weekend event planner

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

Ready for a laugh? Check out a dad joke contest. (Yes, for real.)

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It's Super Bowl Weekend, which means everyone will be gearing up on Sunday to watch two much-reviled football teams kooky commercials, Puppy Bowl, and Kitten Bowl.

Here are the fun happenings this weekend leading up to the Big Game.

Thursday, January 31

Texas Children's Hospital presents Cooking for a Cure
The fourth annual Cooking for a Cure gives people an opportunity to not only give to a good cause — the Food Allergy Program at Texas Children’s Hospital — but to also experience the challenges people with food allergies face. Each guest will be assigned a food allergy to experience how it feels to avoid dishes containing the allergenic food. Among the culinary partners that'll be serving up dishes: A Fare Extraordinaire, Brennan’s of Houston, Café Annie, Underbelly Hospitality, and others. 7 pm.

Friday, February 1

Tom Loeser: Please Please Please at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft will be launching two openings this weekend: To Be of Use in the front gallery and, in the main gallery, Tom Loeser: Please Please Please. This traveling exhibition of the Wisconsin-based, furniture maker/designer encourages viewers to shake up their habits and interact with the environment and one another, while considering issues such as body posture and etiquette that are often taken for granted. It will be on display through May 12. 5:30-8 pm.

Dad Joke Tournament at Eureka Heights Brew Co.
With the consistent onslaught of bad news these days, don't you need something fun and ridiculous right now? Expect a one-on-one competition where each person takes a turn telling the lamest, daddest joke possible. Each contestant will tell three jokes. After three jokes, a decibel meter will judge the audience reaction. The dad with the loudest applause moves on. Sign up starts at 5:30. 7 pm.

Da Camera presents Vienna 1900: In the Garden of Dreams
Get ready to have a dream-like experience with this two-night production, an immersive feast for the ears, the eyes and, of course, the mind. Conceived and directed by Da Camera artistic director Sarah Rothenberg, this work draws on the writings of August Stringberg and Sigmund Freud, the music of Johannes Brahms and Arnold Schoenberg, and the art of Gustav Klimt and Max Klinger to illuminate the connections between music, art, psychology and literature, at the turn of the 20th century. 7:30 pm.

Saturday, February 2

Naughty AF Valentine Edition at Raven Tower
Valentine's Day is only a couple of weeks away, and the folks at freaky free market Naughty AF is giving boyfriends, husbands, and side dudes the chance to get their V-D gifts early. Among the vendors that'll be on hand: Carla Sue, Tenacious Leaf, Sugar Britches, Fizzycist Bath and Body, fLuxe Jewelry, and so many others. You can also snack on tacos from Pan de Taco while you go around this place, pulling your hair out over what to get your special someone on that damn day. 4-10 pm.

The Amazing Acro-Cats at MATCH
Houston, prepare for an all-cat talent show. This two-hour purrformance (sorry) features talented, domesticated house cats as they roll around on balls, ride skateboards, jump through hoops, and other fun stuff. The piece de resistance is the finale, when Tuna and the Rock Cats — known as "the only all-cat band in the entire world" — performs. This group consists of seven felines and a chicken (named Chuck Norris) who plays on tambourine. Sweet Jesus. 7 pm.

DCappella at Smart Financial Centre
Since Pentatonix and the Pitch Perfect movies have made a cappella a hip, cool thing all the young kids should take part in, you knew Disney was gonna find a way to make money off of that. So, ladies and gents, Disney presents...DCappella. The seven-member unit has an album full of classic Disney songs performed a cappella (of course!) currently out. So, if you ever wanted to hear "Friend Like Me" or "You'll Be in My Heart" get the a cappella treatment, they're here to give it to ya. 7:30 pm.

Sunday, February 3

Hip Hop Vintage Flea Market
This has gotta be the place where connoisseurs of hip-hop streetwear like ourselves can score some old-school threads from Cross Colours, Karl Kani, Martha + Francois Girbaud and others. Maybe we can finally find some African American College Alliance hoodies from back in the day. Man, the possibilities are endless. Noon-5 pm.

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Movie Review

New Disney movie Zootopia 2 keeps the fun of the original

Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Animation Studios

Nick (Jason Bateman) and Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) in Zootopia 2.

When Zootopia came out in 2016, Walt Disney Animation Studios was in the midst of a great run of original films, including Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, and finally Moana. Their output since then has not been as good, including three mediocre sequels, three so-so originals, and only one truly great film, Encanto.

All of which is to say that the odds for Zootopia 2 breaking that trend were low even before they started working on it. The odd couple pair of rabbit Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are now officially detectives in the Zootopia Police Department, but they still have a penchant for not following the orders of Chief Bogo (Idris Elba). Such mischievous behavior doesn’t sit well with the other detective teams, which include pairs of zebras, hippos, hogs, and goats.

Still, their slightly insubordinate ways put them on the path toward discovering the infiltration of Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan), the first reptile to be seen in Zootopia in a long time. He’s trying to steal a book that would prove that his relative was the rightful inventor of a weather technology that gives all animals in Zootopia an ideal climate. But the high-powered Lynxley family, including father Milton (David Straithairn) and son Pawbert (Andy Samberg), lay claim to the idea and won’t give it up easily.

Written and directed by Jared Bush, and co-directed by Byron Howard, the film retains the fun of the first film if not the consistently interesting story. Though Judy and Nick get along much better than they did previously, they still don’t see eye-to-eye on everything. It’s Judy who takes more risks this time around, with Nick’s rule-breaking ways seeming to have rubbed off on her, a nice twist that leads to some ironic situations.

The filmmakers struggle to make the story as easily coherent this time around, with the new characters a decidedly mixed bunch. The Lynxleys are supposed to be the bad guys of the film, but they’re not featured enough to drum up any enmity for them. The detective duos are fun comic relief, especially the two who refer to themselves as the Ze-bros, but none of them factor very much in the actual story.

Instead, the filmmakers fall back on things like cameos from small characters from the first film and a flurry of groan-worthy animal puns. While it’s fun to see the sloth Flash (Raymond S. Persi), sheep Bellwether (Jenny Slate), and Gazelle (Shakira), their appearances are too brief to carry the movie overall. The visuals are as fantastic as expected of Disney films, especially the myriad fur/hides/scales of the different creatures, but the film is not designed to necessarily wow in that respect.

Both Goodwin and Bateman prove again that they were cast perfectly for their respective roles, as Goodwin fully embodies Judy’s relentless enthusiasm and Bateman brings the wry tone to his street smart character. If you know them, it’s fun to have people like Samberg, Straithairn, Quinta Brunson, and Patrick Warburton in supporting roles, but no one but Warburton and his distinctive voice elevates the film.

Like most of Disney’s recent sequels, Zootopia 2 is a pleasant enough movie that lets fans revisit some favorite characters. But when a bar is set high with the first film as it was with Zootopia, it takes more outside-of-the-box thinking to have the second one measure up in any significant way.

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Zootopia 2 opens in theaters on November 26.

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