weekend event planner

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

Quixote Nuevo, a modern retelling of the Don Quixote saga, continues at the Alley Theatre.

Photo courtesy of Alley Theatre

Super Bowl Sunday is this Sunday and, for those who prefer not to watch grown men do violent things to each other on the football field, you can always spend some time squeezing off a few rounds while eating some bagels.

That is what will be happening at the Glocks and Bagels Schmooze and Shoot event, also on Sunday. Whether you bring your own guns and ammo or you want to rent some steel, this gathering is for men and women who enjoy popping caps and wolfing down bagels and cream cheese.

For a way less violent time, there is also Quixote Nuevo, a modern retelling of the Don Quixote saga, playing at the Alley Theatre through February 9.

Of course, here are some other intriguing things popping off this weekend:

Thursday, January 30

Extra! Extra! Print on Film at The Printing Museum
Starting this weekend, The Printing Museum will start a weekly film series that is a creative way to appreciate print media and showcase the importance of news distribution and journalism. In the coming weeks, the series will screen Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent. Things kick off with a twofer: the documentary Benjamin Franklin: Citizen of the World at 3 and, later on at 7, Howard Hawks' classic The Front Page remake His Girl Friday. Runs through February 6. 3 pm.

Pepperland at Wortham Theater Center
A few years ago, the Mark Morris Dance Group came up with an energetic salute to The Beatles's 1967 masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This two-night event features an original score by Ethan Iverson that blends arrangements of songs from the groundbreaking album with new Pepper-inspired pieces. Along with paying tribute to one of the best rock albums of all time, this resounds with all the ingenuity, musicality, wit, and humanity for which the company is known. 8 pm.

Friday, January 31

Sticky Fingers Sticker Art Show at Insomnia Gallery
After a one-year hiatus, the fifth installment of this unique art show is back. This free gallery show will feature some classed-up slaps which also celebrates some of Houston's best and biggest street artists, alongside other local artists who may be new to the scene or trying their hand in the art of the slap. There will be plenty of individual stickers to buy, plus a giveaway or two. All ages are welcome, and, as always, Eureka Heights will come with the brew. 7-11 pm.

'80s Comedy Series at City Acre Brewing Co.
City Acre Brewing Co. will be taking it back to those days of leg warmers, moonwalking, and New Coke with a monthly movie series devoted to comedies from the '80s. In the coming months, the beer spot will give audiences such rewatchable favorites as Trading Places, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Back to the Future. This weekend, things will kick off with a screening of the beloved, Billy Crystal-Meg Ryan romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally... Runs through June 26.8 pm.

Saturday, February 1

Wepa Party! at The Dive
According to the folks who run this party, this isn't your regular Latin night. It is about pushing the culture forward and exposing everyone to new sounds and some classic tracks as well. Expect to hear Latin sounds from Mexico to Brazil and everything in between. Expect everything from Bad Bunny vibes to original cumbia remixes. Legacy and MLE Music will serve as the DJs, while Lilly Aviana will serve up the vegan elote. 9 pm-3 am.

Bounce and Turn Presents: Best of the East Coast at Options Trading Company
The Bounce and Turn rap party crew is bringing back its Best of the East Coast shindig, for all those who want to hear some serious, East Coast hip-hop this weekend. DJs Kay Illah, Yisel, Angiesliste, and DJ Candlestick will be spinning the deep cuts and hit tracks from the 1980s until now. So, expect to hear some J Dilla, MF DOOM, Eric B. and Rakim, Pete Rock, Jay-Z, etc. And Pabst Blue Ribbon will sponsor the $5 online (BYOBottles) and open bar. 10 pm-2 am.

Sunday, February 2

Touch the Sky at The Montrose Center
The Houston General Defense Committee - IWW will host a screening of this video collage, which reflects on the raw moments of the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, after resident Michael Brown was slain by a police officer. Although there have already been some blunt, brutal films made on that particular point in time (may we suggest tracking down the 2017 documentary Whose Streets?), this one goes out to the wild ones, the anarchists and the dreamers. 3-6 pm.

Match Girl and Blackbird at MATCH
Aperio, Music of the Americas presents a multimedia program featuring recent and world premiere works for voice, piano, and percussion by composers David Lang and Shawn Crouch. Things will kick off with Lang’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio, The Little Match Girl Passion. This is followed by the world premiere of Shawn Crouch’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, which acts as a musical and dramatic counterweight to the ethereal sound world of Lang’s oratorio. 6 pm.

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Movie Review

Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero

Photo by Jay Maidment

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter.

One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.

Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.

The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).

Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?

The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.

That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.

Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.

With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.

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Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

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