derby talk

17 Houston hot spots for fun and fancy Kentucky Derby events

Juleps-a-plenty at Julep.

Photo by Julie Soefer

Thought it's known as the "fastest two minutes in sports," Kentucky Derby parties are all-day affairs. We've rounded up a list of Houston hot spots ready to serve up those juleps, cocktails, and more. Don those hats and dresses (seersucker for the gents) for all this runaway fun.

The Rustic on Post Oak will have its annual watch party. Things with Todd will DJ before the race, while live music will kick off after the race. There will also be drink features and a best-dressed contest. 11 am.

Brasserie 19 will have a hat party where the best hat will win a champagne brunch for six. If you don't have a hat, you can still sip on a mint julep and cheer on this year's prize stallions. Noon.

Eureka Heights Brew Co. will pair up with Hop Topic for this watch party. In between races, grab a derby pie/bourbon barrel-aged stout and shop their pop-up, with various vendors selling handmade goods. Noon.

Over at Julep, guests will enjoy house cocktails, mint juleps, champagne, a Topo Chico station, two main bars, a whiskey bar, tacos from Cochinita & co., a live DJ set, and a Vinyl Ranch pop-up shop while the bar live streams the Derby. Noon.

Fullbrook Ale Works in Richmond will have big hats, bougie drinks and the first annual "Run for the Beers" beer jockey races. Gabriel Gonzales Trio takes the stage at 4 pm, while Scholars & Scoundrels will serve up crawfish. 1:30 pm.

Heights & Co. is throwing a party filled with refreshing mint juleps and a large projector screen broadcasting the race. Bar bites and entrees will also be offered, including bruschetta, steak frites and brisket grilled cheese. 1:30 pm.

Brenner's on the Bayou will have Wine Fest Derby Style, where guests are invited to sample the wine collection from exclusive winemakers and stroll around the scenic grounds. Chef-crafted bites will be served from five of Houston’s top restaurants. 2 pm.

Shop Heights 19th Street with have its annual Kentucky Derby block party. Don your biggest hats and southern style for the Mint Julep Throw Down, and also take in the local shops, local eats and 19th Street fun. 2 pm.

Loch Bar is celebrating with a “Big Hat Weekend,” complete with a Kentucky Turtle Derby race, where eight elite turtles will race to be the first to cross the finish line. The festivities continue with a “best hat” contest, raffle prizes, and mouthwatering $12 mint juleps. 3 pm.

Piggy’s Kitchen & Bar will hold the fifth annual Houston Derby Day. Enjoy classic cocktails crafted by Woodford Reserve, the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby, as guests arrive in their finest southern attire, donning festive hats, floral dresses, and dapper suits. 3 pm.

The Patio on Mercer will have a watch party hosted by the University of Alabama Houston alumni chapter (aka Bama Houston), with mint juleps, wine, beer, soft drinks and, of course, food. Children are welcome and the event is free for all to attend. 3 pm.

Wicklow Heights is teaming up with Sweetens Cove, Peyton Manning and Andy Roddick's bourbon, for a festive afternoon of mint juleps, horse racing and fancy hats. Patrons can get juleps made with Sweetens Cove’s newly-launched Kennessee bourbon, as well as prizes for best-dressed man, woman, and couple. 3 pm.

At William Price Distilling, guests can enjoy juleps and the ponies on the big screen in the warehouse. All ages are welcome to attend, and those who will RSVP will be entered to win a Derby Day bar tab. 3 pm.

Yellow Rose Distilling will have a watch party hosted by nonprofit organization CarePartners. Join them for games, prizes, mint juleps, bourbon tastings, a buffet, the chance to bet on your favorite horse and more. 3 pm.

Federal American Grill will be using the Derby to have its biggest party of the year. There will also be live music from 57 State, which plays — according to their Facebook page — "rock and country mixed with a little heart n' soul." 4 pm.

The Tasting Room will delve into the richness of Kentucky culture with their many Derby-inspired dishes, paired with Kentucky bourbons. Chef Beto Gutierrez has created a decedent menu inspired by the widely-known race. 4 pm.

Bludorn will be celebrating Derby Day festivities with $15 mint juleps all day long. Guests can pull up a chair and sip on this classic Kentucky Derby cocktail while cheering on the races. 5 pm.

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Movie Review

Camp Miasma puts a comedic twist on the classic slasher movie

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing the slasher subgenre that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death — a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask — may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference — Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard — to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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