weekend event planner

Here are the top 12 things to do in Houston this Easter weekend

Get your Cajun on this Saturday.

Photo by Getty Images

This weekend will give us both the kooky April Fools' Day and the hallowed and joyous Easter Sunday. So, along with all the egg-hunting and prank-pulling that'll be going down these next few days, delight in these fun activities. Speaking of Easter fun, check out our handy Easter dining guide.

Here, then, are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, April 1

Gospel at the George: An Easter Celebration with John-Mark McGaha and Piper Jones
A.D. Players will present a gospel celebration featuring John-Mark McGaha and Piper Jones. Backed by a seven-piece band and a six-member, socially-distanced gospel choir, McGaha and Jones will perform such gospel hits as "Total Praise," "Jesus Will" and "Falling in Love with Jesus," as well as classic hymns like "Great is Thy Faithfulness," "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus" and "How Great Thou Art." This concert will be available to stream through Sunday, April 18. 7 pm.

Improv Houston presents Michael Yo
Actor, comedian, and self-proclaimed "half-black brother with a Korean mother" Michael Yo will be in town for a three-night stint at Improv Houston, as part of his We're Still Here Tour. He's been all over the place since he dropped his 2018 special Michael Yo: Blasian. He's been a regular on The Joe Rogan Experience and The Wendy Williams Show, as well as appearing on such sitcoms as Kevin Can Wait and Facebook Watch's Starter Pack. 8 pm (7:30 and 9:45 pm Friday; 7 and 9:30 pm Saturday).

Two Headed Dog presents Movies on the Patio
How about some outdoor movies to watch this April Fools' Day? If you're down with that, Midtown watering hole Two Headed Dog has a couple of particular selections you can watch. It starts with the 1997 Mira Sorvino-Lisa Kudrow comedy Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. This will be followed by another high-school movie: the 1987 horror sequel Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II. There will also be door prizes, a Romy and Michelle look-alike contest and food from Knives in Water. 10 pm.

Friday, April 2

Harris County Cultural Arts Council presents Crowns
For the next couple of weekends, Crowns showcases examples of the various headdresses worn by Black women, including African queens and those who wore the Tignon, across the diaspora down through the centuries. Intended as a tribute to Iola Moss (1914-2019), who believed the hat signified godly covering and was rarely seen on Sundays without one, Crowns celebrates the grace, beauty, strength, and resiliency of black women. It runs through Friday, April 16. 4 pm.

Alley Theatre presents El Chuco Town Forever
The Alley will be running this production written by Texas playwright Isaac Gómez (commissioned author of the upcoming What-a-Christmas! at the Alley). It's about Janie and Miguel, two long-time assistant managers at an El Paso big-box store, right by Juárez, Mexico. The memorial service is tonight. It didn’t happen at their store, but it could have. Should they go? Will they go? This will be available to stream through Sunday, July 4. 7:30 pm.

Houston Symphony presents A Bach Easter
On Friday and Saturday night, the Houston Symphony will celebrate the season with the exquisite music of Bach. This will include the Concerto for Oboe and Violin with Principal Oboe Jonathan Fischer and Concertmaster Yoonshin Song, two of Bach’s great sacred cantatas with vocalists Yulia Van Doren and Elizabeth DeShong, and the well-known Suite No. 2. Baroque specialist Jane Glover conducts the Easter-weekend program. The Saturday night performance is available to livestream from home. 8 pm.

Saturday, April 3

Easter Egg Hunt at Lone Star Flight Museum
Little aviators can join their age group to hunt for Easter eggs around our aircraft. All eggs are filled with toys and/or candy. Keep an eye out for golden eggs filled with special prizes like a museum membership or a surprise gift from the gift shop. Museum visitors will also enjoy more than two dozen amazing aircraft, flight simulators, the Flight Academy exhibit, the Heritage Gallery, and the Texas Aviation Hall of Fame. 9 am.

Barbie Pop-Up Truck at Baybrook Mall
Barbie fans and '90s lovers will enjoy this outdoor mobile pop-up experience for just one day only. The hot-pink truck will sell exclusive, Barbie-themed, retro-inspired apparel and accessories like embroidered denim jackets, caps, T-shirts, iridescent vinyl "boombox" tote bags, iridescent vinyl fanny packs, "cassette tape" wallets, etc. There will also be a collectible, Barbie Polaroid camera in limited quantities. This is perfect for all those Barbie girls in this Barbie world. 10 am.

Easter Weekend at Big Rivers Waterpark & Adventures
The New Caney water haven will be open Easter weekend and will include a Peeps eating contest on Saturday and an Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday. Admission this weekend is a discounted $14.99 per person and includes, in addition to the Easter activities, floating waterpark Wild Isle, the Boca Chica Bay Wave Pool, axe-throwing, archery, a cougar climb, a forest maze, a petting zoo, and alligator encounters. Zip lines and ropes courses are also available for an additional fee. 11 am.

The 2nd Annual Cajun AF Festival
Let's keep crawfish season going this weekend with this throwdown, happening at the Live Oak Lounge & Grill. For $100, you can get all-you-can eat crawfish, shrimp, and blue crabs. For $75, you can get all-you-can-eat crawfish and shrimp. For $40, there's the crawfish and, for $20, you can just get in and wander around. If you're the kind of person who loves to sit with a big pile of crawfish and just go to town all day, you can't go wrong with this. (It's free with RSVP until 3 pm.) Noon.

Sunday, April 4

The Woodlands Cars & Coffee for a Cause
Presented by Woodlands Performance & Suspension, the purpose behind this event is to provide a morning gathering to show off special vehicles, be a supportive partner with Market Street & the local community, share information about needful, non-profit organizations in Montgomery County, and to give back monetarily. Donations are welcome for the Market Street “Change for Charities” program, that benefits four new non-profit organizations in Montgomery County each year. 6:30 am.

Boosie Badazz at Space Houston Nightclub
It's going to get particularly ignant at Space Houston Nightclub this weekend. Because Boosie Badazz will be doing a set there this weekend. The Louisiana rapper is always being a dang fool on social media. You may have heard about him getting kicked off Instagram for paying some drunk dude at a convenience store $550 so Boosie could slap him for a music video. Believe it or not, that's the least ignant thing he's done on the Interwebs. He'll most likely get more ignant when he performs this weekend. 8 pm.

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Movie Review

Star TV producer James L. Brooks stumbles with meandering movie Ella McCay

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Emma Mackey in Ella McCay.

The impact that writer/director/producer James L. Brooks has made on Hollywood cannot be understated. The 85-year-old created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, personally won three Oscars for Terms of Endearment, and was one of the driving forces behind The Simpsons, among many other credits. Now, 15 years after his last movie, he’s back in the directing chair with Ella McCay.

The similarly-named Emma Mackey plays Ella, a 34-year-old lieutenant governor of an unnamed state in 2008 who’s on the verge of becoming governor when Governor Bill (Albert Brooks) gets picked to be a member of the president’s Cabinet. What should be a happy time is sullied by her needy husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), her agoraphobic brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), and her perpetually-cheating father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson).

Despite the trio of men competing to bring her down, Ella remains an unapologetic optimist, an attitude bolstered by her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), her assistant Estelle (Julie Kavner), and her police escort, Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani). The film follows her over a few days as she navigates the perils of governing, the distractions her family brings, and the expectations being thrust upon her by many different people.

Brooks, who wrote and directed the film, is all over the place with his storytelling. What at first seems to be a straightforward story about Ella and her various issues soon starts meandering into areas that, while related to Ella, don’t make the film better. Prime among them are her brother and father, who are given a relatively small amount of screentime in comparison to the importance they have in her life. This is compounded by a confounding subplot in which Casey tries to win back his girlfriend, Susan (Ayo Edebiri).

Then there’s the whole political side of the story, which never finds its focus and is stuck in the past. Though it’s never stated explicitly, Ella and Governor Bill appear to be Democrats, especially given a signature program Ella pushes to help mothers in need. But if Brooks was trying to provide an antidote to the current real world politics, he doesn’t succeed, as Ella’s full goals are never clear. He also inexplicably shows her boring her fellow lawmakers to tears, a strange trait to give the person for whom the audience is supposed to be rooting.

What saves the movie from being an all-out train wreck is the performances of Mackey and Curtis. Mackey, best known for the Netflix show Sex Education, has an assured confidence to her that keeps the character interesting and likable even when the story goes downhill. Curtis, who has tended to go over-the-top with her roles in recent years, tones it down, offering a warm place of comfort for Ella to turn to when she needs it. The two complement each other very well and are the best parts of the movie by far.

Brooks puts much more effort into his female actors, including Kavner, who, even though she serves as an unnecessary narrator, gets most of the best laugh lines in the film. Harrelson is capable of playing a great cad, but his character here isn’t fleshed out enough. Fearn is super annoying in his role, and Lowden isn’t much better, although that could be mostly due to what his character is called to do. Were it not for the always-great Brooks and Nanjiani, the movie might be devoid of good male performances.

Brooks has made many great TV shows and movies in his 60+ year career, but Ella McCay is a far cry from his best. The only positive that comes out of it is the boosting of Mackey, who proves herself capable of not only leading a film, but also elevating one that would otherwise be a slog to get through.

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Ella McCay opens in theaters on December 12.

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