weekend event planner

Here are the top 6 things to do in Houston this weekend

Jake Paul and Team 10 do whatever they do this weekend in Houston.

Courtesy photo

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means everyone will be taking extra advantage of that free Monday, pay their respects, and go on a white-wearing, beer-and-barbecue tear. Also this weekend, Comicpalooza brings in all the geeks and fanboys (after they get through watching Solo: A Star Wars Story, we’re assuming), as well as special guest stars such as John Cusack, Krysten Ritter, and current Spider-Man Tom Holland.

As always, there will be other interesting things happening these next few days. Here’s a list of some of them:

Thursday, May 24

Journey to the soulful ’60s with Miller Outdoor Theatre’s Dancin’ in the Street
Since Stevland Hardaway Morris (that’s Stevie Wonder, to you and me) celebrated his 68th birthday on Mother’s Day a couple of weeks back, the Miller Outdoor Theatre pays tribute by adding a new Stevie Wonder section to their 23rd annual Dancin’ in the Street… Motown & More Revue. Starting this Thursday and running through Sunday, local entertainers will be performing the classic numbers that Motown Records founder Berry Gordy recorded and released out of that small home in Detroit — a.k.a. Hitsville U.S.A. It starts at 8:15 pm.

Friday, May 25

The Houston Symphony gets really poppy with One-Hit Wonders
Don’t ever say the Houston Symphony doesn’t like to mix it up every now and then. All weekend long, the final program of the Symphony’s latest season will find them playing such memorable one-and-done pop classics like Dexys Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen,” A-ha’s “Take on Me,” Semisonic’s “Closing Time,” and so forth. (We wonder if they’ll do Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting.”) Pink Martini vocalist Storm Large and Broadway star Matt Doyle will be the guest vocalists, while Steven Reineke handles the conducting. It starts at 8 pm. (7:30 pm. on Sunday.)

Saturday, May 26

Family fun at FUNomenal Family Festival
With a name like the FUNomenal Family Festival, we’re guessing the people involved (Academy Sports + Outdoors are the presenters) with this event is going all out to make sure families show up and have a good time. This event is packed to the gills with enjoyable, family-friendly things. At the Anheuser-Busch Stage alone, there will be performances from local dance groups all afternoon. There will also be rides, games, activities, and something called the Curious Game — a chess game that “comes to life with pomp, ceremony and silly characters.” It starts at 1 pm.

Martin Lawrence gets back to his Def Comedy Jam roots
It’s very likely that many of you may not know that, once upon a time, before he had his own Fox sitcom, teamed up with Will Smith for the Bad Boys movies and donned a fat suit for those Big Momma’s House movies, Martin Lawrence was the original host for HBO’s notoriously down-and-dirty, stand-up showcase Def Comedy Jam. These days, Lawrence is back introducing comics on the Lit AF Tour, which will be in Houston this weekend. Among the comics: Deon Cole, Adele Givens, Benji Brown, and former SNL player Jay Pharoah. It starts at 7:30 pm.

Sunday, May 27

Mongoose versus Cobra celebrates six years – with wrestling and swordfights!
How many of you know about the midtown Houston spot known as Mongoose versus Cobra? It’s a quite interesting name for a watering hole, isn’t it? Supposedly, the name is a metaphor for the battle between artisanal craft beers (mongoose), which this place usually offers, and bigger, brand-name beers (cobra). Anyway, this spot will be celebrating its sixth birthday celebration with drink specials, sports entertainment from Doomsday Wrestling, an actual swordfight courtesy of Sword to Sword, and music from Fiddle Witch & the Demons of Doom. It starts at 2 pm.

Jake Paul and his Team 10 crew perform — or whatever they do
We at CultureMap are slightly curious as to what Jake Paul will be doing at Revention Music Center this weekend. After all, YouTube celebrity Paul is mostly known for doing crazy, frat-humor videos with his crew, Team 10. (He’s also the younger brother of Internet celeb Logan Paul.) The show is scheduled to have live musical performances, exclusive merchandise, audience participation, special guests, games ,and challenges. Basically, expect teenage girls and their douchey, older brothers to be in the audience for this. It starts at 6 pm.

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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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