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.

Tapestry Players present the charming Little Women: The Broadway Musical.

Photo courtesy of Tapestry Players

Tapestry Players present the charming Little Women: The Broadway Musical.

event-planner

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.

---

Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film