weekend event planner

Here are the top 9 things to do in Houston this weekend

Two of America's loves — puppies and breakfast — combine this weekend.

Courtesy photo

This weekend will be packed with some special days.

For starters, there’s 420 on Friday, where partakers all over the world will light up at 4:20 pm – and, then, probably forget what they’re celebrating. On Saturday, it’s Record Store Day, a chance for people to actually attend record stores and buy physical records, instead of streaming it all on Spotify. Finally, on Sunday, it’s Earth Day, where we’re all supposed to remember not to mess up the environment (any more than we already have).

You can celebrate the events happening during those days, plus, check out these other events going on in the city.

Thursday, April 19

Salute Barbara Bush’s legacy at the Hobby Center
Former first lady Barbara Bush lived an incredible 92 years, didn’t she? Along with being married to a president (and also being the mother to another one), she was a strong advocate for books and reading. If you would like to celebrate Mrs. Bush’s legacy, a good way to do it is to attend the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation’s 24th annual A Celebration of Reading, hosted by Neil and Maria Bush. This charitable event will feature several bestselling authors, including Ohio governor John Kasich, famed adventure novelist Clive Cussler and comedian Jim Gaffigan. It starts at 6:30 pm.

Friday, April 20

Get ready to JAM at Discovery Green
Are you ready for the jelly that is Da Camera JAM? This free, three-part concert series, a collabo between Discovery Green and jazz/chamber music enthusiasts Da Camera, celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month throughout April. For its second installment this evening, the JAM’s headliner will be Houston jazz singer Raquel Cepeda, not to be confused with the journalist and podcaster of the same name. Local jazz pianist (and associate professor in biostatistics at the Univ. of Texas Health Science Center in Houston) Jose-Miguel Yamal will serve as the opening act. It starts at 6:30 pm.

Creepy Cronenberg flicks at Alamo Drafthouse
When it comes to horror movies, is there a more underappreciated filmmaker than David Cronenberg? Sure, everybody knows about John Carpenter, George Romero, and Texas’s own Tobe Hooper, but the Canadian-born Cronenberg has given audiences some memorably terrifying work? Who can forget his breakout hit Scanners, where that dude’s head exploded, or The Fly, where Jeff Goldblum turned into a nasty insect? Two of his creepiest films, his 1979 divorce allegory The Brood and his 1983 media nightmare Videodrome, will play the Alamo Drafthouse. It starts at 9:15 pm.

Saturday, April 21

Puppies for Breakfast (!) at Market Square Park
You take that your pup on walks and you two hang at the dog park and you try to make life fulfilling for your pet. But there aren’t that many places where you and your four-legged homie can have a fun, free time. It’s a good thing the Houston Downtown Management District (Downtown District) has partnered up with Neue Creative and Modular Dog to present the dog-centric outdoor festival Puppies for Breakfast. This event will have 50 dog industry vendors and artists, an area for dogs to play freely, music, etc. It starts at 10 am.

KiKi Maroon’s Burly Q Lounge gets naughty at Warehouse Live
Burlesque is definitely a lost art. Between gentlemen's clubs and online offerings, some might consider a show where ladies do a dance routine where they slowly, fancily remove clothing onstage to be an antiquated form of entertainment. But KiKi Maroon’s Burly Q Lounge ain’t trying to hear that. The monthly “Burlesque Varie-TEASE Show” returns with another lineup of exotic, shapely ladies doing erotic, striptease numbers, along with a motley crew of comics, circus performers, and other kitschy, entertaining folk. The show starts at 7 pm.

The H-Town '90s Block Party gets into the (new-jack) swing
Remember the '90s? Remember that era of flat-top haircuts, Cross Colours clothing, and dance crazes like The Humpty Dance? If you’re an old head who misses that era profusely, or you’re just a youngun who wants to get into the music that influenced Bruno Mars’s last, Grammy-winning album, some of era’s biggest R & B players will perform at the H-Town '90s Block Party. On the bill: New-jack swing architect Teddy Riley and his seminal band Guy, forever-studly crooner Keith Sweat, and soul-singing male groups 112 and Jagged Edge. The show starts at 7:30 pm.

Sunday, April 22

Dive into crawfish and brews at 8th Wonder Brewery
Out of all the crawfish boils that have been going on throughout the city this season, 8th Wonder Brewery’s Crawfish & Brews is, um, the latest. This is also the fifth-annual Crawfish & Brews event, where the brewery has been serving up mudbugs with their original beer selections (shout-out to their Dome Faux’m throwback cream ale) on a yearly basis. This year, 8th Wonder has partnered with Dallas’s Community Beer Co. in putting on this event. There will also be live music and, as the event states on its Facebook page, good vibes. It starts at noon.

Canned Acoustica opens up at Discovery Green
In March, Discovery Green once again kicked off the free, monthly music series known as Canned Acoustica. A series that’s been around since 2010, this is where musical performers, both local and elsewhere, do their own unplugged sets over on the Green’s Transier Bandstand. For this month’s show, to coincide with the Green’s citywide Earth Day celebration, there will be an “Earth Day Edition,” featuring performances from Fat Tony, Hogan & Moss, Max Flinn, Arthur Yoria, The Broken Spokes, Heapin Helpin and Giant Kitty. The show starts at 1 pm.

Todd Rundgren’s Utopia reunites at House of Blues
While Todd Rundgren was making his career as a '70s pop star, churning out such adult-contemporary classics as “I Saw the Light,” “Can We Still Be Friends?” and, of course, “Hello It’s Me,” he also formed a progressive-rock/pop group known as Utopia, or Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. The band recorded and toured throughout the '70s and '80s, serving up 10 studio albums and four live ones. Now, Rundgren and his longtime lineup — Kasim Sulton on bass, Willie Wilcox on drums and Ralph Schuckett on keys — are touring for the first time in 32 years. The show starts at 6 pm.

event-planner

Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

---

Queer is now playing in theaters.

movies film