weekend event planner

Here are the top 8 things to do in Houston this weekend

Riel is hosting a pop-up at the always popular East End Backyard.

The Inauguration Day festivities are behind us — time to throttle forward.

Speaking of throttles, gearheads and speed junkies might want to take in two events on Saturday: West Houston Muscle's All American Throwdown, where old-school muscle meets new-school power at Houston Raceway Park; and the Monster Energy AMA Supercross at NRG Stadium, marking the first time in the sport’s 47-year history that the season opener has been in Texas.

Also look for a wine room celebration, a tasty pop-up, a rockin' garage sale, and more. Here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, January 21

Mutiny Wine Room presents First Anniversary Celebration
Mutiny Wine Room, the wine country-inspired tasting room that showed up in The Heights early last year, will celebrate its one-year anniversary by offering free wine flights. Sommelier Ben Harris will lead globally inspired tastings that include “A Taste of Northern Italy - Valpolicella” and “Around the World with Pinot.” Reservations are required for the 30-minute tasting experience and can be made via phone or on Resy. 4 pm.

Camp For All presents A Night with the Stars Gala
Camp For All will present A Night with the Stars Gala, its annual Washington County fundraiser, as a virtual event for the first time. The fundraiser is open to the public and can be viewed through the Camp For All YouTube page. Attendees can make a general donation to the event, purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win a $2,000 Visa gift card, or participate in the virtual auction and bid on items such as a crawfish boil for 30, a three-night vacation in Port O’Conner, and more.

Friday, January 22

The Village School presents Innovation Day 2021
The Village School in Houston will be virtually hosting its annual Innovation Day event this weekend. It's here where you'll get to witness student ideas, groundbreaking products and radical creativity. This is also a wonderful way for families and prospective families to see how students are empowered and challenged as they bring their experiences to life. It’s a celebration of ideas and solutions created by students to tackle today’s most pressing problems. 9 am.

Houston Grand Opera presents HGO Digital: Giving Voice
Don't ever say people don't dig a dude hitting audiences with some opera. Giving Voice: Lawrence Brownlee and Friends Sing Opera, Gospel and Standards was a triumphant, sold-out concert that went down at the Wortham Theater Center last year. This weekend, internationally renowned tenor Brownlee returns with an all-Black group of opera stars for a second, digital installment of this wonderful celebration of diverse voices. 7:30 pm.

Saturday, January 23

Blondie & Bling presents TEXFest
Rosenberg boutique store Blondie & Bling has a special event geared up this weekend — you just gotta go to Conroe to check it out. The TEXFest will, of course, have shopping, but it will also have a big, Texas truck contest, a chili cook-off, line dancing, and the 'best beer in Texas." All of this sounds like this will be one crap-kicking, authentically Texan shindig. So, for those who always wanted to star in their own version of Urban Cowboy, this event is here for you. Noon.

Evil Dead with Live Commentary by Bruce Campbell
For horror mavens who have never seen Evil Dead, Sam Raimi's iconic, low-budget, 1981 horror flick, you can watch it this weekend with the star of the movie. Bruce Campbell — Ash himself! — will host a worldwide virtual viewing, with live commentary throughout by Campbell himself. Viewers can watch with Campbell as he shares memories, stories and anecdotes from the film. And, for a few lucky viewers, Campbell will even answer questions from the chat. 8 pm.

Sunday, January 24

Riel Pop-Up with Chef Peter Nguyen
This weekend, East End Backyard (with its 16,000-square-foot patio with heaters and outdoor tent installed earlier this month) will host a pop-up with chef Peter Nguyen, who was recently introduced as the new executive sous chef at Riel. Nguyen, a Boston native who worked under James Beard Award-winning chefs Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette at Little Donkey in Cambridge, will be preparing a New England-inspired menu with clam chowder, mini-lobster rolls, and more. 1 pm.

Punk Rock Garage Sale at Brash Brewing
It's time once again for local punk fans to converge on this market (brought to us by the folks at Insomnia Gallery), where you can buy records, 'zines, videos, vintage clothing, original art, and whatever else is in this mosh pit of a garage sale. After the great job Brash Brewing did holding the sale last month, the beer company will once again host the event. Vendors will be spaced out to allow for proper social distancing and masks are required to enter and when approaching vendors. 1 pm.

event-planner

Movie review

Nerdy teen comedies make a comeback with new movie Summer of 69

Photo courtesy of Hulu

Sam Morelos and Chloe Fineman in Summer of 69.

There was a trend in the late 2010s/early 2020s of bawdy comedies featuring teenage female protagonists, including Blockers, Booksmart, and Yes, God, Yes. Those types of films seemed to go by the wayside in recent years, but they’re making a comeback with the new film Summer of 69.

Abby (Sam Morelos) is a high school senior and video game streamer who has had a crush on her classmate Max (Matt Cornett) for her entire childhood. When she learns that Max has recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend, she’s determined to make her move. With advice from a confidant that Max likes a certain sexual position, Abby sets out to learn as much as she can about it, including hiring a stripper, Santa Monica (Chloe Fineman), to help her.

Coincidentally, Santa Monica is facing a situation where the club at which she works, Diamond Dolls, will be closed if the owner doesn’t come up with $20,000 in a week. Abby, who comes from a well-to-do family, seems to offer the perfect solution, and so the two agree to a week of lessons for that amount. Naturally, all sorts of complications arise, as well as the two women forming an unexpected bond.

Written and directed by Jillian Bell, with help from co-writers Jules Byrne and Liz Nico, the film is both suggestive and innocent at the same time. For all of the talk about sex and innuendo, having the nerdy and inexperienced Abby at the center of the film ensures that the story remains relatively chaste throughout. That includes scenes at the strip club, where Bell makes the choice to show almost no nudity.

Most of the humor of the film stems from Abby’s lack of experience, highlighted by her having “sexual” fantasies about Max that never actually get to the sex part. The juxtaposition between Abby and Santa Monica is also used for laughs, although Bell and her co-writers make sure to include a side story for the dancer that makes her into a three-dimensional person.

What ultimately makes the movie succeed is the way it keeps its characters relatable. Many high school films feel the need to play into a bunch of stereotypes, but those are kept to a minimum here. Instead, Bell upends expectations by delivering honest - sometimes to a fault for the characters - dialogue that acknowledges the spectrum of sexual realities for high schoolers, a version that differs from insatiable horniness of some other teen comedies.

Morelos, one of the stars of Netflix’s That ‘90s Show, makes for a charming lead, someone who can convincingly take her character from awkward to confident over the course of the story. Fineman, best known for her current stint as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, complements her well, showing her comedic prowess in a number of physical scenes. A supporting cast that includes Nicole Byer, Paula Pell, Alex Moffat, and Natalie Morales keeps the energy level high.

Despite its titillating title, Summer of 69 is much more sweet than naughty. Like most coming-of-age movies, it’s about a girl who’s trying to figure out where she fits in the world. The answers she finds aren’t always the ones she was expecting, but in the best possible way.

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Summer of 69 starts streaming on Hulu on May 9.

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