summer on the rooftop

Houston's Rooftop Cinema Club showcases sizzling summer favorites, dog-friendly flicks, and more

Enjoy summer classics and favorites on the rooftop.

Photo by J. Thomas Ford

Houston’s most popular outdoor movie experience is rolling out hot movies for our warmest days. Rooftop Cinema Club Uptown has announced the first half of its upcoming summer lineup, which kicks off May 2 at the buzzy BLVD Place in Uptown.

This new lineup, which runs through July 4 weekend, promises a host of cult classics, new releases, and Rooftop’s signature, themed collections, celebrations, and events — especially of summer favorites, natch.

Tickets for the summer season are on sale now and range from $17.50 to $25.25. Options include the venue’s new double Adirondack loveseat (a fave for couples), a single Adirondack, or deck chair with or without popcorn.

Movies starting before 4:30 pm are open to all ages; those starting after 4:30 pm are strictly 18 and up. As always, the club will serve up its own concessions, food, wine, beer, and canned cocktails for purchase on-site.

Notably, guests can bring outside food to enjoy (perfect for kids’ snacks), but no outside drinks are permitted. Rooftop is also bringing back its popular, dog-friendly Wooftop screenings and the audience-participation-themed People’s Choice showcases, a press release notes.

As for the flicks: Fans can expect summer favorites such as the musical Mamma Mia for Mother’s Day; the 25th anniversary of the Bruce Willis-led sci-fi dazzler, The Fifth Element, Friday the 13th on Friday, May 13; a special “Cruise Control” weekend of Tom Cruise hits; fan favorite The Birdcage, to kick off Pride Month; Straight Out of Compton for Black Music Month; celebrations for Prince’s and Tupac’s birthdays; and much more.

Monthly special events include the following, per Rooftop:

May

May 8 – Mother’s Day: Bring Mom and sing along to the toe-tapping smash Mamma Mia at 6:30 pm.
May 12 – People’s Choice: May’s theme is “time travel” and in salute of the summer opening of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Rooftop is asking fans to choose which time-bending cinematic epic to celebrate (vote here). Voting closes May 2 and the winning film will be announced May 3.
May 13 – Friday the 13th: Scream with your friends to the original summer slasher at 10 pm.
May 21–22 – Cruise Control: To toast the upcoming release of the highly anticipated Top Gun: Maverick, Rooftop takes off with a “Cruise Control” weekend, featuring Tom Cruise hits ranging from Jerry Maguire to Risky Business.
May 28-29 – Prom Season: In Rooftop’s first dedication to the cherished (and sometimes terrifying) high school tradition of prom, fans can catch high school classics 10 Things I Hate About You, Back to the Future, Carrie, She’s All That, and 21 Jump Street.

June

June 1 – Kickoff to Pride Month: Throughout the month, guests can expect variety of LGBTQIA+ hits, starting with the hysterical Robin Williams comedy, The Birdcage at 6:30 pm. Other themed screenings include, But I’m a Cheerleader on June 15, Set It Off on June 22, and more.
June 16 – Black Music Month and Tupac’s Birthday: Partnering with Houston Cinema Arts Society, the venue will host a variety of films focused on Black music and culture. Things kick off with Poetic Justice on the late and legendary Tupac Shakur’s birthday.
June 19 – Juneteenth: On the heels of Black Music Month celebrations, Rooftop will showcase Black filmmakers and actors with the films Love & Basketball and the evocative, provoking horror remake, Candyman.

July

To celebrate Fourth of July, Rooftop will screen The Sandlot, Dazed & Confused, and the July 4 action blockbuster Independence Day (and that unforgettable Houston scene!).

For a full list of movies and schedule for May, June, and July, visit the Rooftop Cinema Club website.

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Rooftop Cinema Club is located upstairs at BLVD Place in Uptown, 6 BLVD Place, 1700 1, 1800 Post Oak Blvd.

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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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