Music Matters

Your weekend music guide to iFest: Are you ready to street party?

Ozomatli are worth the iFest admission price just by themselves.
Joe Ely brings the Texas to iFest.
There will be a decidedly international flavor to this year's iFest.

I'm cheating a bit by making the entire Houston International Festival (iFest) my concert pick for the weekend.

With eight live music and performance stages showcasing Grade-A talent from Houston (local reggae band Irie Time) to Mali (the West African roots and rhythms of Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba) all day on Saturday and Sunday ... comparing it to any other club show in town is a bit like weighing the pros and cons between champagne and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

Now in its 40th year, the 2010 iFest shines a spotlight on the Caribbean, which, for this weekend and next (April 24 and 25), should turn downtown's west end into quite the reggae party.

The festival is open from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday and the music offerings are amazingly diverse (check out the full schedule). And that doesn't even include the 40-foot-long pirate ship reproduction that will house the Caribbean Living Museum or the historic 16th century fort and chapel recreations.

(My deal with CultureMap requires that I stick to writing about music, but let me say that all of these exhibits are a great way to mix some fun into your kid's social studies book learning).

Some of the acts on hand this weekend will be very familiar and others are international world music sensations that are little known in the United States. To keep music lovers from getting overwhelmed, I have devised a "can't miss" concert guide for each day.

Follow these listening tips and your iFest musical trip around the world will feel complete.

Today

12:30 p.m. — Irie Time (Chron.com Entertainment Stage) — What better way to warm up for an all-day celebration of Afro-pop and reggae than with this local band of reggae veterans? Irie Time keep the beats simple the way Bob Marley intended.

2 p.m. — Sister Morales (RoomStore Latin Stage) — If anybody ever decided to make the definitive Tex-Mex wedding reception soundtrack, Lisa and Roberta Morales would be featured prominently. The sisters have been exploring the softer side of border balladry long enough to be desert queens of the genre.

4 p.m. — Marcia Ball (Louisiana Stage) — Ball was born in Orange, Texas, raised in Vinton, Louisiana and plays and sings the blues as if she has never ventured outside the Gulf Coast. Her swamp boogie has been a staple in these parts for more than 30 years.

6 p.m. — Joe Ely featuring David Grissom (Bud Light World Music Stage) — If I have to explain who Joe Ely is then I advise you to turn in your Texas passport and move to New Hampshire immediately. He's a member of the Flatlanders and a Lubbock-born legend who has played with everyone from the Clash to Lyle Lovett. He is everything that is great about Texas music.

8 p.m. — Ozomatli (Bud Light World Music Stage) — It took a long time to work in some international flavor for this first day of iFest, but Ozomatli is worth the wait. This Los Angeles-based band mixes Latin percussion, rock electricity, brass fusion and hip hop beats into an amplified blender to make a sound that is exotic and intoxicating. Don't be surprised if they preview songs from upcoming album, "Fire Away," at this show.

Worth the price of admission all by themselves.

Sunday

12:30 p.m. — Norma Zenteno Band (Bud light World Music Stage) — A mix of Latin rock and percussion-and-string jams by an artist who's been a mainstay in Houston (and at iFest) for decades.

2:30 p.m. — Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba(Bud light World Music Stage) —I mentioned this West Mali string band up top. The chance to experience an internationally-revered ensemble like this is what iFest is all about.

4:30 p.m. — Mighty Diamonds (Bud Light World Music Stage) — It just makes sense to experience a little authentic Jamaican reggae during a Caribbean-inspired iFest.

6:30 — Tab Benoit (Louisiana Stage) — There's no better way to finish off the first weekend than some electric blues by a Louisiana-born master of the strings.

Tickets: $12-$17.

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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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