Weekend Event Planner

Here are the top 11 things to do in Houston this weekend

It's the week post-Super Bowl LI and Houston is showing no signs in slowing down with activities. There's plenty for everyone in the family to get into this weekend. Sesame Street Live, Monster Jam, and a premiere performance of To Kill a Mockingbird are just a few of the events on tap.

Here's are our picks for the top 11 events happening in Houston this weekend, but you can always see a full list on our CultureMap Events Calendar.

Thursday, February 9

Sesame Street Live: Elmo Makes Music

Elmo, Abby, Cadabby, Big Bird, and other iconic characters learn to make beautiful music together after they search for their new teacher's missing instruments and discover new ones in this fun children's show. Multiple performances through Sunday at NRG Park.

The 25th Annual Great Grown Up Spelling Bee

Multiple teams of two adults compete against each other in this fun and competitive spelling bee until one emerges victorious — and the Houston Center for Literacy benefits. The night features cocktails, light bites, a dj, and desserts.

Friday, February 10

GoGames360 Houston

Game lovers will flock to The Woodlands all weekend to play hundreds of video games, board games, and physical games from around the world, laser and archery tag, an obstacle course, Lego gallery, dance-a-thon, ping pong, and Hamsterball Soccer. A dance and cheer showcase adds to the fun.

Tapas on the Trails

In advance of Valentine's Day, the popular Tapas on the Trails offers a romantic evening getaway at the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center. Enjoy a softly-lit walk through the Arboretum’s nature sanctuary, pausing along the way to indulge in five delicious courses paired perfectly with carefully selected beers and wines. Guests receive a commemorative glass to take home. The evening ends at the Meadow Deck overlooking our one acre pond and meadow where guests will enjoy sparkling wine, handcrafted desserts, coffee, and the company of an owl. The event takes place Friday and Saturday night.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Oscar Nominees: Animated Short Films

See all of this year's Oscar nominees in the Animated Short Films category, including Borrowed Time, Pearl, Piper, Blind Vaysha, and Pear Cider and Cigarettes, and you'll be ahead of the game when it comes to predicting the winner. On Saturday, the MFAH will present the nominees in the Documentary Short Subject category; a repeat of the Antimated Short Films will take place on Sunday.

STOMP

The Society for the Performing Arts presents the return of this inventive and invigorating stage show that’s part dance, part concert, part theatrical performance, all blended together in one electrifying rhythm that features matchboxes, brooms, garbage cans, Zippo lighters, and more filling the stage. Performances continue all weekend.

Saturday, February 11

Monster Jam

Adults and children alike will have an exciting time watching custom-designed trucks, approximately 12 feet tall and about 12 feet wide, sitting atop 66-inch-tall tires and weighing a minimum of 10,000 pounds, fly up to 130 feet in the distance and up to 35 feet in the air while reaching speeds as high as 100 miles per hour.

Houston Symphony presents Celebrate Asia

Led by Taiwanese-American guest conductor Mei-Ann Chen, the hour-long concert at Houston Baptist University features east Asian folk songs interwoven with popular Western classical music. Select works on the program include Bèo Dạt Mây Trôi, a lush orchestration of a traditional Vietnamese song arranged for orchestra by leading Vietnamese cellist Ngo Hoang Quan; Yuzo Toyama’s Rhapsody for Orchestra, a folk-music travelogue of Japan; and a set of variations on “Arirang,” a folk song often referred to as Korea’s unofficial national anthem. Mongolian violinist Angelo Xiang Yu also joins in the celebration of the musical traditions of Houston's Asian communities.

Beats+BBQ+Brews

Happening the second Saturday of every month at Axelrad Beer Garden from noon until 5 pm, this weekend's edition include beats from DJ Seek, barbecue from Blood Bros. BBQ, including 44 Farms chuck ribs and beef brisket, pork ribs, smoked boudain, and more. And, of course, lots of brews.

Sunday, February 12

To Kill a Mockingbird

A.D. Players kicks off its 50th anniversary season in its brand new theater with Christopher Sergel’s dramatization of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harper Lee novel. Film and television actor Jason Douglas stars as Atticus Finch with Jemma Kosanke as Scout.

Dashboard Confessional

The rock band will perform hits from their various albums, including The Swiss Army Romance, After the Ending, and The Shade of Poison Trees at House of Blues. Vinyl Theater is the opening act.

We'd love to hear how you enjoyed these events and others happening around the city. Be sure to connect with us on social media.

Dashboard Confessional rocks the House of Blues.

Dashboard Confessional/Facebook

Dashboard Confessional rocks the House of Blues.

event-planner

Movie Review

Spielberg-inspired movie The End of Oak Street is a dino-snore

Photo by Daniel McFadden

Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway in The End of Oak Street.

Steven Spielberg is the iconic director of the last 50 years, so it’s no surprise that many other filmmakers have borrowed from his classic films. But most of the time those come in the form of references or homages, not straight up theft, which is what it feels like watching The End of Oak Street play out in front of your eyes.

Set in the early 1980s in an idyllic suburban neighborhood of an unnamed city, Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (Ewan McGregor) are parents to two teenagers, Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). They’re also possibly heading toward divorce, as Audrey is secretly writing a novel with a thinly-veiled plot about their life, and Brian is cagey about having to earn extra money with a pizza delivery job.

That all gets put on the backburner when a mysterious event takes their entire neighborhood back to the time of dinosaurs. Armed with little more than a shotgun and sledgehammer, Audrey and Brian do their best to keep the family safe in their house. But the longer the ordeal goes on, circumstances force them out onto the streets and into the increasing danger that’s all around them.

Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, the film tries immensely hard to be like the Spielberg movies its filmmaker clearly adores, but fails at almost every turn. It never earns the broken family in ‘80s suburbia vibes that were prevalent in E.T., going all in right away in the opening scene with a neighborhood block party that feels forced. Other elements like a bully who has it out for Brian, the family dog that disappears, and an angry neighbor come across as the tropes they are and not as organic parts of the plot.

When it finally gets to its dinosaur sequences, they pale in comparison to those found in Jurassic Park. The strange manner in which the dinosaurs appear is a big part of that, but the action involving them forgoes ominous moments that could build tension for those that play up gore in an unexpected way for a PG-13 movie. Many of the attacks have so little emotional meaning that they come off as comical, which is entertaining but in a hollow way.

As if those weren’t enough, Mitchell — perhaps at the behest of producer J.J. Abrams (who made his own Spielbergian film, Super 8) — tries to honor Spielberg in other ways. Just like in Jaws, he employs the use of a split diopter lens, which keeps characters in both the foreground and background in focus. But instead of using it judiciously, it’s brought out in three separate scenes, including a laughable one with the four family members where it turns into overkill.

Hathaway, coming off of a role in The Odyssey that could earn her an Oscar nomination, is the best part of this film. But even her evident skills are dragged down by the ridiculousness of the story, which requires hysterics that even she can’t sell. McGregor can normally be counted on for a good performance, but he gives several line readings with strange cadences that make his already-underwritten character come off worse. Stella and Convery are okay, but their roles are unmemorable overall.

Mitchell and his team can never settle on exactly what type of film they were trying to make, and so even though The End of Oak Street has a few moments that work, they’re surrounded by many others that don’t. In trying to emulate Spielberg — there’s even a blatant Back to the Future (produced by Spielberg) rip-off towards the end — all Mitchell has done is show how difficult it is to be the master.

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The End of Oak Street opens in theaters on August 14.