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

Feuding couple fights for survival in dark comedy Over Your Dead Body

Photo courtesy of IFC Films

Jason Segel and Samara Weaving on Over Your Dead Body.

When dysfunctional couples are depicted in movies, about the worst that typically happens is an acrimonious divorce. But in the new comedy/thriller Over Your Dead Body, the husband-and-wife have already gone way past that point by the time they’re introduced to the audience, with their plans leaning toward murder.

Dan (Jason Segel) is a low-level filmmaker relegated to directing pop-up ads, while Lisa (Samara Weaving) is an actor making do in small theater productions. The film finds them heading toward a rare getaway to a remote lake cabin, but it’s clear from the start that the married couple has been at odds for months, if not years. As the film begins, Dan clumsily drops hints at an alibi for his planned murder of Lisa to his ailing dad (Paul Guilfoyle) and others.

His shoddy planning was already sussed out by Lisa, who turns the tables on him when he tries to attack her, revealing a plan of her own. The situation naturally heightens their shared enmity of each other, but their blind hatred turns out to reveal the presence of Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Todd (Keith Jardine), two escapees from a nearby prison who were helped by guard Allegra (Juliette Lewis). What was once a shared murder plan turns into a fight for survival, forcing Dan and Lisa to work together.

Directed by Jorma Taccone (The Lonely Island) and written by former SNL writers Nick Kocher and Briand McElhaney, the film aims to mine comedy out of darkness. Dan and Lisa’s ire for each other is palpable, and their interactions early in the film are uncomfortable. As the film turns increasingly violent with the introduction of other unsavory characters, most of the humor is derived from the creative ways people are attacked and the ultraviolence that results from them going after each other.

It’s a little tough to get fully invested in the story when the filmmakers throw the audience directly into the plot with almost zero setup. There’s not even a cursory montage of Dan and Lisa being in love, so it’s hard to care a lot about their current hate for each other. Likewise, the presence of the prison guard and escapees is completely random, and the three of them aren’t utilized well in the story despite having a couple of well-known actors portraying them.

The saving grace of the film, though, is the twists and turns it takes in the final act. Everyone on screen is put through the wringer, with each of them suffering multiple injuries or worse. The mayhem becomes so chaotic that it’s almost impossible to tell what’s going to happen next, which slightly makes up for the fact that the story as a whole is lackluster. Even though the audience knows they’re being manipulated, the sequences are entertaining enough to overcome that fact.

The cast as a whole is solid. Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Shrinking) uses his comic sensibility to keep the proceedings light. Weaving (Ready or Not) has done multiple movies in this vein, so she knows how to navigate the comedy/thriller waters. Olyphant feels a little out of place, but he has a presence that elevates his part. Lewis goes a little too manic in her part, and Jardine ably embodies the dumb brute.

The comedy history of Taccone, Segel, and Weaving keeps Over Your Dead Body as a positive experience even when the story doesn’t quite measure up. The film never becomes fully predictable, giving the audience a great dose of pandemonium that lifts it up despite its other faults.

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Over Your Dead Body is now playing in theaters.

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