Weekend Event Planner

Houston Beer Fest, Habsburg masterpieces and rap legends top best weekend events in Houston

As the temperatures heat up, you may find yourself choosing indoor events over outdoor ones. While there are some great indoor choices this week, most of the big ones will take place in the great outdoors, where you'll be able to enjoy a GLBT celebration, great beer and some classic hip hop, among other things.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, June 11

Houston Ballet presents The Taming of the Shrew
For the final production of their 2014-2015 season, the Houston Ballet will adapt one of William Shakespeare's most iconic plays, The Taming of the Shrew. The comic nature of the play is a great fit for ballet, as the feisty Katherina attempts to elude the advances of Petruchio at every turn. The production will run at Wortham Theater Center through June 21.

TUTS Underground presents First Date
The final show of TUTS Underground's 2014-2015 season is an event that's alternately thrilling and nerve-wracking in anybody's life: a first date. A blind date turns into a uproarious high-stakes dinner when other restaurant patrons transform into supportive best friends, manipulative exes and protective parents. It will play at Hobby Center for the Performing Arts through June 21.

Friday, June 12

Rainbow on the Green
In advance of Pride Houston week, which starts on June 21, Discovery Green will host Rainbow on the Green, a citywide GLBT celebration. Among the performers at the free event will be Lady Gaga and Britney Spears impersonator Derrick Barry, RuPaul's Drag Race contestant Coco Montrese and more.

Houston Symphony presents Disney in Concert
Among the more accessible concerts the Houston Symphony puts on during the summer is Disney in Concert, in which they play selections from a variety of classic Disney movies like Frozen, Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. The performance, which is also affordable at $20, will be at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.

Bayou City Theatrics presents Sunset Boulevard
The latest from Bayou City Theatrics is Sunset Boulevard, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical adaptation of Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning film. Featuring Norma Desmond, one of the most indelible characters in movie history, and her relationship with writer Joe Gillis, the production gives a great spin on a classic story. It will run at The Kaleidoscope through June 27.

Saturday, June 13

Pop Shop Houston Summer Festival
If you're on the hunt for handmade or vintage goods, there will be no better place to be this weekend than Silver Street Studios, which will host the Pop Shop Houston Summer Festival. While perusing the wares from over 90 vendors, you can also participate in outdoor and art activities, dance to some great music and more.

2015 Houston Beer Fest
Beer lovers will be in heaven at Hermann Square Park on Saturday and Sunday as more than 60 breweries will be doling out samples of their latest and most special creations. As if that wasn't enough, more than 20 musical acts will put on performances, including Chamillionaire, Hayes Carll, MuteMath, Scarface and more.

LL Cool J in concert with Public Enemy, Doug E. Fresh and others
Scarface will be pulling double duty this weekend, as he will join a whole host of other rap/hip hop legends at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion as part of The Kings of the Mic Tour. The concert is headlined by LL Cool J, but it will also feature Public Enemy, Doug E. Fresh, Whodini, Big Daddy Kane, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Sugarhill Gang and The Furious 5.

Sunday, June 14

MFAH art opening: Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna's Imperial Collections
After a day full of outdoor fun on Saturday, you can have a low-key, air-conditioned Sunday by taking in the latest exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Largely composed of works that have never traveled outside of Austria, Habsburg Splendor explores the dramatic rise and fall of the Habsburgs and their global empire. The exhibit will be on view through September 13.

Houston Ballet will present The Taming of the Shrew at Wortham Theater Center through June 21.

Houston Ballet 2014-15 season announcement January 2014 The Taming of the Shrew Melody Mennite Connor Walsh

Photo by © Amitava Sarkar

Houston Ballet will present The Taming of the Shrew at Wortham Theater Center through June 21.

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Movie Review

Rachel McAdams goes feral in Sam Raimi's gory new comedy Send Help

Photo by Brook Rushton

Rachel McAdams in Send Help.

Director Sam Raimi has gone through different phases as a filmmaker, including leading the first Spider-Man trilogy and joining the MCU with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But he first gained notice with the gory and funny Evil Dead movies, a sensibility he’s returning to with his latest film, Send Help.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a meek and eccentric middle manager at a financial firm that’s just named Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) as its new nepo CEO. Bradley’s dad had promised Linda a promotion to vice president, but she gets passed over in favor of one of Bradley’s frat buddies, sending her into a mild rage. Still, she gets invited along on a planned business trip to Thailand, during which she hopes to prove her worth.

Unfortunately for most of the passengers on the private plane, it crashes into the ocean, leaving only Linda and Bradley alive on a deserted island. Linda, who has privately developed survival skills, adapts quickly to the forbidding environment, while Bradley tries to revert to bossing her around. But Linda quickly understands the power dynamic has shifted, and she uses this knowledge to try to keep Bradley in line, turning their stranding into a battle of wills.

Directed by Raimi and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the film is the classic “so bad it’s good” kind of experience. McAdams, inarguably an attractive and charming person, is given stringy hair, an antisocial personality, and quirks like eating tuna fish at her desk to make her as off-putting as possible. Bradley, along with almost everyone else at her office, is stereotyped just as hard in order to set up the twist of fate.

When the action shifts to the island, things get even more over the top. The audience has already been primed for Linda to demonstrate her survival expertise, but the film does way more than just show her making fire. Whether it’s flawlessly building a shelter or hunting a wild boar, everything Linda does is portrayed in a slightly off-kilter manner. Then they turn everything up to 11, indulging in gore that is so unnecessary that you can’t help but laugh.

The filmmakers prove they’re in on the joke the rest of the way, including a variety of preposterous but hilarious scenarios that would cause massive eyerolls if they were actually trying to take the film seriously. While they do a great job of showing Linda’s ability to handle herself in the wild, they also show that she is somehow the only person in the world who could get a glow up after a plane crash and weeks living in nature.

McAdams, an Oscar-nominated actor for Spotlight, is way too high class for a movie like this, which makes her presence here all the more interesting. She is all-in on whatever Raimi wants her to do, and she’s at her most fun when she goes the animalistic route. O’Brien, who was great in the recent Twinless, doesn’t get as much of an opportunity to show his range, but he still proves to be an interesting foil for her.

Were it released in any other month, Send Help might be looked at as bottom of the barrel material. But with the movie year just getting started, it’s easier to forgive its outrageous plot twists and just have fun, especially since Raimi and his team put the rest of the film together so well.

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Send Help opens in theaters on January 30.

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Movie Review

Rachel McAdams goes feral in Sam Raimi's gory new comedy Send Help