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

Safe cracking takes center stage in new heist movie Tuner

Photo courtesy of Black Bear

Leo Woodall in Tuner.

Of all the ways that movies depict people trying to steal money and other valuables, safe cracking is among the least exciting. By design, it’s a laborious process that only those with a very certain set of skills can do. While clever editing and the right music can enhance scenes of safes being cracked, there’s a reason that the method is among the least used in heist films.

In the new film Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall) has a job and a condition that just happens to lend itself well to committing that specific crime. He works as an apprentice piano tuner for Harry (Dustin Hoffman), usually doing the hard work while Harry schmoozes the client. Niki is well-suited for the job because he has a rare condition called hyperacusis, which makes him both sensitive to loud noises and able to hear subtle things that others cannot.

When he runs across a trio of criminals trying to break open a safe at a house where he’s tuning a piano, he helps them more out of frustration than avarice. But when Harry goes into the hospital and racks up huge bills, Niki decides to join the group to make some quick money. They soon want more than he’s willing to give, and he must find a way to extricate himself from them without losing himself completely.

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher (making his narrative feature debut) and co-written by Robert Ramsey, the film has a nice pace to it despite there being relatively little action. Roher and Ramsey spend the first third or so establishing Niki, Harry, and Harry’s wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) as characters, letting the audience understand their relationships and how they interact with each other.

The time they devote to the personal storytelling pays dividends when Niki starts to descend into crime, as his divided loyalties — not to mention the danger of the thefts — insert tension into the plot. That stress is heightened even more when Niki starts a relationship with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), as getting closer to her necessitates a series of lies.

There comes a point, though, where the plot stagnates to a degree. Niki’s end goal, if he has one, is never clear, and it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before things start to fall apart. After starting strong in their character development, Roher and Ramsey take shortcuts as the film rushes toward its conclusion. This is most notable in a weird argument scene between Niki and Ruthie that comes out of nowhere and seems to serve no purpose in the story.

Woodall, who had a memorable turn in season 2 of The White Lotus, is on the cusp of breaking out, and this understated-but-compelling lead role should help him become an even bigger name in Hollywood. Hoffman has a small role, but he remains as interesting as ever despite the lack of screentime. Liu (Bottoms) is also an up-and-coming actor who should become a star with more roles like this one.

Tuner is a low-key thriller that succeeds because of the way the filmmakers approach the under-used method of robbery. Even if it doesn’t quite reach its potential, the film maintains a high quality throughout thanks to its storytelling and acting.

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Tuner is now playing in theaters.

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