at the drive-in

Houston's biggest drive-in screen rolls out fresh lineup for March

Warm up to some fresh March screenings in EaDo.

Photo courtesy of Rooftop Cinema Club

Warmer weather brings Houstonians out in droves to drive-ins. Perfect timing, then, for Houston’s beloved Rooftop Cinema Club to unveil its March programming for the buzzy Drive-In off Navigation(2315 Navigation Blvd.) for spring film fans.

(A standing ovation to the Drive-In, by the way, for the company’s quick response to the winter storm. Rooftop staffers mobilized a relief station that offered free meals, water, movie snacks, goodie bags, Wi-Fi, and use of onsite generators to charge devices.)

In keeping with the season, the March lineup features events highlighting St. Patrick’s Day, Spring Break, new Tuesday Date Nights, and birthday tributes to Rooftop favorites Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. Viewers can catch fave clicks on the massive 64-screen while enjoying views of the downtown skyline.

Tickets range from $22–36 per vehicle and go on sale March 2. Find the full schedule below and purchase tickets online.

Weekend (Friday – Sunday)

The Movie Buddy $26 – reserves one vehicle for up to two guests
The Movie Squad $36 – reserves one vehicle for three or more guests

Weekday (Wednesday and Thursday)

The Movie Buddy $22 – reserves one vehicle for up to two guests
The Movie Squad $27 – reserves one vehicle for three or more guests

Tuesday Date Nights
Enjoy the modern classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, edgy literary adaptations The Great Gatsby and Cruel Intentions, and romance in Love Jones and Love & Basketball.

St. Patrick's Day and It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green
Break out your best Boston (“Baah-stahn”) accent for this St. Patrick's Day weekend screening of Martin Scorsese's Irish tale of family, tradition and corruption: The Departed. Go green over the holiday weekend with early screenings of Shrek 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Spring Break
Toast high school daze with a screening of Dazed and Confused; Scream; sing-along favorite, High School Musical; Monsters University, and more.

Birthday bashes: Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino
The venue will celebrate the birthdays of two iconic filmmakers, Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino, by screening Do the Right Thing. Also, the Drive-In is asking Houstonians to choose the Tarantino film they’d like to see on his 58th birthday. Vote for your fave Tarantino flick here.

Movie-versaries
Movie anniversary milestones are marked for classics such as Happy Gilmore (25th anniversary), Raiders of the Lost Ark (40th), High School Musical (15th), and Boyz n the Hood (30th).

Community Screenings
Catch screenings of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Reality Bites at reduced prices. Proceeds benefit local homeless nonprofit, The Beacon.

Here is the full Drive-In March lineup:

March 2:Selena; Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind

March 3: The Lost World: Jurassic Park; Happy Gilmore

March 4:The Sandlot; The Wood

March 5:Freaky Friday; Never Been Kissed

March 6: The Emperor's New Groove; Talladega Nights

March 7:Twilight; The Mask

March 9:Raiders of The Lost Ark; The Great Gatsby

March 10:The Breakfast Club; Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

March 11:Back to The Future; Poetic Justice

March 13: Shrek 2; The Departed

March 14: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Texas Chain Saw Massacre

March 16: Mean Girls; Love & Basketball

March 17:High School Musical; Dazed and Confused

March 18: 21 Jump Street; Scream

March 19:Monsters University; Boyz N the Hood

March 20:Coco; Do the Right Thing

March 21:Fast Five

March 23: Beetlejuice; Love Jones

March 24:Jurassic World; Reality Bites

March 25:The Goonies; Child's Play

March 26:Jumanji: Welcome to The Jungle; Friday

March 27: Quentin Tarantino - People's Choice; Cabin in The Woods

March 28:Casablanca; Fight Club

March 30:Dirty Dancing; Cruel Intentions

March 31:Guardians of The Galaxy; Tales from The Hood

April 1: Aladdin; Brown Suga

April 2:The Croods: A New Age; A Nightmare On Elm Street

April 3: Chicken Run; Eddie Murphy: Raw

April 4: Selena; Donnie Darko

movies

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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