RodeoHouston 2018

Too cool for controversy: Leon Bridges and Bun B bring swagger and trill to RodeoHouston

Bridges made the most of the RodeoHouston stage.

Photo by Steven Devadanam

You have to feel for Leon Bridges. The Texan soul singer faced some long odds at his RodeoHouston debut March 2. But he did it with style, and a smile.

Following recent Black Heritage Day entertainers like Usher, Alicia Keys and Mary J. Blige would be difficult enough. The 28-year-old Bridges has plenty of talent, but only one full-length album to his credit (2015’s Coming Home) and a fraction of those superstars’ popularity.

But since this year’s lineup was announced in early January, his spot has been at the center of a controversy over whether or not his music is, in a word, black enough for Black Heritage Day. (As a white man, that’s not my call to make — obviously.)

One theory holds that while white hipsters and music critics may love Bridges’ snappy ’60s-soul sound, programmers at black-oriented radio stations and other media outlets — perhaps less enamored of nostalgia — don’t. But neither side may fully fathom the gospel roots that nourish everything he does, despite “Flowers” or “Lisa Sawyer” (about his mom) being about all the evidence they’d ever need.

Anyhow, every year the rodeo’s talent buyers fill out the lineup based on a roulette wheel of availability, affordability and luck. Who knows how many names they crossed off this year before Bridges signed on? Maybe they just like his music.

In that they would not be alone. Bridges showed enough spark to suggest he’s been holding out on the people who have written him off as a simple Sam Cooke clone. Much more likely he’s just growing as an artist; this is a man whose second album is still in the future, probably later this year.

No sense in sugar-coating it: the announced attendance of 51,870 was down sharply from the previous few Black Heritage Days. The lower bowl was mostly full, the upper levels much less so. But to put that number in perspective, it’s barely 1,000 fewer than the considerably better-known Little Big Town drew Ferbruary 28. And it’s almost certainly one of the biggest non-festival audiences Bridges has ever seen.

As if he had a choice, the Fort Worth-raised singer’s set was heavy on Coming Home standouts: “Smooth Sailin’,” “Brown Skin Girls,” “Coming Home” and “Better Man.” All were sweet and snappy, as advertised.

The songs not off the album, like “The Juice,” were jazzier and splashier. Here Bridges nodded to a wider variety of influences than on his debut — “Superstition”-era Stevie Wonder, James Brown, New Edition, maybe a little Michael circa Off the Wall.

Dude can also write a slow jam, no problem.

To the crowd’s delight, he brought out none other Bun B for the UGK classic “One Day.” Singing the mournful hook, Bridges raised more than a few goosebumps while the Trill OG, basking in that never-ending H-Town love, capably handled the verses. Shame it didn’t go on longer.

Bridges’ main problem, but also one of his strengths, is his complete lack of camp. No wonder some people don’t quite know what to make of him. His band is first-rate and their close harmonies exceptional, especially backup singer Brittni Jessi. Even the songs that go a little light on drama are well-constructed. Sadly, absent any visual effects to speak of, they tended to get swallowed by the stadium.

But there were bright spots all the same. Near the end, the stirring “River” brought up the phones, a few to record and many more to illuminate the arena with their flashlights. “Twistin’ and Groovin’” was all good, clean fun. And for the first time all night, closer “Mississippi Kisses” got a good number of folks up and dancing enthusiastically.

A few more songs like that and Bridges might fill up some of those empty seats next time.

Leon Bridges Setlist

Smooth Sailin’
Born to Lose
The Juice
Brown Skin Girls
Coming Home
Better Man
Lisa Sawyer
One Day w/Bun B (UGK cover)
Only Us
Come Over
Beyond
First Good Time
Flowers
Twistin & Groovin’
River
Mississippi Kisses

Bridges brought a vibe of old-school cool.

Photo by Jacob Power

Bridges brought a vibe of old-school cool.

music rodeo

Movie Review

New comedy I Want Your Sex saddles an all-star cast with a dull story

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in I Want Your Sex.

Writer/director Gregg Araki has been making provocative movies for nearly 40 years, releasing his debut — Three Bewildered People in the Night — in 1987. Most of them have had plotlines that revolved around sex in one way or another, and for his latest — his first film in 12 years — he’s putting it right there in the title, I Want Your Sex.

Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is an aimless twenty-something who can’t even afford the rent for his apartment with best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). Thankfully, he finds a job at the gallery of artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), who is open with her sexuality both in her artwork and in her day-to-day life. That soon includes Elliot, whom she convinces to enter into a dominant-submissive relationship with her, with sessions taking place both at work and her home.

Elliot, who’s in a going-nowhere coupling with Minerva (Charli XCX), is more than willing to participate, both because it lets him feel something he doesn’t get normally and because Erika offers a perspective on sex that’s much different from people of his generation. But as he gets in deeper with her, he starts to lose a sense of himself, going down a path in which he finds himself talking to police detectives Zem (Johnny Knoxville) and Zola (Margaret Cho).

Araki does his level best to make I Want Your Sex into a broad comedy, and early on it seems as if he might succeed. The deadpan way that sexual objects appear in the film (a penis-shaped rug in Elliot and Apple’s apartment, a vagina artwork with chewed gum as the medium) make for amusing sight gags. He also makes Elliot the bewildered other in multiple twosomes, with Minerva being the funniest, as she’s way more interested in studying than his ham-fisted attempts at sex.

It’s clear that Araki wants the film to be a commentary on the generational differences about sex, but he fumbles his own idea. It starts with an on-the-nose conversation between Erika and Elliot, and continues with the various dalliances, which seem to be more about making Elliot look and feel ridiculous than giving true insight. Their encounters certainly open his mind about what sex can be, but their one-note nature makes them repetitive and frankly boring, odd considering the acts in which the two engage.

The uninspired storytelling makes the 90-minute film drag way more than it should. Araki includes a few other characters to try to vary the tone of the film, including gallery workers Zap (Mason Gooding) and Vikktor (Daveed Diggs), but their early promise yields little results. The framing device of Elliot’s interview with the detectives never works, especially because Araki completely neuters the personalities of Cho and Knoxville for seemingly no good reason.

The cast as a whole goes to waste. Hoffman is showing the promise of his late father (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and even though he’s appealing here, the material pulls him down. Wilde just made her own provocative movie about sex (The Invite), and this one pales in comparison despite her heightened performance. Wonders, Charli XCX, and Gooding are all young stars who deserve to be showcased much better than they are in this film.

A film called I Want Your Sex is announcing itself as daring and alluring, but this film contains almost none of those qualities. Instead, it’s a slog that only occasionally has something interesting to show or say, mostly relying on the power of its actors to hold viewers’ attention — and failing at even that.

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I Want Your Sex is now playing in select theaters.