shorts and documentaries will be shown by filmmakers from the U.S., Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.

Friday, March 23

Take a weekend art walk at Bayou City Art Festival
It’s spring, which means the Art Colony Association will be throwing its annual Bayou City Art Festival in Memorial Park. (The Association also has a Bayou City Art Festival during the fall, held downtown.) For 47 years now, the three-day fest has been about showcasing fine art from all over the globe. And, for this year, there will 300 artists whose works you’ll be able to view and even purchase. It starts Friday at 10 am, and runs through Sunday.

Doomsday Wrestling LIVE at Market Square Park
If the downright-ludicrous antics that happen on WWE’s Monday Night Raw and Smackdown Live shows don’t tickle you on a weekly basis (especially whenever wrestler-turned-movie star John Cena pops up and does his usual, smart-ass shtick), the comic wrestlers of Doomsday Wrestling LIVE are here to pile-drive some laughs out of you. This local crew of over-the-top bruisers have been making people of all ages get their chuckle on with their “comedy wrestling” since 2003, and they will be doing it with a free show at Market Square Park Friday, starting at 7 pm.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at Landmark River Oaks
Has there ever been a more suave-ass pair of gunslingers than Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? In 1969, the iconic, matinee idols teamed up with director George Roy Hill (who would direct them again several years later in The Sting) and screenwriter William Goldman (who won a Best Screenplay Oscar for his script) and created a funny, exciting, all-around classic Western based on the rise and fall of two real-life outlaws. It’ll be playing at midnight on Friday and Saturday at Landmark River Oaks.

Saturday, March 24

Get swinging at Precision Golf Academy
Precision Golf Academy is a brand-new spot offering up state-of-the-art technology for those who want their golf game to be super-tight. Saturday, the Academy will have its grand opening where there will be tasty bites and adult beverages, and everyone who attends will receive special, Early Bird Lesson rates. There will also be raffle prizes given out later that day, including a Tag Heuer Connected Modular smartwatch, valued at $2300. So, to paraphrase Bill Murray in Caddyshack, it’s got that going for them — which is nice. The opening starts at 1 pm. For more info, go here.

A Super Comedy Tour hits Stafford
Don’t let it be said that Muslims can’t be hilarious. From Aziz Ansari to Kumail Nanjiani (who was recently nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his semi-autobiographical comedy The Big Sick) to The Daily Show’s Hasan Minhaj, Muslim comics are out here getting laughs and making moves. Perfect timing for this tour that gives you a heavy collection of Muslim comedians: The Super Muslim Comedy Tour. Among the comics performing: Aman Ali, Feraz Ozel, Travina Springer and Moses the Comic. It starts at 6 at Sugarland Ballroom.
For more info, go here.

The Lawn at Memorial City's big lawn party
The Lawn at Memorial City is a new, 7,000-square-foot greenspace that’ll be used to host a variety of events and festivals, along with being an open space where you can play lawn games like cornholing. Saturday, there will be a grand opening showcase, featuring music from The Voice finalist Stephanie Rice, local surf-rock band Phantom Royals and funky Houston outfit SoulDig!, which includes members from La Mafia. There will also be Art Cars on display from The Orange Show, face painting, street performers, food stations, and – maybe – cornholing. It starts at noon.

Sunday, March 25

Kite Festival at Hermann Park
You know what you don’t see a lot in the skies these days? Kites. Surely there was a point in your childhood where you went to the park, climbed up a hill in order to send your kite in the air, and navigate it while you ran all the way down. If you'd like to relive that moment again before you die, check out the fifth-annual, Hermann Park Conservancy Kite Festival. Kites will be soaring over Miller Hill and around the Jones Reflecting Pool. There will also be kite making, face painting, food trucks, and more. This event is free, and starts at 10 am.

Take a stroll and peruse art from more than 300 artists.

Courtesy photo

Take a stroll and peruse art from more than 300 artists.

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Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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