Live Music Now

Here are the 6 best concerts in Houston this week

For those who are willing to take a break from watching musical disasters in the form of televised documentaries, there is plenty to catch in the real world in this week of live music.

Then again, it's pretty tough to look away from the train wrecks that are Surviving R. Kelly series and both Fyre Festival docs — one on Netflix and the other on Hulu.

Perhaps these shows will be a nice palate cleanser, showcasing artists performing music the way it was intended — with limited-to-no controversy and the utmost professionalism.

Here are CultureMap's biggest, best, and most notable shows of the week:

CultureMap recommends: Joan Osborne at Heights Theater
Yes, you'll probably remember her from the '90s VH1 smash hit "One of Us," but the one thing that has made Joan Osborne's career is her killer set of pipes. She's on the road, showcasing her critically acclaimed "Joan Osborne Sings the Songs of Bob Dylan" series she garnered critical acclaim for in New York City in 2016. That might seem like a weird dichotomy with Dylan known for his gravelly voice, but if anyone can shed new light on classics like "Tangled Up in Blue," or "Highway 61 Revisited," it's the Grammy Award-nominated, multi-platinum selling artist.

Joan Osborne sings the best songs of Bob Dylan at Heights Theater, located at 339 W 19th St., on Friday, February 1. Sherita Perez opens. Tickets start at $24 plus a $6 service charge. Doors open at 7 pm.

Eric Johnson Electric Band
Fans of guitar riffage will be drawn to the Eric Johnson Electric Band at House of Blues on Friday. Widely considered one of the best guitarists on the planet, Johnson spent his early years as a session musician for songwriters such as Cat Stevens and Carole King before striking a chord with audiences for his intricate fretwork in the early '90s, especially on the 1990 platinum album, Via Musicom, which earned him a Grammy award. Anyone who is a devotee to the six-string or just admires those with technical fortitude on the axe, this is a must-see show.

Eric Johnson Electric Band delivers the riffs to House of Blues, located at 1204 Caroline St., on Friday, February 1. Filmore opens. Tickets start at $25 plus fees. Doors open at 7:00 pm.

Rachael Yamagata
Alternative pop chanteuse Rachael Yamagata make songs perfect for late nights after the chaos of the nightclub or for lazy Sunday afternoons. Her ethereal hushed voice has won her fans, including Ryan Adams, Conor Oberst, and Rhett Miller of the Old '97s. Based on that list alone, it's no wonder her work is critically acclaimed, including her new EP, Porch Songs. Fans of quieter, soul-bearing pop music will find something to love here.

Rachel Yamagata is at White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 North Main St., on Friday, February 1. Radnor and Lee opens. Tickets start at $25 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

CultureMap show of the week: Peter Murphy and David J of Bauhaus
It's hard to overstate the importance of Bauhaus in the annals of music history. Named after the German art school, Bauhaus formed in the fertile post-punk years of the late-'70s in Northampton, UK. The original line-up only lasted five years, but their impact was huge, influencing countless goth, new wave, and industrial acts through their most well known songs, "Bela Legosi's Dead" and "The Passion of Lovers." Inter-band discord ultimately led to their demise, but they've lived on with lead singer Peter Murphy and bassist David J touring their songs. Without them, there would be no Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins, and countless other beloved rock acts. Consider this show a musical history lesson of the highest order.

Peter Murphy and David J of Bauhaus are at White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 North Main St., on Saturday, February 2. Tickets start at $35 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Rebelution at Revention
For those who still bust out those Sublime albums on the regular, Rebelution is here to fill in the hole in your Bradley Nowell missing heart. The California band has recently built an audience looking for easy-going roots rock that goes well with herbal refreshment, topping the Billboard Top 200 with their Live at Red Rocks album in 2016. They followed up that hit with their latest, Free Rein.

Rebelution play Revention Music Center, located at 520 Texas Ave., on Saturday, February 2. Tickets start at $29.50 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

CultureMap free show of the week: '90s Night at The Rustic
Check out one of the city's best new venues — The Rustic — when it hosts '90s Night with DJ Gracie Chavez on Saturday night, playing your fave hits from the decade of plaid flannel, wallet-chains, and baggy jeans. The best part? It's free.

‘90s Night featuring DJ Gracie Chavez goes down at The Rustic, located at 1836 Polk St., on Saturday, February 2. Admission is free. Show starts at 9:30 pm.

Famed guitarist Eric Johnson performs at House of Blues on Friday, February 1.

Eric Johnson/Facebook

Famed guitarist Eric Johnson performs at House of Blues on Friday, February 1.

column music concerts nightlife

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film