Don't fret if you didn't score a ticket to the now sold out Free Press Summer Festival. There's more to Houston life than this two-day musical binge at Eleanor Tinsley Park. Plan alternate routes to and from your downtown destinations and check out this week's picks, which include movies plus live music, a short-short film festival, a party in blue, an accordion competition and clever art openings.
Be sure to click on the link below each even suggestion. A page will open with helpful intel, like where to eat, drink and shop nearby your port of call, as well as the ability to download the deets right to your electronic calendar. How's that for being your weekend concierge?
Houston Symphony presents Disney Live in Concert: Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl
It's often said that music makes or breaks a film. While I am not the biggest fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, I have to confess that the score is wicked good — cinematographically speaking, of course. I bet that hearing it live while the movie plays on a huge screen above the Houston Symphony, conducted by Matthew Kraemer, will feel like a tuneful roller coaster ride, particularly as the spectacle includes the men of the Houston Symphony Chorus.
The skinny: Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; Jones Hall; tickets start at $20.
Aurora Picture Show's 16th Annual Extremely Shorts Film Festival
There's never a dull moment at Aurora Picture Show's Extremely Shorts Film Festival. Like the weather, if you don't like what's going on, wait five minutes — it will change. Actually, it could be shorter than that as some films end as quickly as a blink of an eye. From 150 submissions, 20 films curated by Emily Doe from the Sundance Film Festival include some of international repute while others enjoy their Houston debut or world premiere.
Best of all, you get to vote for your favorites. The top three will receive cash prizes.
The skinny: Friday, 7 and 9 p.m.; Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Aurora Picture Show; tickets start at $10.
Blue Cure Foundation's "Party for a Cure"
Blue is becoming just as popular as pink when it comes to parties that support charities advocating for cancer prevention. Blue Cure Foundation founder Gabe Canales, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer at a young age, will be joined by KHOU Ch. 11 anchor Lily Jang and Houston Texans center Chris Myers to walk the blue carpet and mix and mingle — for a cure. Tunes courtesy of Lewis Grell and Don Vaughn, who was nominated for Cosmopolitan 2012 Bachelor of the Year contest, surely will keep the ambiance lively.
The skinny: Friday, 7 p.m.; Hotel ZaZa; tickets are $35.
Texas Folklife presents the 24th Annual Accordion Kings & Queens Festival
The accordion — it's a love it or hate it kind of thing unless there's a badass behind the straps of the keyed melodeon. Expect a coterie of smoking hot accordion virtuosos at Texas Folklife's 24th Annual Accordion Kings & Queens Festival, including Zydeco sweetheart Rosie Ledet, 2012 Big Squeeze champ Peter Anzaldua, The Czechaholics and The Hometown Boys.
Bring your dancing shoes.
The skinny: Saturday, 6:30 p.m.; Miller Outdoor Theatre; admission is free, seating is ticketed.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston exhibition, Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop
How we for granted the ability to screw around with images, cover up blemishes, do away with wrinkles and design special effects. It's difficult to imagine a world without software like Photoshop, yet artists with a penchant for manipulating images have been experimenting with the genre since the 1840s.
The end result is a surreal, fabricated visual world that questions the difference between real and imaginary milieus. Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop traces the history of this subset of photography.
Arts smarty pants and in-the-loop happy gal Nancy Wozny's pick: Kontinuum at Houston Center for Photography
Nancy says: "Subways always creep me out, I'm more of a light rail above ground girl, which is why I found Adam Magyar's exhibit Kontinuum at Houston Center for Photography so compelling. Magyar understands the barren weirdness of these subterranean trains, urban grittiness and the isolation of large groups of people moving from place to place.
"Using an industrial machine-vision camera that relies on scanning technology, the Hungarian artist is able to stop time, dilating a moment of our shared collective life. It's at once eerie and beautiful."
The skinny: Through June 23; Houston Center for Photography; admission is free.
Expect a coterie of hot accordion virtuosos at Texas Folklife's 24th Annual Accordion Kings & Queens Festival at Miller Outdoor Theatre.
