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

Dakota Fanning-led The Sun Never Sets needs more direction

Photo courtesy of Independent Film Company

Dakota Fanning in The Sun Never Sets.

The movies of writer/director Joe Swanberg have always been an acquired taste, as he prefers to give his actors a loose framework of a story and let them improvise most of their lines to give the films a more natural feel. Sometimes that approach can yield great results, and sometimes — as in The Sun Never Sets — it can result in addled and maddening storytelling.

Wendy (Dakota Fanning) is in her early 30s and at a crossroads in her life. When a friend announces she’s pregnant, she starts to re-evaluate what she wants, including her two-year relationship with the older Jack (Jake Johnson). Although they love each other, their disagreements on having more children and extracurricular activities call their long-term viability into question.

Jack, not wanting Wendy to settle, encourages her to explore her options where they live — Anchorage, Alaska — telling her he’ll be waiting should she strike out. What he doesn’t expect is that Wendy’s ex-boyfriend, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), has returned to the city, giving her an attractive alternative. The three engage in a love triangle that proves frustrating and confusing for both the participants and the viewers.

What works best about the film is its location in Alaska, which rarely gets showcased in movies, and even more rarely in the way it is here. The story takes place in warmer months, and Swanberg gives his characters multiple opportunities to be outside, showing off Anchorage’s harbor, surrounding mountains, and seemingly vibrant city life. The subtle but effective way Swanberg frames various scenes makes the landscape enormously appealing.

It’s too bad, then, that the story never measures up to its surroundings. Too often Fanning, Johnson, Smith, and others seem to be grasping for their next line, unsure of what they want their character to do or say next. That lets their scenes mimic real conversations, but you might not realize how much you want scripted dialogue until you see actors trying to come up with their own in the moment.

The larger issue is that there’s no consistency from scene to scene about where the plot is heading. The characters of Wendy, Jack, and Chuck are extremely wishy-washy about their desires, with each of them vacillating back-and-forth in just how much they want to be with each other. Depending on your experience, this may or may not be true to life, but watching it is excruciating and not enjoyable or romantic in the slightest.

As actors, Fanning, Johnson, and Smith are talented and interesting, with each capable of connecting with viewers in different ways. But working in improvisation is a different beast, and only Johnson — who has worked with Swanberg multiple times — seems truly at home. A few others, like Debby Ryan and Anna Konkle, do well in the format and maybe deserved bigger parts.

Swanberg has proven in the past that his method of filmmaking can be insightful and entertaining, but that is not the case here. In The Sun Never Sets, his hands-off approach is a detriment to the flow of the film and the story as a whole, resulting in an experience that is far from what most viewers will want to go through.

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The Sun Never Sets is now playing in select theaters.

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