weekend event planner

Here are the top 14 things to do in Houston this weekend

Alvin Ailey Dance company leaps into Jones Hall.

Photo by Andrew Eccles

This weekend offers a host of events for culture hounds. Those that enjoyed the Immersive Van Gogh experience can now delight in Immersive Frida Kahlo, which brings another iconic painter's works to life. Look for other art openings and events for every taste.

Meanwhile, America's most cherished dance company makes a Houston stop for arguably its most beloved work. Film fans can enjoy a new festival, and shoppers can hit a familiar market.

Enjoy the offerings. Here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, February 17

Immersive Frida Kahlo
See the Mexican-born artist’s work come to life on a grand scale, thanks to large-scale projections accompanied by a musical score. Guests will be able to discover the people, events, and obstacles that made Kahlo the extraordinary woman she was. The exhibition will use state-of-the-art technology to provide a 360-degree experience inside the colorful and vibrant world of Kahlo's artwork. Through Sunday, April 17. 1 pm (noon Friday; 10 am Saturday and Sunday).

Moody Center for the Arts presents Dimensions Variable with Conductor Jerry Hou
Commissioned by the Moody as a part of their Dimensions Variable series, conductor Jerry Hou offers an original score that considers the aural and visual components of Anri Sala's and Spencer Finch's installations, both on view in the exhibition. For this special performance, Hou conducts guest artist Lauren Jacobson and student musicians from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. 7 pm.

Sin Muros (Without Walls): A Borderless Teatro Festival
With this four-day fest, Stages celebrates the range of Latinx voices and stories reflecting the diversity of local Texas communities. As all arts communities navigate a unique time in the middle of a pandemic, this year marks the return to an in-person celebration. For Sin Muros, this means a refreshed focus on what makes the festival so engaging: the public readings of dynamic new works. The festival will feature four play readings — three in person and one virtual. 7 pm (11 am Saturday and Sunday).

Friday, February 18

To Catch a Thief at MFAH
Alfred Hitchcock memorably pairs Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in this lively 1955 thriller, set on the sunny French Riviera. The debonair Grant plays a notorious retired jewel thief who sets out to prove his innocence when accused of a string of burglaries. The radiant Kelly is Frances Stevens, an elegant socialite who gets involved with solving the crimes as romance blooms. Watch for Kelly’s fabulous costumes, designed by Edith Head. 7 pm (2 pm Saturday).

4th Wall Theatre Company presents Random Acts
In this one-woman show, writer/performer Renata Hinrichs revisits moments from her youth as a minister’s child on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement. From witnessing the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, to dancing with Julie Andrews, to receiving an unexpected message of reconciliation, Hinrichs reveals how the events of the past have shaped her spirit and asks whether a random act of brutality can be transformed by a random act of courage and grace. Through February 27. 7:30 pm (3 pm Sunday).

Society for the Performing Arts presents Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has forever changed the perception of American dance. Each performance of their awaited Houston return features the company’s signature masterpiece - Revelations. At once mournful and triumphant, Revelations harnesses African-American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs, and blues to speak to Ailey’s upbringing in rural Rogers, Texas, and Black heritage in America. 7:30 pm (2 and 7:30 pm Saturday).

Ghoulia Child and Grimm Lynne present The Rock’n’Roll Revue
Local burlesque queens Ghoulia Child (aka "Houston's horror honey") and Grimm Lynne present this extremely titillating, monthly revue, featuring burlesque (and sometimes variety) talents both near and far. Of course, Ghoulia and Grimm are the stars of the show. They will perform a high energy, campy neo-burlesque, featuring music from your dad's classic rock playlist to early 2000s, cry-yourself-to-sleep emo bops. 9:30 pm.

Saturday, February 19

Foltz Fine Art presents "Dan R. Stewart: A Modernist Perspective at Home and Abroad" opening reception
This weekend, the fine folks at Foltz Fine Art will serve up this mid-century “rediscovery” exhibition for artist and architect Dan R. Stewart (1926-2013). Like many post-war American artists, Stewart’s life and art reflects its era, coming of age in a time of greater access and travel opportunities abroad, and allowing more artists to explore and paint their changing world. Through Saturday, March 19. 6 pm.

black women are worthy: art museum opening at POSTHTX
Deun Ivory, founder and creative director of the wellness space the body: a home for love, has returned to Houston to host this free, immersive art installation that explores conceptual design as a healing mechanism for black women — in celebration of Black History Month. The museum will serve as a safe space for black women to insert themselves into a narrative that feels warm and inviting, while amplifying the little-known history of what once stood in POSTHTX’s place. 7 pm.

DACAMERA presents Tyshawn Sorey: Monochromatic Light (Afterlife)
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of Rothko Chapel, DACAMERA and Rothko Chapel have commissioned boundary-breaking composer Tyshawn Sorey to create a new work inspired by the Chapel and by Morton Feldman’s 20th-century masterpiece Rothko Chapel, composed for the opening celebration. Embodying harmony, meditation and art, Sorey's piece strives to portray what it means not only to hear music, but also to experience it. 7 pm (3 pm Saturday).

Spiritless x Sans Bar Zero Proof Pop Up
Austin-based non-alcoholic spirits brand Spiritless has joined forces with Sans Bar to create a historic experience in the heart of Houston. An all-access GA ticket includes unlimited drinks and gifts, while VIP ticket holders will receive a swag bag and a meet-and-greet with brand ambassadors, community leaders, and Sans Bar founder Chris Marshall, who will be celebrating 15 years of alcohol freedom in the city where his recovery started. 7 pm.

Sunday, February 20

The Market at River Oaks District
The Market at the District is back! River Oaks District has partnered with Your Neighborhood Farmer’s Market to transform this picturesque streets into an open-air market hosting a curated assortment of our city’s finest local farms, artisans and chefs treating you to fresh fare, provisions and new discoveries for your pantry and beyond. Basically, it's a curated collection of 30-plus local farmers, artisans, and purveyors, hitting you with the good goods. 11 am.

Bayou Bend Collections and Gardens presents Children’s Texas Art Festival
The Children’s Texas Art Festival celebrates art — created by and for children — that helps forge a connection to Texas and American heritage. It's also an afternoon of free, family-friendly fun. Families are invited to enjoy art-making workshops, games, and a group project. Demonstrations emphasize the way art keeps people connected to the past, how it improves the present, and why preserving it is important for the future. 1 pm.

ReelAbilities Houston presents ReelFilm Opening Night: Telos and Keeping the Chaos Together
ReelAbilities Houston will host a virtual, opening night, featuring discussion around two locally directed/produced films. The first film Telos is about a woman who finds a new path when a chronic illness disqualifies her from space travel. Next, the documentary Keeping the Chaos Together tells inspirational, emotional stories and has interviews with psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who provide a deeper understanding about mental illness. 7 pm.

event-planner

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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